adoptee

Parenting the “Other” Race Child

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As a parent, your world revolves around your children. As much as it’s the greatest job in the world, it’s also one of the most difficult.

Parents make many decisions on a daily basis that affect their children. Recently, a couple from Canada revealed their child’s gender after concealing it for five years. They raised him in a gender-neutral environment with hopes that in doing so, it would allow him to develop his own personality and be who he wants to be, regardless of societal expectations. They revealed their son’s gender because they felt it would be too difficult to conceal now that he is starting school.

Some of the decisions we make for our children have the potential to be life-changing, so we make our decisions carefully and with their best interests in mind, and hope for the best. My family lives in a large and very diverse city. My sons are Mexican and Korean. They are too young to fully understand what it means to be biracial, but my husband and I are doing our best to ensure that our sons know who they are and where they came from.

A few years ago, we found a great elementary school for our oldest son, and we were so excited for him to start this new chapter in his life. I completed the enrollment application and met with a staff person at the student placement center. She took my son and me to a room where we introduced ourselves and she looked over our application. She told me everything looked good, but I needed to change my answer to the race question, where I had checked the Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic boxes. She slid the application across the table towards me, and proceeded to nonchalantly tell me that I was allowed to only check one race for my son. I told her that he was an equal percentage of both races, and asked her how I was expected to choose one for him. She then proceeded to tell me, “If you don’t choose one, I’ll make the decision for you.” I must have had a completely panicked—or absolutely livid—look on my face, because she told me I could take some time to decide, and then took my son to a different room for school readiness testing.

I remember sitting at the tiny round table with the tiny human chairs—my mind racing about a mile a minute. My husband and I had spent 5 years raising a proud, biracial son, and with one flick of my pen, I was expected to change my son’s racial identity in the eyes of the school system. In doing so, it felt like I was telling my son that half of his identity didn’t matter. Not wanting to allow a complete stranger to make such an important decision for my son, I checked the “Asian” box. My oldest son looks very Asian, and my youngest son looks more Latino. So, I decided that I would check the box for each of my sons that corresponded with their outer appearances. When my youngest son started school, I checked the “Hispanic” box for him.

It’s incredibly difficult being a parent of biracial children and raising them to be proud of their uniqueness, when society refuses to acknowledge who they are as a whole. Because they don’t fit neatly into that box, they will always have to choose one, or check “Other”, when answering the race question. I worry about the implications of this, as they grow and shape their own understandings of their racial identity. Sadly, my sons know more about their Mexican culture than they ever will of their Korean culture.

Being biracial will also most likely affect the interactions my sons have with other Asians. We live in an area that is heavily populated with single-race Asian families. When we are out in public, which is fairly often, my family endures angry stares and whispers from other Asians. I am a disgrace—an outcast—to the Asian community because I married outside of my race. I don’t know my language or culture of origin, which further drives the wedge between my family and the Asian community. We have experienced some of this with the Latino community, but they have been a lot more accepting of our biracial family.

Right now, my sons are completely oblivious to the stares and the whispers, but I know there will come a time when they will begin to realize what is happening. We won’t always be able to protect them from any potential backlash, but we will work hard to arm them with the tools to cope with being different in the eyes of people who look just like them.

Race does matter. My sons have a right to be proud of both of their races, but society and their school system tell them otherwise. The very institution that teaches my sons about race, culture, and diversity is the same institution that tells my biracial sons that they are only allowed to honor one of their races. Imagine a hospital telling a new mother of twins that she can only choose one to bring home with her. Imagine that hospital worker telling her that if she can’t decide, the decision will be made for her. I realize this is an extreme example, but the feeling of heartbreak you feel when imagining such a situation is the very feeling a parent of a biracial child feels when they are told their child is only allowed to identify as one race. It’s hurtful and potentially very damaging, and it needs to change.

We, as a society, have come a long way in terms of racial and cultural competence, but we have so much more to learn.

Loss

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When I think about the first two years of my life, I envision a deep, dark abyss—a sea of nothingness. There will always be a void in my life…one which no amount of love will ever be able to fill. That void—that feeling that something is missing—is part of being an adoptee.

There are seven core issues in adoption: Loss, Rejection, Guilt/Shame, Grief, Identity, Intimacy & Relationships, Control/Gains (Silverstein & Roszia, 1982). Each member of the adoption triad (adoptee, birth parent & adoptive parent) experiences these seven core issues differently. My being abandoned by my birth parents was the ultimate form of loss in my life. At the age when most children are experiencing the overwhelming sense of love parents have for their children, I was abandoned and left in a subway station. While I don’t remember anything from my life in Korea, I can only imagine how traumatic that experience must have been. Being pulled from the only life I had ever known and thrust into a world full of strangers, taught me from a very early age that people can’t be trusted, and that people who love me will leave me.

My adoptive family is amazing. Growing up, no conversation ended without an “I love you.” There wasn’t a night where I went to bed without hearing those three words. We hugged often, and my siblings and I never wanted for anything. As with most adoptees, my brain has always been wired a little differently, due to the losses I experienced early in life. No matter how often my parents told me they loved me, the fear and the feelings of doubt were always there. My birth parents loved me, but they let me go. What if I do something wrong? Will my adoptive parents let me go, too?

For me, the fear of abandonment developed into a perfectionist child mentality. I worked hard to be a good daughter. I worked hard to do well in school. I worked hard to be everything I thought my adoptive parents wanted me to be because I had convinced myself that if I was good enough—if I tried hard enough—then they wouldn’t abandon me, too. Nothing my adoptive parents did caused me to feel this way, but the mindset instilled in me at a very young age that people who love you will leave you, became an integral part of my childhood and teen years.

As a mother, my feelings of loss now involve my children and the things I will never be able to pass on to them. I mourn the loss of not being able to pass my Korean culture onto them and cope with the knowledge that I will need to depend on strangers to help teach my children about who they are. I feel guilty about the blank pages in their medical records where their maternal family medical history should be. I know these things are beyond my control, but the fact that they will always be missing those pieces of the puzzle because of me, can be somewhat overwhelming.

The losses I experienced will always be a part of me, and they’ll, unfortunately, have an impact on my children, as well. No amount of love or reassurance will be able to fill the void of those losses, but the love and support I received, and continue to receive, from my adoptive parents mean the world to me, and helped shape the person I am today. I will be forever thankful for every hug, for every “I love you”, and for every time they showed me they weren’t going anywhere.

Transracial Adoption: It’s Not Easy Being Green, But You Can Make It Easier for Your Child

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I am a Korean adoptee who was adopted at the age of 2. My dad is a 2nd generation Italian and my mom is German. My older sister is Korean, and my younger brother is a blond-haired, blue-eyed, perfect combination of my parents. I cannot tell you how many times my parents were asked if my sister and I were foreign exchange students!

I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood, and attended school where I was one of a handful of minority students. My sister was beautiful, outgoing, intelligent, and popular. I, on the other hand, was incredibly awkward and introverted as a child, and I was teased a lot for being different.

My parents were proud of us, and they taught us to be proud of who we were and where we came from. It was no secret that my sister and I were adopted, and my parents did as well as they could with the resources they had at the time to make sure we didn’t lose a sense of our culture. When we were adopted, my parents gave us American first names, and used our Korean surnames as our middle names. They sent us to Korean culture camp and they cooked Korean meals for us.

When I was younger, I actually found it easier to be proud of my Korean culture. At times, I kind of liked being different than my peers and I was proud to have a story that was different than everyone else’s. As I grew older, and struggled more and more to fit in, I found myself wanting to look like everyone else. In high school, I often received invitations to join the multicultural club, and I always ignored them. At that point, I actually considered myself to be Caucasian. Kermit the Frog hit the nail on the head when he sang, “It’s Not Easy Being Green”. I knew what it felt like to be considered as different, and I wanted no part of it.

In college, I started to make an effort to get involved with Asian groups, but quickly found that because I didn’t know my language of origin, I was never going to be accepted by them. Apparently, I wasn’t Asian enough to belong. When I met and married my husband, who is Mexican, and had two children with him, I inadvertently drove a bigger wedge between myself and the Asian community by marrying outside of my race.

As a parent of two biracial children, I find it so incredibly important to attempt to create and cultivate ties between my children and their cultural communities. Due to my own experiences, we have been very lax in getting our children involved with the Asian community, but they are very involved with the Latino community. My husband is fluent in Spanish, and I can speak enough to get by, so we both speak some Spanish with the boys at home. We make Mexican food, and we take the boys to posadas, quinceañeras, and Cinco de Mayo celebrations

Food is a big part of our lives, so we use it as a vehicle to introduce our children to different cultures. In their short lives, they have experienced food from countries like India, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Turkey, Greece, Korea, Mexico, and Italy!

As a transracial adoptee, and now as a transracial parent, I cannot stress enough the importance of instilling a sense of pride in your child’s culture not only within your child, but also within your family. When possible, reach out to families who share your child’s race and culture. If they speak a different language, ask them to teach you different words and phrases. Learn how to cook dishes from your child’s culture and introduce them to your family. Learning things about your child’s culture of origin along with your child is an incredibly powerful experience. As a transracial parent, it is important to constantly be open to learning new things about your child’s race and culture of origin. Arming your child with the knowledge of who he is and where he comes from will be an invaluable tool for him as he grows and shapes his identity.

Things

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I wrote this piece a while ago, but thought it would make a great first blog post.

My husband and I are currently in the process of swapping rooms around in our house. Of course, with moving things around, comes the process of going through and throwing things away. My husband is very much a “thrower” and I am very much a “saver”. I am also an adoptee.

As I was watching my husband toss handfuls of things into the garbage without blinking an eye, I could literally feel my heart breaking. When he was finished, I quietly went through the bags and boxes piece by piece and rescued the items that meant something to me. My husband understood and left me to do what I needed to do to get through this process.

After I had gone through everything, we had a conversation about it. He told me that he wasn’t a sentimental person and never had the same attachment to things that I always have. I told him that adoptees view “things” differently than those who haven’t had that experience.

I was left abandoned in a subway station in Korea when I was one. I was left with absolutely no identifying information–no name, no birthdate…nothing. I was adopted at age two, and all I have of my life in Korea are “things”. I have no memories of the life I lived before I came to America.

I told my husband that I have a greater attachment to “things” because of those earlier losses I experienced in life. These things include baby items, some papers, pictures, and other items that have memories attached to them. I reminded him that his mom has his things from when he was a baby. I have nothing from when I was a baby. I hold very dear the “things” from when my sons were babies. They may never mean much to them, but they are incredibly important to me and they will always be here should my sons ever want to keep them or pass them along to their own children someday.

I was mulling over the events from this weekend, and I realized how important it might be to share this experience with foster, adoptive and kinship parents.

When you are getting ready to move or when you are tired of the clutter and are in the mood to throw things away, please be sure to give your adopted or foster child time to process the change and go through their belongings. It might take longer than you’d like for this to happen. If it means putting things into boxes and storing them in the garage or attic until your son or daughter is ready to go through them, then make this accommodation for them. Never spring something like this on your child and expect him or her to get over it and make it happen within a day or an hour. Getting rid of things can be a painful process for anyone, and even moreso for a foster or adopted child.

Please remember that the items you view as just “things” might mean the world to your child.