In “Another country, not my own,” a recent article in The Boston Globe, Mei-Ling Hopgood explains the challenges that can occur when adoptive parents cling too tightly to the culture of a child’s country of origin.
The woman, I know, was just trying to be loving. She was a bubbly Midwestern mom who had adopted two Korean daughters and went to great lengths to “keep” her daughters’ culture. Her girls took language lessons, and the family celebrated Lunar New Year – they never missed it. To help sensitize her daughters’ white classmates, each year this woman went into her daughters’ school and did a presentation on Korea, pointing out the country on a map, explaining its traditions, and showing the children a real hanbok, a traditional Korean dress.
She told me this, and I nodded and smiled, trying to listen politely to her story. But something about what she was doing made me uncomfortable, despite her good intentions. Like her daughters, I’m an adoptee born in Asia; I was born in Taiwan and raised by a white family in Michigan. I thought to myself: Korean-Americans do not walk around in hanboks all day, and this child had never really done that either – unless her mother made her.
When I was her daughter’s age, I wanted desperately to avoid the kind of identity that she was trying to give her child. I averted my gaze if an Asian-looking stranger threatened to look me in the eye. I didn’t want people to think I was one of them, because really, I wasn’t: I couldn’t speak Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other Chinese dialect, and didn’t do “Chinese” things in my home. My parents weren’t even Asian. I was trying so hard to show that I was just as American as anyone else. If my own mother had done something like that woman did, I would’ve hidden beneath my desk. Read more…
What do you say?
This is a really serious issue in international adoption, caused in part by the horrendous ignorance, lack of education and training of white international adoptive parents.
These adoptees are not Korean. They are not Chinese. They are Korean-Americans and Chinese-Americans and so on. They might choose to return to home countries to live (in which case they would still face many of the same challenges as non-adopted Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans who want to do the same thing) but teaching them about “home culture” is totally useless unless they’re also encouraged to form links with their true peers… other Asian-Americans.
A connection to “culture” is insulting when culture comes to be defined as “dead forms stemming from a foreign country that white people happen to like”. Culture is lived, experienced, constantly changing; it is not a costume or a collection of museum pieces. Many Asian-Americans don’t dress in “traditional” dress or speak languages other than English, but we have a unique culture nonetheless.
It’s disgusting the attitude I sometimes see… parents who dress their adoptee up in a traditional national costume, but don’t notice or care that their child is scared of other Asian-Americans. They’ll take advice from other adoptive parents but wouldn’t think of learning anything from a non-adopted Asian-American. They are turning their child into a museum piece… a project that will always fail. I am not speaking of all international parents, but I have seen enough of this attitude to see how frighteningly common it is.
Well duh, of course it has costs! For those of you (adoptive parents) tempted to just read the truncated text above without reading the story – don’t! Read the whole thing – the first two paragraphs and title are not representative of the entire story. The author is not saying “don’t bother with culture keeping”, she is saying, don’t go overboard, and don’t romanticize it, and maybe even “hey parents, do your best and relax a little” – something I, as a Mom of a Korean born boy, sometimes need to be reminded of.
The author also subtly reminds us that its not just about culture, it’s about RACE and the burden of White cultural expectations on what it means to be Asian – transcultural literature describes this phenomena as “othering”.
I love ARP and the Boston Globe and I “respect this house” but I have to say that I think this story got press because of the contrariness of the opening segment. “What!? Adult adoptee implies ‘culture-keeping’ is bad?!” Adoptive parents out there who grudgingly take your kids out for *ethnic* food once a year – you are not off the hook!
That said, I’m REALLY glad to finally see adult adpotees getting some air-time. Adoption stories are almost always about or from the perspective of adoptive parents or “adoption experts”, but rarely from the real experts.
So, thanks for getting me fired up ARP. I thought I was mad at you, but now I see you’ve gone and made me think. Kamsawhamneeda (thanks in Korean)!
Kind of hard to find a happy medium, it sounds like. I’ve interviewed families that have adopted from China and Peru and India and Korea and black kids from the foster care system. From an outsider’s eye, they were all pretty well adjusted kids who acted exactly like any other North Dakota elementary or high school student. The Korean adoptee was in a jazz band and helped organize the town’s jazz festival and had a ton of friends. He spoke with the stereotypical north central North American accident (“Fargo”) The Chinese adoptee is enrolled in classical ballet classes and has traveled abroad with her professor dad to places like Poland and China. I don’t believe that any of the parents have gone out of their way to emphasize language or culture other than American culture and there are very, very few Asians in this part of the country. I wonder what these kids will be like when they get to college and if they’ll be saying how alienated they felt because they didn’t learn their home language, didn’t get to keep their original names, and were always the only Asian kid in the classroom? Sometimes it’s not feasible to move to another state. I can see why some of thsee parents ship their kids off to language or culture camps and give cultural presentations so their kids won’t be made fun of so much.
Andrea,
It seems you are mixing several things here:
“I wonder what these kids will be like when they get to college and if they’ll be saying how alienated they felt because they didn’t learn their home language, didn’t get to keep their original names, and were always the only Asian kid in the classroom?”
If the children you describe attend college in America, then it is not a failure to speak, say, Korean, or the lack of a Korean name that will make them feel alienated. These children are Korean-American (Indian-American, Peruvian-American, etc.) not Korean. They are likely to benefit more from knowing and interacting and learning about the lives of contemporary Asian-Americans right here in this country, whose lives will likely be more similar to theirs than the people in the country they left behind.
I want to point out that birth parents of mixed race kids aren’t immune to this kind of problem, either. My mom as sansei (3rd generation Japanese-American) born during the war didn’t speak Japanese until college, and her family dinner traditions included liver & onions. My white dad met her in said college Japanese class and was Mr. A#1 student in the class, loved the high culture and was the cultural presenter on Japanese clothing, food, dishes & dolls in our 99.8% white elementary school every fall. After which all the new bullies in the school had free license to beat me up for the rest of the year.
Dealing with the culture is not the same as dealing with the racial issues of America. Much of the “culture” that’s dealt with in the list in the article is pre-modern high culture, and smacks of Asian Fixation. These pieces of surface culture (and the multi-culti “let’s have a potluck and learn about quaint festivals” impulse) are not particularly related to the ways of thinking, ways of being, ways of relating that can help the kids learn to deal with racism.
Well, the language or culture camps are perhaps the only way these parents can make sure the kids meet other Korean or Chinese-American kids, either from adoptive families or from immigrant families. I’d guess that’s the benefit more so than Korean lessons or culture camp. If you live in an all-white town in the middle of North Dakota, the only Asian face the kid sees all year might be at the Chinese restaurant in the neighboring town. The culture camp in Minnesota every summer might be a real god-send, even if the cultural offerings are romanticized. It’s meeting the other kids and having pen pals that would be important.
@Andrea: you don’t have to wonder. These kids grow up into adults, and many are quite vocal about their experiences and have blogs on the internet. Go and read them, instead of putting your hands over your ears, pretending that everything is OK and cultural alienation is no big deal.
It’s all about balance. We should all know the history of where our families originated. In the case of adopted children, they have two (or more) heritages, and each are equally valid.
As to being the only POC in the classroom, well, imho I do think that if one adopts trans-ethnically, there is a duty to make sure your child(ren) see(s) other faces like his/her own on a regular basis. But that is a different topic.
If you search for ‘Asian-American children books’, you’ll mostly find exotic titles like Dim Sum for You or something about dragons. You rarely find the books that take our race for granted (thank god for Taro Gomi or Suzy Lee…) or our culture for granted (much love to the Octonauts…). Don’t get me started on Young Adult Fiction.
Here’s the smack-in-the-face, these As-Am books are generally listed “for adoptees”, not for actual As-Am people, and they don’t even include said Taro Gomi/Suzy Lee/Octonauts. What does that say about how we broach culture to these kids?
Yes, adoptive parents with non-white children often over-emphasize the romanticized version of birth heritage — it’s accessible, it’s easy, it’s non-threatening, it’s pretty! Did I mention easy?!
But sending kids to language classes isn’t a bad thing (and it sure ain’t easy!). My kids, adopted from China, go to Chinese School every Saturday afternoon — it’s a VERY Chinese-American thing to do. Many Chinese-American young adults bond together over the pain of being forced to go to Chinese School!
In my opinion, the value of going to Chinese School isn’t language learning — it’s making relationships with Chinese-American families and kids. My kids are not learning a lot of spoken Mandarin there; most of the kids speak it at home with their parents, so the school emphasizes writing characters and memorizing famous Tang poems. But that’s ok by us, it’s the relationships and the exposure to heritage that we value.
And that heritage, of course, is not just being born in China, it’s also being an immigrant to the United States — a fact many adoptive parents want to forget. I hope adoptive parents will learn that more is necessary (nothing wrong with a silk qipao, so long as it isn’t the start and end of all exposure to heritage!); I’d love to see FCC Culture Days including sessions on the Chinese-American experience (both history and current events). Since they don’t, our family does, and we talk about race and racism very specifically.
But there’s also a place for these faux-culture events, camps, etc., that adoptive family groups throw — it provides the opportunity for our Chinese-born, American-adopted children to know other children like themselves — a subculture of Chinese-born children raised by white parents. They need to see that, too. That’s the actual culture they’re being raised in — and a culture that will hopefully broaden its focus on heritage beyond the romantic.
jlie wrote: You rarely find the books that take our race for granted (thank god for Taro Gomi or Suzy Lee…) or our culture for granted (much love to the Octonauts…).
YES! That’s what I loved about the character Russell, in the movie Up, being Korean-American. He wasn’t there to “be Asian” in any specific way or to “add diversity” in a United Colors of Benetton way — he just WAS!
I called it “gratuitous diversity” when I blogged about it — like that “gratuitous” violence or nudity in movies, it doesn’t advance the story, it isn’t integral to the plot, it just IS.
@atlasien, could not agree more with what you are saying. Our children will more likely identify themselves by their race, not by their culture. i.e. I’m adopting from Haiti, but it would be silly for me to focus on maintaining his Creole if I then ignore the fact that growing up in America, he will be identified as African-American/Black. Both the culture and the racial identity are important.
Regarding the article, I also think it’s important to offer opportunities to transracially adopted children, but then take cues from them, too. I know I have already been guilty of pushing my kids into cultural activities that they just aren’t intersted in, because I have a sense of responsibility and desire to be the “model adoptive mom” (whatever that is). I’ve had to learn to back off, and allow them to just be kids who pick and choose their own passions. Although, I think it would be better for our kids to roll their eyes and be annoyed with our cross-cultural fervor than it would be for them to grow up with parents who ignore it and impose assimilation on them. I don’t think overzealous could ever be more harmful than ignorance, you know?
“Focusing on a museum view of culture can ignore – or become a way to ignore – the reality of life as a racial minority in America.”
That is what she eventually gets around to saying and is really the only salient point.
I agree a lot with what both Malinda and atlasien wrote in their comments. I think the best reason to attend/send children to language schools where a lot of [insert ethnic group] -Americans send their children is best for the relationships that they and adoptive parents will make. I write a lot about these issues on my blog.
Instead of posting a huge long comment here, I’ll post a link to my thoughts on my blog.
http://harlowmonkey.typepad.com/harlows_monkey/2009/08/parents-embrace-of-the-home-culture-can-have-its-costs.html
I think continued discussion on this subject is vitally important, but the main kernal, as others have suggested, isn’t the “folk culture” but an awareness and reality of what life is like for those of us “othered” in this country and how it impacts not just our lives as people of color, but everyone.
@Andrea: It is very, very concerning to me as a transracial adoptive parent that children are allowed to be adopted into areas where they are the only person of color for miles around, or where the only other Asian/black/Latino etc. face that they will see all year will be that of a restaurant worker in a neighboring town (!!!!). Honestly, it took me a long time to get to the point where I felt comfortable being the only white person in a room, and I will always feel like everyone’s staring at me in those situations. I can’t even begin to imagine what that would feel like for a child who had NOBODY- no parents, siblings, teachers, coaches, or friends- who looked like them in their presence 364 days of the year. There are serious ethical implications to putting a child in that situation, and I’m not sure that an annual trip to culture camp or a Chinese restaurant can remediate that.
Atlasien is absolutely right that the key to forming a healthy sense of one’s home culture is by forming relationships with people who are actually from that culture. We have two children adopted from Ethiopia, and my older child has been very direct in expressing his plans to return, perhaps permanently, as an adult. For now we are assuming that this will be the case. Language is critical for him, and the only way he is able to maintain his Amharic is by practicing with other Ethiopians. We are fortunate to have an Ethiopian grad student (a fantastic role model who is the embodiment of the fact that not all Ethiopians are poor and starving, something many Americans are unaware of) who comes over every week to hang out and talk with our son. She understands how hard it is to leave one’s country and culture behind. And I’m sure there are things that my son tells her that he doesn’t/wouldn’t tell me- which is important, because they have things in common with one another that I can’t relate to. My son’s ability to speak Amharic with adults has been very gratifying for him and allows him to form connections that would otherwise be difficult.
But I know that this isn’t realistic for younger kids- my daughter was two at homecoming, and was not able to convey her culture to me in the ways that her older brother could (ie “In Ethiopia we always ate…, in Ethiopia people never do…, in Ethiopia people talk about…) and while she is an immigrant, she will not necessarily remember the losses associated with that experience in the ways that adults do. So it is hard, and I’m sympathetic to families trying to maintain that balance between ignoring their child’s culture and turning their child into an exoticized other. But that means for those families, connections with other adults from their child’s country or race are even MORE important. A white parent is simply incapable of teaching their child how to “be” African/Asian/etc.- American…
I think the difference is partly the time Mei-Ling grew up when cultural differences were not celebrated. Secondly, I take my daughter to the Chinese community for church, activities and let them (kids and adults) teach her. Not to be white parents trying to teach your kid how to be something you are not, and/or doing presentations at school further causing you (and child) to stand out. My daughter is on the same “track” that all the other ABC Chinese kids are on. She is bonded with them and they with her. They are great friends. And almost all of them have American names too. Because of this she will feel more comfortable with people of her own race because she grew up as part of that race, not on the outside looking in. I like what Max wrote “museum view of culture” this is not what they need. They need to grow up side by side with other Chinese kids so it feels normal to be Chinese American.
MA wrote about the great relationship her adopted child has with other American-born Chinese, and that’s great! I have found, even after 4 years at Chinese school, we still have to work harder at forming relationships, oftentimes because of a lack of interest on my childrens’ part. Here’s an abstract from an interesting study examining how adopted Chinese kids view being Chinese, analyzed according to the amount of diversity in their schools:
This article examines the formation of ethnic attitudes among 266 school-age children who were born in China and adopted by Americans and, at the time of the study, were attending 254 different elementary schools across the country. The authors hypothesised that a disposition to associate socially desirable traits with being Chinese would be fostered by a school environment that was itself racially and ethnically diverse. In order to test this hypothesis, they linked attitudinal data from a photo preference task with archival data quantifying the number and distribution of students of different ‘races’ and ethnicities in each child’s school and other relevant data elements from a parents’ questionnaire. The results do not support the assumption that diversity at school encourages children adopted from China to associate socially desirable traits with being Chinese. On the contrary, children attending schools with greater diversity were less likely to show a Chinese preference and more likely to show a white preference. Further analysis suggested that such paradoxical results may be explained by the privileged economic status of the adoptive children which gave them more in common with white than with other minority classmates.
Here’s the link:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_6895/is_1_30/ai_n28440398/
Does this change the debate at all?
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