Heritage
Someone asked about how to figure out how much heritage to include.
I think this is going to be a little different for every family.
My biggest goals are to make my daughter feel good about who she is. All of her – her female’ness, her American’ness, her Chinese’ness, and anything else she wants to identify as. I want her to have a good self image, and a good sense of identity.
I also want her to feel comfortable in a room full of Asians. It seems that a large percentage of adult Korean adoptees do not feel comfortable in a room full of Koreans. And this is very painful for them to deal with.
But, at the same time I don’t want to just do “token” heritage things. I think the FCC gatherings are good opportunities for our kids to meet other kids who were adopted, but I don’t think they really teach about heritage. I think they teach the American version of Chinese culture.
Which means you really need to find a Chinese organization and become active in it. And that may mean that we will need to step outside of our own comfort zones. But it also means that our girls will grow up with the experience of being in a room full of Chinese people. Something most of the current adult Korean adoptees did not have the opportunity to do.
Many of the adult Korean adoptees grew up and had an identity crisis and had to give themselves a crash course in Korean culture. The food was alien to them. The clothing was not familiar. They had no idea about the holidays or any of the history. Many of them felt that they couldn’t know who they were until they knew where they came from. But figuring that out as an adult was not easy.
I want to put more into my daughter’s life than food and festivals and language. I just haven’t figured out how to do it without making it an issue.
So, for now we do food and festivals and language. And we have fun with it. We started doing the Chinese holiday celebrations before she was old enough to realize what they were. This gave us plenty of time to practice them and get our traditions down. Now celebrating the Chinese holidays is part of our traditions, just another holiday.
This is a really complex subject, and I will keep coming back to it. I’m still working through some of it, and it helps to talk out loud about it, to work through my own thoughts. I’m aware that it’s going to be a balance – putting enough in to give her a foundation, but not so much she feels alienated.
April 21st, 2006 at 11:27 pm
Am I wrong for just wanting to raise my Chinese-born child as an American? America is a melting pot, right? My ancestors come from Ireland, and Poland, yet I do not feel the need or desire to have to feel comfortable in a room full of them. Will I raise my Chinese daughter any differently than I am raising my biological child? I struggle with this…I want my child to be confident and secure and love herself for who she is–an American with Chinese ancestry, who also celebrates Christmas AND Chanukkah!! Whew! Now there’s an identity crisis just waiting to happen! LOL!
April 22nd, 2006 at 7:27 am
NO Sassy – you aren’t wrong. My daughter is an American who happened to have been born in China.
That being said. You and I, of European ancestry, pretty much look like everyone else. We never needed to define ourselves based on our race, because our race is the majority race.
It’s easy to find writings of adult adoptees who are still working through some of their issues. Some of it is hard for us to read, but I think we should anyway. And we should read it with an open mind and try not to be too defensive when we read it, as well.
Even Toby Dawson, probably one of the most well adjusted adult adoptees who is vocal about it, talks about how glad he is that his parents pretty much forced him to go to culture camp. He didn’t pay much attention at the time because he hated it, but now he is a volunteer and he pays lots of attention because it’s stuff he wants to know.
Every single adult adoptee I’ve read or talked to is either glad they were exposed to their culture or bitter that they were not. I’ve never found anyone who was bitter that they were (except for a few people who were just paraded around in costumes and fed some food but never taught anything else – and they regret that they were never taught the real stuff).
Of course, how you go about it is important. The ones who grew up with their house or room decorated like their country are pretty sarcastic about that… so don’t decorated your child’s room in a Chinese theme. We have some of the things we bought in China displayed in our home, but our home is not decorated in an Asian theme.
Anyway, in the end, I want her to feel good about herself. All of my research tells me that when she is a young adult she’ll need to have a good foundation of what it means to “be Chinese” in order for that to happen. I hope I can help with that. But I will always stress that first she is an American.
April 22nd, 2006 at 3:21 pm
hey RQ,
I agree with what you’ve said based on the reading I’ve done. Just curious if you have a list of recommended reading or particular favorites on this subject?
thanks
April 22nd, 2006 at 4:47 pm
I think this is a wonderful and thoughtful post.
I wonder about FCC programs, and if they are enough. I haven’t been to one yet since I’m just starting the quest for daughter number 1, but I like your idea of finding other means of bring your daughters in contact with Chinese people who aren’t adopted daughters.
I’ve thought about churches and Buddhist groups. We live near a few colleges and perhaps I can find an Asian Student group that gets involved in mentoring adoptees.
April 24th, 2006 at 3:21 am
I’ve seen some documentaries from others adopted from Korea, as well as have two brothers adopted from Korea. There are two sides of the spectrum. One side is to give the child too much culture…Then that alienates you as the parent because you are not Chinese, and all of her activities that are of importance would be dealing with being Chinese. The other end would be to not do any, and try to make your daughter into someone she is not, thus alienating her from her roots, and possibly from you. DH has concluded that there is a third culture…that being Chinese adopted by Americans. This is in a class of its own. Im not sure yet what fits into that category, and as long as you are searching you will do fine in finding it.
April 24th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
Yes Karen, I’m trying to find a balance – that’s the whole thing. I don’t want to do so much that it makes her feel alienated, and yet I know I need to do enough to give her a strong sense of self – and a good self identity.
The other thing is that we do everything as a family, we don’t send her off for “heritage” stuff, anything we do, we all do.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:28 am
I am struggling with this very issue right now. The comments are coming from outsiders. We have a Chinese language school and dance that my daughter can attend this fall once a week. The school is run by Chinese people who teach culture, ect. Friends that have no clue about adoption are saying that my child as she gets older won’t want to be different, but will want to be like everyone else. They think I am creating a weirdo child by exposing her to her culture and that she will turn out strange! They think I need to raise her as an American only and have her fit in with everyone else. My child is still very young, so I have plenty of time to decide about sending her to this school. Many adoptees and non-adoptees attend this school.
PS. I don’t have my house decorated Asian, but I do love the culture and I LOVE Asian decor. :) I am also extremely interested in attending this school as well (adults can too) and learning Mandarin.
July 3rd, 2006 at 4:39 am
Beth your friends are not raising your child and will not be there when the questions come. I am not telling you to join the class .. although I would love to have the option myself.. I am just advising you to make up your own mind based on your own research. Good luck
September 6th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Avonlea–We live in a small town that has a university. There are about 30 Chinese students here (why did they choose such a small town?). One of these students, a sweet young lady is helping us learn some Mandarin while we help her learn what an American family is like. We met her through a family whose son is on one of our sons’ soccer team–the parents are from Shanghai and they know the Chinese people in town. I am so thankful that we met our Chinese friend. She considers our children (two bio boys, one adopted Guizhou beauty) as her little siblings and has them call her Jie Jie (big sister). That is too sweet and too sad all at the same time, as she is an only child. She used to be baffled by this quest for another child, but she loves our noisy bunch and I hope she is able to have more than one child when she goes home (I really wish she would want to stay here, but I know that would really hurt her parents).
I guess I am telling you to talk to any Chinese folks you know (even in the restaurants) once you have your daughter home and ask if any of them would consider giving you lessons in Chinese (Mandarin or Cantonese), or know any one else who might be interested.
Beth–What a fortunate place you are in–to have a school that is available to you. We don’t have anything like that here. My thoughts to you are this: If you are able to afford the school, and feel like it would be a blessing to your child, then go for it! Who cares what others think, when you are the momma and responsible for your child–no one else. I would love to have that available here (but then, I wouldn’t have met our sweet friend).
Rumor Queen–thank you for this blog! We brought our daughter home a year ago. I am constantly learning more about her, adoption issues, and China. Thanks for the information on your blog.