Meet the Author: Terra Trevor

My mom was sixteen when I was born, and my dad was seventeen. I grew up in the 1950s and 60s within a wide circle of grandparents and great grandparents in the Los Angeles suburbs of Compton, Paramount and Downey.

For us the year was divided into two seasons; winter and camping. Each summer we packed up the car, and headed for the mountains. Which is why even though I'm city-born, home to me means mountain air that smells of pine.

In the early 1980s my husband and I moved to Santa Barbara and began our own family. Today I'm the mother of adults, and my son and oldest daughter were adopted from Korea. Usually infertility prompts couples to pursue adoption, but I have never walked the infertility treadmill. When my husband and I decided we wanted to become parents, I got pregnant without any problems, then gave birth to our daughter in 1981. The pregnancy and birth were trouble free and easy, yet when we decided to add more children to our family we chose adoption.

We were positive we wanted to adopt, not to serve a social cause, but simply to raise another child. Because of our strong ethnic and cultural roots it was important for us to feel a heartfelt connection to Korean lifeways. Talk to me and I'll tell you that fusing Korean ethnicity into an adoptive family does not happen with a few social outings; it's a life process, a series of small steps gained over years.

It is challenging at times, and requires us to use the same perseverance we needed in the adoption process that brought our children to us, and a sensitivity wider than I ever imagined possible, embracing the birthmothers whose loss was our gain. The Korean community absorbed and supported us when at age seven our son was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and then died in 1999 when he was fifteen. This experience proved to be my greatest teacher.

I don't have any pictures of my dad's side of the family. The film was overexposed the day we all lined up according to our generation. My great-aunties and uncles were grouped together. These are my grandfather's brothers and sisters and the line didn't hold a white face. The next group was my dad and his sister and cousins, the first half-blood generation in the family. Being half Indian gave eyes of hazel, wavy or straight brown hair.

My brother and sister and I stood with the largest group of cousins. We are more genetically mixed than our parents. On the outside, only our tiny deep-set eyes and high-cheeked faces tell of our Western Band Cherokee, Delaware and Seneca ancestry – yet soon enough we will become the elders.