Adopted Chinese daughters seek their roots

by Guest Contributor Jae Ran Kim, originally published at Harlow’s Monkey

Patti Waldmeir with her adopted daughter Grace

Patti Waldmeir with her daughter, Grace

This article comes via Financial Times (which in itself is interesting to me – a story about adoptees returning to their country of birth in a publication about the world of finance?).

I have several thoughts about this piece, some of the language and themes I really struggle with and find incredibly problematic, like this:

And one American mother who visited the orphanage squat toilet with her nine-year-old Yangzhou girl reports that the child gripped her hand as she perched precariously above the evacuation hole, and proclaimed that she was glad she had not been left there forever. Those of us who live in China (as my family does) know that squat toilets are a trial for any westerner. They are a wake-up call that, to those used to western toileting ways, China is still a foreign country.

Yeah…moving on.

One of the things I find most fascinating about this article is the idea that China seems to be bending over backwards to welcome “back” their “lost girls” (referencing the book, Lost Daughters of China here). The author of this article writes,

But now, as the balance of global economic and political power shifts subtly in favour of China, Beijing is reaching out to all these lost daughters – and welcoming them back home.China has invited thousands of foundlings back to their birthplaces for government-sponsored “homeland tours” which, like last year’s Beijing Olympics or next year’s Shanghai World Expo, give the country a chance to show off to the world. On one level, what the Chinese adoption authorities call “root seeking tours” – filled with extravagant expressions of love and kinship and lavish gifts for the returning orphans – are a transparent public relations exercise aimed at raising money for Chinese orphanages, justifying the decision to export surplus children and countering decades of unfair international criticism that Chinese people “hate girls”.

In a blog post I wrote, Client, Ambassador, Gift (based on Sara Dorow’s concepts in her book, Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender and Kinship) I wrote from an adult adoptee’s perspective what it felt like to be “welcomed back” by the country that sent me away because they didn’t want to deal with my welfare or the welfare of poor/single women and families.

In the article, the author describes this scene:

To the maudlin strains of “There’s no Place like Home”, the deputy mayor of the city told the children at a welcome banquet: “You are not guests, you are family.”

which reminded me of the time I attended the 2004 Gathering in Seoul in which the Vice Minister of Health and Welfare said that he “loved us” and how the other officials there encouraged us to come back and “bring our families.”

I felt like they were saying, “hey, we didn’t want to support you so we found other families in wealthier countries to do it, and since they’ve got money, come back, visit our great parks and temples, eat our great food, spend lots of money on trinkets and show them what a great country we are! But forgive us, we love you, we really, really love you!”

In that older post, I wrote,

Language programs, so we can be translators as well as ambassadors and bridges. Our skills and knowledge of the “west” now being appropriated by the same country that rejected us, as we are asked to forgive and forget – and bring all our educational and financial assets with us. Not only did they not have to support us financially – or our poor families – they have received fees for adoptions (agencies receive substantially more per diem for each international adoption facilitated than for domestic adoptions, hence the incentive to continue international adoption) and they still receive charitable donations from around the world. To top that off, now we are encouraged to return and spend money in our mother land economy as well as stay and live and work here and become cultural and financial bridges between the two nations.

I wonder how many other adoptees there that day felt incredibly used by South Korea. Rather than helping me feel “better” about my adoption, the constant parade of “but look what a great country we are NOW” by South Koreans and their pleas to think of our “two motherlands” only makes me angry.I don’t think there was a single Korean speaker that didn’t mention at least once that Korea is now the 11th or 12th OECD now.

This “We had no choice but to give you away when we were poor, but now we’re not so come back and spend money here” is like some cruel, abusive relationship. And they wonder why some adoptees have attachment issues.

I have a problem with the way many of these “motherland” and “root-seeking” tours are conceived and carried out. I have never gone on any of these types of tours that are often a part of adoption agency programs but believe me, I know enough people who have gone on them, and read Eleana Kim’s articles (see here and especially here) to understand how they operate and how adult adoptees feel about the tours and their experiences of “returning to the homeland.” Kim writes in “Our adoptee, our alien: Transnational Adoptees as Specters of Foreignness and Family in South Korea“:

Since the late 1990s, adult adopted Koreans have been officially welcomed back to their country of birth as “overseas Koreans,” a legal designation instituted by Korea’s state-sponsored “globalization” (segyehwa) project. Designed to build economic and social networks between Korea and its seven million compatriots abroad, this policy projects an ethnonationalist and deterritorialized vision of Korea that depends upon a conflation of “blood” with “kinship” and “nation.” Adoptees present a particularly problematic subset of overseas Koreans: they have biological links to Korea, but their adoptions have complicated the sentimental and symbolic ties of “blood” upon which this familialist and nationalist state policy depend. Because international adoption replaces biological with social parenthood and involves the transfer of citizenship, to incorporate adoptees as “overseas Koreans,” the state must honor the authority and role of adoptive parents who raised them, even as they invite adoptees to (re)claim their Koreanness. Government representations optimistically construe adoptees as cultural “ambassadors” and economic “bridges,” yet for adoptees themselves––whose lives have been split across two nations, two families and two histories––the cultural capital necessary to realize their transnational potential seems to have already been forfeited.

I’d rather read what an adult Chinese adoptee has to say about these trips (and I’m sure that in another few years, we will) than hear about how adoptive parents find comfort and justification in these homeland tours and how they find Chinese toilets disgusting. Yeah, thank God I was adopted so I didn’t have to live with squat toilets (I wonder if this family had ever gone camping and used an outhouse or dug their own litrine? And to think for some Americans, this is a “fun” vacation).

But anyway, judge for yourselves. It was an interesting read.

You can read the article here.

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Comments

Deaf Indian Muslim Anarchist wrote:

Wow… I didnt know there were “return to homeland trips” for adopted kids from China and Korea… I wonder if India and other c0untries do the same thing?

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 12:54 pm ¶
usha wrote:

They don’t as of now. And they don’t recognize dual citizenship either. Boo.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 4:09 pm ¶
js718 wrote:

Korea also doesn’t allow dual citizenship for adoptees

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 4:40 pm ¶
JBH wrote:

I read through the first part of the article and skimmed the rest. As a mixed Japanese adult adoptee, I just can’t help but think that the tours (while neatly packaged to make it easy to travel to Asia) are a bit contrived! Open arm welcome from the Mayor, teddy bears and gifts? What nine-year old girl wouldn’t love a teddy bear? China puts their best foot forward and gives a one-sided view of the country and its culture.

While I agree that finding your roots as an adoptee is important, I also think that embracing the WHOLE truth is necessary – not a “put-on” version of the truth.

I went to Japan to “return to my people” when I was in my early twenties. The hard truth was there were no open-arm welcomes for me. I was NOT seen as Japanese – only a foreigner. not to mention that NO Japanese person I met was broad-minded enough to wrap their head around adoption. It’s too foreign to them – and still seen as a disgrace. I was heartbroken that my people didn’t recognize me as one of their own, but I had to come to terms with my true, authentic identity: I was BOTH Japanese AND American. And I needed to be at peace with that.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 5:15 pm ¶
TN wrote:

this point of view is so important and informative

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 5:28 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

My cousins (adults now) are transnational adoptees, both from poorer countries — one from China, one from Paraguay.

My uncle put it pretty succinctly. “What connection do they really have with that culture? What good would it do them to tell them they are something other than our children?”

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 5:55 pm ¶
nikki wrote:

Thank you for this post. I am Korean and born in the States, placed for adoption by my immigrant birthparents and then adopted here. People who don’t know any of that assume, when they hear that I am adopted, that my adoptive parents “saved” me from some horrible, destitute, backwards life in a Korean orphanage. I am not sure what sort of picture these people have of Korea — I’m sure it’s even less accurate than the picture I have — and it’s always made me (and my parents) feel very uncomfortable.

I do think of Korea as my mother country; a mother I don’t know, of course. I’ve always avoided those homeland reunion trips, too. But I reconnected a couple of years ago with my biological sister, who was born and has lived there as an adult, and I think I’d like to go back, someday, with her. With my eyes open.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 6:46 pm ¶
Kaonashi wrote:

This fills me with rage I can’t even begin to articulate. It’s the same way I felt when reading about Hines Ward and his mother being “welcomed back to Korea as their long-lost family” because of his MVP status. I completely understood why his mother was so disdainful of the…utter hypocrisy being shoveled out.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 7:00 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

Wow, your uncle sounds like an insensitive jerk.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 7:34 pm ¶
Zahra wrote:

This is a really interesting perspective, one that hadn’t occurred to me before. Thanks for sharing it.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 9:23 pm ¶
Harlowmonkey wrote:

Jess, I’m not quite sure what your uncle meant by that statement “what good would it do them to tell them they are something other than our children.”

Does he mean that he doesn’t see his kids as being immigrants from China and Paraguay? Because whether or not they were raised in that “culture” doesn’t mean they aren’t from that culture, originally at least. And trust me, we adoptees know we’re from another country, pretending we aren’t doesn’t erase that fact.

My whole point of this post was that it’s just very complicated. Many of us international adoptees DO want some kind of connection with our cultures of origin. Many of us had parents with attitudes like Jess’s uncle – who cares, we’re “American” now.

I don’t want people to think I endorse total assimilation of international adoptees, or that traveling to our countries of birth is unnecessary and unimportant. In fact, I think it’s an awesome and wonderful thing to do. I just think it’s better to do it without adoption agency “motherland” tours.

In Korea, because so many adult Korean adoptees have traveled and lived in the country, there are several adoptee-run organizations there and a huge network of Korean adoptees from the U.S. and Europe who can help out adoptees who want to visit or live in the country. They do a better job and present a more realistic experience of South Korea than any government or adoption agency tour can.

Posted 22 Oct 2009 at 11:15 pm ¶
CVT wrote:

As a mixed-race Chinese-American that just moved “back” to the Motherland (I’m in Shanghai, where my mom was born), this whole concept of adoptees going back to their nation of birth strikes a chord with me. I’ve always felt an affinity for Asian adoptees, because their “between two worlds” experiences often echo my own.

So I’m hesitant to fully condemn the mentality that has the governments of Korea and China “welcoming back their (lost) children.” Being poor and unable to take care of your kids doesn’t make you evil. The majority of the world (still) is too poor to keep all their children alive, let alone comfortable, safe, and healthy – so I don’t know that it’s exactly a hypocrisy to be glad that adoptees are doing well and want them to “come back.”

Hell – there are plenty of great American parents out there that can’t afford to take care of their kids . . .

So – I completely understand the feeling of abandonment, etc., and the need to really question the motives of these nations (trust me, I very fully question the Chinese government, in spite of my connection and “return home”). But I am also hesitant to damn them for simply being poor and unable to care for everyone. It’s universal – the rich are healthy and don’t care that most people are poor; every country is guilty of the same; so let’s be careful not to suggest that only China and Korea have those problems (because it’s so popular for Americans to adopt from those countries, which makes it seem like they have many more orphans than other parts of the world).

I think the gesture (whether at least partially economically motivated) is still a major step, compared to so many places that either cannot do so, or are not willing to.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 6:39 am ¶
CVT wrote:

However -
I really do like the idea of getting connected with the adoptee-run organizations, for a number of reasons. “Going back” is guaranteed to feel uncomfortable and painful at times, and it’s up to each individual to know what they’re getting themselves into – and planning accordingly.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 6:41 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

“Many of us had parents with attitudes like Jess’s uncle – who cares, we’re “American” now.”

That attitude absolutely fills me with anger. It takes a while to calm down.

That kind of racist cultural assimilation bludgeon is also wielded against the children of immigrants and people like me. But it hits adoptees the hardest.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 7:44 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@CVT: “But I am also hesitant to damn them for simply being poor and unable to care for everyone.”

I agree with a lot of what you say and I know exactly what you mean about “returning”, though I don’t have any near-term plans to do that in Japan.

But I think it’s a question of priorities. Korea is definitely not a poor nation anymore. China isn’t that poor either.

But children are low on the priority list. Children are easy to keep low on the list because they don’t speak up… they’re children.

It’s really the same problem, in different form, as we have here in the United States. How much money do we spend on warfare versus social services that benefit children in vulnerable families?

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 7:54 am ¶
Michele wrote:

Jess,

Your uncle sounds like a jackass. Do you even know how the adopted children feel about their heritage? Have you even asked them, has your uncle?

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 10:15 am ¶
Nate wrote:

That’s pretty thought provoking post and its hits some issues I’m facing, and trying to get up to speed with (or will be likely to face in the future) in helping my son become comfortable in his own skin and honouring his multiple heritages, from being biracial, having a tranracial adoptive heritage (through his mother) and being raised in an anglo/non-anglo family.

The french part is to be honest the easiest aspect, both liguistically and from a pretty good an awareness/of immersion in la francaphone, but there’s still, ya know… as the more priveleged parent, both racially and in my class, the scope (and the ease) in which I can get this so, and so blindly, wrong is terrifying…

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 10:26 am ¶
CVT wrote:

@ atlasien – I’m not going to say anything about Korea here, because I just don’t know, but as for China – it still is quite poor, on an individual level. Yes, as a nation it’s rising up and there’s money flowing around (being in Shanghai, one of the most “advanced” cities in the world, it’s hard not to notice that). But that being said, there are 1.3 billion people here, and no matter how hard the government tries to help the kids – it’s just not going to happen for a huge number of them.

Now – are they doing everything they can? Doubtful – but what government ever does? But I really don’t know if there is any sort of solution – no matter the intentions – that can help with the simple problem that 1.3 billion people is just too much to handle, and therefore, there are going to be a LOT of poor, hungry kids left out in the cold, as a result. The “one-child policy” as questionably enforced as it is, is actually one of the strongest efforts by any government to really help its people – because reducing the population is the only hope to pull up the millions upon millions of rural poor in this country.

So, in relative terms, I’d argue that China might actually be trying to do MORE for its kids here, but since there are so many – it fails miserably. Put the U.S. in the same position . . . and I can’t even imagine the horrible things that would come of it.

- On a side-note, I’m not even touching the comment by Jess’s uncle, because responding will just leave me pissed (and frustrated) for the next week.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 11:01 am ¶
js718 wrote:

Jess, I hope you don’t share the same sentiment as you’re uncle. And I really hope this uncle wasn’t the actual adoptive father to said cousins. Its people like your uncle and those who support his line of thought that makes me vehemently against international/interracial adoptions. It’s quite disgusting.

It bothers me Korea would put on the charade to welcome home those who they sent abroad for a profit. But they still won’t recognize adoptees as citizens. Adoptees were citizens before being sent abroad and never had a choice.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 11:24 am ¶
atlasien wrote:

@CVT: I do see the distinction. Blaming the Chinese government too much falls into a typical American imperialist narrative. But they do deserve blame for a great many things…

By the way, if you’re still smarting about Jess’ uncle’s comment, don’t read this post… it’s a by a Christian zealot who is proud of physically destroying a sign of his new adoptee’s Buddhist heritage.

http://jdavis2.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/the-cultural-advantage/

The violence almost made me cry. This is abuse. It may not be physical abuse, but it’s abuse nonetheless.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 11:44 am ¶
chimara wrote:

More or less as the OP said, it’s the political angle of the welcome home party described in the FT article that makes me uneasy. “We’re so sorry we couldn’t take care of you, but we still love you” is unarguably a nice message for a kid, but I can see how adults (whether grown adoptees or parents of young ones) could be rather less comfortable with “We had to send you away, but don’t worry, we still consider you part of our international soft-power apparatus!” Both are probably authentic (if on different levels), which only makes it more complicated.

FWIW of course; I’m another white american and can’t speak from personal experience except to the extent that I’m familiar with Chinese politics/attitudes from living there for a couple of years and reading avidly during that time.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 12:35 pm ¶
submom wrote:

The cynical side of me agreed with your take: that’s exactly how I read it when I heard about these “return” trips: you now have money, come back and spend on your “homeland”. The “ethnic” travel industry is making a big splash marketing these “cultural” tours with adopted parents now. Presumably Western, presumably wealthy. It is all marketing at work. Again, this is from the very cynical part of me.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 12:36 pm ¶
Evan wrote:

Wow…these nations have such small regard for American citizenship and identity. China, Japan and South Korea are saying to the adoptees: “You are a racial minority in white-dominated America and you will face many obstacles. You may have white parents who love you but you will never be respected by White America. Come back ‘HOME’ so you will not stand out or face prejudice.”

That’s the true message here. The governments are playing the “You Are One of Us and you will never feel like a true American” cards. I would hate to see adoptees fall for this cheap propaganda. But I think this message has some effect because there have been Asian adoptees who suffered racist behavior from whites in this country. Bad enough that they would consider leaving the USA for good? I don’t know. I give the Chinese government props for exploiting the conflicts that exist in a multi-racial, multi-ethnic American society.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 2:05 pm ¶
Vail wrote:

Actually I’m pretty cynical about China. I think they are just desperately trying to get girls to come back to China and maybe marry and settle there as they are looking at a huge shortage of women in about 10 years. There are going to be a lot of unhappy males that the government will have to deal with somehow.

Posted 23 Oct 2009 at 11:07 pm ¶
MarkD wrote:

As long as you accept it for what it is, it’s not a problem. My wife is Japanese, by birth, education and upbringing. She is American by citizenship and having lived somewhat more than half her life here.

Our children will never be Japanese, and that s a good thing. I love Japan, but it’s not easy being an outsider, which they and I will be, always.

Visiting was fun, when the grandparents were still alive, but now it’s just a different country. It’s special for my wife and me, much less so for our children, who are now grown and have their own lives and loves and places.

Posted 24 Oct 2009 at 10:52 am ¶
Red wrote:

This was very interesting for me to read, as a person thinking about adopting. I am ethnically Chinese (my parents emigrated from Taiwan) and my husband is a white American.

I am very wary about doing international adoption because of some of these issues. I am thinking of sending this post to my old college roommate who is a Korean adoptee raised in Wisconsin by white parents.

As for Jess’s uncle who adopted 2 kids and said “What connection do they really have with that culture? What good would it do them to tell them they are something other than our children?” I read that 2 ways.

First, every parent thinks of their kids as their kids, as individual people who they love. I get that. I *want* that. That’s why I’ve gone through years of infertility treatments and now am turning to adoption. And thinking through these issues carefully.

Second, we are all assuming Jess’s uncle is white, because the majority of international adopters are white (is this right? I don’t have the stats). And it is really easy for white people to be racially ignorant, which is how I’m reading Jess’s uncle’s statement. It’s a reflection of race privilege.

As my husband and I go through this adoption process, I am going to keep these issues in mind. And bring him along with me, because despite 18 years together (and counting), he’s still not always fully aware of his race privilege.

Posted 24 Oct 2009 at 1:57 pm ¶
JBH wrote:

@Harlowmonkey: “I don’t want people to think I endorse total assimilation of international adoptees, or that traveling to our countries of birth is unnecessary and unimportant. In fact, I think it’s an awesome and wonderful thing to do. I just think it’s better to do it without adoption agency “motherland” tours.”

I agree! Let the adoptee decide when it’s a good time for them to connect with their “homeland” country, not the adoptive parents, the host countries nor the agencies.

Posted 25 Oct 2009 at 1:34 pm ¶
PatrickInBeijing wrote:

Thanks for the article and perspectives. I usually do one discussion topic on adoption each year, and these days most of my students think that adoption is okay and maybe even a good thing. (In traditional Chinese culture, only “blood” mattered as a definition of family, that is slowly changing.)

Women who had a daughter often felt pressure from families, especially in-laws to have a son. When a second child was not allowed, if the daughter was surrendered before registration, then it was as if she was never born. Many daughters went to distant relatives, or other families where they would be kept as unregistered until time to start school. The ratio of boys to girls is hard to determine, because by the time they start school, the ratio is no longer 120 to 100, but closer to 105 to 100 (considered normal). Part of what was happening was that girls were mysteriously reappearing.

(Another thing to consider is that in the countryside, where most people still are, folks didn’t have access to the kinds of tests that determine sex prior to birth. Too expensive and not available.)

Though the marriage dilemma is real, it may not be as great as people think. Marriage across generations may soothe things a bit. But there will definitely be real problems.

I would like to hear more from folks about how they feel about the tours and welcomes and why. Certainly, the orphanages want to raise money (good thing!!!), but my feeling from the article is that the welcome was genuine (and based on my own experiences in China). So, I would like to hear more thoughts from folks who have been involved in this process. I plead relative ignorance, and welcome learning from you. Thanks!

Posted 25 Oct 2009 at 6:39 pm ¶
Jess wrote:

I tried to post a bit before, I hope this doesn’t end up being a triple post.

Anyhow, far from being “disgusting,” as I understood it, my uncle was not trying to erase al traces of his kids’ ethnicities.

What he was saying was that he isn’t in a position to provide any particular cultural connection. He just isn’t. And pretending that he could maintain that is just, IMO, destructive. It’s dishonest. It also others your kids. I can’t think of a better way to tell someone they aren’t really members of your family than to tell them their “real” culture is elsewhere.

The other gigantic problem I have with the way people responded is that you end up buying into all kinds of assumptions — the old “blood is thicker than water” deal. If I said that an Asian person should have some mysterious knowledge of the culture, that would be wrong, and it would be stereotyping. I do not see any benefit in doing that to adoptees.

My cousins re quite aware they are from another country. But as far as I know they don’t really care. They have not (and I haven’t spoken to them in a while, so it may have changed) expressed any particular interest in their origins.

But as importantly, his point was that you love the children as your own. No matter what. Do they need certain tools to operate in a society such as ours? Sure they do. But I see no advantage to telling them they aren’t “real” American kids, anymore than I see telling that to 2nd- and third-generation immigrants from any background is a good thing. Or are we going with the idea that you aren’t real Americans if you are non-white?

His point was that his kids are just as good as anyone else’s. And there is no essential quality to them that is marked by their biology.

If essentializing is wrong, then it is wrong for everybody, everywhere, all the time. Being an adoptee shouldn’t change that. But I get the sense that that is what is happening here.

The kids were adopted as infants. They don’t speak Chinese, Spanish or Guarani. They have no memories of the places they are from. They are basically American kids. (Just like a Chinese or Latino/a kid from Brooklyn would be). They were raised and loved as best their parents knew how. They weren’t in a place with lots of other kids from either country, so it wasn’t like a lot of stuff was available at the time anyway.

Maybe I misread everyone, and if so, tell me. (You will anyway). But I think it behooves us not to end up buying into the same assumptions that the guy who says “Oh, you are Chinese, do you know kung fu?” is buying.

Posted 26 Oct 2009 at 6:13 pm ¶
atlasien wrote:

“They have not (and I haven’t spoken to them in a while, so it may have changed) expressed any particular interest in their origins.”

If they did… then why would they tell you, or your uncle? They’d just be faced with dismissive attitudes.

Obviously not all adoptees feel the same way. But all adoptees are under certain very heavy social pressures that make some things they say about their families more acceptable than other things that they might want to say.

I don’t talk about my complicated connections with Japan unless I’m sure I can trust someone. If I have any feeling that my listener will dismiss and invalidate my feelings, why would I make myself vulnerable? I’ll just keep my mouth shut and smile.

A lot of adoptees feel that way, times 10. But go ahead and put the thoughts in their head that you want to put in their head, if that makes you more comfortable.

You’re also abusing the word “essentializing”. We’re talking about a pretty basic human interest in biological roots. Non-adopted people are allowed to indulge this interest freely. But you apparently believe that adopted people should be circumscribed in this area.

Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 8:55 am ¶
js718 wrote:

Jess, I don’t know if I will be able to articulate this as well as I’d like but I’ll try to explain the problems I have with your uncle’s statement, “What connection do they really have with that culture? What good would it do them to tell them they are something other than our children?”
Bottom line is an adoptees birth culture is still a part of who they are whether or not they were brought up differently. When someone is adopted it isn’t a clean slate, there was life, culture, another family. ‘What connection do they have?’ How about their entire existence before the adoption. How about the constant reminder that they are not white, which they’ll encounter their entire life. Is that not enough of a connection? You’re thinking, “well they were raised in America they aren’t really of such-and-such culture”… got a little white privilege there? Sure adoptees raised in America are American, it’s true! It doesn’t mean they are banned from learning what was once theirs to begin with? Not all Americans are white and neither is the cultural backgrounds they came from. Secondly, it would do a lot of good for AP’s to explain to their children they are from another country. It’s not a secret, it’s not going to be hidden forever and ignoring it won’t change that fact. Explaining to adoptees about their birth culture does not equate to “tell[ing] someone they aren’t really members of your family.” Why do AP’s think their love is all they need? Racism exists, talk to you kids about it!

Posted 27 Oct 2009 at 2:16 pm ¶