written by Anti-Racist Parent editor Tami Winfrey Harris
Mother: “I personally thought you fit in quite well. You had a lot of friends. They all loved you. You were always busy.”
Daughter: “Mom, I didn’t fit in. On the bus, the most popular boy in school would sit behind me and taunt me and tell all the kids on the bus he could blindfold me with dental floss, all through junior high.”
Dialogue between Judy and Jennifer Fero in the documentary “Adopted”
Jennifer Fero is 32-years-old, but she is still struggling with her identity. She is Korean-American, but growing up she wanted nothing more than to be white, like most of the people in her town, like her friends, like her adopted family. She is trying to become comfortable in her skin, to find some connection to her biological roots and to other Korean-Americans. She is trying to heal relationships with her parents, to care for them, love them and ease their pain as they succumb to terminal illnesses. But she wants them to know how their well-meaning failure to acknowledge her race and to prepare her to be a woman of color, has in many ways crippled her.
“Adopted,” a documentary directed by Barb Lee and distributed by Point Made Films, is not pessimistic about transracial adoptions. It is frank and clear-eyed.
We’ve seen them in grocery stores, playgrounds and at our children’s schools– little Asian girls with their loving white parents. Of the 1.5 million adopted children in the United States, international adoptees are the fastest growing segment, of which most are Asian girls. While many of their stories are heartwarming and reflect our image of American compassion and generosity, the realities are much more complex. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, adoptees have significantly more behavioral problems than non-adopted children.
Adopted reveals the grit rather than the glamor of transracial adoption. First-time director Barb Lee goes deep into the intimate lives of two well-meaning families and shows us the subtle challenges they face. One family is just beginning the process of adopting a baby from China and is filled with hope and possibility. The other family’s adopted Korean daughter is now 32 years old. Prompted by her adoptive mother’s terminal illness, she tries to create the bond they never had. The results are riveting, unpredictable and telling. While the two families are at opposite ends of the journey, their stories converge to show us that love isn’t always enough.
Here on Anti-Racist Parent, we talk a lot about the folly of colorblindness. This film illustrated for me that for white parents of children of color, this thinking is not just a benign mistake, but a potentially destructive one.
Fero tells her mother, while cuddled beside her in bed, “I say I am an Asian woman and I want you to see me as an Asian daughter, because you can’t separate my race from me.” Her mother sighs in response. It is heartbreaking, watching this woman wheedle and cajole to get her parents, products of a different era, to notice what is a basic part of her identity, and they—perhaps eager in their final days to feel they have done right by their children—simply cannot oblige. A viewer can’t help but feel for the entire family.
“Adopted” also follows the Trainers, who are just beginning the process of adopting a baby from China. They are hopeful and full of love. You cry with Jacqui Trainer when she and her husband get the call saying “It’s a girl.” But, knowing Jennifer Fero’s story, you worry that preparations for little Roma’s arrival seem to include little pondering of what life will be like for a Chinese-American child in overwhelmingly white Nashua, New Hampshire. The Trainers have developed a circle of friends that includes some people of color and they are shown watching a Chinese-language video with their daughter. But when Jacqui comments that kids are cruel and that classmates may pick on her daughter’s ethnicity “just to tease,” you wonder if the Trainers yet understand the full impact of racism on children of color.
Preparation and realism with lots of love–that is the key. The makers of “Adopted” don’t just highlight challenges, but also give parents the tools to handle them.
“Adopted” is part of a two-DVD set. It comes paired with “Adopted: We Can Do Better,” “with more than two hours of experts’ advice to help families clarify their intentions, cope with grief, identify themselves as a mixed-race family, foster identity for their transracial adopted children, and become educated about the politics of international adoption.”
“We Can Do Better” is wonderfully clear and easy-to-understand. It features compelling case studies that bring the principles it covers to life.
Together, “Adopted” and “We Can Do Better” are a powerful resource for parents who are thinking of or have already transracially adopted.
Learn more about these films, view footage and purchase copies for yourself.
We’d like to make this DVD set available to one ARP reader. All names in the comments section of this thread will be entered in a drawing to win a review copy of the “Adopted” set. A winner will be randomly drawn and announced on Monday, March 16. Thanks to Point Made Films for making this possible.
Please enter my name in the drawing. We are parents of two biracial children, adopted domestically. As white parents, we take our responsibility very seriously, to provide the education, experiences and validation that our children need to feel good about their ethnic identities. Thanks.
sign me up, please
Pick me! Pick me!
I am anxious to see this film and always appreciate the perspective of adult transracial adoptees. I’ve yet to hear anyone endorse the color blindness, “world is a rainbow” philosophy when they’ve actually grown up in a transracial family. I’d also like to recommend the film, A Place Between- The Story of an Adoption. It is made by a cross-cultural adoptee who films the meeting between his birth mother and his adoptive parents. It also addresses his void of trying to belong to two cultures and understand his identity and place in this world.
I guess you see most of us delurking for this kind of posts!
I think i did comment once only but have been following you for quite a while now.
I would love to be able to see the 2 videos.
Thanks for giving us a chance!
I have a son from Vietnam who is almost 3. We live in a very diverse area, but I suspect that it not enough. Would love to see the film.
Please add me to the drawing – and thank you for holding such a drawing!
I’m a single adoptive white mother with a Hispanic son. I live in an urban area, where mixed race families, families headed by single mothers (by choice), and most minorities are a dime a dozen. I grew up in a small town that is still over 98% white (I checked with the census bureau!:) Unfortunately, most of my family still lives up there, and can’t understand why i won’t consider moving back. (Admittedly, there are many reasons.) They have even insisted to me that my son is white–he’s most definitely NOT white–and i feel kind of stuck sometimes. I want my son to grow up seeing other families like ours and other people like him. I think he deserves that. (He also deserves to have an extended family that gets that, but i’m not sure what i can do about that at the moment….)
I think these videos are a wonderful idea. I plan on buying them if i don’t win, and I can’t wait to watch them and share them with my family. Maybe, someday, they will start to “get” it.
This movie set sounds great. I am adopted myself (not transracially, white girl to a white family) and my husband and I are currently waiting to adopt a baby who will most likely be African American. I am trying to get all the resources I can. Thanks again for your website- its been great.
I’d love to win these DVDs. Please enter me in the contest.
We recently adopted trans-racially and I have been doing lots of reading and scouring for resources. I hadn’t heard of this movie but it looks like a great resource. How to best help our whole family navigate being a trans-racial family is something that weighs heavily on me. Thanks for sharing this.
Please enter me in the drawing as well!!!
I saw the first film in February with other parents at the Jane Brown Adoption Playshop for transracial adoptive families. The movie is incredibly powerful and there were a lot of tears among the adoptive parents. I highly recommend it, and look forward to seeing the second film.
This first film is not appropriate to view with children; if you are tempted to show it to your teenagers, please preview it first. And if you are lucky enough to win the DVDs, please be generous and circulate them among your friends and community. Many, many people need to see this film!
I would love to see this movie!
Wow! I work in a library where we have established a special Anti-Racist Collection of books and DVDs. Please enter me in the drawing – if I’m lucky enough to win, I will donate the films to our anti-racist collection.
These sound like they’re very powerful and useful in a concrete way.
wow, tough competition for the free DVD. but i have to put my name in there. looks like an awesome set that i’d love to see.
As a white mom of two Guatemalan girls already with one more Guatemalan girl on the way, I am faced with all sorts of challenges to raise my girls in the best way that I can. This set would be an asset to our family AND we would like to circulate it among our many friends that are also white families with colored children. THANKS for considering us!
Please include me in the drawing. I would love to see the movies.
I have watched all the clips from this movie that I could find on YouTube and would love to see the whole thing… and owning it would be even better!
This movie sounds incredible. I’d love to see it.
This sounds like a wonderful DVD, and I will definitely be purchasing it (assuming I don’t win it, of course!). Thanks.
Thanks for the review! We would love these dvds!!
This looks like a powerful set of DVDs. It’s encouraging that there is a “what do we do with this information?” component. So often, I’m left with lots of great information but not really sure what to do next. I would love to see both DVDs.
I’d like to enter this contest as well!
Thanks.
I would love these DVD’s. My son was adopted from Haiti and has been home with us for one year.
Sign me up for the drawing!
Thank you for sharing with us. I’m an adoptee, who subsequently adopted transracially. I have a community of parents in a similar situation (our support group meets monthly). I’d love to win the dvd set, but intend on purchasing it to add to our “library” of resources.
Thanks!
This is an exciting publication. I am looking forward to watching it to help inform my parenting of my darling little Ethiopian son.
Count me in, please.
Sounds like a very important resource. Count me in the drawing!
Another adoptive parent delurking to ask to be entered in the drawing. I think I’ve watched all the clips on You Tube and really want to see it. Thanks for such a valuable resource as ARP!!
I would love to be entered in the drawing. This sounds like something I could really benefit from.
I am about to become the mother of two siblings from Ethiopia. We are working hard to prepare ourselves for raising them to be happy adults who are proud of who they are and where they come from in a society that still suffers from racism. There is so much more to learn about how to help them navigate the many challenges they will face.
Many thanks to the adoptees of color of an earlier generation for sharing with us their experience and advice. It is so valuable and very much appreciated.
We parent six children. Two are originally from Ethiopia. We’d love to see the film.
I would love to be entered in the drawing.
I would really like to see these videos. We have 1 latina child and 2 black children and are always trying to learn more about how we can be better parents to children of color.
thank you for this. I am looking forward to viewing it!
I would love to get a copy of these DVD’s. Please enter me into the draw.
I want to win, too!
Wouldn’t it be cool if there were a Netflix-type service where adoptive families who’ve adopted transracially could share the resources they have?
I’ll admit that I haven’t checked our public libraries for this type of resource…we’re one of only a handful of families who’ve adopted transracially in this Deep South city I live in. But thanks, all of you, who mentioned that resource. I need to check if I can get some of the things I need for free!
I would love to enter the drawing. Thanks!
Thanks for the review. I’d like to be entered into the drawing.
I have a whole passel of friends who could benefit from these dvds – me too!
Please enter my name in the drawing also. I have looked forward to the release of this movie since July 2007!
I would LOVE to win this set. My husband and I are currently in the decision-making process about adoption and absolutely need every educational opportunity we can get. Thank you for offering this to one of your readers.
I am dying to see both of these… I’m hoping that public libraries across the country will purchase and make available…
Our daughter is 3 1/2 years old, and we want to do more than just watch Kai Lan and take her to Chinese dance and language classes. The Adopted DVD set sounds like a must see.
Please enter me in the drawing. Thanks
Put my name in the drawing please. It sounds like a wonderful resource. I’d like to make sure my local library and my adoption agency library have copies.
I can’t wait to watch thee films.
Julia
I can’t wait to watch these videos and share them with my family and friends. My daughter is biracial and my son was adopted from India, so I’m always on the lookout for resources like these films
Sign us up, too!