It has been quite a journey writing my memoir, and many of you have read parts of my story through essays published in national outlets over the years. I’m honored that the National Association of Memoir Writers recently featured me and my memoir-in-progress. Here is the profile: During the pandemic, my carefully constructed suburban Los Angeles life shatters when my adoptive brother Kevin discovers hidden documents revealing the brutal truth about my abandonment in a Hong Kong stairwell. Named Yeung Choi Sze after the street where I was found, I had always known I was adopted. Still, these eighteen papers expose decades of deception that trigger a profound reckoning with my identity and family trauma. The memoir alternates between my traumatic childhood with abusive adoptive parents, Ming and Hsiao May, and my present-day quest to understand their destructive behavior and why my birth mother abandoned me.
My adoptive mother, who fled Communist China in 1949, wielded my adoption as a weapon of manipulation, calling my birth mother a prostitute and reminding me I would be “dead in some Hong Kong gutter” without their rescue. My father, a chemist carrying survivor’s guilt from the Cultural Revolution, oscillated between violence and emotional absence. Kevin, the favored male child, was adopted at six months, received the love and attention I was denied, arriving at nearly two years old already damaged by seventeen months of institutional neglect.
During the COVID lockdown, I realized I was perpetuating the abuse cycle with my children, hearing my mother’s cruel voice coming from my mouth. This recognition propels me to dive deeper into therapy, where I learned about Reactive Attachment Disorder—my brain had wired itself for abandonment during those critical early months in the orphanage. Every achievement was desperate proof I was worthy of love.
Through intensive research into Chinese history and interviews with relatives, I uncovered the generational trauma that shaped my parents and discovered their ultimate deception: they knew the circumstances of my birth. Every cruel taunt was calculated manipulation designed to ensure my gratitude.
After twenty-five years, I returned to Michigan, visiting my childhood home and talking with neighbors who remember my parents’ occasional kindness—a complexity that doesn’t excuse their abuse but humanizes them. My journey leads me to visit my adoptive parents’ graves for the first time in a decade, where I finally forgave them and thanked them for choosing me based on three photos. At my daughter’s wedding, unlike my mother, who was catatonic at my wedding, I was fully present and supportive.
My quest took me to Hong Kong, standing at 197 Sai Yeung Choi Street where my story began. When my HuffPost essay went viral, reaching three million readers, I discovered the healing power of letting go of secrets and breaking the shackles of shame.
The memoir concludes on the plane leaving Hong Kong, where I whisper to the clouds: “Mommy, I didn’t find you, but I found me.” I finally understood that I was loved twice—in abandonment and adoption. I finally became the mother I had always longed for.
Bio
Yvonne Liu is a Los Angeles-based writer whose memoir-in-progress and published essays explore adoption, family relationships, mental health, identity, and generational trauma.
Abandoned on a Hong Kong stairwell as a baby and raised by adoptive parents in Michigan, Yvonne always dreamed of becoming a writer. Her immigrant parents discouraged her from pursuing writing as a career, so she took many craft classes over the years, some with Linda Joy Myers. For years, Yvonne wrote feature profiles about other people before finally turning the lens on herself during the pandemic.
Yvonne is drawn to memoir because it can transform private experiences into meaningful connections with readers. She believes that when one person writes honestly about experiences often hidden by secrecy or shame, others may recognize themselves and feel less alone.
Her memoir-in-progress draws upon her experiences as a Hong Kong adoptee raised in a Detroit suburb by emotionally and physically abusive parents. It explores adoption, motherhood, mental health, identity, belonging, and the secrecy and shame that can shape families. Through her personal story, Yvonne examines generational trauma, the complicated family narratives passed from one generation to the next, and what it means to recognize and interrupt inherited patterns.
When she is not writing, Yvonne enjoys reading memoirs and contemporary fiction, traveling, swimming, and being an active member of the literary community. She values NAMW as a place where memoir writers can support one another while navigating the challenges of transforming lived experience into art.
Yvonne Liu’s work has appeared in The New York Times, HuffPost, Salon, NBC News, and other publications. Her HuffPost essay reached over three million readers, and she appeared on The New York Times’ Modern Love podcast. A recipient of a James Patterson “Go Finish Your Book” grant, one of twelve awarded nationally, she has also received support from PEN America and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences.
Website: yvonneliuwriter.com
Social Media: @yvonneliuwriter