Finding Community in a Common Experience

You wouldn’t know by looking at the group of about 15 diverse students gathered in a cluster of plush chairs in a corner of the Bridge Café on a recent evening in November—National Adoptee Awareness Month—but they share a common background.
“I’m adopted,” Abby Sommers, CAS/BA ’25, said. She then recounted what is all too often other people’s hurtful response to that admission: “I’m sorry.”
With that, the group broke into cathartic laughter. Many students nodded their heads in agreement—a recognition of similarly awkward exchanges, which insinuate that part of their identity warrants sympathy.
That shared experience is at the heart of the AU Adoptee Alliance, a student group launched in 2022 to create space for adoptee voices on campus through community-building events, constructive dialogue, and resource sharing. The group, which boasts about 45 members, provides a place of understanding and a forum for discussing the challenges of being adopted, from being asked to create a family tree in elementary school to the inability to provide a full medical history at the doctor’s office.
“Everyone gets it,” said copresident Mei Scarlett, SIS/BA ’25, who was adopted from China. “We all have that similar experience. It’s a community that’s really needed.”
For many students, being in a room full of fellow adoptees is something they’d never experienced before coming to AU.
“My adoptive identity has always been something that’s been part of my life, but I’ve never had an outlet to talk about it,” said A.J. Dorman, SIS/BA ’24, who was adopted from Russia by a couple in Pittsburgh. “My parents, they tried, but they don’t understand it. My friends don’t understand it. This is the first group that I’ve ever had that is organized around the idea of talking about this special identity that not a lot of people talk about.”
Having the space to gather with other adoptees is especially crucial for today’s college students, who were infants or toddlers during the peak of international adoptions into the US between 2004 and 2005. That year, 22,000 babies—most of them from Russia, China, and Guatemala—were adopted by American families.
Dorman said before coming to college, he couldn’t explore his identity or where he came from. But after working on a research paper about adoption in a class and becoming involved in AU Adoptee Alliance, he better understands who he is.
“It’s really helped me to come into myself a little bit more fully,” he said.
Copresident Sam Fitch, SPA/BA ’26, who was adopted from China by a White family in New Jersey, also began to explore her identity after coming to AU. Her involvement in groups for Asian American students and adoptees has helped her realize that she doesn’t “have to [fit] in one box.”
“When I was in high school, I was questioning ‘Am I White?’ ‘Am I Asian?’ I would joke that I’m a banana,” Fitch said. “I wanted validation from someone [that] this is who you are, and no one can take that away from you. When I joined the Adoptee Alliance, they really validated me in that way.”
Faculty advisor and SIS professorial lecturer Terra Gargano said the student-led group is one example of how AU fosters community in new ways, which is crucial for student thriving.
“When we think about creating a sense of community at AU, we expand that umbrella to look more at experiences and not just the demographics,” said Gargano, whose father was adopted. “If we can support students by creating spaces that allow them to help us better understand those things that are important to them, we’ve given them an opportunity to really be part of a community.”