AAPI Month: Asian Adoptees Shaping Film, Sports, and Culture
By Nanchang Project
Every May, AAPI Heritage Month feels both celebratory and complicated within the Asian adoptee community. It is a time to recognize the creativity, resilience, and visibility within Asian America, but also a time that highlights the distance many adoptees feel from the broader community. Being an Asian adoptee often means occupying a unique and sometimes isolating space within Asian America: visibly Asian while not always feeling culturally fluent, connected, or fully understood.
Asian adoptees are a unique diaspora within the larger Asian diaspora. Many of us were raised outside of our birth cultures, languages, and communities, and relationships to identity can look completely different depending on where we were raised, how families approached adoption and race, whether there was access to Asian community growing up, and how we chose to reconnect—or not reconnect—later in life. There is no singular adoptee experience, and for many of us, Asian identity involves some combination of confusion, curiosity, grief, exploration, distance, pride, and belonging over time.
This is a celebration of Asian adoptees who continue to build community, create art, compete, lead, and take up space in the world, shaping their respective industries and disciplines.
Adoptees in Film & Television
Lana Condor
Born Trần Đồng Lan in Cần Thơ, Vietnam, Lana Condor was adopted alongside her older brother and raised in the United States. After growing up as a dancer, she transitioned into acting and broke out in 2018 as Lara Jean Covey in To All the Boys I've Loved Before, a role that became central to one of Netflix's most widely watched young adult film franchises. She has since continued acting and moved into producing across film and television.
Leah Lewis
Born in Shanghai and adopted at six months old, Leah Lewis grew up in Florida and began acting at a young age, working in commercials and moving between Orlando and Los Angeles to pursue roles. Her breakout came in 2020 as Ellie Chu in The Half of It, where she led a quiet, emotionally grounded coming-of-age story. She has since appeared in projects including Elemental and Matlock.
Jenna Ushkowitz
Born Min Jee in Seoul, South Korea and adopted at four months old, Jenna Ushkowitz grew up in New York and began working in commercial acting before moving into musical theater and television. She is best known for playing Tina Cohen-Chang on Glee and has also built a successful career in Broadway producing, earning Tony Awards for Once on This Island and The Inheritance.
Kevin Kreider
Born in Seoul and adopted at age three to a German and Irish American family, Kevin Kreider grew up in Philadelphia and has spoken openly about bullying, masculinity, identity, and mental health. He became widely known through Netflix's Bling Empire and later appeared on The Traitors Season 2, while also building a successful career in modeling and entrepreneurship.
Adoptees in Literature
Nicole Chung
Korean American adoptee Nicole Chung is the author of All You Can Ever Know and A Living Remedy. Born in Seattle to Korean parents and adopted domestically by a white family in Oregon, she grew up in a predominantly white environment where her Korean identity was not a central part of everyday life. Her memoirs explore questions of family, belonging, grief, and origin, and have become some of the most widely read adoption memoirs of the past decade.
Adoptees in Culinary Arts
Kristen Kish
Born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted at four months old, Kristen Kish grew up in Michigan and developed a passion for cooking that would eventually launch her into one of the most recognizable careers in food media today. After winning Season 10 of Top Chef in 2013, she built a career as a chef, restaurateur, author, and television host. In 2023, she was announced as the next host of Top Chef, becoming the face of one of the most influential culinary competition shows in America. She has also appeared as a host and judge across multiple food television programs and earned Emmy nominations for her work on Top Chef.
Adoptees in Digital Media & Creative Arts
Lily Hevesh
Born in China and adopted at one year old, Lily Hevesh grew up in the United States and became known as Hevesh5 on YouTube for her large-scale domino installations. Her work has reached global audiences through viral videos and collaborations, and she is the subject of the documentary Lily Topples the World.
Adoptees in Public Service & Advocacy
Andrea Marra
Born in Seoul, South Korea and adopted as an infant, Andrea Hong Marra grew up in Albany, New York and became involved in advocacy from a young age. Over the course of her career, she has held leadership roles at organizations including the Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund, GLSEN, GLAAD, and the Arcus Foundation. She has also served on numerous nonprofit boards and worked on issues ranging from LGBTQ+ rights to Korean reunification. In 2018, she ran for New York State Senate representing Queens' District 13.
Adoptees in Athletics & Competition
Scout Bassett
Born in Nanjing, China and raised in an orphanage after being abandoned as an infant, Scout Bassett was adopted at age seven and brought to the United States. She went on to become a Paralympic track and field athlete, competing internationally in sprinting and long jump and earning medals at World Para Athletics Championships and Parapan American Games. She has also become a prominent advocate for disability representation in sports.
Catherine Carey
Born in Datong, Shanxi, China and adopted to the United States, Catherine Carey grew up in Idaho and became a Paralympic sprinter and long jumper. After competing at multiple Parapan American Games, she represented Team USA at the 2024 Paralympics and continued her success with medal-winning performances at the 2025 World Para Athletics Championships.
Marissa Brandt (Park Yoon-jung)
Born in South Korea and adopted as an infant, Marissa Brandt grew up in Minnesota and originally trained as a figure skater before transitioning to ice hockey. She later represented South Korea internationally under her birth name, Park Yoon-jung, competing with the South Korean women's national ice hockey team.
Morgan Hurd
Born in Wuzhou, China and adopted at 11 months old, Morgan Hurd grew up in Delaware and became one of the top gymnasts in the United States. A five-time member of the U.S. National Team, she is best known for winning the 2017 World all-around championship and helping lead Team USA to gold medals at major international competitions.
Chloe Chambers
Born in China and adopted to the United States at eleven months old, Chloe Chambers grew up in New York and discovered karting at a young age. She has since competed across Formula 4, Formula Regional, and F1 Academy, where she has earned race wins, podium finishes, and a place among the most promising young drivers in motorsport. She also holds a Guinness World Record for the fastest vehicle slalom.
Ian "MistyStumpey" Alexander
Born in South Korea and adopted at six months old, Ian Alexander grew up in Missouri and became a competitive League of Legends player known for his time with Columbia College Esports. Despite being born without his left hand, he rose to prominence in collegiate competition and became known throughout the North American League of Legends community for his high-level gameplay and determination.
Asian adoptees occupy a space that is often hard to define and even harder to explain. We are part of the Asian diaspora, though many of us grew up outside of its languages, cultures, and immediate communities. However, even when our relationships to identity feel complicated, evolving, or unfinished, we remain part of the larger story of Asian America.
What this list reflects is that there is no single way to be an Asian adoptee. We are here—in film, writing, food, sports, advocacy, gaming, and beyond—existing as part of Asian America even when our relationships to that identity are complex.
This is a celebration of that complexity, and of the fact that we are not one story, but many—all still belonging.
The views expressed in blog posts reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the shared views of The Nanchang Project as a whole.
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