[Quesita]

I've been reading this thread for ages, and kept wanting to jump in, but on a lot of levels I feel like I don't even have the vocabulary to start. Let me start out by saying that I live in a VERY diverse neighborhood. When I say very diverse, I mean that no ethnic or linguistic group represents 50% of the population. There is no majority. We are all minorities on the street. Spanish speakers make up the largest group, and range from fair skinned Colombians or Argentineans of European descent, to Central Americans of Mayan descent to Dominicans of African descent. The next largest group are South Asians, mostly from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. After that probably comes the East Asians, China, Korea, Thailand. After that it is a blur. Less than 20% of the population is "white, non-hispanic,"and a large percentage of people in that group are recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union, Turkey, Bosnia, Albania, etc. There are also people of Arab descent, (are Egyptians African Americans? ) immigrants from the Caribbean, the South Pacific, ummmm… and probably about everywhere you can imagine. 80% of the children speak a language other than English at home, according to the local school district.

When I first started considering adoption, I was fascinated by the mixed race babies (ummm… every combination of races you can imagine) being pushed in strollers down the street. And there are lots of them here in this community. I imagined that if I adopted a mixed race child with some caucasian ancestry, then everyone on the street (and teachers and other kids and strangers in the supermarket) would assume I was the birth mom. I liked that idea initially. But as time went on, I became drawn to Guatemala, then Ethiopia, and finally went back to Guatemala. Probably a child from either of those countries has no chance of being mistaken for my birth child. I thought about it a lot, and decided that it wasn’t really important. But that was my personal choice. In response to the original question, my answer is Yes! I think that being selective about race can be OK. If I had decided that it was important that a child look like s/he *could* be my birth child, that would have been OK!

But when you start talking about raising a child CC or AA or Hispanic, I really don’t even know what that means. In my neighborhood, someone with “black skin” (for lack of a better word) is more likely to dance merengue than hip hop, because they are probably from the Dominican Republic. Or they might be from Jamaica or Haiti, in which case they have a very different set of traditions and cultures. Should these recent immigrants (and children of international adoption are also immigrants) be exposed to AA’s who live in Harlem or Bushwick, whose grandparents came to NY from South Carolina? Ummm. Sure. Everybody should be exposed to everybody. Should they be encouraged to wear baggy pants so they fit in? Ummm. I don’t think so. Should they be made aware of the common history of slavery, and understand that all of their ancestors came to this hemisphere unwillingly, and then through a series of different events, the slavery ended, different problems occurred, and their ancestors developed cultures and traditions that were based on both their African ancestry and the culture of the communities in which they lived? I say absolutely! Should they learn about the history and culture and art of Africa? Should they be concerned about the situation in Darfur? I think EVERYONE should, as a responsible resident of planet earth!!!

So I am planning on adopting a girl from Guatemala. She will certainly be of Mayan ancestry. I will make sure that she speaks Spanish, which is ironically the language of the conquistadores, not the language of her native people, though she might have some Spanish ancestory as well. She will dance Merengue with Dominicans and Cumbia with Colombians and I hope she will learn some of those beautiful dances from India in which the women do such amazing things with their wrists and hands and eyes. I will be surprised but supportive if she becomes a weaver, (a great tradition among Guatemalan women), but I hope selfishly that she shares my interest in SCUBA diving and snorkeling.

She and I will travel a lot in the Mayan world, and visit the ruins of the great cities. When we look together at the stars, we will talk about how her ancestors studied the stars, and how they knew more about them than anyone else in the ancient world. I would be very excited if she became an astronaut. Or an astrophysicist. Either one would be an amazing tribute to her ancestry and culture, building upon the great Mayan tradition of studying the stars. But she might become an artist. Or a high school teacher. Or human rights worker. And I’ll love her and be awed at her accomplishments even if she becomes a Wall Street Broker

OK, I see I have started rambling. I do that.