During my travels to various adoption conferences in different parts of the country, I have been happy to meet fellow adoptees and adoptive parents. It’s exciting to come across other adoptees who are pursuing doctorates, conducting research, and writing about the transracial and transnational adoption experiment.
In the spring of 2009, I was glad to be able to attend a session on sibling relationships in adoptive families. There seems to be a growing interest in how siblings experience adoption, which overlaps with my own research with the white non-adopted siblings of transracial adoptees.
Recently, I sat in the audience and listened to four sets of sibs talk about their experiences with adoption. Some of the siblings were raised in transracial adoptive families, while others were from same-race adoptive families. Each set of siblings on the panel consisted of one adoptee and his or her brother or sister who was born into the family. The panelists ranged in age from high school students to adults in their thirties.
As I listened to the panelist with the darkest skin-color speak about his ugly experiences with racism, I found myself becoming both saddened and angry. This outspoken 17 year old articulated a crystal clear perspective about his isolation as one of the only Latinos in his school. To me, he sounded resigned to feeling powerless and outnumbered as a young Latino male. I was struck by how hurt, angry, and disappointed he sounded, very similar to how I must have come across as a teen panelist, when I was invited to speak about my personal experiences growing up in a largely white environment– and that was thirty years ago.
In the three decades since I went through my own tumultuous adolescence, we have learned enough about race and the persistence of racism, that we should be able to anticipate, if not predict outright, how this young man’s white classmates and neighbors will respond to his presence in their otherwise all-white social environment. In short, we know that racism persists, and that there are steps we can (and must) take to protect and support children of color who live in these hostile, unwelcoming environments where miseducated whiteness is the norm. We also have learned enough about adoption and its lifelong consequences to be in a position to better prepare families like his for the questions, concerns, and predictable developmental milestones experienced by many adoptees.
Yet, even with all this compiled research and information about race and adoption, parents still have not received the message. Too many families still think it is acceptable in 2009 to raise children of color in oppressive white environments as the only brown person for miles around. How many more panels must we sit through where adopted teens tell their heart-wrenching stories before agencies will stop approving the social isolation of adoptees of color? How many more adoptees must sit on panels to share with audiences their stories of single-handedly integrating their otherwise all-white communities? Far too many transracial adoptees still are forced to endure racial and cultural isolation. We continue to share the experience of being tolerated, in our early childhood years, as cute and cuddly, exotic novelties in all-white enclaves, only to be repositioned later in adolescence as sexually mature, and hence, threatening, young men and women of questionable, non-white backgrounds, once we reach puberty and start searching for romantic partners, prom dates, and future spouses.
No longer seen as cute oddities with adorable, curly hair to be ruffled, but now marginalized, othered, and seen as “one of them” (as I was told by a white classmate once I was seen talking to one of the few black and Latino kids in my high school), where do we turn for solace and support when, again and again, we are reminded that we don’t really belong or fit in?
Since I don’t work for an adoption agency or for some other organization in the multi-million dollar global adoption industry, I can say this. Indeed, I feel a special obligation to say it on behalf of those who cannot: It is morally and ethically irresponsible for agencies to sanction the placement of children of color by themselves as THE diversity experience for otherwise all-white communities. It is, to be blunt, unfair. Social workers who create transracial families must require adoptive parents to already be living in integrated, multicultural neighborhoods BEFORE they are granted the privilege of receiving a child of color.
As I was reminded by the poignant and distressing remarks from the 17 year old Latino youth, the stakes are simply too high. We cannot afford to let white parents go on thinking naively that love is enough, or that it is color-blind, while the rest of society continues to react to our children of color as inferior deviants and as potentially threatening competitors in the high-stakes game of life. It’s not about providing loving, color-blind homes, it’s about facing racism squarely, and preparing children to function—and thrive—in hostile environments.
For parents who are still in denial about racism in 2009, and who think that just because a President Obama occupies the White House that our society has somehow transcended race and racism, the remarks of this recent teen panelist come as a stark reminder of how far we have yet to go. It does not matter what decade adopted children go through adolescence. It does not matter what country they were adopted from. What matters is the social context. If transracial adoptees experience adolescence as the lonely kid of color in oppressive, overwhelmingly white environments, then they are having the same experience as children adopted in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.
The point is, WE KNOW BETTER. And knowing better, we have an obligation to do better. Adopted children of color deserve no less.
UPDATE: Click here for the follow-up, Mock Interview, part 1.
G’day there
Liked your post… here in Australia it can be much the same, sadly. It is not uncommon for non-caucasian adoptees to be brought home to overwhelmingly white communities.
I am an adoptive caucasian parent of two asian children from Korea. My (also caucasian) wife and I really began to feel something of what you write (and have no doubt experienced) in the veiled curiosity or bald questions etc of members of a community that looks a lot like me (where I no longer felt the same). For this reason, we chose to move to an area that not only has a far greater depth of (visible) multicultural and familial diversity, though has active networks for many cultures, schools that have multi-lingual, well-informed staff and parents etc etc. We have never for a moment regretted our decision and, even though our children are still young (4 and 1) feel that we may be helping them to have as positive a sense of racial (and cultural) identity as they can.
I hope things can change for the better, though it is hard to impress on someone who is not ‘of colour’ (or deeply bonded to one who is) what this actually means and how ‘non-otherness’ can be part of belonging.
Anyhow, there’s my two bits’ worth!
I read your post with deep appreciation for your eloquence and candor. I am mom to 2 Korean born children, ages 11 and 8. We live just outside of DC. This is a subject that I have tried to prepare for in all aspects of our life. Thankfully, our suburban area and immediate neighborhood is culturally diverse. My children are not the only children of color in school or at our Temple. I will continue to read and learn as much as possible about yours and other transnationally adoptees experiences. Thank you.
I read the article, Same Story, Different Decade, and while I agree I have to point out an aspect that one should consider when looking at this issue. One can live in the heart of Los Angeles, New York City, and even San Francisco, and never have contact with anyone outside of your social group of White Americans.
I grew up in the 1980’s/1990’s in a town with a large population of African Americans, Polish, Native American, Irish, Catholics (more Catholics than Protestants). My mom experienced discrimination against Jews in the 1950’s. She, with my Dad, fought for civil rights in the 1960’s and protested the Vietnam War. They love music, traveling, and have art from around the world. Despite all of this, I can count the amount of friends that were not White Middle Class in their social group on one hand. There were some people that were not White Middle Class, but they all worked underneath my parents and were only a part of their social group by association.
I am a Korean Adoptee. They thought it was enough to place books around the house about Korea and International adoption and read me some of those books for the first two years after I was adopted. They went to a weekend culture camp at a Korean church in the suburbs once a year. I always found those trips empty because those culture camps talk about Korea as it was a long time ago and they mixed cultures without rhyme or reason. We did go to eat Korean food, and while this made me happy it didn’t answer my basic question of what would it be like growing up in Korea now. I made requests to them, but it fell on deaf ears.
We celebrated all of the Jewish Holidays, Hanukkah, Passover, Rosh Hashanah, but none of the Korean holidays because my parents said, “We don’t know any.”
For the time they adopted in, on the cusp of the change in views of international adoption, I think they tried their best, but they failed to see a lot of their inherent racism in their lives. They’d marched to Washington to fight racism, after all, so their own lifestyle couldn’t have any.
Because of these views, they thought it was OK to send my brother and me to a Jewish overnight camp for a few months. They didn’t really see us as Korean. They didn’t realize how isolating this was. Because of this view, they thought it was OK not to know anything about Korean history, culture, or anything about the language before going to Korea. They, therefore, didn’t see anything wrong with placing me in a school with only White and African American students, where anyone of my skin tone was just me.
Because they viewed me in this way, they ignored all the teasing that I suffered from kindergarten to sixth grade. I came home the first day and asked, “Why do people tease others?” And my Dad said, “You just need to say Stick and stones will break your bones, but words won’t hurt you.” I tried it in my own five year old trusting way and it got worse. It got so severe that I started to clam up inside of myself until I day dreamed all the time to escape from the possible hurts of the environment around me. I went from an active kid who was curious about the world and everything around me to introverted, not able to deal with any kind of yelling around me. My parents attributed this to me being “Asian” and “who I was.” When I told them about being teased and came home crying, they would say, “Get a washcloth because your eyes will be puffy,” and then discuss it behind my back by saying, “It was only a little teasing.” My Mom chose to outright deny the
existence of racial slurs and teasing at all. She still denies racism and the teasing I experienced to my face in the current time saying, “Oh they didn’t mean it that way.” I know it is a way for her to process her own hurt. However, when I was a kid, I quit telling them about the teasing even as I came home crying from my heart aching from being teased and having no way to process it. The racism and teasing got so severe that I started to show psychological problems. I wouldn’t listen to anyone who yelled at me. I blocked it out because I associated anything that was yelled at me, even to come and get dinner, as negative. I started to flinch at the world. I daydreamed in class and I threw myself into trying to get good grades. It got so severe that the years of denial only built up into my parents thinking I had a hearing problem or that I had ADD. I came to believe that they would ignore any time I said I was teased, so when they said it was ADD, and
I tried to tell and they ignored me, I decided to beat the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist they sent me to confirmed for them that it wasn’t anything like teasing. He said I acted like that because I needed a smaller class size. What I needed was someone to look up to and to comfort me when I was emotionally hurt and a way to deal with the racism other than “suck it up” and “it just happens.”
It is true that I learned to become stronger and how to process my hurt in a way that my Mom never learned to do for her own teasing experiences. It is true I learned to find my own information and learned to fight every kind of prejudice because all prejudice is linked in one way or another, but I think I paid a price for it. The amount of trust that I have in others has taken a toll. My self-esteem for years was terrible and my parents, even though they weren’t conscious of their actions helped this loss along by not having friends that were of equal standing and of color or saying to me that I could not take a certain profession because of my ethnicity.
My parents lived in a diverse community. There were Koreans in the suburbs, a Korean grocery store in the neighborhood, yet not one of their friends was Korean. There were only four people in their social group that were not work-related and of color of any kind. It is not enough to have a diverse community around the parents they need to realize another aspect about adoption.
When you adopt another human being–doesn’t matter if they are internationally adopted or not, you also inherit everything about that child. You inherit their whole family, their culture, their religion,
their country, their language, their history. You don’t marry someone who will reject your own culture and say it’s not important. You don’t expect your adopted child not to inherit your family. Adoption is not a one way street. It’s a two way street. How do you feel about not knowing anything about your new culture and how to operate in it as your child would? Not having people around you that are from that culture? How can you really guide them in the world when you know nothing about how the world will perceive them? Are not parents guides for the world, helping children put in filters to process the world and understand it?
You may think as my mom does. “I cannot be Korean.” But she expected me to be a White Jewish Middle Class American. I learned through adoption that identity is liquid. I may face someone in Korea and they will expect me to be Korean, not Korean American or American, but Korean. I may be among my adoptive family and they will treat me as Jewish. I may be told by someone Jewish that I am not Jewish, where I become “other” but identity is not solely blood. One may wake up in the morning and just be human. One of the most powerful statements against prejudice is claiming your humanity first. So you wake up human as you. You are without your labels and that’s the most powerful thing you can be. You are human with connections to the beginnings of this universe. Isn’t that beautiful? You are yourself, connected to the world. But what happens when one goes to work? You are the identity of “worker.” This is code switching. You’ve gone from “human” to “worker”.
One can be a student and then become a “doctor” one can be mother, daughter, grandmother, niece, aunt all at the same time. One can be father, son, grandfather, nephew all at once. Why can’t we all be several country identities too? We marry into them and adopt them so readily when marrying.. isn’t adoption not a one way event, but an ongoing event like marriage?
I used to think that my parents had nothing to do with my Korean heritage until I met my Korean father. I realized as my mom clamed up and tried to compete with him for my affection that all the years of her denying my heritage as a Korean and getting angry at me for acting Korean in Korea, that it is connected. This heritage is hers and it hurt for her to realize it. You don’t know when that time will come if you deny it. It may hurt at first, but it is a lot easier to do it now rather than later.
Code switching for me is still difficult. People like to tell me who I am and who I am not. They push me in one direction or another and sometimes I accept it, and sometimes I don’t. I don’t think it’s something that can be easily taught to an adoptee because one forms their own identity according to the situation they are in and how they perceive it, but one can try to understand and say that they are there for the adoptee. If you do introduce that culture and family into your own lives, you are more likely to understand what it is like to be forced to code switch in daily life.
So understand that adoption does not go one way. When my parents denied this, and failed to see it, the family they worked so hard to build is falling apart and the hurt they originally felt has magnified for them.
Thank you for your work and for this post.
I completely agree with your comments on adoption agencies. They should be required to look after the needs of the child first and not the adoptive parents. The argument that it’s better to be adopted and so the child should be happy regardless is sad. It’s not better to be adopted. We all want to be with our first parents, we just want them to be able to care for us. Adoption is a second best for the child under the very best of circumstances.
Who is there to speak up for adoptees of color? I’m the white mother of a biracial child bio child and while we always lived in a diverse area we have moved toward more diversity, switching churches and schools to give him an environment where he is just a kid and not ‘the black kid.” He’s only 6 but I already see a difference. It was hard to leave the lovely ivy covered private school but the smile on his face and his obvious comfort makes it worth it.
Your writing is making a difference.
Thank you.
This was an excellent post… As a Korean adoptee, I definitely see this as such as important issue!!
As a quick response to the woman who just posted, it’s encouraging to hear that you realize that he shouldn’t have to be “the black kid” but that he can just be a kid. I encourage you to keep seeking out diverse spaces to be in as well as BUILD RELATIONSHIPS with people of color too (ie invite them over to dinner).
This will be so important for your son in developing a stronger sense of self and identity. Additionally, I definitely encourage you to be very open (open-minded and in conversation) about race, culture, and identity. And if you already are, kudos. If parents don’t create these open spaces, then there’s a good chance that the child may not just “bring it up” on his own. Kids don’t really work like that, especially with serious conversations like this.
As one more note, here’s some really great videos I just found on YouTube. Perhaps the blog author has already talked about them. *shrug* I’m actually new to the blog, so this is the first time reading it. But so far so good. Thanks to Harlow’s Monkey for posting the convo on your page.
oops here’s the link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/adoptedthemovie
John-A touching dialogue on what must be a very difficult experience for some adoptees. There appear to be no easy answers but the context of the family/neighborhood/community is critical. I think, too, are the parents attitudes regarding the adoptee’s ethnicity and identity. Have you done any research on “resilience” as a factor that allows some adoptees to function better? And, is the resilience learned or innate? Ricardo