Else Beekman
More than 16,000 Chinese women currently living in Spain were adopted from China as children. They are now adults navigating questions of identity, belonging, and racism, topics explored in Mis ojos de China, a new documentary from RTVE’s En Portada.
The programme, which premiered on 21 May 2025, follows seven women adopted by Spanish families. Their stories offer a personal insight into the far-reaching consequences of China’s former one-child policy and the lived experience of growing up as a visible minority in Spain.
Turning racism into art
One of the adopted women from China featured is Marta Qin, a 26-year-old artist originally from Hubei province. When she was eight, a stranger on the street yelled a racist slur at her. Years later, she transformed that moment into a painting, which was later exhibited in a Barcelona gallery.
“I remember thinking—why is he saying that? I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m just a little girl,” she recalls. Marta was adopted at the age of three and has no memory of her early life in China.
Children of policy
Marta is one of 16,341 girls adopted from China by Spanish families, largely due to the one-child policy that was in force from 1979 to 2015. “It was a policy pushed through every possible medium—ads, plays, songs. The message was clear: the ideal family had one child,” explains Irene Rong González, a psychotherapist and adoptee featured in the film.
The policy led to widespread gender-based abandonment. Parents often left girls in public places or at orphanages, as traditional values favoured sons with the idea that boys remain with and support their parents.
“Many atrocities were legalised—forced abortions, sterilisations, unaffordable fines, even confiscation of babies,” says Leyao Rovira, an anti-racism activist also adopted from China.
Echoes of the past
In October, it will be 30 years since The Dying Rooms, a British documentary that secretly filmed the dire conditions in Chinese orphanages. The exposé prompted a global surge in adoption applications, particularly from the US, Canada, and Spain.
Many of the Chinese women in Mis ojos de China believe they spent their early months in such institutions. “When we were born, we entered a battlefield. There was no adult there to care for us,” says Irene in the RTVE documentary.
Facing racism in Spain
Despite growing up in Spain, most of these women have encountered racism in schools, workplaces, and public spaces. “I went to a good private school, but they bullied me. I probably needed to be somewhere more multicultural,” admits Alicia Martínez, now an art therapist.
“The people who don’t experience racism just don’t see it,” Irene adds. “When people ask where I’m from and I say ‘Spain’, they don’t believe me.”
This disconnect between how they feel and how others perceive them often leads to deeper identity questions. “I didn’t even know I was adopted until I was six,” says Marta, to add: “I thought I had blue eyes and I still struggle to recognise myself in the mirror.”
Chinese women searching for origins
Some, like Mar Yue Fortea, have sought to reconnect with their roots. Mar has studied Mandarin and returned to visit her orphanage in China, even meeting the person who found her in a park. While she hasn’t located her birth parents, she’s clear about what she’d say: “Thank you for giving me life. I’m healthy, I have a job, and I’m doing well in Spain.”
Others, like Ana García de la Fuente, feel no need to search. Raised in a small town in Valladolid, she considers her adoptive parents her only family. “I’m not angry with my biological parents. I simply don’t need to know who they are.”
Ana Ribes, a paediatric nurse and mother, says parenthood has deepened her empathy. “Whatever happened, it must have been hard for my mother to leave me. I understand that more now.”
The end of an era
China officially ended international adoptions in September 2024 amid a growing demographic crisis and falling birth rates. “This closes a chapter and a generation,” says Irene. “But children staying in their own country and culture is probably for the best.”
As Mis ojos de China reveals, the legacy of these adoptions continues to unfold in Spain, through questions of race, belonging, and identity that are far from resolved.
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