“I speculate about the differences between legal processes of adoption and the conscious (as well as, at times, unconscious) practices of adopting because such practices shape our lives and become the narratives that articulate our stories.”

During my first Thanksgiving away from home since I had moved to San Diego for graduate school, my mother, Lita, called me after she and my stepdad, Mike, returned home from the family Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner was hosted by Annie and Steve, my pseudoparents, and it turned out that year, 2019, was one of the smallest gatherings that they had hosted in more than ten years, considering this was prepandemic. Sixteen people. Annie and Steve enjoy hosting dinner parties, which regularly consist of friends they have known for longer than I’ve been alive, along with the occasional neighbor, and the children of their friends’ children. My mother didn’t mention any newcomers, the ones who would inevitably ask, with genuine curiosity, about my relationship to Annie and Steve. Had they adopted me?