I integrate visual art, history, design, and social conversation gathered from my Texas upbringing to discuss themes of belonging and the complications of navigating intersectional identities. Growing up, I found that many people believe that being raised in a white family excludes adoptees of color from having connection to their birth cultural identity, while others assume degrees of loss and crisis, leaving me wondering what identities I have a right to. In an effort to find an identity I could inhabit comfortably, I began unpacking my own relationships and interactions in order to make sense of how an individual can be a part of a group and also feel significantly separated from it. 

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  Adoptee stories and emotions, especially those in multiracial families, are too often told by those who are not adopted, which contributes to further confusion for adoptees, a shift toward defensiveness from families, and the commodification of adoptees themselves in political and economic systems. In telling my own story, I want to create space for conversations that are led by the people they are about, using art to tell stories, and in doing so, encourage conversation, vulnerability, and growth.