Adoptee: Zoe Purtell
Date of adoption: Oct-07
Place of adoption: Guangdong Province, Dianbai SWI
Adoptee: Grace Purtell
Date of adoption: Oct-07
Place of adoption: Guangdong Province, Dianbai SWI
Adoptee: Kai Purtell
Date of adoption: December 2009
Place of adoption: Yunnan Province, Dehong Prefecture SWI
Purtell family
Kai, 7, and Zoe and Grace, twin 9-year-old sisters, make up the heart and soul of the Purtell household of San Antonio, Texas.
Kai has had 12 surgeries to correct a cleft palate and difficulties with his ear.
`Every boy comes out different,` he says.
Zoe wants to visit China when she's 10, but she says she is not interested in Chinese things. She is also, she reports, the best-behaved of her siblings.
`I listen to what my mom says and Grace is a sassafras,` she says.
Grace agrees with Zoe's assessment of Kai: `Bossy,` she says.
People at school say I'm a good draw-er,` Grace says. `People at school want me to draw for them.`
More Stories
Zoe, Grace & Kai interview
Apr 2, 2019Zoe, Grace & Kai transcript
Apr 2, 2019
Vonna Purtell
Adoptive mom
Feb 12, 2019
Growing up in a military family fundamentally shaped Vonna Purtell's ideas about her own family. The San Antonio mom and her three children, twins Zoe and Grace and brother, Kai, talked with Our China Stories as the Thanksgiving holiday neared.
`I think that's the reason why I'm so color blinded by race is because we moved around so much,` Vonna said. `I mean, my dad was stationed in Japan. We lived in Hawaii. And so we had friends and neighbors and everything of all different ethnicities and backgrounds. The military's made of multiracial people and so you saw it all the time and so it was never an issue for us. You saw it and you never thought twice about it.`
Vonna's interview
Apr 2, 2019Vonna's transcript
Apr 2, 2019