1. Beginnings, Plural

The podcast explores the host Eva Brookes' experience as a transracial adoptee from China, raised in a white British family and community. It examines the complexities of identity formation, the sense of loss and trauma associated with adoption, and the search for belonging. Eva recounts her early childhood in Essex, marked by both a sense of normalcy and experiences of racism and "othering" that led her to distance herself from her Chinese heritage. Later, she reflects on the shift in how she was perceived at university, from being the subject of racist jokes to being fetishized. Speaking with a child psychotherapist, Alison Roy, brings a new perspective, framing adoption as a potentially traumatic experience involving significant losses for both the child and the adoptive parents.