Biden and Harris/Emhoff First Families: Representation Matters

The Biden and the Harris/Emhoff families

As a Black/Bi-racial person, transracially adopted into a white family and raised in a predominantly white small New England town, I was constantly scanning a sea of whiteness to find other kids that looked like me and other families that looked like mine. There were two Black/Bi-racial girls that I went to school with, we kind of matched and that felt really good. Yet both of them had something I did not have; they were being parented by at least one of their biological parents and my search for families that looked like mine continued. Today, when I see Kamala Harris become the first female, Black/South Asian/”Momala” sworn in as Vice President my heart is full in knowing that so many little Black and Brown boys and girls will see themselves reflected in her and that so many members of blended and “non-traditional” families will see their family experience reflected in both the Harris/Emhoff family and the Biden family.

My family of experience, The Dinwoodie’s

 Growing up, Shari Belafonte, Pam Grier, Felicia Rashad, Debbie Allen, and Lisa Bonet would show up on TV or in the movies and I’d be transfixed. Simply seeing them made my heart happy. I would make up narratives in my mind that they were related to me. They looked like me and since I did not know who my family of origin was, why not them? Even less than seeing other people that looked like me, I saw even fewer families that resembled mine. I was very aware of the differences of our family structure not only because we did not look alike but also because so many people would stare and ask inappropriate questions about me and our family. Teachers and other professionals like doctors would also either make a big deal about adoption or no deal at all. I didn’t dislike my family of experience but I did dislike the unwanted attention and being different from other kids and families.  

The only example of a family that closely resembled mine was Phillip, Willis, and Arnold Drummond of the Different Strokes television series. I was fixated on that show, often wondering how the heck I got adopted by the New England farm family instead of the fancy Park Avenue one depicted on the show. It was just a TV show but I loved getting swept away by it and even though I was having a very different family and life experience than Arnold and Willis, because adoption was so rare in my world outside of me, I LOVED seeing that other kids got adopted like me. It was validating and it made me and my family experience feel like less of an oddity. I still had to come back to reality when the half hour of Different Strokes was over and manage the realities of having a different looking family in a world that was much more comfortable seeing and processing families that matched.

I have so much hope for what this change of administration might bring. Perhaps with this kind of visibility we will steer into more proactive and productive conversation and action (especially in schools and doctor’s offices) in support of families regardless of how they are formed and whether they “match” or share DNA.