cross cultural adoption - a whole new world

8/6/2019 Cross Cultural Adoption - A Whole New World

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A Whole New World

By Jocelyn Dong

Growing number of parents who've adopted children from

China seek to give not just family, home and love -- but

culture and language too.

Alexis Hamilton and her then 18-month-old daughter Lia were playing in

the Junior Museum and Zoo some years ago when a little girl walked up.

The girl looked quizzically at mother and daughter.

"Your baby has Chinese eyes," the 4-year-old said to Hamilton.

She peered some more and added, "You don't have Chinese eyes."

Hamilton, who was taken aback for a minute, responded by explaining thatLia had been adopted from China.

That scene, or one similar, no doubt rings a bell with hundreds of families in

the Bay Area. That's because more and more singles and couples -- like

Hamilton and her husband, Donald Green -- have adopted children from

China in the past decade.

They are riding a wave that began in the early 1990s and has yet to crest.

Last year, nearly 6,900 Chinese children were adopted into American

families -- more than any previous year.

The phenomenon stems in part from policy changes in China that suddenly

opened up new opportunities for adoptive families, as well as a growing

acceptance of diversity and interracial families in some parts of the United

States.

International adoption in the Bay Area, said one local adoption

professional, has become almost mainstream.

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"It's changed dramatically. More and more people are doing it. It's become

an accepted part of the culture," said Andrea Stawicke, executive director

of Bay Area Adoption Services in Mountain View.

But for all the joys adoptive parenting can bring, the trend has also

produced its own set of challenges, chief among them the question of how

parents of one culture go about raising children born of another culture.

And when that country is China, and the children are of a different race,

what responsibilities do parents have for maintaining their children's

connections to the birth country?

Ask Los Altos Hills residents Amy Shantz, 10, and sister Amanda, 8,

about their ethnic identity and they will say they're Chinese American.

"I was born in China, and my mom and dad are American," Amy

explained.In 2001, one out of every four internationally adopted children in the

United States was born in China, the leading country for foreign adoptions.

It's a far cry from a decade earlier, when China allowed just 61 adoptions

to the United States. An adoption law in 1992 opened up the country,

however -- a natural outgrowth of China's population-control policy that

resulted in more children being born than the Chinese government allowed

families to keep.

Local numbers mirror the national trend. Bay Area Adoption Services, one

of about a dozen Bay Area agencies handling international adoptions, hasplaced 500 Chinese orphans in local homes since 1991.

It's not just the availability of children that has spurred this adoption trend,

but also an increased willingness of American families to consider

international adoption as well as domestic.

Some say a climate of growing diversity makes the option more feasible --

interracial families are more accepted than they used to be. Others point to

the waiting period for China -- up to 20 months -- as sometimes more

favorable than a domestic adoption.

Some would-be parents admit to a fear that birth mothers in the United

States will change their minds and want to keep their children -- and be

supported by the courts in that quest.

Still others cite an affinity for another culture, and their willingness to make

it a part of their lives.

China has also been a viable choice for single parents. At one point during




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the last decade, one-third of the children were being adopted by single

mothers and fathers, according to the group Families with Children from

China.

The current influx of Chinese orphans into the United States isn't the

country's first experience with raising Asian children. An earlier generation

of Asian adoptees, now adults, came over after the Korean War.

But the approach of today's parents differs markedly from that of a

generation ago.

Nancy Ng, a board member of the Palo Alto adoption-support group

Families Adopting in Response (FAIR), has studied the lives of Korean

adoptees.

"It was different in those days. There was a strong sense of 'rescue' in

adoption in those times (and) much less emphasis on preserving the culturein the kids' lives after adoption," Ng said. "There was kind of a belief that,

if you love kids enough, everything would be fine. They'd come and be

Americans, and they would be fine. The mindset was, they'll become one

of us."

However, research on the adopted Korean children, and writings by

adoptees themselves, have revealed that growing up as the only Asian

children in their families -- and sometimes hometowns -- was a far greater

challenge than people expected.

"Many of us considered ourselves white trapped in Asian bodies," wrote

one Korean adoptee in a 1999 study conducted by the Evan B.

Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York.

The survey of 170 adoptees revealed many felt confused over their

identities. Growing up, more than a third considered themselves white,

rather than Korean/Asian, American, or Korean American. By adulthood,

the numbers had reversed, with most viewing themselves as Korean/Asian

or Korean American -- although 11 percent still thought of themselves as

white.

The study also revealed the majority had sought out ways as adults to learn

about their heritage, from joining Korean organizations to studying the

language.

Some Korean adoptees have written of their anger about their upbringing,

expressing feelings of isolation and alienation. Others took a more

circumspect approach, weighing the benefits and drawbacks of growing up

in the United States versus South Korea.




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Their experiences led professionals and families to take a hard look at the

role of cultural identity in fostering a resilient sense of self.

"As adoption support groups grew and parents talked to each other, there

was an increasing awareness of the need to honor the birth country and

raise them with knowledge of their birth culture," Ng said.

Although Korean and Chinese cultures are not the same, adoptions from

both countries share things in common, Ng said. Most notably, the kids are

"readily identified as not being part of the adoptive family" when they're

adopted by Caucasians.

Armed with this knowledge, parents of Chinese adoptees have taken a

zealous new approach to raising their children.

Support groups have sprung up, through which parents exchange ideas and

share information. One group, called Families with Children from China,

counts more than 3,000 families as members and has chapters throughout

the country, including one covering the south bay and Peninsula.

In Palo Alto, the nonprofit Parents' Place, run by Jewish Family and

Children's Services, hosts a weekly playgroup for adopted children as a

way for their parents to connect.

As a result of services like these, adoptive mothers and fathers have

become advocates for a new philosophy of cultural celebration, in spite of

their own monochromatic upbringings. Hamilton, who recalled her

childhood as "a world where everyone was white and lived in their ownenclaves based on minute differences," is a firm believer that racial identity

matters.

Race, she said, "is fundamental to who you are. (For a parent) to deny that

is to undermine the relationship in some way."

Similarly, Amanda and Amy Shantz's mother, Jo Simon, grew up on a

dairy farm in West Virginia -- a vastly different world from the multicultural

Bay Area.

She espouses the advice that a social worker once gave: Recognize racial

differences, rather than sweeping them under the rug, and create a home

environment that values the culture from which her children were born.

With tambourines jangling and wood sticks plonking, second graders at the

International School of the Peninsula practiced their music lesson on a

recent Thursday morning. It sounded much like any elementary school in

Palo Alto, save for one difference: When the students sang, and their

teacher gave directions, it was all in Mandarin Chinese.




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The International School, where Amanda, Amy and a handful of other

Chinese adopted children are enrolled, runs a Chinese immersion program

that teaches prekindergarteners through eighth-graders the Mandarin

dialect and Chinese culture and arts, along with standard elementary and

middle-school curriculum.

Established in 1996, the Chinese program is Silicon Valley's oldest

Mandarin immersion program and complements the school's Frenchimmersion program, which began in 1979.

The youngest students learn in an environment where Mandarin is spoken

80 percent of the time, and English 20 percent. In elementary school, kids

speak and listen to Mandarin half the time. By middle school, the Mandarin

percentage drops to 30, as other subjects fill of the curriculum.

Simon has been pleased with her girls' progress, noting that they easily

switch between English and Mandarin depending on the person to whom

they're talking.

The girls call Chinese one of their favorites activities at school. Amy

modestly said of her own Chinese proficiency: "It's not bad, but not

perfect."

Parents say learning the Chinese language gives their children tools to

discover their identity.

"There's some thoughts you can (only) express in Chinese," Hamilton said.

She's sending her adopted daughters to an immersion school in MountainView to help them "to feel who they are and give them the language to

express who they are."

Simon believes the immersion program is equipping her girls to understand

not just their heritage, but their identity as adopted children too.

"It's been a good decision on lots of levels," she said. They'll "have what

they need as they grow up to deal with the fact they've been adopted into a

different culture and different nation."

Enrolling their children in immersion schools is not the extent of adoptive

parents' efforts to cultivate connections to China -- not by a long shot.

Enterprising parents have also started bilingual playgroups, led by Chinese

preschool teachers. They've taken family vacations to China, brought

Mandarin-speaking babysitters into their lives and bought foreign-language

books, tapes and videos to play at home.

Jo Simon and Jon Shantz even gave their girls Chinese names: Amy's --




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Shen Ren An -- means "peaceful," while Amanda's -- Shen Ren Yi --

means "benevolence."

"The Chinese adopters are somewhat different than the people who

adopted even 15 years ago," said Nancy Ng, of FAIR. "They're more

culturally aware as a group. They have greater resources. ... There are a

lot of opportunities."

Parents have also learned what works and what doesn't through trial and

error. When Amy was 4, Simon accompanied her to weekly Chinese

school, which met Friday night and Saturday. It's the type of education

Chinese immigrant families have been sending their children to for years.

But Simon, and other adoptive parents, invariably found that venue didn't

give their kids enough exposure to the language, especially because none

of the parents could reinforce the language by speaking it at home.

The adults interviewed for this story called their Chinese skills passable atbest; some even said wryly that their kids asked them not to try.

As convinced as some adoptive parents are of the rightness of giving their

kids a cultural foundation, not all follow in the same path. A discussion on

the Internet forum Adopt.com last year ago yielded vastly differing

opinions on the value of cultivating an internationally adopted child's sense

of heritage. Some people encouraged it while others called cultural classes

"overkill."

In a way, this most recent trend is still a social experiment, because themost recent generation of children has yet to mature. As in any educational

effort, the children themselves are a factor in the results.

As dedicated as some parents are in their quest to give their adopted

children culture and language, there are kids -- just as there were some

Korean adoptees -- who aren't that interested in their heritage.

Terry Roberts, a single mom in Palo Alto, said the cultural issue "has been

an ongoing challenge" for adopted 9-year-old daughter Carmen.

"My philosophy was: 'Stuff in as much Chinese when she's young and able

to absorb it,'" said Roberts, who studied Mandarin herself.

Like other girls, Carmen attended Chinese playgroups and private bilingual

preschool. After a few years, however, Roberts transferred Carmen to a

local public elementary school, partly because of Carmen's preferences

and partly for financial reasons.

Now Carmen attends a weekly after-school Chinese cultural class, which

Roberts said her dau hter has "been lobb in to uit."




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But Roberts is steadfast.

"She always has to do something (cultural). It could be dance or art. From

everything I hear, there's so much pressure in elementary and middle

school to conform and not be different, but later on she's going to need to

have culture and Chinese language. It just has to be there."

The whole bicultural life has even had some unintended consequences,such as in Alexis Hamilton's family. She plans on sending her youngest

daughter, Eliza, to Chinese school. Only thing is, Eliza is her biological

child, born after older sisters Lia and Kialin were adopted.

"We chose to be a global family. As a family, we have to move as a unit,"

said Hamilton, who also serves on the board of Palo Alto Chinese

Education, a group advocating for a Chinese immersion program in the

public school district.

She believes Eliza will benefit from learning Chinese, citing the research onthe benefits of bilingual education.

Recently, Hamilton's oldest daughter, Lia, now 9, was asked to translate a

discussion between two parents at her school -- one spoke only English

and the other only Mandarin. Lia passed with flying colors.

"The reality is, adoptive parenting is satisfying and wonderful and different,"

Hamilton said proudly. "Especially when it's interracial."

Originally printed in the Palo Alto Weekly.

Reprinted with permission of the Jocelyn Dong, author, and Palo Alto

Weekly www.PaloAltoOnline.com

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