Girl Scouts honor helpful deeds

One of the first things people notice about Nicole Tsuda is her height: At 5-foot-7 she towers over her mom and dad. The inevitable question follows: Who did you get your height from?

Tsuda’s gotten used to telling total strangers, “I’m adopted,” but the situation can get awkward when more probing questions follow.

Unwanted attention and bullying are just some of the problems facing adopted children, and Tsuda decided to help others in her position by creating the website nicoles-guide-to-adoption.weebly.com.

“This may be a website, but use it for reassurance that you are not alone,” she says on the website.

The effort earned Tsuda, a sophomore at Mid-Pacific Institute, a Girl Scout Gold Award. She was one of 11 Girl Scouts recognized during a ceremony Saturday at the Mission Memorial Auditorium for achieving the organization’s highest honor, which recognizes a commitment to making a sustainable difference in the community or the world.

Tsuda, 16, was born in Japan and adopted at 4 months of age by Jeff Tsuda and his wife, Elaine Abe, of Waipahu. Abe said she told her daughter she was adopted as soon as she felt the youngster was able to understand, before first grade. At first, Tsuda proudly shared the fact she was adopted with classmates because it made her unique. But in later grades she began hearing taunts about not being wanted or loved by her birth mother, and being a mistake.

“I would cry during class,” Tsuda said.

She would sometimes pour out her feelings to her mom on the ride home from school. Abe would tell her that the hurtful comments didn’t matter, explaining, “Maybe that’s their way of showing how insecure they are and how bad they feel about themselves, and they need to lash out at someone because they need you to feel just as bad.”

Her mother’s reassurances “meant a lot to me as a kid going through something as painful as that,” Tsuda said, instead of being told to just brush it aside.

By middle school no one seemed to care much that she was adopted.

Adoptees and parents are welcome to share their stories via email to Tsuda, who posts the comments on her website. Names are withheld upon request. Tsuda said she’s received positive feedback from about 10 of her classmates who are adopted. One wrote, “I was bullied too, and I never understood why. I hope you keep this up forever so everyone can use it. It’s a really good motivator to keep being who you are.”

Most said her website helped them understand that “your birth parents really cared about you, and that’s one of the reasons why they had to give you up — not because you were a mistake or unwanted, but probably because of financial issues, or they just wanted to give you the best life you could get,” Tsuda said.

A few admitted they’re not comfortable talking to their parents about bullying and other problems, but are glad they have found support from other adoptees.

When she turns 18, Tsuda plans to search for more information about her birth parents. She knows a little about her birth mother but hasn’t been in contact with her. She doesn’t know much about her birth father except that he was tall, she said, laughing with Abe.

Abe said she encouraged Tsuda to seek more information about her adoption, especially to learn about any health issues but also “because we’re old parents — we adopted when we were 50. I don’t know if I’m going to live to see her kids.”

Abe said she has always told Tsuda that being adopted “doesn’t prevent you from accomplishing anything you want … but she has to really want to do it. Nobody can do it for her.”

Besides Tsuda, other recipients of the Girl Scouts of Hawaii 2017 Gold Awards are:

>> Madison Brumbaugh, whose project aimed to raise awareness of proper pet care and disease prevention.

>> Kiana Carson, who developed a docent training program at Wahiawa Botanical Garden that included a PowerPoint presentation and booklet.

>> Candace Noguchi, who designed and placed two 40-by-10-foot shipping containers at the Momilani Recreation Center to ward against equipment theft.

>> Pomaika‘i Ogata, who coordinated a Build-a-Bench Day in which instructors taught basic construction skills for building “friendship benches” to be donated to public schools to promote anti-bullying.

>> Nicole Popp, who designed displays about identifying the coconut rhinoceros beetle and similar bugs for botanical gardens, the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport and the Pacific Entomological Society.

>> Elizabeth Rooks, who gave a presentation to promote awareness of the slack-key guitar in younger generations and created a website about it.

>> Golda-Gray Thomas, who promoted the importance of friendship benches as a safe place on playgrounds for kids to meet new friends.

>> Jennifer Tokunaga, who built an aquaponics system at Webling Elementary School in Aiea and taught students how to maintain it and how to build one at home.

>> Haley Yamamoto, who developed a Friendship Bench Guide for benches placed on school playgrounds.

>> Anna Kimata, who led a team of students in computer code writing to create websites for two nonprofit organizations, the Japanese Women’s Society Foundation and Volunteer Legal Services Hawaii.