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The Habit of Silence: Interview with a TeenagerThe Spiritual Traveler
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I
first became aware of Dawn Taylor a couple of years ago. I
remember a car pulling up to the entrance of my mother’s apartment
building, just as my mother and I came out the door. There
were several people in the car. Rose Kleinman was the first
to get out. She was my favorite among all of my mother’s
neighbors, an elderly but spirited Jewish woman with a delicately lined
and appealing face. Her bright green eyes still viewed life,
behind her spectacles, with a youthful curiosity. Following
Rose, a statuesque young black girl emerged from the car.
“That’s Rose’s granddaughter,” my mother remarked.
“She’s black,” I retorted.
“She’s adopted,” my mother replied.
“Hmmm, that’s interesting,” I
thought to myself. In the back of my mind, I
wondered what it would be like for a black girl to grow up in a Jewish
family.
A few weeks later, I bumped
into Rose in the hallway. She seemed worried, and invited me
into her apartment with the clear intention of wanting someone to talk
to. As soon as I came in, she said, “Dawn’s run away!”
“Dawn?”
“My granddaughter,” she replied, with urgency in her voice.
“Run away where?”
“She’s gone to Tennessee with
some young black boy. We don’t even know where she is!”
“Wow,” I
exclaimed. I didn’t know what else to say. I
listened to Rose as she fretted about what might happen to
Dawn.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“She’s only fifteen,” Rose replied.
A few months later, I ran
into Rose again, and asked what had happened to her granddaughter.
“She’s moved to Detroit to be
with her own people,” Rose replied. “She says that she
doesn’t want to have anything to do with white people any more.”
The story, sketchy as it was,
intrigued me. ‘If only I could find out where in Detroit
Rose’s granddaughter is living,’ I thought to myself, ‘I’d drive there
to interview her in a heartbeat.’
When I brought up the idea
with Rose, however, she looked at me as if I was more than a little
crazy. “Why would you want to talk to Dawn?” she wanted to
know.
I blurted something about
needing writing practice, aware that it must have seemed that I was
butting into Rose’s family affairs, on the weak pretext of practicing
some kind of amateurish journalism.
Two years went by. All the time, I had Rose’s granddaughter
in the back of my mind. I thought that one day, when the
dust had settled, I would bring up the matter with her
again. I caught her in the hall one day, and suddenly out
popped the question.
“You know, I’m still interested in talking to Dawn sometime,” I
said. “Is she still living in Detroit?”
“No, she’s back in town,” Rose replied.
“Living with your daughter and son-in-law again?”
“No. She’s living
with a cousin of hers, from her birth mother’s family. She
has a little boy, now, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know that,” I said. “Do you know where she’s staying?”
“I could give you her phone number,” Rose said.
“That’s
great.” Rose’s previous reservations about putting me in
touch with Dawn seemed to have temporarily slipped her
mind. She led me into her apartment, looked up the number,
and scribbled it down on a piece of paper. Only as she was
seeing me out the door did she suddenly remember her reservations.
“Exactly what do you want to talk to Dawn for?” she asked me.
“Just writing practice,” I replied lamely.
“She’s only seventeen…” Rose reminded me.
“Don’t worry,
Rose. I’m not going to take advantage of her,” I shot back,
skipping out the door with the telephone number in my possession.
I lost no time in calling
Dawn up. She seemed receptive to the idea of an
interview. “I have a story to tell,” she said.
“That’s great,” I
replied. “That’s the best possible reason to do the
interview.” We set up an appointment for me to visit her in
her apartment a few days later.
The apartment complex was one
of those bare bones lower-income ones scattered around the outskirts of
town. The access road was flanked by a couple of stone lions
set on brick pillars, like the kind you might find at the entrance to a
mansion. If there was anything on that road that lived up to
hype of the entrance, however, I didn’t see it. The doorbell
was frozen with age, and I had to ring all the other apartments to get
buzzed in.
Dawn greeted me at the door.
The living room was kept quite dark, with the window shades
shut. The only light came from a walk-in kitchen in the far
right corner. Three young black men were lounging on a sofa,
to my left. They were all light-skinned, whose baggy outfits
were intimidating by their very absence of shape. There was
no attempt at introductions. Dawn simply led me to the
dining room table, pointing out one of the youths as her boyfriend as
she did so. She scooped up her son, Rafael, who was playing
in the corner, and sat down with me. Immediately, the child
began to cry, and Dawn pent some time settling him down before we
started talking.
“I was born in 1983,” she
began. “I lived the first few years of my life with my
mother.”
“This was in Detroit?”
“Yes. Then when I
was three, my mom got locked up, and I went to live with my
grandparents. I lived with them till I was about
seven. Then I moved in with Jim and Ellen Taylor, and got
adopted.”
“So, you went to school here in Ann Arbor?”
“Most of the time I
did. From second grade on I went to Wayans
Elementary. Then in sixth and seventh grade I went to
Greenhills. That’s a private school. In eighth
grade, I took some accelerated classes at Pioneer High
School. That’s when I really started having
problems. I started running away, and smoking weed.”
“Do you still smoke?”
“Yeah,” she
admitted. “Anyway, I was just really having
problems. I was in the juvenile detention center on Platt
Road a couple of times, once for three months and again for three
weeks. Then, when I was twelve, I ran away to
Tennessee. I stayed there for about three months, and then I
came back up here. I was on Platt Road for three months, and
then they sent me to a place up north called Eagle
Village. I ran away from there, too.”
“What kind of a place was Eagle Village?”
“It was a kind of group home.”
“Who sent you there—the court or your adoptive parents?”
“Both. I guess
they thought it would do me good, but I don’t think it only made things
worse. It made me want to rebel more and run away more.”
“Did you have the feeling it
was going to make things worse before you even went in there?”
“Yeah. I told them
I didn’t need to be there. But they thought differently.”
“Was it the court that made the suggestion, or your adoptive parents?”
“It was the court, but they
agreed with it. Then I was in Detroit with other family
members. When I was fourteen, I got
pregnant. Then they sent me to another group
home. They had a special section for pregnant
teens. I ran away from there. Then I lived with
my son’s dad.”
“Your son’s dad isn’t your current boyfriend?”
“No. He’s a
different guy. Anyway, after that I guess the judge figured
there was nothing else they could do. They knew I was going
to do whatever I was going to do, anyway, and they couldn’t stop
me. So they approved my living with my boyfriend in Detroit.”
“And what happened to your birth mother?”
“She’s still in prison.”
“You never lived with her after she went to prison?”
“No. Just from my birth till I was three.”
“But did you see her regularly as you were growing up?”
“I saw her regularly until I
was about twelve, when I started having my problems. Then
they wouldn’t let me see her any more. At age ten I got
adopted, so I wasn’t legally her daughter any more. Gov.
Engler passed a law that said that anyone under the age of eighteen
couldn’t see inmates unless they were their children. So I
couldn’t see her, because I wasn’t legally her daughter.”
“So you haven’t seen her recently?”
“Yes, I have. Last
year the judge issued a court order that allowed me to see her.”
“Was there some kind of special request involved?”
“They said it would be helpful for my treatment.”
“And what did your mom go to prison for?”
“She was sentenced for first degree murder, with no possibility of parole.”
“Do you know anything about the facts of the case?”
“She was at a man’s
house. He tried to rape her, and she killed
him. She was black. He was white. He
was older. She was younger. She was a
stripper. He was a retired minister. There were a
lot of things working against her, and that was the
ruling. Recently she just won an appeal.”
“They didn’t buy the fact that he tried to rape her?”
“I don’t think it was
presented to them as such. That’s why she won her
appeal.”
Rafael was squirming in her
arms. Finally, he burst out, and made a beeline for the
little cassette recorder that I had set on the dining room
table. I snatched it away from him, but he kept coming after
it, determined to get it. Eventually, we showed him the
recorder. He seemed less interested in the sounds it made
than in the buttons, which he wanted to press. Meanwhile,
there was a constant flow of young people in and out of the
apartment. A couple of the young men left, and a girl came
in, whom I took to be Dawn’s cousin.
“How was it that your got
adopted by Jim and Ellen?” I asked her, after Dawn gained control over
the boy again.
“Ellen was a social worker,” she replied. “She was working in the prison.”
“That doesn’t quite explain
why they adopted you,” I observed. There was a long
pause. Dawn seemed to be debating whether to tell me
something. I assured her that I would be discreet.
“There’s been a rumor,” she
replied, emboldened, “that my adoptive dad is my real dad—that that’s
the reason I was adopted.”
It took me a moment to absorb
this. “Wait a moment,” I said. “You said it was
your adoptive mother who worked in prison. How did your
adoptive father know your birth mother?”
“He knew her before she went
to prison. She wasn’t locked up until I was three.”
“Are you saying it was a
coincidence that your adoptive mother was working in the prison, or are
you saying that she went to work in that prison deliberately, to seek
out your birth mother?”
“I don’t know,” Dawn
replied. “I’m just saying that these are rumors that I’ve
heard.”
 “From whom?” I asked.
“Family members,” she replied.
“Are they on your birth mother’s side of the family?” I inquired.
“Right,” she nodded.
“So your adoptive parents never said anything to you about this.”
“No.”
“Did you ever ask them?”
“I hinted at it, but they
basically blew it off, like ‘Oh, Dawn. That’s
silly’. So I never said anything else about it,” she replied.
“At what age did you hear these rumors?”
“I heard them since I was little, but I didn’t really understand or say anything.”
“You never asked your birth mother about it?”
“I did. But she answered me in roundabout ways.”
“She never denied it?”
“No, she never denied
it. She came out and said it, but then later she said, ‘I
was just saying that to make you be quiet.’”
“But your gut feeling is that it’s true.”
“I think it probably is true.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
“It’s kind of hard. I want to find out the truth.”
“Couldn’t you be genetically tested?”
“My mom told me, ‘You’re just being silly.’ And I asked him.’”
“Your adoptive Dad?”
“Yeah,” Dawn
replied. “I asked him, ‘Couldn’t you get a blood test just
to make me feel better, even though it’s just being
silly?’ He said OK, but when I talked to him later, he said,
‘Dawn, that’s silly. There are other ways to figure out that
I’m not your real dad.’“
“What other ways?” I asked
her. “I would think that would be the way to do it.”
“I know,” she
replied. “That’s what kind of makes me wonder. I
asked him, ‘If you’re not hiding anything, why can’t we just get a
blood test?’”
“Let’s just say that you
found out that your adoptive father was your real father.” I
suggested. “How would that make you feel towards him?”
“I’d feel angry that he never
told me, but I’d feel at ease that I knew he was my dad.”
“Well, if it was true, how
would you feel about their decision to adopt you? Would you
feel that at least they cared enough not to abandon you, or would you
feel that there was something wrong with it, that they did it just out
of guilt, or something?”
“I’d feel that there was
something not right about the whole thing, to begin with. I
don’t think it should have been dealt with that way.”
“Of course, some other people might not even have gone to the trouble,” I suggested.
“Yes,” she
agreed. “I mean it was nice that they took me in, and took
care of me. But still, I would rather they had done it up
front.”
“So do you think this whole
issue of not knowing who your dad was, was that the reason why you were
running away?”
“I think that had a lot to do
with it. I think that not being able to see my mom any more
had something to do with it. They wouldn’t let me see my
birth family. I wanted to stay weekends with my grandma, and
they wouldn’t let me. I think forcing me to go to a private
school that was basically all white also had something to do with it.”
“Was there ever another person that you were originally told was your father?”
“No.”
“Did you ever ask your birth
mother who your father was before you heard rumors that he was your
adoptive father?”
“Yes, but she always told me
she didn’t know. I didn’t hear rumors that he could be my
dad until around the time I started running away. Before
that, when I was living with my family in Detroit, they just told me
that my dad was white, not who he was or who he could be.”
“So what’s your relationship with your adoptive parents right now?”
“I just moved back here from
Detroit in August. I don’t know. It hasn’t been
good at all.”
“Well, it seems, from what
you’re telling me, that what’s in back of the problems between you and
your adoptive parents has to do with not getting finding out who your
father is. What do your adoptive parents think is the
problem, however?
“I guess they think I’m just rebelling. I don’t know.”
“How do you get along with Rose?” I asked her.
“Fine,” she replied.
“She’s pretty cool, isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” Dawn
agreed. “She’s real sweet. She worries about me a
lot. She didn’t know I was pregnant for about eight
months. Ellen didn’t want to tell her till the last minute.”
“They keep a lot of secrets from each other just to shield themselves?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“So what do you think is the whole lesson of all of this?” I wanted to know.
“I don’t know,” Dawn answered.
“Well, it’s easy for me to
say, because I’m an outsider, but why couldn’t you just have it out
with your adoptive parents? Just get them to tell you the
truth.”
“Well, my mom…my birth mother…she doesn’t really want me to say anything. She doesn’t want to cause problems.
“Your birth mother in some way feels obligated to your adoptive parents?”
“I guess so.”
“And you feel loyal to your birth mother, am I right?”
“Yes.”
I paused a moment to let this
sink in. “It seems to me,” I argued rather forcefully, “that
you’re the one who’s getting screwed in all of this. I can
understand that they have these feelings, but you could say, ‘Well,
what about me? It would help me a lot.’”
“I guess I’m just not ready yet,” Dawn replied.
“Yes. I suppose it
takes time,” I replied. I felt that I was pressing too hard
now, asking too many questions. Dawn wasn’t ready to go
beyond confiding in me.
“It’ll come out eventually.”
“Secrets usually come out. Eventually, they almost always do.”
I ended the interview at that
point. As left, I turned my attention to Dawn’s boyfriend
and the other two young people who were left in the
apartment. I had not really said anything to them until now,
but on leaving I grasped the boyfriend’s hand and shook it as I looked
into his eyes. He was very tall, but his face was relaxed,
giving him a benign appearance. The extended handshake
seemed to make up for the lack of any verbal exchange between us
earlier. I extended my hand to the other young couple, as
well. They all seemed friendly, and remarkably unsuspicious
of my motives in interviewing Dawn.
By seeming coincidence, I
bumped into Rose almost immediately after returning from the interview
with Dawn. She was with her daughter, Ellen, a
rugged-looking middle-aged woman straight out of the ‘60s, with flying
gray hair, a tanned face, dressed in faded jeans and denim
jacket. I had to stifle the impulse to ask to interview her,
as well. I contented myself with phoning Rose as soon as I
got up to my mother’s apartment, and telling her that I’d just seen
Dawn. She asked me to come down for a chat after Ellen had
gone.
I went down, and sat with
Rose for a while. She was concerned, about Dawn, of course,
but she clearly had no idea what the root of the problem
was. She mentioned how they had only told her about the baby
at the last minute. She praised Dawn’s efforts with Rafael,
but she seemed puzzled as to what had led her to break with her
adoptive parents. She had the idea that it had much more to
do with race than it actually did.
I had not gotten any sense
from Dawn that she was angry with white people. Quite the
contrary, Dawn had stressed her own mixed background, and insisted that
she felt as comfortable around whites as she did around
blacks. Her current boyfriend was also fifty per cent white,
and that, she had said, gave them something in common.
No. In my opinion,
the real problem had little to do with race, or even with class,
culture, and circumstance. It had to do with the habit
silence, with allowing feelings to go unexpressed. As long
as Dawn’s family secret remained buried, there would be this drama and
tension. Dawn was a participant in this
melodrama. She could end it any time she liked, but as she
said, perhaps she wasn’t ready yet. It was her life, after
all, so she had a right to play it out as she wished. |
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Date Submitted:
3/14/04 |
Copyright Information:
Copyright © The Spiritual Traveler, 2001 |
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