A portrait of Emma Fujuan Roberts-Vaurio in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 2021. She is a Chinese adoptee who grew up in a white family. As a prominent advocate within the adoptee community, Roberts-Vaurio often shares her trials and tribulations of trying to reconnect with her birth heritage. During Thanksgiving of 2021 she struggled to make traditional Chinese dumplings. She felt sadness over the ideas that if she had grown up with her birth family then she would have had a parent or family member teaching her from their own history and experience. “Defeat came in a wave of panic and imposter syndrome over feeling like ‘I should know how to do this.’” she said. Many adoptees face similar feelings from never learning traditions or languages of their birth heritage that people who were raised in that culture rarely think twice about. The isolated and uncertain feeling about one’s own identity is often referred to as a “fog” in the adoption community. Those who have accepted their adoption refer to it as “coming out of the fog”.