"Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity in Adoption"

It's interesting timing given my focus in recent weeks and my post from this afternoon, (I wish I could claim to be clairvoyant but that would be pushing it) but there's very interesting news, just out today, for the entire adoption community.

The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute just released a new, ground-breaking study entitled, "Beyond Culture Camp: Promoting Healthy Identity in Adoption." According to the authors, the study offers the most extensive look to-date at identity development in adoptees. It incorporates decades of research while also drawing on extensive interviews with "White" as well as transracial (primarily Korean American) adult adoptees. The study explores and identifies experiences and strategies that promote positive identity development in adoptees.

Here are highlights or the "central findings," as cited in the study's Executive Summary:

(1) Adoption is an increasingly significant aspect of identity for adopted people as they age, and remains so even when they are adults.

(2) Race/ethnicity is an increasingly significant aspect of identity for those adopted across color and culture.

(3) Coping with discrimination is an important aspect of coming to terms with racial/ethnic identity for adoptees of color.

(4) Discrimination based on adoption is a reality, but more so for White adoptees – who also report being somewhat less comfortable with their adoptive identity as adults than do their Korean counterparts.

(5) Most transracial adoptees considered themselves White or wanted to be White as children.

(6) Positive racial/ethnic identity development is most effectively facilitated by “lived” experiences, such as travel to a native country, attending racially diverse schools, and having role models of their own race/ethnicity.

(7) Contact with birth relatives, according to the White respondents, is the most helpful factor in achieving a positive adoptive identity.

(8) Different factors predict comfort with adoptive and racial/ethnic identity for
Korean and White adoptees.

The findings and publication of this study is very good news for our community -- assuming it helps foster further discussion and thinking as to how we, as parents, can best help our children develop a stronger, more positive sense of themselves.

I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get.

Transracial Adoption: Identity & Images in the Media

My daughter clears her dinner dish and skips over to the fruit bowl to pick out a banana. Cracking the tip, she slowly draws back the peel, section by section, then stops to study the flowering banana. She looks up at me and an impish smile spreads across her face. Lifting a dangling piece of peel between thumb and forefinger, she holds it out . Turning her head to one side, tilting her nose up, she commences to waltz about the kitchen – with her banana.

She can’t not dance.

She’s in constant motion these days. Everything seems a cause for celebration. She’s testing her wings, discovering new gifts in every direction.

She loves school, math, science, humanities, art, music and of course, best of all, recess, and friends. Last year she joined her school soccer team but merely danced and bobbed at a healthy distance away from the ball while her teammates scrambled. But this year, she’s scrambling, scrimmaging, kicking, and scoring. She also plays goalie. Two weeks ago, an attacker broke free and raced down the field. My daughter calmly planted her feet and stared at the girl. When the shot came, it hit my daughter square in the chest. Her arms wrapped reflexively about the ball. She looked stunned, but then broke into a grin, rocked back on her heels, and drummed the ball with her fingers as if to say, No worries my pretty. She then proceeded to strut up and back in front of the goal, cradling her prize, pumping her fist.

The ref had to remind her to throw the ball back in play.

She’s developing a sense of herself, her power, her abilities. She’s feeling good and yet, I know, challenges await.

Since viewing Adopted, I’ve been reading. I read Helen Zia’s Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People, and Yell-Oh Girls by Vickie Nam. I’ve begun following blogs like AdoptionTalk, Adopt-a-tude, Harlow’s Monkey, Anti-Racist Parent, and Angry Asian Man.

I understand all too well now there will be those who will try to write my daughter’s narrative for her, pegging her as the smart minority, the geeky minority, the exotic female, the unwanted daughter, the perpetual foreigner, or worse, the spy. I’ve read the stories. I’ve heard the comments.

My goal now is to equip my daughter as best as I can. To bolster her self esteem. To give her a strong -- dare I say, rock solid? -- sense of herself and her rightful place in the world.

It’s not enough to connect her with her heritage through books, holidays, language, art, and dance. She needs to connect and identify with other Asian American (as well as Euro-American) friends, kids, adoptees, and adults. She needs healthy role models. She also needs positive images reflected back at her from the mix of media around her.

I conduct a silent audit.

We live in a city with a relatively healthy Asian American population. We’re surrounded by numerous, varied, highly accomplished Asian Americans, civic leaders, journalists, doctors, lawyers, engineers, academics, legislators, and politicians. 20% of my daughter’s 4th grade class is Asian American. Within a quarter mile radius of our home, we know no less than 6 Chinese daughters, born in China, adopted and growing up here, full-fledged American citizens. Our city enjoys a thriving, active, organized group of Families with Children from China. My daughter’s best neighborhood friend – through pure serendipity – is Japanese American. The girl's parents are distinguished physicians and academics. My daughter's dentist, orthodontist, one of her teachers, one of her coaches, are or, have also been, of Asian descent. It’s not something I’ve focused on falsely or deliberately, but we also know and are friends with a number of mixed race families, some by marriage, some by adoption, some by both.

At least in our friendships, our community, and the broader world in which we circulate, my girl has a relatively varied view before her. But, what about images in the media? In the books we read? In the films we watch?

When she was a toddler, we had a wealth of picture books to draw from that reflected our world, her heritage, or parts of our story.



But now, my daughter’s at a different age, with different needs. She needs youthful heroines she can relate to. She reads a lot and we watch the occasional movie, though she’s always been highly sensitive. So much so, that most of Hollywood’s fare has proven too violent. Over the years, we’ve taken refuge in the "classics." The books I grew up with. But, how well do these classics reflect a healthy reality for her? I survey my daughter’s bookcase along with our video and DVD collection.

It's a wake-up call.


How many white, English, blond, or red-headed heroines can my daughter take? You know.. the girls with the alabaster skin, apple-colored cheeks, lush golden, or auburn colored curls, or worse, the stereotypically large, round eyes, that blaze blue as sapphires? There’s a brunette in there but, please... how many of us look like Elizabeth Taylor?

The results of my audit propel me to action. I scour Blockbuster for a movie with a young Asian heroine -- but find nothing. I find a small, retro, independent rental store with a broader, deeper selection of American as well as foreign and old movies. It takes me 40 minutes to find a single reason to hope. I vaguely remember seeing Not One Less from my pre-parenting days. I sign it out and take it home.

Not One Less is the story of a 13 year old girl from China’s countryside who’s recruited to serve as a substitute teacher in a crude one room classroom. When one of her many unruly charges is sent to the big city to earn a wage for his family, she goes to heroic lengths to rescue him off the streets. The scenery is breath-taking. The characters, inspiring.

My daughter doesn’t even balk at the sub-titles. Instead, she exclaims, “I can make out some of the Chinese words, Mom!”

More noticeable still is her chatty, open reaction to the characters.

"Look Mom! Isn't she beautiful?!"
"Isn’t she pretty?!” "Oh! The kids are so cute!"
“Wow, she’s really determined. I can be determined like that.”
"I love this film, Mom. Can we do more movies like this?"

As I shut off the DVD player, I direct my daughter to head upstairs and get ready for bed while I finish up in the kitchen. When I turn to make my ascent up the stairs, I find my daughter waiting for me, standing at the top of the landing.

“That movie was a TEN, Mom!”

Wow. I think. Note to self... I need to find more movies like this one.

I go to bed with a small sense of victory. The next day, I sign up for Netflix and spend time digging about for movies like Not One Less.

A few days later my daughter arrives home from school and I show her the red envelope containing: The Road Home.

She gushes. “Oh Mom! If it’s a Chinese film, it’s got to be good!”

She can’t wait to watch it and indeed the movie proves beautiful. Epic, allegorical, and tragic -- in a gentle, romantic, kind of way -- it's the story of a country girl who falls deeply in love with a newly arrived young teacher. Accused of "Rightest" tendencies, he is summoned away to the city. The country girl waits stoically in the freezing cold snow, hour after hour, day after day, anticipating his return. But he is detained and she falls desperately ill. Word reaches the teacher and he sneaks back to be by her side only to be punished by the authorities. The two must wait several more years while he is further detained in the city.

The movie stars the luminous Zhang Ziyi, and the strikingly handsome Zheng Hao, and it's all shot against a backdrop of sweeping mountain scenery, deep in the Chinese hinterland.
My daughter loves it.

Next we try The King of Masks, a story of poverty and struggle from the 1930’s. An old magician street performer bemoans his fate in having no son to whom he can pass on his ancient art. He buys a child on the black market. But the child is a girl disguised as a boy. The man and girl develop a bond, but her secret is exposed and there are tragic results. The characters face loss, destitution, abuse, and a brush with death before finally realizing they can make a life together.

The story is difficult. Too difficult. I press the mute button a lot but we’re both unsettled and in tears over the heart wrenching drama. I apologize. Together, we agree the choice wasn't the best.

Oops…

I scan the Chinese section in Netflix once more but there are so many films filled with martial arts, swords, daggers, and bloodshed. And then there’s the porn. Lots of porn, portraying Asian women as exotic …er… um… play things.

Time for a documentary, maybe?

My efforts here prove fruitful. I discover the BBC’s 2008 production, Wild China. The two disk series offers more than 6 hours of National Geographic-like footage of China. It’s an incredible survey of China’s vast, unique landscapes, it's remote mountains, rivers, flood plains, and deserts. It features some of China’s most amazing, most unusual wildlife, and includes the story of several local peoples, traditions, and cultures.

The documentary is a hit. We share several nights curled up under a blanket “ooh-ing” and “ahh-ing” over China’s riches.

Now, when we’re not viewing an installment of Wild China, my daughter and I curl up together to read and enjoy another new favorite: “Tales of a Chinese Grandmother,” a book I found rummaging about our local Chinatown. In the meantime, our “Netflix Queue” has grown. It now includes not only tales and documentaries from China, but children’s stories from around the world.

Are my efforts making a difference? I think so. I hope so.

A few months ago, we discovered my daughter is lactose intolerant. The other day, as she helped entertain a friend and serve up some lunch, she offered, “Sorry. We don’t have milk at our house any more. Would you like some water?” Her friend was unfazed by the news, but my daughter seemed eager to explain: “I’m lactose intolerant.”

It sounded like she was boasting -- which puzzled me. Until she added:

“It’s really a common thing you know. Among Asians. I’m Asian.”


Got any film or book recommendations to share?  I'd love it if you shared them.  Just click on the "comments" link below.

An Adoption Reunion: Aliens in America

I've been thinking a lot and reading a lot lately about the issues Jen Fero raised in the documentary film Adopted which I wrote about recently. As a parent in general but also, as an adoptive parent, I feel a responsibility to learn and do all I can, to pay attention, to stay attuned, and help my Chinese born daughter feel at home in her adopted home, culture, and country. At the same time, I know the risk: it's easy to become hyper-vigilant, to second guess every exchange, and make oneself just a teeny bit ...stir crazy.

I'm thinking back to an exchange I had with my daughter this past summer.


It was the last weekend in August and my 9 year old daughter and I drove 3 hours south to join the annual reunion of 10 or so adoptive families who traveled together and bonded, 8 long years ago, on our journey to China to adopt our beloved daughters.

This year was the first time, since making this trek, since my daughter understood the significance of this gathering, since she'd struggled with the losses in her story this past spring, that my daughter was excited to go.

The reunion is typically hosted at one very generous family's home. We all contribute different dishes and share in a potluck dinner. We visit. We feast. We celebrate.

As parents, it's our hope our girls will develop and share a life-long bond. As parents, we already share a special bond, remembering that singular morning we gathered together in the lobby of the Liang hotel in Wuhan to meet our toddlers, each and every child looking pale, worried, tearful, and uncertain. We share the bond too of knowing, in a crazy-making-kind-of-way, that any one of our daughters -- the lanky girl running across the garden, the stocky girl sneaking an extra helping of noodles, the girl seated shyly at the table -- could just as easily have been our daughter. None of us will ever know, or be able to divine, the thinking (or even if there was much thinking) that went into the effort to match each girl with each family. It happened thousands of miles away, in a small sterile office, at the China Center for Adoption Affairs, in Beijing. The end result? No music, no fanfare. Just a letter and a crude photo mailed, special delivery, to homes across the US, a single envelope that would change the trajectory of each of our lives.

With the start of the reunion this year, the girls took a little time to warm to each other. But soon enough they embraced each other and the traditional party-like atmosphere. In prior years, one of the dad's had rigged a hose to a giant, jerry-rigged slip'n slide. Another year, the girls had partied on an enormous outdoor trampoline. This year the girls piled like puppies on to a hammock, swinging and tumbling. Then they disappeared to the basement to test their skills at Wii Karaoke and some kind of rock band fantasy. But the big hit, by the end of the evening, was an improvised i-spy, hide and seek game staged in and out of the garden and throughout the house.

It was stunning to see the difference the years have made. The girls seemed especially happy, as if they'd come into their own. They were healthy, strong, boisterous, sassy, and happy, hanging on us parents with an easy sense of entitlement. We might as well have been door posts planted for their pleasure. They rammed, tugged, poked, pulled, and punched at us playfully. We smiled back, caressing a head, stroking an arm, patting a bottom, exercising a parent's prerogative.

It was late in the evening by the time we said our good byes and thanked everyone. My daughter had been running non-stop, laughing, popping in and out of our host's house, clustered together with the gang of girls. Her eyes were bright, her cheeks flushed. She was either coming down with swine flu -- or she'd had a good time. On the drive back to our hotel, I checked in:

"Did you enjoy the reunion?"

"Yeah Mom. It was great. It was awesome!"

"Awesome, huh? Well, that's good news. I'm glad we came."

"Yeah. Me too. And, guess what Mom?" She whispered: "I'm not supposed to tell you this -- so don't say a word to the other parents -- but I just have to tell you --"

(What mom doesn't love this?)

"What's that honey?"

"We were aliens! We decided to pretend all the Chinese girls were aliens. And, we were hiding and spying on the parents!"

"Nooo way. Too funny."

We talked on, sharing impressions of the night. Nostalgia got the better of me and I shared a confession, dead certain the other moms felt exactly the same way -- and would have felt the same way again, even if the match between girls and parents had somehow played out differently.

"You know honey... I love each and every one of you girls. We're all family in a sense. Our lives are connected. But I feel blessed cause somehow I had the amazing good fortune of becoming your mom. I love being your mom."

She was quiet a moment. "But you know.... you're not my mom."

My heart lurched and froze for a nanosecond. Did the reunion trigger something? Were we headed back to the exchanges of last spring?

"No..?" I asked weakly. I glanced in the rear view mirror and saw her raising her palms upward. She looked at me -- like I was slow.

"I just TOLD you! I'm an ALIEN!"

I laughed. Apologized. And resumed breathing.



Sometimes, just sometimes, an alien is just an alien.

Transracial Adoption: Learning to See a World Full of Color

My last post offered a description of one adult adoptee's struggles with family, with her sense of belonging, with identity. The film trailer for "Adopted" shows Jen trying to explain her struggles to her mother who, in the film, battles a terminal illness.



Jen's story is enough to keep any parent of a transracially adopted child awake at night. But, as difficult as it is to watch, "Adopted" heightened my awareness. As an adoptive parent to a child of a minority race, an essential part of my job is to acknowledge and address the challenges that come with being a mixed race family.

Thankfully, in my search to learn more, after viewing “Adopted,” I came across another video.

Judy and Aaron Stigger share a very different story -- one with a far happier outcome. This isn't to discount Jen Fero's story. But stories like Aaron Stigger's are also important. To make us smile. To help us further understand. To give us hope.

This 4 minute video was originally posted back in January 2009 by Adoption Learning Partners (ALP), an educational organization whose primary goal is to have a "positive measurable impact on adoption outcomes." ALP offers a variety of web-based courses for adoptive parents and professionals, but there's also a wealth of free information and other resources if you dig about on their site and check out their "Community" page.

I love the message in this video that mother and son, Judy and Aaron Stigger, have to offer. Perhaps just as important as the verbal message is the body language, the clear, easy affection you see between mother and son.


Judy Stigger, by the way, was one of ALP's founders (which officially makes me a fan.) Judy and Aaron also did an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep, back in July 2007, sharing their experiences and insights on transracial adoption. There's a great summary write-up of the interview on the NPR website, or better still, you can listen to the interview, or read the transcript. (NPR has done a number of pieces on transracial adoptions and there are several terrific links on this site.)

In the on-air interview, Judy shares one of the ways she used to respond to the classically intrusive comments adoptive families so often encounter: "People would say, 'Do you have any real children?" She'd turn to her son, Aaron, and say, "No, I just have this plastic one." Aaron, playing along, would in turn hold out his arms and sing, "Ta-da!" Judy taught her son by example, defusing an otherwise potentially awkward moment with humor -- while also communicating the thoughtlessness of the question.

Aaron, also present for the interview, describes his memories of growing up, of not wanting to stick out, not wanting to be different, appreciating the opportunities he had to know, and make friends with other kids, other people, of color. This prompts Steve Inskeep to turn to Judy and ask how much thought she put into this. Judy credits a moment she experienced with her daughter (also adopted, also bi-racial):

"When she was about eight, we spread across the bed all the congratulations cards we'd gotten when we adopted her, because now she could read them. And then she looked at me and just got this pain wash across her face, and said, 'Mom, was I supposed to be white?' And I looked at the cards and realized every one of them had a little white baby face on it. And it struck me that this parenting business wasn't going to be about not being prejudiced. It was going to be about being inclusive."

In time, Judy began sending holiday cards to family and friends featuring people of color. One day, her daughter received an Easter card from Judy's mother. Her daughter took the card up to her room to read it in private -- but returned, flying down the stairs, holding the card out in front of her for her mother to see. The card showed a risen Christ, black, muscled, with dreadlocks. Judy's daughter said, "My grandma loves me!"

Further on in the interview Judy describes another moment of heightened awareness. She’d gone to attend one of Aaron's performances when he was part of a black theater group his freshman year in college. Walking into the theater, Judy realized she was one of the few white people in the audience. She realized how she stuck out, how exposed she felt -- and then she thought this is how her children must feel, as minorities, living, moving, and breathing in a predominantly white world. At this point, Aaron can't jump in fast enough. He explains, eagerly, emphatically, that this is an issue for all transracially adopted kids, for that matter, for all minorities. "Thank you! Thank you!" he exhales. "That right there needs to be on every program nation-wide!"

The message from both Judy and Aaron (and Jen as well) is that no child growing up likes or wants to stick out or be different. Children of color need friends, neighbors, and role models of color -- both in their immediate world and in the imagery, the media, that surround them. As caucasian parents with children of color, we need to support our children, to be as inclusive as we can. We can't limit ourselves to a world of white privilege.

As Judy puts it: "You need to see the world in color."

Finding Home, Feeling at Home -- An Adult Adoptee's Painful Story

Nine year old tidbit for the day:

"Hey Mom! Did you know if you whisper --" she drops her voice a notch below audible and, with exaggerated precision, mouths: "'E-le-phant shoes,' -- people think you're saying 'I love you!'"

This pleases her.

My daughter is full of good humor and snappy comebacks these days while I've been scrambling to launch her back into the school year and launch myself, full force, back into the job hunt. We've had a lot going on. Last week, the stress got the better of me. Out of patience, I launched into a lecture and told her if she couldn't learn to help around the house and clean up the trail of mess she leaves behind -- in the front hall, on the couch, on the dining room table, all over the kitchen counter -- and find a home for each and every one of her belongings, I'd have to assume they were leftovers. Trash. Oh, yes. The 18 origami cranes that lay for the past two days littered about the piano bench like leaves in the yard? Trash. Obviously trash.

She stammered, looking for the right response. "But, but... they're not trash! That, that... that is their home! It... it's... it's a display, Mom."

The corners of her mouth twitch and a wry smile escapes at this unexpected flash of creativity. I too am taken by surprise, and explode with a belly laugh. The cranes earn a reprieve and she quickly sweeps them into a nearby drawer.


We are back to innocent, happy days once more. But, in my off hours here and there, I continue the adoptive parents' journey in due diligence. Two weeks ago, a Korean adoptive parenting group (Korea Focus) and our local FCC (Families with Children from China) organization sponsored the showing of Point Made Films' documentary "Adopted." And so it was, thanks to an invitation and prompting from one my blog readers (Thank you Laura) I found myself with a gathering of 15 or so other adoptive parents in a well lit church basement one Tuesday evening.

According to the Point Made Films' web site, "'Adopted' reveals the grit rather than the glamor of transracial adoption."

The film is controversial and it's easy to see why.

We meet John and Jacqui Trainer of New Hampshire. They are just beginning their adoption journey and they're filled with great hope and joy at the prospect of becoming parents. They want to do the right thing by their child. There's no doubt they're completely committed and will love their daughter deeply. At the same time, it's clear they have no concept of the issues and challenges involved in transracial adoption. These issues and challenges are highlighted by Jen Fero, a 32 year old Korean born woman, adopted and raised in the late 70's and early 80's by a loving Euro American family in a small Oregon town.

Jen is the dominant voice in the film and, as she looks back, sharing her experience, she raises a number of blunt, difficult questions not only for her own adoptive, now terminally ill parents -- but for other adoptive parents, particularly those with children of differing racial backgrounds. Jen narrates her story and shares how early on she came to put on a game face, to present herself to her family, to the broader world, as the happy, funny, affectionate daughter she thought her family wanted.
Underneath this veneer, she struggled.

As a child, Jen heard again and again from people in her community what a "lucky" girl she was. But Jen didn't feel lucky. As much as she loved her adoptive parents, she felt loss and sadness over her abandonment by her Korean family. Jen's adoptive family emphasized their love and sense of good fortune in having her as their daughter -- but her losses were never referenced or acknowledged. Jen feared disappointing her parents, contradicting their joy. She felt she ought to be happy. Unable to discuss or explore the possible reasons behind her abandonment, Jen was left with a nagging vulnerability. What if she failed to please her adoptive family? She assumed a kind of vigilance, striving to please and placate her family. She learned to deny her more challenging, difficult feelings.

Growing up in a white family and predominantly white community, Jen identified with those around her. Since Jen's parents believed love was more important than race, they chose not to discuss racial differences. But -- if there's an elephant in the room and no one mentions the elephant -- will the elephant disappear? Jen was left to wrestle with the differences that announced themselves in the mirror each morning. The image of her own uniquely Asian face, her eyes, her nose, her skin tone, created a dissonance within her. When she was out in the neighborhood, in the school yard, on the playground, other children saw these differences too and they teased and taunted her. Jen felt ashamed. Lacking any kind of dialog at home, she had no words, no language, no safe harbor, place, or person to confide her troubles.

Remarks not only from other children but from others, elsewhere, over the years, made Jen aware there were people who didn't view her as fully American. Jen yearned to return "home" to Korea. But when she traveled to Korea, she found she was far more American than Korean -- and Koreans saw this too. When Jen moved away from her hometown to a larger city for work, she struggled to feel fully accepted within white communities -- but also had difficulty feeling a sense of belonging with other Korean Americans.

In the film, Jen makes an earnest effort to communicate her struggles and bridge the connection with her terminally ill parents. But the message they have failed her is too much and perhaps, too late, and too painful for them to take in. They don't understand and Jen feels even more alone. She succombs to anti-depressants and pain killers and is forced to leave her terminally ill parents to commit to her own self care, to enter a rehabillitation program.

Watching "Adopted," I felt a little like Ebenezer Scrooge witnessing the slow parade of ghosts of Christmases past, present, and future. I remembered the dark moment Scrooge stood perched at the edge of what would prove to be his grave, afraid to peer over and confront the worst.



Was Jen's fate my daughter's fate? Our fate? There was still time. What more could I, can I do, here in the present, to re-cast our future?

I'm being a tad melodramatic. But there's no denying Jen's story is tragic. By all appearances, her parents were loving, well meaning people. It took great courage for Jen as well as her parents to allow the film makers into their home, to share their story, and offer the seeds of hard-won wisdom.

I think there were two distinctly different issues at stake for Jen.

The first problem was that Jen was never encouraged or given the opportunity to recognize her own unique story -- and losses -- as a separate, legitimate reality apart from her adoptive parents' story -- their journey and joy in adopting and raising their daughter. Jen sensed her sadness and grief at losing her birth parents posed a threat or, at the very least, would prove hurtful to her parents. So she bottled up her sadness. As she grew older, as the pain persisted, she tried to numb it, then medicate it away.

As a community, as adoptive parents, we've learned how important it is to help our children own and process their stories -- including their losses. We live with the irony that our children's greatest loss is the basis for our joy: their presence in our lives. As threatening as that may feel, we have to support our children, to help them grieve one family so they are free to celebrate the next. Jen's experience is, in part, a desperate cry for this recognition and validation.

The second issue Jen wrestled with is, I think, even more complex.

Jen’s well meaning parents failed to recognize and address the challenges that come with being a mixed race family. To be fair, I think the Feros followed the beliefs of their generation. Once you adopted, you treated your child as if s/he were -- had always been -- your own. Love and acceptance trumped dislocation or differences. To acknowledge the rift or difference threatened the fantasy the bond could be re-made, perfect and whole. So families didn’t discuss abandonment, adoption -- or race. Korean adult adoptees like Jen have taught us the price of this denial.

Listening to Jen, I couldn’t help wondering if her struggle to fit in was unique to her experience as a transracial adoptee – or part of the broader experience of persons of color, of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in this country. Friends of mine raised by immigrant parents, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and Russian, have shared childhood memories of not fitting in, of being the outsider, living betwixt and between two cultures, the culture of their parents' generation versus that of the American school yard and the media. Those of my friends who were happiest seemed to have found a way to mix and move comfortably in both worlds, having made their peace, even taking pride in a hybrid identity.

Is it possible Jens’ struggles to fit in were more authentically Korean American, or Asian American, than she realized?

As for adoptive parents, how many of us truly acknowledge, or understand that, when we adopt a child of another race, we become a family of color?

When I first made my decision to adopt my daughter, I threw myself into reading and learning everything I could about China. I developed a deep, one could argue naïvely romantic fascination for its difficult history, politics, and people. Now, as much as I know it’s helpful to give my daughter a sense of pride in her birth country, I see there are many more layers to my job.

White adoptive parents have only known the world of white privilege. We have no idea what it feels like to walk about in someone else’s skin, to enter a classroom, apply for a job, shop at the local mall or museum, wander a city street and greet the world with a face that isn’t Euro American -- but is Asian American, Latin American, or African American.

We are blind and yet, we need to learn more, read more, reach out more, if we are to help our children feel at home, with a mix of faces, in a variety of places.

"What's My Heritage: International Adoptions & the Culture Debate"

First, an apology. I am woefully overdue in posting here at Pack of Three. The good news is that all is well with our happy pack. In fact, as much as the past school year had its challenges, the summer seems to have delivered -- in direct opposition and proportion to the school year -- more than its share of joys. My daughter's favorite t-shirt and personal motto these days? Life is Good.


I have to concur. I'm not immune to a hormonal moment or two, but the truth is, its all too easy to forget and take for granted just how blessed we are.

Until the school year is well underway (and mom makes more progress on the job front,) I won't have a lot of time for blog posts. Nevertheless, I had to check in and share a link to a wonderfully insightful, honest, thought-provoking article written by Martha Nichols, published this summer in BRAIN, CHILD: "What's My Heritage: International Adoptions and the Culture Debate."

Martha and her husband adopted their son Nicholas from Vietnam in 2003. She writes about Nicholas' ambivalence toward his birth country and culture and, more specifically, writes about her own struggle to find the right balance in helping acquaint her son (and family) with Nicholas' birth country and culture, addressing thorny issues of race and identity.

How much should we do as parents? How far do you take it -- or push it?

It's a balancing act most parents of internationally adopted children struggle with. We know, based on the overwhelming evidence shared by previous generations of Korean-American adoptees, that we ignore these questions of race and culture at our child's peril. But Nichols raises another interesting question: Has the current generation of parents of internationally adopted children really figured out the best or healthiest way to address these issues? The options -- and pitfalls -- are many.

Some families purchase cheese-y costumes and trinkets. Others enroll their children in a myriad of dance classes, language classes, craft classes, caligraphy classes, even martial arts classes. Others drop in once a year for a token New Year's or other celebration. These efforts are all made in earnest. But Nichols asks the uncomfortable question if culture is really a matter of consuming a couple of commercial pre-packaged trinkets, if its a series of classes, a one-time event, or an annual weekend retreat.

How many of us reach for these things as quick, easy answers so, in busy, overscheduled lives, we can assuage a guilty conscience and check off the "culture" box? Nichols calls it "Culture-lite."

My guess is most adoptive parents sense, like Nichols, that culture and identity tend to be something both more subtle -- and more elusive, something that's woven into everyday life. It's the language we speak, the foods we eat, the faces we see, the little day in and day out, or seasonal, rituals.

So how do we as parents capture something as elusive as this and make it accessible to our children, especially when that second culture may be as foreign to us as it is to our children?

Nichols acknowledges that an imperfect effort is far better than no effort. And then, its important to look for those opportunities to make that culture -- in one form or another -- a more natural part of everyday life. Beyond that, for every child, for every family, the answers will be different. In the end, as parents, its our job to try and help our children bridge the gap and navigate a story that produces that mixed sense of identity and belonging.

At the very least, it takes a lot of listening, a lot of loving, along with a willingness to stretch beyond our normal comfort zone.

Nichols does a wonderful, thoughtful job exploring these issues.

Born in China, Adopted & Raised in America: Betwixt and Between?

I was thinking these were halcyon days.

My daughter has been in such a happy place of late and, like many parents, when my child is happy, I am happy. I've already had a few, fleeting moments foreshadowing what's to come in the teen years but for now, we're back to the ebullient innocence of earlier times. Given a quick peek at what's to come, I fantasize and think:

Can't I just hit the pause button now?

I want to pickle and preserve these precious moments. Catch them, bottle them.

It's been a busy, social start to summer. Visiting with friends, my daughter discovered a newfound passion: Monopoly. She loves to be the banker and now, even when there's no one to play, she sits and counts the money.

We staged a lemonade stand on two different days. The first, a sunny Saturday, she and a mutually determined friend set up shop. They sat outside on our street corner, hawking their wares from 11am to 5pm, determined to stay till the last Tollhouse cookie, the last drop of lemonade, was gone. They brought in a whopping $71 and decided (completely on their own) to keep $10 each -- and donate the remaining $51 to the Humane Society (...boasts a proud mom.) The second time around, the day was hotter, the traffic slower, her friend, a little less motivated. Still after 2+ hours minding the store, they earned $30, kept $1.50 a piece, and reserved $27 for the Audubon Society. (My daughter feels a strong affinity for the animal world.)

We've gone on more and more bike rides and, last week, biked to and from her basketball camp.



This week is soccer camp. Along with the beautiful weather, we've enjoyed watermelon fests, hula hooping contests, cookie bakes, swim parties, potlucks, and sleepovers. On rainy days and lazy nights, we've drunk in films like Anne of Green Gables (check out the Kevin O'Sullivan production, it's wonderful) The Heart of the Game (yes, a girls' basketball film) and even some old classics. On deck from the library? Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant in Bringing Up Baby (1938).

This past Saturday, for the 4th of July, we enjoyed various visits with friends, then biked to a local park to take in the fireworks. My daughter chose to dress in red, white, and blue. (If you count my underwear, Mom.)

An all-American childhood, right? Halcyon days, right?

So why did I wake up at 5:30am late last week with this nagging, unsettled feeling?

I've got to stop reading the New York Times and the other blogs and groups I follow just before bed.

I'd been tracking the Adoptionparenting group on Yahoo. The current topic (there's a new one every two weeks) has sparked a lively debate. The subject is "On Culture and Belonging." As the debate unfolded, parents argued, some quite adamantly, that no matter what we do, as multi-racial families, we -- our kids -- will always straddle two worlds. Many argued, with increasing passion, that, as parents, we have a responsibility to acquaint, even immerse, our children in their birth culture, giving them a sense of connection and belonging to combat the day they run into the inevitable confusion, questions, or push back as to where or what group they rightly belong.

Now, my daughter and I attend FCC (Families with Children from China) celebrations. She is learning Mandarin, and we have friends (happenstance -- not calculation) of various ethnic groups, races, and religions. The problem is, short of moving to China, I am -- like a huge percentage of adoptive American parents of Chinese children -- Caucasian. I lack the kind of deep familiarity with Chinese culture that might help me pass the culture on to my child in a way that's both layered and authentic. I realize too, as much as she's of Chinese birth and descent, she is now deeply American.

The argument made by the folks in this discussion group is that, if history is any kind of yardstick, our children will end up with no clear sense of belonging, or worse, rejected, at risk, betwixt and between.

Sigh...

Perhaps naively, a part of me thought, given this country's changing, increasingly varied demographic, Aren't we all, in one way or another, to varying degrees, betwixt and between? And, don't we have more and more examples of individuals showing it's possible to be of a different, or mixed, racial, or ethnic origin -- and still belong? Perhaps, even lead? (I'm thinking of our President for one.)

I was struggling with this question in my head and then, late Thursday, another wrinkle:

David Brooks published his latest New York Times column titled, "Chinese Fireworks Display." Brooks recently attended the Aspen Ideas Festival (Does he have a cool job or what?) Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor, had presented his views on the changing state of the world. China and the US, quite recently, enjoyed a happy, "symbiotic" relationship. From 1995 to 2005, "China did the making, ...the US did the buying." We spent. China prospered, and saved. The Chinese invested their savings in the safest place available: with the US government. They loaned us back the money we spent. We chose to spend and spend again. The Chinese savings rate rose from 30% to 45%, The US savings rate declined from 5% -- to zero.

Our country is now going bankrupt (okay, strike "going") while the Chinese recognize they can no longer rely on us either to fuel their growth -- or provide a secure place to invest their savings. China is forging its own way and looking to decrease its reliance on the US. According to Ferguson, "The frictions are building and will lead to divorce, conflict, and potential catastrophe..." Worse, "Chinese nationalism is also on the rise... The Chinese are acquiring resources all around the world and with them, willy-nilly, an overseas empire that threatens US interests... "

Ferguson compares China to Kaiser Wilhem's Germany in the years preceding World War I: "a growing, aggressive, nationalistic power whose ambitions will tear through pre-existing commercial ties and historic friendships." The US, on the other hand, appears unable to change and rein in its profligate ways. (Think: Rome ...in its waning days.)

It's a frightening scenario. Certainly, there are others (Brooks writes about them too) who expect and paint a more positive picture. But it's the first one that haunts me. In the past year alone, China has clearly been flexing its muscle with a brutal crackdown against the Tibetans, an aggressive media black-out on the 20th anniversary of Tiananman Square or, just today, with another violent crackdown in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

If our two countries are on a collision course, where will this leave America's Chinese born daughters?

Adolescence, it seems, may be the least of my worries.

Pickle, anyone?