Adoption is an intrinsically messy and complicated thing, that is too often dismissed as over-extended charity work. Allie De Lacy will give her perspective on both sides of this nuance; the positives and negatives of interracial and international adoption. Allie will give her perspective as someone with lived experience. Often encountering people talking about adoption as a theoretical concept, it is not a hypothetical situation to Allie- it is her life, her identity. That is an empowering concept in itself. Allie is a graduate from the University of Edinburgh, where she studied Chinese and Russian. She was adopted from China when she was 2 years old and has grown up with a very multicultural background. Campaigning in activism for the past 7 years, she has co-ordinated events such as the UN's 16 Days of Activism as in Edinburgh. Since 2019, she has co-founded a national antiracist movement called Racism Unmasked to help raise awareness about the rising hate crimes towards East and South East Asian people. She hopes to use this platform to speak about her experiences with international adoption, fighting against racism and the importance of finding your own individuality in a world that so often sees orphans as a statistic. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx