Dim Sum, Bagels, and Grits: A Sourcebook for Multicultural Families - Softcover

Dim Sum, Bagels, and Grits
part i we are family one Who We Are The Facts  
 
I believe that when you become a multiethnic family, you need to change almost as much as the child who joins you. That doesn't mean that you have to cook only Korean food or speak Korean, but you have to be very open to it, and it has to become part of you in some way. If you don't feel that you can somehow identify with this ethnic group, then transcultural adoption is probably not for you!  
--Seattle mother of four children, two born in Korea, two biological A Critical Mass In September 1999 the first international convocation of Korean adoptees--organized by the adoptees themselves--took place in Washington, D.C. Some four hundred adoptees from the United States and Europe took part. This event was a milestone. It represented the first time that adoptees, most in their twenties and thirties, had taken ownership in such a visible and significant way of the dialogue and debate on what it means to be adopted across cultures. Although the events were closed to non-adoptees, I followed the discussions closely, as reports came in on adoptionlistservs. I also met with some of the organizers. The more I talked with them, the more it became clear that I had a lot to learn, and that the process would be lifelong. Some of the adoptees had taken Korean names; others had kept their American surnames and flaunted them with pride. Some had made a relentless search in Korea to try to find their birth parents; for others this journey was not a priority. And, of course, some adoptees chose to stay home. Through a Web site related to this gathering, I gained access to a forum that enabled me to experience vicariously the give-and-take between adoptees and parents. Would this be Sadie and me in fifteen years? In each case I was struck by the range of responses, many fraught with emotion. Some grown adoptees reported harboring an abiding hurt over being separated from their birth family. Others were filled with exhilaration at being able to share their life experiences. It was like a coming out party for many of them. The adoption experience, clearly, is hardly monolithic, on the part of either the parents or the adoptees. Coming to terms with being adopted, and being an adoptive parent, can be an ongoing struggle. Parents are particularly tested when children approach young adulthood; this phase of any child's life can be particularly trying. An underlying theme of the gathering of the Korean adoptees was that intercultural adoption can be an empowering and positive process. The vision statement of one of the organizing groups praises intercultural adoption because of the way in which it enables families to "cross borders of race, ethnicity and blood." As part of a process of preparing to parent my own child from a different background (and to collect materials for thisbook), over time, I have also listened to young adults born in Latin America as well as black and biracial young adults adopted by white and interracial families within the United States discuss their experiences and dilemmas growing up. In talking to parents whose experiences crossing cultures had preceded mine by many years, I came to realize two critical points. One was that I was hardly alone in my concerns. The second was that it was essential to keep my learning in context--and never to stop listening. Families that adopted from the 1950s through the 1970s, when much less information was available, perhaps had more issues to struggle with and far fewer resources to turn to, including other families who were facing the same challenges. There just weren't as many--and the sharing that comes naturally to many families these days wasn't so automatic then. Thirty or forty years ago there was little knowledge of what it meant to be cross-cultural, either. The idea was to be American and to leave as much of the past behind as possible. As a consequence, many parents later found themselves doing a quick course in "catch-up" as their children grew older. Pat Palmer, an Iowa mother who has adopted seven children in all, five from Korea who are now in their thirties and two younger children from Vietnam (she also has two birth children), reports: When my children were young, I was eager to find out anything I could about the experiences of those parents who had adopted Korean children ahead of me, but no one was talking. Parenting Korean children was still at the "experimental stage," and I guess most of those involved didn't want to admit to their detractors, who said intercountry adoption wouldn'twork, that everything wasn't perfect, and so all problems were kept quiet. There were rumors, but not many were talking. And the Korean adoptees themselves hadn't grown up, so they too weren't discussing their experiences. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, key adoption alliances were formed, the adoption literature expanded (the magazine Ours, later renamed Adoptive Families, made its debut in the 1970s), and the number of adoption agencies handling interracial and international adoptions began to multiply. National adoption organizations gained in stature and influence. The first culture camps were organized. was families' experiences with cross-cultural adoption increased, more information became available. Several studies have shown that children adopted interracially generally grow up with their self-esteem and identity intact--provided that their adoptive parents understand the implications of adopting across racial and cultural boundaries and respond accordingly. Some negative media images of cross-cultural adoption also emerged--particularly in 1972, when the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) pronounced its opposition to interracial adoption. At a conference that year of the North American Council on Adoptable Children in St. Louis, the president of NABSW gave the keynote speech to an audience that included many white parents who had adopted black children. He accused the parents of committing "cultural genocide" and said that these children could not form a sense of black pride or black identity in such families. Despite claims by advocates of interracial adoption that there were not enough families for black children needing homes,NABSW maintained that the opposite was true, but that bureaucratic restrictions were preventing placements from taking place. Among other reactions to the NABSW's controversial stance was the departure of some of its members and the passage of a resolution by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) supporting interracial adoption. Nonetheless, as a result of NABSW's public statement, interracial adoption placements declined dramatically through the rest of the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Meanwhile, parents did their best. Kirstin Nelson, the biracial daughter (now a thirty-two-year-old law school graduate) of a Nebraska couple who adopted other biracial children, reports: My favorite childhood books were from the Little House series (it was my favorite TV show, too), and I also loved Nancy Drew. I distinctly remember my parents trying to guide me toward books on Harriet Tubman and other stories with black characters and themes. I did read many of those books, but the Little House books remained my favorites. I really don't think it made any difference in the long run whether I read or played "Little House" or "Underground Railroad"--although I did both over the years. I think the best thing to do is provide as many options as possible but let your kids make their own choices and decisions about what they are interested in. There is a fine line between guidance and over-parenting. By the 1990s, the cumulative numbers of interracial and international adoptions, along with ease of access to adoption information via the Internet, transformed the adoptionprocess. With little more than a keyboard and a modem (and a credit card), we could get most of the information we needed to learn how to adopt, where to adopt, how to find families like ours, and how to hook up with support networks. These days, the questions I raised about my own ability to raise a child born in another culture and of another ethnicity are being echoed more widely as many more families are being created or are expanding through multicultural adoption. Recommendations on how to move forward are far easier to come by. Discussion groups on the Internet enable parents with common adoption interests, wherever they live, to share information. And the e-commerce revolution makes it possible to obtain difficult-to-find books, clothing, food, music, and other resources and to develop a multicultural environment for our families, whether we live in a rural area or a large city. Yet merely acquiring multicultural materials and taking part in cultural activities will not address our children's emotional and psychological needs as cross-cultural adoptees, nor will these approaches to parenting our children make up for the fact. that they have lost something most of us take for granted: their birth culture. As parents we need to recognize that being a multicultural family is not something to celebrate only on special occasions; it is a fact of our daily lives. Being vigilant of the needs of children whom Pat Palmer aptly describes as "double minorities," that is, adoptees who do not share their parents' ethnic background, must be a key element in our overall approach to parenting. How Cross-Cultural Adoptions Began To put this discussion into context, I think it helps to understand how and why cross-cultural adoptions came about in the first place, and what the current patterns and trends appear to be. INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTIONS Cross-cultural...