Myndilee Wong leaned over her daughter, gave her a big squeeze and encouraged her to recount what happened when Wong saw her for the first time.

Ruby Hawk, enclosed in the safety of her mother’s arms, peered up into her mother’s face and said with a grin that just kept growing, “She fell in love with me.”

“That’s right,” said Wong, as she squeezed one last hug around Ruby before releasing her.

Ruby was one of about 20 kids who performed in the newly formed multicultural children’s chorus called Pihcintu on Monday morning at the University of Southern Maine.

Wong, a Cape Elizabeth resident, found Ruby in Jamaica 10 years ago, when she went back to her birthplace in search of a baby.

Preapproved by the Jamaican government through the American Department of Human Services to adopt a baby in Jamaica, Wong, who can’t have children of her own, expected to find a baby in the many orphanages housing about 4,000 parentless children.

But Wong wanted a little girl, and the orphanages were filled with boys.

Instead, she found Ruby on the floor of a local hospital, living in a box. “That was the only place they had to put her,” said Wong.

Ruby, already eight months old, had been abandoned by her mother who already had six other children at home. “She couldn’t care for her,” said Wong.

Wong said the overworked hospital staff had met Ruby’s minimal needs by feeding her and changing her diaper, while they kept hoping Ruby’s birth mother would return for her baby.

Instead, Wong arrived.

Wong can’t really explain how she felt when she saw Ruby for the first time. Before she found Ruby, she wondered how she would know which baby was right for her. The rush of emotion that overcame her when she first discovered Ruby left her no doubt.

As Ruby said, it was love at first sight.

Despite a rough start in life, Ruby Hawk seems like she’s thriving, especially when she’s on stage.

As a singer with Pihcintu, Hawk helped welcome and introduce the director of the new State Office for Multicultural Affairs, Noel Bonam, to the community at an event also attended by Gov. Baldacci, who Ruby saw “up close and personal” for the first time.

On stage, Ruby Hawk can hardly contain herself. When she starts singing, especially an upbeat song, her feet, her hips, her head, start moving. She feels the music.

Her mother says ever since Hawk was a baby, she’s had boundless energy, and she’s loved music and loved to sing. As a toddler Ruby would tell her mother, “I can’t keep my diaper from bouncing.”

Music has been a part of Hawk’s family. Her mother sings in a choir, and her father who lives in Ohio sings her to sleep. And though her father isn’t the best singer, said Hawk, “he’s perfect about singing me to sleep,” she said.

Hawk said she was the first singer to audition for the newly formed chorus called Pihcintu, which means “when he sings, his voice carries far,” in Passamaquoddy.

The group was created by executive producer Con Fullam of Windham, who also co-produced the PBS show “Ribert & Robert’s WonderWorld” a show geared towards kindergarten-aged children starring an animated toad named Ribert and his best friend, Robert.

Fullam discovered the name Pihcintu when, in frustration, he went to the library and looked up “to sing” in a Passamaquoddy dictionary. “It was one of those magical moments,” he said.

Of the 30 or so kids in the chorus, some are American born, some are first or second-generation immigrants and some are adopted. Fullam required that the singers have some recent foreign connection, at least a second-generation immigrant, said Managing Director and Anne Belden, who adopted her own daughter, Lydia, a singer in the group, from China.

For Lydia Belden and other singers in the group, chorus practice is one of the few places they go where they’re surrounded by kids like themselves, and that feels good. “It’s fun to be around people who know what it’s like to be different,” said Etta Copenhagen, a Cumberland resident whose mother emigrated from Thailand.

Cape resident Roz Gray-Bauer who was adopted from an Asian country agreed with her friend. “It’s pretty special to meet other people from different counties,” she said.

These girls say there are frequently times at school when they feel singled out for being different. Phoebe Suva from Windham said there are no uncomfortable moments at chorus practice like there are at school. Suva said, as one of the only Asian kids in school, whenever something is mentioned about Asia or China, all eyes fixate on her. “It’s really awkward,” she said.

As a mother, Anne Belden said she is grateful her daughter has a place to go where there is legitimate diversity. “Bringing kids together and promoting and celebrating their differences, the spirit of that is so moving,” she said.

Cape resident Myndilee Wong is very proud of her daughter Ruby Hawk who finished performing with the multicultural children’s chorus called Pihcintu at the University of Southern Maine Monday morning. Wong adopted Hawk in Jamaica where she found her living in a cardboard box on the floor of a local hospital. Pihcintu, the newly formed multicultural children’s chorus has about 30 singers from 10 schools in greater Portland representing 15 countries. The group performed at the University of Southern Maine Monday Maine to celebrate the official introduction of Noel Bonam, the director for the new State office of Multicultural Affairs.