Remember when I said that it’s a good idea to read books written by domestically adopted white adoptees who were raised by white families as well as the books written by adults who were transracially adopted? My reason for this suggestion is that if you only read books written by transracial adoptees then everything can get all lumped together, but by reading a book where the only thing being dealt with is an individual’s adoption issues, then suddenly you understand the layers of things our kids will likely grapple with at some point in their life.

One of those layers is, of course, race issues: Being raised in a place where they are not the majority, and trying to learn how to “be Asian” without having Asian parents as role models to show them how it is done. Figuring out their identity, how much they identify as Chinese and how much they identify as American (and for some, trying to stop identifying as white once they are no longer around their parents enough to be seen as white-by-association). And perhaps most of all, dealing with issues of prejudice and teasing and stereotypes in their everyday lives without having a parental role model to show them how it is done.

I remember seeing someone post a long time ago that before she adopted her son she heard someone say “White people have the luxury of thinking that race doesn’t matter”, and she got incredibly defensive and even a bit angry at the statement. Race, she said, only matters if you give it importance, it only matters if you want it to matter… it only matters if you dwell on the differences instead of the fact that we are all humans. But then a few years after she adopted her son she completely agreed with the original statement and realized that her arguments had been made from a position of ignorance. Now that she’s witnessed the mostly subtle with a few not-so-subtle instances of racism her young AA son has had to deal with, she realizes that she did have the luxury of thinking race doesn’t matter. But as the mother of a black child, she no longer has that luxury.

Today I’m going to focus on a site that points more to the race stuff than it does to the adoption stuff. Not all of these articles were written by adult adoptees, but the ones that were not are well written by people who seem to still be qualified to have the necessary understanding in order to be able to…. oh wow, what a sentence that was going to be. Let’s just say their life circumstances have given them the perspective needed to be able to write about the subject matter. And since the subject today is more about race than adoption, I think it’s okay they aren’t all adult adoptees.

Ain’t No Shame in Saying That I’m Asian
A very well written story by an adult adoptee, giving us a small taste of one woman’s journey to feeling comfortable being Asian while growing up in a very white community. We don’t get the whole story, of course, but she gives some insights as to how she felt at a few points in her life.

Is Privilege Offensive?
This one isn’t written by an adult adoptee, but it is written by an adult Asian woman and I felt it should be included today. We could spend an entire week talking about White Privilege and probably not do as good of a job breaking it down as I think this author does. Too often White Privilege turns into White Guilt, but if you are responsible with your Privilege then perhaps you can leave the Guilt behind.

10 Do’s and Don’ts for transracially adoptive parents
This one is not hard to read. It’s not full of anger or resentment, it starts out talking about the TV show Different Strokes and ends up with the list of 10 Do’s and Don’ts. This is another not written by an Adult Adoptee, but written by a bi-racial mother who is raising children not of her racial background.

Foster children – white kids in a black home
This one doesn’t come directly from AntiRacistParent.com, but I got to it from an article I read there, and since that article just pointed to this article without talking about it I decided to point directly to it, too. I’m mainly pointing to this article for those families who have bio children and who will be adopting children of another race. This article gives the perspective of the black kids learning about some white children who spent what sounds like a fairly long period of time living in their house as foster children. It doesn’t get to any deep issues, but it gives a perspective that I think can be educational for parents who are adopting kids of a different race than the kids already in the home. (If the link won’t work for you then copy and paste the URL into your browser: http://asktheblacks.com/?p=60 )

Race is Not a Four Letter Word
Let’s bring things to a more practical matter: Talking to our kids about race, helping them deal with matters of racism and prejudice. We can’t do that if we don’t acknowledge it exists, can we? This author (an adult Korean adoptee) starts out with what I believe is an unfortunate analogy of letting our child learn to cross the street by experience instead of us teaching them… but once you get beyond that analogy, the rest of the article speaks a bit more rationally. I understand where she was trying to go with the analogy, but it didn’t really work for me. So, if it doesn’t work for you either then just get beyond that and start with the paragraph that begins with the sentence “Of course it’s ridiculous to think that any parent would ever send their child out into a street without any kind of preparation” (see, she thinks the first part of the article was ridiculous, too). She states later on that if we don’t talk to our kids about race and how to handle prejudice and discrimination, if we leave them to figure it out on their own, then they will get the idea that this is “…their burden to carry, their problem to deal with by themselves and their responsibility to make the best of it, alone and as quietly as possible“. I’m sure that none of us want our kids to feel that way. But I also have to admit that I don’t feel fully qualified to teach my children how to deal with racism, being that it’s something I’ve never personally had to deal with (or, not until I adopted them, anyway). GG and I have talked about it, and we’ve role played a little, but I am aware that this is one area that my parenting is not where it should be. I’ve done the best I can to give her self confidence in who she is, and to arm her with things to say in response if she feels a response is necessary, and I found a good school that also has good diversity. At this point, while I’m sure it isn’t enough, it will have to do. I think that to do more than I’ve already done runs the risk of going overboard, of making it too big of an issue. But I’m going on instinct with that, not experience, so of course I’m second guessing myself. For now, if she brings it up then we talk about it, or if we watch something on TV or read a book that brings it up, then we talk about it. I’ve got it out there enough that she knows it’s not something she has to keep from me, and I think that’s probably as good as it is going to get at this point in time.

And finally, I’ll point you to a free ebook in pdf form:
How to Be an Anti-Racist Parent: Real-Life Parents Share Real-Life Tips

 
 
 
Writings of Adult Adoptees Series
1. The Writings of Adult Adoptees – Tai Dong Huai
2. Adult Adoptee Book Recommendations
3. Adult Adoptee Articles from InformedAdoption.com
4. Adult Adoptee Writings from Anti Racist Parent

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 12:06 pm and is filed under Adult Adoptees. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.