This Is Us: Transracial adoptees praise Randall’s storyline for ‘helping me feel validated’ as show ends: ‘My story is seen’

As This Is Us comes to an end, fans have their tissues ready for what is bound to be an emotional finale, after six series of moving storylines and following the ins and outs of the Pearson family.

Throughout the programme, a range of sensitive topics have been explored from eating disorders to men’s mental health, grief to racism, and, perhaps one of the most prominent of all, transracial adoption.

The beloved drama, starring Mandy Moore, Sterling K Brown and Justin Hartley, has featured narratives across generations of the Pearsons, going back and forth between years, as Jack (Milo Ventimiglia) and Rebecca (Mandy) adopted their third triplet, the teenage children suffered from the loss of their dad, and, as adults, they navigate their own way through the world and their relationships with each other.

Following the storyline of Randall’s experience as the Black adopted son, transracial adoptees have found their own narratives to have been represented and reflected, and enabled them to explore feelings and put into words emotions that were meaningful to them.

Metro.co.uk spoke to some transracial adoptees to discover how witnessing Randall’s development throughout the series had impacted them, from viewing his sudden adoption to following him as he found his biological father and discovered the secrets he had been hidden from, to recognising the way in which the Black Lives Matter movement impacted him as he navigated growing up in a white family.

Dr Joy Hoffman, 52, was adopted at the age of 10 months from Korea by a white family, and has lived in the United States ever since, marking most of her life and everything that she can remember.

Sharing what This Is Us and Randall’s character meant to her, she told us Randall’s