Struggles of Korean Adoptees

Here's a New York Times article about a new study coming out from the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute about the struggles of Korean adoptees (I'll post the link to the study when I get it). There's not actually very much about the study in the article, but it's an interesting read in its own right:

As a child, Kim Eun Mi Young hated being different.

When her father brought home toys, a record and a picture book on South Korea, the country from which she was adopted in 1961, she ignored them.

Growing up in Georgia, Kansas and Hawaii, in a military family, she would date only white teenagers, even when Asian boys were around.

“At no time did I consider myself anything other than white,” said Ms. Young, 48, who lives in San Antonio. “I had no sense of any identity as a Korean woman. Dating an Asian man would have forced me to accept who I was.”

It was not until she was in her 30s that she began to explore her Korean heritage. One night, after going out to celebrate with her husband at the time, she says she broke down and began crying uncontrollably.

“I remember sitting there thinking, where is my mother? Why did she leave me? Why couldn’t she struggle to keep me?” she said. “That was the beginning of my journey to find out who I am.”

The experiences of Ms. Young are common among adopted children from Korea, according to one of the largest studies of transracial adoptions, which is to be released on Monday. The report, which focuses on the first generation of children adopted from South Korea, found that 78 percent of those who responded had considered themselves to be white or had wanted to be white when they were children. Sixty percent indicated their racial identity had become important by the time they were in middle school, and, as adults, nearly 61 percent said they had traveled to Korea both to learn more about the culture and to find their birth parents.

Is adoption natural?

Issicat has a great blog post up, about prospective adoptive parents, brain washing, and "natural" mothers:

And here is the other one that cracks me up from the PAP’s. Apparently, I’m not supposed to call the woman who gave birth to me my natural mother. I’m not supposed to call her that because it implies that adoption is unnatural.

Ummm…hmmm…errr….

I got 2 things to say about that.

1. I was raised by my aparents calling the woman who gave me life my natural mother. They didn’t have a problem with it. She doesn’t have a problem with it and most importantly I don’t have a problem with it. . . . I’ll call my mother whatever I want.

2. ADOPTION is not natural. It isn’t. A person giving their child to an agency to be given to complete strangers to raise. Not natural. PAP’s wriitng “Dear Birthmother” letters trying to pimp themselves to women in crisis pregnancy situations in the hope of obtaining said baby… not natural.

You know what is natural? Babies going home and being cared for by the mothers who carried them in their bodies. That is natural. Anything else is just a little sad.

I’m not saying I hate adoption. I don’t. I’m not saying that adoption isn’t necessary in some cases. It is.

But there is no way in hell I would ever call it natural.

And that is something that my aparents seemed to get. My sibling and I …we came from other people. There was and is no denying it. My parents did not find it natural to be raising two children with no medical history. I think they found it pretty stressful, especially when I fell extremely ill as a toddler. I think that time right there, that extremely stressful time showed them once and for all that adoption was a very unnatural situation.

* * *

Adoption natural? No it isn’t. My mom is very proadoption. She loves adoption but she’ll tell you herself, she’s not stupid. Adoption is not an easy or natural road to take.

Oh and she thinks Anita Tedaldi is a shit-head…but that is another story.

Issycat's amom, I think I love you!

The "natural" thing is another one of those "givens" in adoption language -- adoptive parents are supposed to be upset about adopt-a-whatever programs, we're supposed to say we're the real parents, not those pesky birth parents, and we're supposed to say that adoption is natural, just another way to add to your family.

I was brainwashed to believe it, weren't you? I completely bought into the "same as" narrative, that raising an adopted child was the same as raising a biological child, nothing less and certainly nothing more.

It's not the same. I won't say it's harder. But it is more complicated. And that's what prospective adoptive parents should know and accept.

For me, it was having my new child in my arms that changed me. When she became a real person to me, instead of the abstract notion of the idea of a child, that's when it all changed.

So I forgive prospective adoptive parents a little. They have room for redemption.

What bothers me are those adoptive parents, with their child in their arms, who persistently cling to the "same as" narrative, rejecting that birth parents are real, insisting their child is AMERICAN so needs no special heritage-teaching/culture-keeping, saying that race doesn't matter (easy to say when you're the majority race, impossible for their minority-race child to live), desperately repeating the mantra, "same as . . . same as . . . same as. . . ."

Standard disclaimer -- not all prospective adoptive parents or adoptive parents are like that. But we all know ones who are, I bet.

A Cautionary Tale for Adoptive Parents

The story of a search for identity, about Nisha, adopted as an infant from India, now 26 years old and going back to India to search for her birth mother -- a must-read for adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents who think the "same-as" narrative works, that all one need do is raise an adoptive child the same as a child born to you.

For adoptive parents who think “culture-keeping/heritage-teaching” isn’t worth the trouble:

“It used to be, regardless of their original culture or their skin colour, this child is truly yours,” says Kate Emery, the senior India programme coordinator for adoption agency MAPS Worldwide. But now, Nisha’s generation, adopted in the 1980s and 1990s, feels this was a mistake. “They need to know their culture,” says Emery.

It’s a thought that never occurred to Nisha’s parents. “I didn’t know any Indian people,” her father says. “And I guess I probably wouldn’t have known how to approach them even if I did. Would I say, ‘You know, my daughter’s Indian. Would you mind if she hangs out with you?’”

Though she didn’t realize it as a child, it bothered Nisha when she grew up and realized she had never been exposed to her own culture. She resented her parents for never trying to teach her about where she came from. The resentment bore down on her and when it was time to pick a college four years ago, she moved miles away from her family in Sacramento to San Diego. When she finally told her parents how she felt two years ago, they were shocked, unaware of how much pain the adoption had caused her.

. . . for adoptive parents who think color-blind works, that race doesn’t matter to their child, that knowing other "brown girls" isn't important:

Nisha, now a petite 26-year-old with a quick smile, was adopted from Goa by an all-white family at the age of six months and raised in “the white part of America”, as her father Randy puts it. The couple never taught Nisha anything about her birth country or culture, though they did retain her name and abided by one request the birth mother had made: never to cut Nisha’s hair. She didn’t cut it until she went to college. Stephanie says she figured “everyone would love each other” and that would be enough for Nisha to adjust to her adopted life in the US.

It wasn’t, though. . . . When she started searching for her own identity, as all young adults do, she struggled more than most. In her adoptive family she saw no answers, no history, not even a common physical appearance. Was she Indian or American? What tied her family together? What did it mean that she looked so different from her mother and sister and father? The questions left Nisha full of doubts about who she is and where she fits into the world around her. And, in her search to find herself, she pushed away the family that has so much to do with who she is.

* * *

When Nisha was 11, her family moved to a new neighbourhood in Sacramento. On her first day at gym, another student, Reena Ray, spotted her from across the room. “I remember seeing this girl,” Ray says, “and she was the darkest, littlest thing in the room, but she was wearing this T-shirt with strawberries on it and matching socks. And then out of her mouth comes the biggest valley girl voice ever.”

Nisha, who still has that distinct Californian accent, says she was instantly attracted to Ray—another small, dark-skinned girl. . . . Ray’s elder sister, Sharmila, became close to Nisha as well. The girls formed a multicultural group of friends. And suddenly, Nisha’s family — her mother, father and sister — felt left out and different. Randa [Nisha’s sister, biological child of her adoptive parents] says Nisha created her own family. She kept waiting for Nisha to come back to their family, but Nisha never did.

. . . for adoptive parents who don’t want to talk about birth family, who believe their children don’t think about birth family:

But Nisha still feels alone; missing a mother she could only imagine all her life, from bits she picked up from her parents’ stories. One particular thing Nisha clings to, a reason she thinks her birth mother would want to be found, is a letter that arrived at the Grayson home on Nisha’s first birthday. “My darling Nisha baby, I will always love you,” it began.

“From time to time over the years, I would find the card around the house, and I would know Nisha had been looking at it,” says Stephanie, who speaks with the wrenching love of a mother who can no longer protect her child from pain. She also speaks with the pain of knowing that no matter how good the intention, she caused some of that hurt. She tells me that Nisha’s birth mother lived at the orphanage before the birth and stayed with Nisha for some time after she was born.

When I ask Nisha about this story over coffee a few days later, she starts crying. “I never knew that!” she says. “Just the thought that she stayed, that she did really care for me, that it was hard for her, means a lot. I know she wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t have to, which is why I don’t hate her for it. But to think that she stayed. . . .”

* * *

She has got her mother’s name tattooed across her hip. “I want it to be a homage,” she says. And, perhaps, in a way, it’s a recognition that even if she never does find her birth mother, she can still answer the question of who she is herself.

Click here to read the whole thing.

This is in no way an indictment of Nisha's parents, who didn't have the advantage we do now of having heard from adult international/transracial adoptees about how these missing things affected them. We have no excuses.

Nor am I suggesting that if we only "do the right things" our children won't feel loss, grief, pain, that our children won't distance themselves from us in their search for identity, that we have somehow "failed" if our children search for birth family. I'm only suggesting that as adoptive parents we can help or we can hinder when our children search for identity, deal with adoption loss, grief, and pain, look for connections to birth family and birth culture/heritage. It is their search, their journey. But we shouldn't be the road blocks.

Ancestry and Adoption

OK, this is going to be a disjointed and tentative post, since I'm still trying to think through this issue. I'm also stymied on the research front, not finding much information about attitudes and feelings, not able to track down things I think I've read before.

On another list I'm on, an adoptive parent said he was talking to his wife about looking up his ancestry on Ancestry.com, and his 11-year-old adopted-from-China daughter asked, "Do I have ancestors?" Another adoptive parents answered that after assuring her children that they did have ancestors in China, even though they were unknown, she told her kids that her (the mom's) ancestry was their ancestry.

That "not knowing" thing would make the whole issue of ancestry difficult for adoptees, I'd think. How could it not? And I'm not sure that the adoptive parents' ancestry makes an adequate substitute. I wish I could find the source, but I remember reading somewhere that adoptees often don't feel deep connections to more distant family members, that of course they love and feel connected to parents and close relatives, but distant relatives feel. . . . distant. If so, then what exactly does the adoptive parents' ancestry mean to an adoptee?

And I'm wondering about general views about adoption and "ancestry." Merriam-Webster defines ancestry as: "line of descent: lineage; especially: honorable, noble, or aristocratic descent." I've blogged before that the Daughters of the American Revolution organization won't allow adoptees admission based on their adoptive parents' lineage. Do you think that comports with the general public's understanding of adoption and "ancestry?"

Say Abraham Lincoln is somewhere on my family tree (I first used George Washington as an example, until a good friend gave me a little history lesson, that George and Martha didn't have children, only Martha did from a previous marriage!) -- would people say about my adopted kids, "They're related to Abe Lincoln"?

And perhaps more importantly, how will my kids see themselves -- as relatives of Abe Lincoln, or not? (No, Abe Lincoln is not really in my family tree; in reality, the "honorable, noble or aristocratic descent" which I could pass on to my kids would involve an ancestor who abandoned his wife and children to get out of the state and avoid debtor prison, a cattle rustler, and a moonshiner!)

When I look at Ancestry.com, and search for "adoptee," I find articles for adoptees seeking birth parent information, as I expected (See here and here.). I suppose if adoptees are researching their adoptive parents' ancestry, they don't need special articles at Ancestry.com.

In the comment to a blog post about geneology research, an adoptee said, "When you’re adopted, those sites are not much help for anything except a bruised id. . . ." I can sure see how that would be the case. I'm assuming that adoptee was talking about the problem of not having birth family information. And I didn't find the blogger's response particularly satisfying:

No reason why you can’t do your adopted family’s genealogy. That’s what my aunt
does. She loves genealogy so she works on the same genealogy I do (when she isn’t frustrated by it).

I consider her as much family as great-great-great-grandfather Bubba, whom I never met. It’s not about biology. It’s about connections. I think of it as social networking with your dead relatives. Deadbook, anyone? Ba ding!

Hmm, is geneology not about biology? One adoptive parent opined that given infidelity, uncertainty, secret adoptions, and the like, most of our "ancestry" is a biological mystery, unless tested by DNA. But the "just research your adoptive parents' geneology" seems awfully dismissive.

So chime in, help me figure this out. Can anyone identify my missing source? Does anyone know of adult adoptees who've written about this? Does transracial and/or international adoption complicate this (do you see an adult adoptee from China saying, "I'm related to Abraham Lincoln!")? Please, comment!

Another Country, Not My Own

Thought-provoking article in the Boston Globe, by Mei-Ling Hopgood, adult adoptee from Taiwan and author of Lucky Girl:

Today, almost all parents who adopt internationally try to cultivate some kind of connection to their child’s birth land. Efforts range from throwing some ramen noodles in a salad to remodeling the interior of their homes to an Asian motif and spending thousands of dollars to send their children to language schools and heritage camps on another continent.

Parents do these things hoping to help their children adjust to the sometimes tricky duality of their existence. Yet I worry that some parents are now taking things too far: Going to extremes to idealize the native culture might be as damaging to an adoptee as ignoring it. Asian-American activists have for decades fought the idea that you are born with a culture - that if you look Asian, you must eat with chopsticks, wear different clothing, speak a different language; that you are different and thereby less American. Parents, to some extent, are asking children to conform to those expectations. And without adequate acknowledgement of the reality that actually is - their experience in America - I suspect that children might have an even harder time figuring out where they belong.

Nora’s Journey: A Korean Adoptee’s Life in a Chinese Family

A really fascinating story, published in a Japanese-American newspaper, of a Korean-American child adopted by a Chinese-American family in 1917:

My grandmother, Nora Kim, was born in 1917 as Esther Yoon, the fourth child to Duggar Choi Yoon and Byung Hi Yoon in Upland, Calif. Her eldest siblings, Gilbert and Anna, were born in Korea, and her brother Paul was born in Hawai‘i. After Grandma was born, her mother fell ill and her father — we believe in a state of panic — hurriedly arranged an adoption of the new baby through the church. Her mother knew nothing of the adoption until she recovered from her illness.

Grandma was adopted by a Chinese couple, Tom Chung and Yuet Lan Lee, and re-named Nora. They had been married for several childless years, but after adopting my grandmother, they had three boys in succession: Daniel, Andrew and Wilbert. Grandma’s adoptive mother had been born in San Francisco, the daughter of a wealthy matchstick factory owner who then moved back to China. She remained
behind in San Francisco, as she was an American and did not want to live in China where she would be “forced to marry some old Chinaman.”

* * *

Grandma was raised Chinese American, speaking English and Cantonese at home and learning her father’s Toisan dialect at Chinese school.

* * *

When Grandma was 12, her adoptive mother died suddenly. Her death was abrupt and shocked the family; she took ill for a short time, and then one night, her father called for a doctor because she had taken a turn for the worse. She died later that night.

After her death, her husband fell apart. In the area of Los Angeles where they lived, word must have traveled to Grandma’s Korean family about her adoptive mother’s death, because shortly thereafter she was called to her principal’s office at school. A woman and her daughter were waiting for her there, and introduced themselves as her mother and sister, Sarah.

“I didn’t believe them, I thought they were crazy!” Grandma had never heard of Koreans, much less suspected she was Korean herself. In her world, Asians were either Chinese or Japanese. Her mother and sister visited her again at school, and then were asked not to come back. “I would see my Korean mother once in a while, standing outside of the school gate, watching me. I was a little scared — I didn’t know what to do. I asked my aunt about it, and she told me to ignore them. Then she shooed me out of the room to talk to my father. I bet that’s what they were talking about.” Grandma learned later that her Korean mother would sometimes disappear from her cleaning shop to watch her in the schoolyard.

One day, the same woman and a man came to her house. They told her they were her parents, and would like her to come visit their home and meet her brothers and sisters.Grandma asked her Chinese father when he got home if what they said was true, but he never addressed the adoption. He just said that maybe she should go and visit. So one day, she did.

Grandma met her brothers, Gilbert, Paul and Chuck, and her sisters, Sarah and Mary. The eldest sister, Anna, was already out of the house — married with a baby. Because her adoptive father struggled after his wife’s death and eventually lost the house on 9th Place, Grandma went to live with her Korean family.

Click here to read the whole thing! And marvel at the relative openness of adoption at that time -- the birth family knew at all times where she was. Still, not the halcyon days of yore -- she was not told she was adopted or Korean until she was 12 and her adoptive mother had died.

Too much culture?

OK, this video is funny! Do you think it's deliberate that the white family doing Korean is mixing it up with Japanese and Chinese and who knows what-all fungible-Asian stereotypes? Or do you think the writers don't have a clue either?!

And it's also a good pair with this article, What's My Heritage? International Adoptions and the Culture Debate, from Brain,Child:

For an English speaker, “win” approximates Nguyen, one of the most common yet
elusive of Vietnamese names. Maybe Nick thinks we’ve cracked a secret code. He
told me recently that Nguyen Thanh Hiep is his true name.

At these moments, I’m sure my husband Rob and I are doing something right. Like many international-adoptive parents, we work hard to incorporate our son’s birth culture into our lives. For years, we’ve followed the formula for what’s sometimes called “culture keeping”: celebrating the main holidays from Nick’s birth culture; buying ethnic artwork, clothing, or food; spending time with other international adoptive families, perhaps going to a “culture camp” for a few days each summer.

Some would say I take it to extremes. I enrolled in a Vietnamese language class the year before Nick’s adoption in 2002. Last fall, I signed up for another course that meets five days a week. At the same time, I found a Vietnamese tutor for Nick.

In December, Rob and I took Nick on a trip to Vietnam, his first visit back to his birth country. But just weeks before we left, we found ourselves with a child melting down, who was terrified we’d leave him there, afraid we’d be disappointed if he didn’t like it. “I don’t want to go to Vietnam!” he howled. “I don’t want to go to Vietnam! I…don’t…want…to…go…to Vi-et-nam!”

It was then that I thought maybe I’d gone too far. Was I doing this more for myself than for Nick?

I know the caveats. He was too young; it’s normal for a first grader to be contrary. All true, and he often infuriated me in Vietnam. I was proud when he told people his name in Vietnamese, but I never felt at ease. We were on public display more than in any American hospital hallway. I worried for my boy when saleswomen fussed over the long rattail in his hair, fingering it, saying he was “lucky.” I kept wanting to hug his tense little face against my chest.

Since our trip, I’ve talked to people inside the adoption community and out: other parents, adoptees, social scientists, Vietnamese Americans. Going overboard can be worse than doing nothing at all, so I wonder and fret: How much should I push cultural activities onto my son? How much of his birth culture is it healthy for him to keep as he grows—and how much is confusing or harmful, a kitschy pastiche that will leave him permanently unmoored?

Can you say "balance," anyone?!

Summer Re-Run: Zoe Talks Adoption

Zoe Talks Adoption -- Sept. 18, 2008

Adoption is hard to understand because you don't know who your birth parents are and you don't know why they let you go and where they live and their phone number and address. Ex: You might be wondering about adoption and what adoption is, well adoption is when you get born and your first parents give you away. End of example.

I think about my birth parents like every day. You too might be wondering about your first parents, too, just like me. If you do, here is some advice, some things that help me:

1. Talk about your feelings, like

• Talking to my mom about adoption so I can understand more about it.
• Thinking about my first parents in my dreams at night and then I can explain to my mom on the way to school the next morning so she knows.
  
• Explaining to my mom about how sad I am so she can understand how I feel.
  
• My mom telling me it's okay to be mad and sad about being adopted. I don't have to be happy about it all the time.

2. Go to live in China like a real Chinese girl, going to school and walking everywhere. You can even go visit your orphanage and see how they loved you and took care of you.

3. Even if you don't go live in China, you can learn about China so you can understand more about your China family and why they couldn't keep you.

4. Reading stories about adoption helps, and reading my own lifebook helps too. I liked making my own book about my first parents and my adoption, and writing about my feelings in it. You can use your imagination to draw pictures of your first parents.

5. I like being with kids like me, adopted kids and Chinese kids, because they might have the same feelings I have. But they might not, too.

[OMG -- I promise, every word is Zoe's! She wrote this out yesterday while waiting for her ballet class to start, and I had no idea she'd written it until she showed it to me today and asked if I could post it on the blog. Yes, she did it as a numbered list, I just reorganized it a bit and combined a few things for ease of reading. I'm in awe -- Zoe, Born Blogger!]

"Dear every adoptive parents"

This comment to the posted video from Chinese Heritage Camp:

Dear every adoptive parents,

We are Chinese parents with kids born in the U.S. Thank you for your love in adopting helpless orphans and nurtur them to be happy kids of yours. I have viewed the video of the camp for adoptees. My suggestion to you is to try to seek out Chinese American families and let your kids befriend their kids. The reason? I think these Chinese American families are more normal in the sense that they are emotionally balanced. You can also learn from Chinese parents about their culture and they from you about American culture. It's a good way to help each other out. As a Chinese, I feel these camps for adoptees from China are weird. Real Chinese kids don't do dragon dance or kungfu. To us, the Chinese heritage is nothing more than Chinese food, the language, delayed gratification (with money and material things) and hard work. Be careful with your child's encounter of racism. Some kids don't even tell their parents but racist incidents will scare their life and affect their self esteem big time. Worst yet, they may affect your child't relationship with you. Racism is real and ugly and kids aren't old enough to handle them. Make sure you check on your child when s/he comes back from play time with other kids. I hope you can find some good American Chinese families around to befriend with. God bless you all.

Reactions?

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Find out what it means to me!

I've been brooding on this for a while -- how can we help adoptive parents gain respect for their child's birth mother? Notice, I'm not talking love (been there, done that, got the burn marks to prove it!), but simple respect. And I admit I'm starting from the position that we want to be respectful so we can convey that respect to our children. It's important for adopted children to see their birth parents as positively as possible -- they really see it as the GIGO principal, garbage in, garbage out. If their birth parents are bad people, then they themselves must be bad people.

I was talking to an adoptive mom a while ago, with a child adopted from a Southeast Asian country, not China. The story she told me was that her child's birth mother was 14 years old, showed up at a hospital seeking an abortion, and was persuaded to carry the child to term. She gave birth and then just vanished from the hospital, leaving the baby behind. The tone in which the story was told was generally scornful, conveying the impression that the birth mother was promiscuous, irresponsible, and generally unworthy.

You know me, I wanted to go immediately into "teacher"mode! I think I showed a little restraint -- I phrased it as a question, instead of a comment: "Oh, dear. I wonder how a 14-year-old in that culture could have gotten pregnant. No mixed dating at that age in that country. I wonder if it was rape, incest -- or rape AND incest -- or prostitution?"

The amom was shocked, and we talked more about it. Of course, I told her I had no more way of knowing what actually happened than she did, but that the cultural background painted a picture of different possibilities than she had considered before. She really was seeing the birth mom in Western terms, dating and getting involved in sex too early (we'll leave aside for a moment whether that kind of judgment is appropriate!). She didn't see it with any non-Western cultural overlay. She hadn't thought about HOW a 14-year-old in that country would have gotten pregnant. Or HOW she could have stayed at the hospital without being missed by family (I suspect the birth mom was a street child who got pregnant through prostitution).

So far, the amom doesn't hate me for suggesting these other possibilities. She has a better understanding of what MIGHT have happened, but also a harder job of explaining this to her child in the future.

With China adoption, we see that Western view, too. How many times have you heard an adoptive parent of Chinese children say, "They threw away the baby just like garbage?" No understanding of the cultural pressures, of the fact that the birth mother is pressured by family, including mother-in-law, to abandon the baby. No recognition that abandonment sites are usually carefully selected so that the baby will be quickly found. No knowledge, no understanding.

And that's where the respect comes from, I think -- from knowledge which leads to understanding. I'd like to see a whole lot more education on birth country culture for prospective adoptive parents seeking to adopt internationally.

A Very Buddha Day

We started out the day with a non-Buddha expedition to story time at the Amon Carter Museum for the second week in a row (it's fun to be at the stage of the summer where our planned activities are over, and we can just play!). Afterwards, we went to the Kimbell Museum for their newest exhibit, Butchers, Dragons, Gods, and Skeletons. Sounds really appropriate for children, huh?! But my mom had gone the week before and thought the girls would like at least one of the video installations.

It is a very cool exhibit. Each video installation focuses on an art piece, bringing it to life on the screen. We saw Arhat Taming the Dragon (the link has a snippet of video and photos):

Arhat Taming the Dragon is vertical in format like the scroll that was its inspiration, and projected on a screen inside the same wooden shrine that appears in the film. We first see a diminutive Buddhist monk fishing in a river, which in his fantasy becomes the churning, stylized river in the scroll. He is indeed the artist engaged in painting the work. Returning to reality, he finds a shuttle (a wooden tool for holding yarn in weaving) and takes it with him. It turns out to be a magic shuttle that can move and transform itself. Walking home with his catch, through a world alive with the imagery of Chinese art, the little monk comes upon a pavilion in which a boy is playing with a toy, then the shrine, where he joins a pair of larger monks reciting an evening prayer. We see him finishing work on his painting, dotting in the eyes of a dragon––the moment of giving life. The mischievous shuttle sneaks under the scroll and becomes the dragon, clawing its way out into the real world. While making an offering to the scroll, now installed in the shrine, the little monk goes into a dream that is his own act of transformative magic. Suddenly the whole scene in his painting
comes to life. He is a guardian king and one of his fellow monks is an arhat, a Buddhist saint of great wisdom and supernatural powers. The other monk also appears, holding the boy who was playing with the toy. A great wind rushes through the scene as the arhat strains to will the dragon into his alms bowl, a symbol of triumph over the hostile forces of nature. The wind subsides and calm is restored.

We saw the scroll before watching the video, and the girls were mesmerized to see the characters from the scroll come to life to act out the scene from the scroll. We actually watched it twice, and then had lunch at the museum so we could see it again!

After lunch we poked through the gift shop, always a dangerous exercise! I was showing admirable restraint until we came upon this stuffed Buddha! Who would have expected that such a thing even exists!

The girls were delighted. Zoe has long had an interest in Buddha (probably living next door to a Buddhist temple when we were in Xiamen!), and while reading about him on the Internet (she's discovered Google. Be afraid, be very afraid!), she found that his mother was Queen Maya, so now Maya is also hooked on Buddha.

The Buddha is part of a series of dolls called "Little Thinkers." Too cute! They have Shakespeare and Freud and Jesus and Nietzsche and Van Gogh and Socrates and too many others to name. I love the idea, and couldn't resist the girls' entreaties to buy it. And I love that on the tag, the contact address is the Unemployed Philosophers Guild!

I highly recommend the Kimbell exhibit if you live in the Fort Worth area -- it's free, and it's a great way to give a dollop of culture, both Chinese culture and high art!

Video From Heritage Camp

Just in case you're not thoroughly sick of hearing about China Heritage Camp, here's a video wrap-up!

"All the Brown Girls"

The image of that girl, in awe at seeing "all the brown girls" just like her at camp, sticks in my head. As Sue wisely put it in the comments:

I really think that camp is mostly about hanging out with a LOT of kids who are there due to similar circumstances and heritage. My girls didn't learn a whole lot new about Chinese culture, because they attend Chinese school and learned similar things there. Some of the new things they can't remember (like new songs, words, etc.) But what they don't articulate, but I really think they feel at some level, is that this is the one place where they are among a LOT of kids who are like them... born in one culture and raised in another. Which, in a way is a culture in an of itself.

Maya clearly feels that sense of belonging, of sameness. I posted the first part of this video already, and noted how surprised I was that at age 5 Maya could already realize that being Chinese in an Anglo world felt "different." In the second half, she tries to articulate the feeling of being in a place where she is one of 238Chinese girls under one roof.



And again, let me say, I LOVE my Flip! Maya usually won't talk to me about hard issues (not like Zoe will!), but she'll talk to the camera about them. . . .

Adult Adoptee Panel

Looking around the room at the adult adoptee panel discussion, I'd say it was easily the best-attended of the adult sessions. It was good to see so many adoptive parents wanting to learn.

As I mentioned before the panel consisted of 3 sisters from the same family, and they also had 3 brothers. There were two sets of sibling groups of two among the six. Five of the six were adopted from Korea, and the sixth was half Asian, half Hispanic, and a domestic adoptee. They all grew up in Tulsa, OK.

All three who spoke to us were in their 30s, beautiful, well-spoken, and seemed very happy and successful.

The domestic adoptee said she had had non-identifying information about her birth family for as long as she could remember, and she wasn't at all interested in finding out who her birth parents were. Some of that reluctance came from the circumstances -- her birth father was 55 and her birth mother 16, and worked for him. The one who was adopted from Korea at age 5 also had a brother adopted with her at 9 months of age. She said she had always wanted to find her birth parents, and was successful in doing so. She said she felt like there was an empty space inside her until she returned to Korea and met her birth family.

The third, adopted from Korea at 18 months old, said she had no information since she was found abandoned at a police station with no identifying information. She said she had no interest at all in finding her birth family, but said maybe that was because she knew it would be impossible to do so. [Afterwards, I mentioned to her that many Korean adoptees were given that same story of abandonment but then found that the adoption agency had made it up "to protect the unwed mother." I suggested that if she was interested she might contact the adoption agency. . . .] Though she said she wasn't really interested in her birth parents, because her adoptive mom and dad were her "mom and dad," she said it was really meaningful for her to have children who were biologically related to her -- it was the first time she saw someone who looked like her.

Two of the three said that they had experienced racial teasing as children -- the eye-pulling gesture and ching-chong speech. They didn't tell their parents about it. One said that such teasing made them stronger. Of the six siblings who are married, they are all married to Caucasian spouses. The sister who had actually traveled to Korea talked about feeling more comfortable with Caucasians, and feeling out of place in groups of Koreans. Another sister said she considered herself an Okie (not a derogatory term when used by an Oklahoman, I understand!) and a proud American.

One adoptive parent asked what their favorite foods were (?), and all answered with American favorites like Mom's Spaghetti and PB & banana sandwiches. The sister who had traveled to Korea said Korean foods were her favorite

They all said that their parents had offered cultural opportunities, and that their parents had always been supportive of any interest they had in searching for birth parents. Their parents had shared with them the information they had about their life before adoption. All praised their parents for what a good job they had done raising them. And all said they felt blessed to have been adopted.

I think that adoptive parents who were looking to ignore anything negative they had heard from adopted adults were pretty satisfied by the presentation. There were, however, some troubling things: the fact that they didn't tell their parents about racial teasing and their discomfort in being among Koreans, for example. This is pretty typical for Korean adoptees of that era, I think. Adoptive parents were told to raise them as [white] Americans, so many have not formed any racial identity that matches their ethnicity. I hope that my kids can feel comfortable in both cultures, though that is going to be a tall order, and probably not completely doable, Still, we'll try!

I also thought it was telling that the sister who expressed no interest in meeting biological relatives nonetheless expressed wonder at seeing her children for the first time. Perhaps she is more interested than she thinks!

The women were so gracious to come talk to us, and I learned a lot hearing about their experiences and attitudes. We always say that adoptees have a variety of attitudes toward adoption, that no one can claim to speak for all adoptees, and we had the perfect illustration of that fact in these three sisters.

Speed-Blogging Camp

Today was the last day of camp, with the cutest performances at the closing ceremonies, topped off by a 5-hour drive home. I'm worn out, so thought I'd jot down a few things I want to remember to blog about and then fill things out later. So here goes!

1. The adult adoptee panel this morning was really interesting -- three sisters, two adopted from Korea and one domestically but transracially. Each seemed to have very different attitudes toward birth parents.

2. One mom told me that when they drove up to the building the first day, her daughter, who is the only Chinese child at her school, said with awe in her voice, "Look, mom, at all the brown girls!"

3. A panel of doctors from Gansu Province answered questions in one session for adults; my mom ran into one of them afterwards, and he was bemused: "Are ALL of these girls from China?!" He seemed stunned by the sheer number.

4. Whatever you do, never eat at the New World Chinese Buffet on 71st Street in Tulsa, OK!

Happy Campers

Chinese Camp started with a bang this morning with a dragon dance during opening ceremonies.


The dragon dance was a big hit, but it didn't make the list of Zoe's and Maya's favorite things at camp. For Maya it was the dance session. She liked dancing with a paper umbrella, but much preferred when they could dance any way they wanted. Her second favorite was kung fu. Zoe's favorite was arts & crafts, making a panda out of clay. Her second favorite was working on a China scrapbook in her home room. Maya also planted a flower seed in a paper cup, with which she gifted me (no idea what the Chinese heritage significance of that was -- maybe the same as the bounce house and snow cones they enjoyed during recreation period?!). Zoe's class also did a cooking session, and learned about century eggs and the Chinese version of funnel cakes (which they made and got to eat).

I expect my happy campers will sleep well tonight!

Chinese Heritage Camp

We're in Tulsa for Chinese Heritage Camp, which officially starts tomorrow. We met up with Fort Worth friends for dinner -- how is it that we have to go out of town to get together?! Then a whole bunch of the North Texas contingent met in a hospitality suite at the hotel we're all staying in for the kids to watch Mulan.

Couple of funny things on the drive:

First, I was explaining to my mom why one of our friends, who had attended the Chinese Language/Culture Camp with Zoe, wasn't coming, and said something like, "Well, she got plenty of culture at that camp, so I guess she didn't want to come to this one." Zoe was indignant -- "There's LOTS of Chinese culture to learn! This camp will be very different!" So much for worrying about foisting TOO much Chinese culture on her this summer!

Second, Maya was saying that if she has a boy child, she'll name him Hercules (she still likes that movie!). Zoe replied, "But, Maya, you can't name your son Hercules because you don't know if he'll be a god, because you don't know who your birth parents are so you don't know if your birth parents are gods." There's logic for you!

I'll try to post as Camp goes on, but no promises -- we'll be pretty busy! There are a few adult sessions I'm particularly looking forward to -- an adult adoptee panel and a Chinese cooking demonstration. Should be fun for me as well as the kids at camp!

Adult Asian Adoptee Researches Identity Issues

In this article about a Korean adoptee's research, it quotes her as saying that adoptees identify as adoptees before they identify as belonging to any racial or ethnic group. Interesting.

It took an identity crisis for Joy Hoffman to fully realize she’s Korean.

Hoffman, a graduate student at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, was adopted by white, conservative, Lutheran parents as a baby and grew up in Orange County, immersed in white culture. It wasn’t until she was in her 30s that she came to terms with her Korean identity.

Now Hoffman has taken that identity crisis and turned it into research studying how Asians like her, adopted by white parents, form their ethnic identity.

“I can be open about my adoptee identity, but not always about my Asian, even within my own family,” said Hoffman, 41, who also works as director of the Cultural Center at Whittier College. “It’s been kind of fun to do the research but also hard.”

* * *

Based on those interviews [with 3 Asian adoptees (is that possibly a typo? she only interviewed 3?)], she found that adopted Asians fare better if their white parents encourage them to explore their ethnicity, rather than ignore it in an effort to be colorblind. She also found that adopted children identify themselves as adoptees before any ethnic identity.

“There’s this sense of loss. You have to understand someone gave you up,” she said. “I was left in a police station. I probably will never find my birth parents. My daughter and my son are my first biological connection.”

Because so many people figure out who they are in college, Hoffman’s research also offers recommendations on how colleges can help Asian students adopted by white parents.

Her recommendations include encouraging adoptees to join Asian student organizations and study abroad in Asia. She also suggests counselors be trained to understand the unique circumstances of Asian adoptees. In addition, schools should connect students with Asian faculty and staff members who can serve as mentors, she said.

Shane Carlin, a Korean-American who was adopted by white parents and raised in Kentucky, agrees those measures could help students. But he also warns that Asian-American organizations need to be sensitive to newcomers, embracing them and not being judgmental. If they suggest that people are truly Korean only if they speak the language or know the culture, they can unwittingly alienate adoptees who grew up in white households, he said. That’s because Asian adoptees live in two worlds, he said.

Read the whole thing -- Hoffman discusses her personal struggle in forming a racial identity.

Last Day of Camp

Today was the last day of the Chinese Language/Culture Camp Zoe has been attending for the past 3 weeks. We were entertained with songs and dances and skits and a parade of Chinese costumes (the middle school/high school class got to show off Tang Dynasty, etc., royal costumes).

I was surprised at how much everyone learned in just three weeks. Our friend, L., who had not had ANY Chinese language instruction before camp knew all seven of the songs the group sang, can introduce herself, say her age and date of birth and Zodiac sign, describe the members of her family, give her nationality, say what foods she likes to eat, name body parts. . . . Pretty impressive! (L. is not pictured in the photo above, though. Her feelings got hurt because she was not in the group of top students who were awarded a certificate. It's a very Chinese thing, giving these awards without thinking about the kids who are left out. I really felt bad for her, and she wasn't consoled by all of our compliments of her hard work and bravery. It didn't help that Zoe and Syd got certificates. Sigh. Maya took L.'s place in the photo; she insisted on wearing her Chinese dress, and also dressed her American Girl doll in HER Chinese dress!)

Zoe gained a lot of confidence, and had a great time. Here she is telling me about her "All About Me" poster, which each child had to make.

An interesting point about Zoe's poster -- she wrote "I'm not an American, I am Chinese." Hmmmm.

I hope the federal funding continues for next year!

On Being Different

I threw this question, "How does it feel to be Chinese," at Maya after she sang me some Chinese songs. I was sort of expecting a noncommital "OK," instead of "Different."

Maya's preschool class was pretty diverse -- 13 kids in the class, with one African-American, one Hispanic, one Lebanese, one Chinese. And Maya realized she was the only Chinese. And that made her different.