Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family
Erika Hayasaki
Algonquin Books: 2022
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In 2011, in Vietnam’s coastal city of Nha Trang, thirteen-year-old identical twin sisters met for the first time since their separation shortly after birth. Ha, who had been raised in a nearby mountain village by her aunt and her female partner, was crying and shaking. Isabella was confused and uneasy; her body went limp when Ha went to embrace her. She had arrived from Chicago, where she lived with her white American parents, their four biological children and Olivia, another sibling who had also been adopted from Vietnam.

Somewhere Sisters: A Story of Adoption, Identity, and the Meaning of Family, written by the American journalist Erika Hayasaki, tells Ha, Isabella and Olivia’s stories. The book chronicles their lives from the moment they were given up for adoption by mothers too impoverished to raise them to their childhood and adolescent years with adoptive parents as they navigated questions of identity and the meaning of family.

• Tags: Erika Hayasaki, Issue 30, Lam Le, Vietnam