I Would Meet You Anywhere by Susan Kiyo is a memoir about growing up as an adopted Japanese-American, and her quest to locate and develop a relationship with her birth mother. Susan’s adoptive parents were loving and generous people, but this did not prevent a deep struggle with identity. She grappled with a sense of not being enough. Her biracial roots meant she was neither fully American, nor fully Japanese. 

I was never supposed to tell this story. It is challenging to write, and publicly share, a story with holds a secret at its core. I have been that secret my whole life. 

Once found, the relationship with her birth mother, Yumi, was challenging due to the mother’s own struggles with shame. Yumi’s family initially knew nothing about the existence of another child, and Yumi wanted to keep Susan’s existence secret. It makes for an unsettling on-again, off-again relationship controlled by Yumi who frequently disappeared from Susan’s life, then emerged again as if nothing has happened. 

At so many points during the past forty years, I tried to complete this book. Thousands of pages clutter my computer hard drives and landfills. I was always paralyzed by fear that the actual telling of it would mean an end to my relationship with Yumi. I wrote. Then when I reread what I had written, I panicked and set it aside, at times for months or years. I slipped back into the guise of the good, silent adoptee. Then, the burning need to say “I exist” would overcome me, and once again, I’d turn to the manuscript.

While I Would Meet You Anywhere is an intimate and raw exploration of the emotional challenges of growing up as a biracial adoptee and trying to navigate a relationship with a charismatic and frustrating birth parent, the story is also infused with humour. I Would Meet You Anywhere did leave me feeling sad for Susan who’s simple desire to be truly seen and known by her birth mother could never be fully met by Yumi who guarded her privacy fiercely. I found Yumi frustrating due to her inability to open herself to Susan. She was always holding back, unable to resolve her own inner conflicts. A beautifully written and moving story about identity, belonging, adoption, family and generational trauma.