[Devora]

Connections to Extended Family
I noted Cheri's comments about the lack of connections to extended family, but I think that is a bit more of a family-specific issue. By that, I mean that it sounds like SHE wasn't all that connected with her extended family so I'm not sure that if she had biological children they would have been all that connected anyway.

However, I think she also got at the point that your child's connections can be affected by how your relates to them. We are blessed to have family who are thrilled about our choice to adopt (perhaps after 11 years of marriage they didn't care how we had kids!). But I think this is a good example of how a potential issue with extended family can take on a different feeling for an adopted child. A biological child may not feel connected, but just accept that as the way their family is. An adopted child may think it's because they're adopted.

Moving
I really appreciated Cheri's reflections on how she did not move to a more diverse neighborhood, but in retrospect thinks it would have been better if she had. I also like how she didn't make it be like you have to move to some big city, but it may just be a matter of what neighborhood you live in. My husband and I are (unfortunately) about to do a national job search and this is definitely one of our main considerations in choosing where we move to. But it's not just a matter of how large the local Hispanic community is. For me it's also a matter of what the climate is like for the community -- is there a lot of blatant racism and segregation? or is the local Hispanic community respected on the whole and integrated as an important part of the larger community?