“Found” documentary subjects, second from left, Chloe, Lily and Sadie with their Chinese genealogy tracker Liu Hao. (Netflix)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
While scrolling through Netflix recently I saw a new documentary called “Found.” The film focuses on three girls, Sadie, Lily and Chloe, who were adopted and raised by three different American families. When they are teens, they find out they are cousins through a DNA testing site.
Over a few years, they bond with each other online as they delve into their Chinese roots, who their birth parents might be, and why they were given up for adoption. Two of the young women use a genealogist in China to try and find their birth parents and all three make a trip back to China.
“Found” stands out to me in being a hopeful, engrossing documentary on foreign adoption. There are light moments like when the cousins are discussing typical teen topics like how long the school week feels and relationships with boys. And there are wrenching moments like when Chloe talks about a classmate taunting her over her birth parents not wanting her.
For me, one of the more enlightening parts of the documentary came in the conversations with families that come forward thinking they might be one of the girls’ birth parents. Two sets of parents are farmers and one woman runs a small shop. All felt forced to give up their daughters.
As the film summarizes at its start, China’s “one child per family” policy which lasted from 1979 and 2015, an estimated 150,000 children, of whom most were girls, were adopted from China. The first perception I had when thinking of parents abandoning a child was not positive.
But the film discusses how birth parents who had more than one child faced high financial punishments or the inability to care for their children due to poverty. One couldn’t legally turn in a baby because the communist government would then punish the parents for going against the law. Babies were often left in busy areas or on government building doorsteps so that they could be quickly found.
Faith in the film
While religion isn’t an overt theme in the film, it is touched upon several times. We see all three girls practicing their faith at various moments in the film. Chloe was raised Jewish and the start of the documentary shows her celebrating her bat mitzvah in Israel and attending a Jewish day school. Sadie goes to an evening teen worship service at her evangelical Christian church. Lily graduates from a Catholic high school, attends Mass, and holds hands with her extended adopted family as they say grace before a meal at home.
At one point, the three teens talk via an online video call about whether they believe in God. Lily, raised Catholic by a single mom and her grandparents, says she does because “I’ve been surrounded by people who love and support me, so I think you can see God through other people.”
The documentary doesn’t explicitly ask any of the three sets of parents whether their faith led them to adoption. But I of course wondered.
In my own life, I’ve seen two extended family members adopted from Russia and one close friend share with me her and her sibling’s experiences being adopted as young children from abroad. Whether you have any experience with adoption or not, “Found” is a compelling documentary you’ll find worthwhile. And, yes, towards the end of the film, I even started to tear up a bit.
Do you know a local Catholic family that has adopted a child? Email us for a potential story at aweaver@rcchawaii.org.
