Like so many children, Ruby knows the names of her favorite dinosaurs. She knows she wants to be an astronaut.

What she doesn’t know are the identities of her biological parents.

Abandoned on the doorstep of a Chinese orphanage, Ruby is one of the thousands of girls deserted by parents because of China’s one-child policy. But she is one of the lucky ones. Linda Goldstein Knowlton, a documentarian, adopted her when she was still an infant. But seven years later, Ruby is asking why she is different from the rest of her adoptive family.

“There’s no right or wrong way to answer those questions,” said Knowlton via Skype. “Our daughter was found at the orphanage, so we can say for certain that her parents wanted her to be taken care of. We just don’t know why they couldn’t do it.”

The Syracuse University Human Rights Film Festival continued its 10th-anniversary celebration on Saturday with the documentary, “Somewhere Between.” This year’s festival was dedicated to Bassel Al Shahade, an SU graduate student who was killed in May in Homs, Syria, while working as a citizen journalist. Nearly 100 people watched the movie in the Life Sciences Complex Auditorium. Knowlton, the director of the film, answered questions after the movie via Skype.

The documentary follows four adopted Chinese girls as they try to define their identities. Since 1989, 80,000 children have been adopted from China and a growing number of them are living in Syracuse. Pat Kuhl, a Syracuse resident, said that her two nieces who were adopted from China are struggling to find individuality.

“Understanding who you are is a long process, one that my nieces will be evolving through their unique experiences for a long time,” Kuhl said.

Aware that more than ethnicity shapes identities, Knowlton worked with Families With Children From China to find subjects for the film from across the country. Knowlton said she wanted to diversify the geography of her documentary to show that where a child grows up, whether it is a big city or a small town, also affects identity development. The FCC is an organization that provides a network of support for families who have adopted children from China.

Through the stories of the four girls, Knowlton said she hoped viewers would better understand the intersection of identity, family, adoption and race. Roger Hallas, co-director of the Human Rights Film Festival, agreed that the film focused on more than the complexities of international adoption.

“This film allows us, especially us who aren’t part of the cultural context, to see that there’s no one, definable issue,” Hallas said. “There are some documentaries with specific agendas, but this was more so about affirming these shared experiences.”

According to the documentary, more children each year are searching for their biological parents. Some find them and many more do not. Ruby is 7 years old. Too young, Knowlton said, to start looking for her second set of parents. But it is a reality she said she has to prepare for.

Published on September 24, 2012 at 2:56 am

Contact Joe: jtinfant@syr.edu | @joeinfantino