by ARP Columnist, Ji In
Greetings, anti-racist readers! My name is Ji In, and I’m delighted to join Anti-Racist Parent as a contributing blogger.
As a woman of color and transracial adoptee, I am deeply invested in the discussion surrounding anti-racism strategy and raising race-identity consciousness. I grew up as one of two Korean-born adoptees in my family of six in rural Iowa. Both my parents and my two eldest adoptive siblings are white, of Swedish-American descent.
Racism was not part of my family or community vernacular as I was growing up. In our pastoral, idyllic bubble of Scandinavian homogeneity, no people of color meant no need to address racial differences – no need to address race.
Accepting something of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach, my family, in effect, minimized the fact that my sister and I were of a different race – treating our Koreanness less as a matter of racial variation, more as a matter of assimilation. In hindsight, I can pin much of my low self-esteem in childhood onto this (failed) assimilation approach. At the same time, I realize that the dynamic in late-’70s, early-’80s Iowa was not conducive to a lot of critical race dialogue, especially when coupled with transracial adoption.
Among my peers, being Korean was something I could be pardoned for. (“It’s not your fault you were born Korean. At least you’re American now.”) My race was something that could be masked with the right amount of optimism. (“I see you as white, not Korean.”) What’s appalling to me now is that these points of view were intended – and received – as compliments.
These things represent the type of racism that school officials and even parents tend to turn a blind eye to, because it’s not necessarily mean-spirited. It’s not conspicuous racism, like violence or racial slurs.
I experienced those overt types of racism as well – name-calling, eye-pulling, physical and verbal harassment. These things went virtually unacknowledged, too, by my teachers, who downplayed such incidents as “sticks-and-stones,” “kids will be kids”– things I needed to get over and grow a thicker skin against.
Unequipped to deal with racism, poorly prepared for the challenges that accompanied parenting children of color, my parents couldn’t offer me the type of firsthand understanding that I craved, and they instead encouraged me to simply “ignore.”
Minimizing and ignoring are ineffective strategies to address racism because they place the burden of responsibility on the target of racism rather than the perpetrators. Ignoring taught me little more than how to suppress my emotions, while minimizing taught me how to be ashamed of my race.
Today, my husband (who is Filipino American) and I make our home in Hawaii. Our decision to move here was deliberate, largely influenced by the rich Asian/Pacific Islander culture that plays a unique role in Hawaii’s history and contemporary society.
As an “aspiring” parent, I think daily about how my husband and I can prepare ourselves and our future children so they will feel supported and never pressured to ignore or minimize their ethnicity. And as an aunt of seven children of color, I bear in mind that the dialogue I engage in through community-building and writing is helping to construct a foundation for my nephews and nieces to stand upon as they mature as people of color in a world culture at war.
I look forward to deconstructing racism where it intersects with parenting here. I hope that together, we can work toward identifying some proactive strategies for anti-racist parenting, so that none of the children in our lives will feel unsupported or helpless, and we will not feel helpless to help them.
Great idea to create this place for conversation! I’m an African American woman parenting two sons (ages 6 and 8), and I’d love to have other folks’ perspective on talking with their kids about race. My mom’s attitude was that talking about this stuff didn’t help much. It was best to just find a way to endure it. I’d like to give my sons better tools.
Great blog! I’ve really enjoyed Racialicious since stumbling upon it a few days ago. I’ll be stopping by often. Continued success…
This is an absolutely terrific idea – many thanks to everyone involved with starting this blog.
Hi all! Thanks so much for your support so far! I am hoping that you will all stay tuned and contribute to our discussions! ~ Jen Chau
i love it. i can’t wait for more!
This is fantastic. Thanks for starting this blog, and I look forward to more discussions from a parental viewpoint.
I think this will be a GREAT site! It’s alread on my “favorites” list. I hope to learn a LOT!
Ryan
I am the caucasion mom of a Chinese Daughter. I look forward to learning more from those who have grown up adopted so that I can do every thing possible to help her know herself.
We are currently attending a Chinese Church. I have not been able to get too invloved in FCC, because she has some health problems I am a little overprotective-one kidney, mabee some spina bifida-not know at adoption at 3.5. She is 4 now. She was cleft lip/palate complete with some hearing loss. She is very happy. HEr main concern now is wanting a daddy-who looks like a boy! I am a single parent, older, sped teacher who deals with the problems my students have of color withing their race. The Best book I have read so far is I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla.
Thanks,
April/Rene mom Her name was Rene when I adopted her she was named in china after a caregiver who loved the sn babies.
Best of luck to you in this endeavor, I look forward to learning and participating in the work of deconstructing racism for our children and our society.
April, I think I’m Chocolate, You’re Vanilla, is not a book that’s helpful in figuring out how to talk with kids about racism. The author’s perspective is that the problem is not institutional racism, but parents who “over-emphasize” race. She believes that young kids don’t really understand race, and that therefore parents should downplay it. (Shades of my mom’s attitude). IMO the book The First R: How Children Learn Race & Racism is a more helpful look at what young kids actually do understand about race.
Thanks for a great post & thanks to Jen and Carmen for a great idea for a blog!
I think it’s important in daily life to just point out racism when you see it. And sexism. In front of your kid, or to your kid. No, they’re not going to understand it right away necessarily when they’re little, but it gives them a foundation to build on, and normalizes talking about race. The default among liberal-ish white people seems to be “mentioning race at all is impolite”. If you can’t mention race then you can’t talk about racism and if you don’t know what it is, you won’t know what to do about it when you see it!
So, as with feminism, “naming the problem” seems like step one to me.
Pingback: other blog » Anti-racist parenting advice
Pingback: In case you missed it… at Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture
Pingback: In case you missed it… at Addicted to Race
I am SO happy to have found this site. I am an adoptive mom of a 6-year-old Chinese daughter. Living in a major metropolitan area has its advantages in terms of diversity, but amazingly, there are still plenty of race and racist issue s we deal with.
I hope my husband and I are up to the challenge of our family and our daughter dealing with race issues as she grows up.