[Devora]

Here is a very thought-provoking article from the Boston Globe by an international adoptee reflecting on the idea of cultural connections: Another Country, Not My Own


After reading it I had a few thoughts...

We do run the risk, if we go too far in emphasizing a very narrow sense of culture, of reinforcing the very stereotypes that so many people have worked to overcome. (If you read the passage in the article about idealizing native culture what I'm saying might make more sense -- it's hard to articulate without quoting the article and I know this forum has strict rules about quoting any copyrighted materials, even when the source is attributed -- so you'll have to read the article to see the point the author makes and that I'm responding to.) And we also run the risk of overlooking our children's actual experiences. Yes, my son is Latino living in the United States. But his Latino identity is integrally connected to his identity and experience as an internationally adopted child being raised by white parents. If I emphasize his Guatemalan roots at the expense of acknowledging his unique experience as an international adoptee then I may do more harm than good. Of course, there is the flip side, that when he goes out into the world without us, his parents, he is seen by outsiders simply as a Latino boy in the US. So he is the recipient of all the reactions that go with that part of his identity. So I do still need to do all I can to acknowledge and prepare him for racism and prejudice that will be directed at him as a Latino.

Later the author talks about how adoptive parents often romanticize their child's birth culture by emphasizing surface-level things and narrowing the scope of how they define "culture". For example, she quotes a researcher who found in her study that adoptive parents of Chinese children often prefer that their children have contact with recent Chinese immigrants rather than third-generation Chinese Americans because they see the immigrants as being more connected to "authentic" Chinese culture rather than to a Chinese-American culture. I've thought about this kind of thing quite a bit. It was reading Cheri Register's book Beyond Good Intentions that first got me to thinking about how it's easy to be enthusiastic about the surface level aspects of a child's birth culture -- food, dress, decorations, etc. But going deeper is much harder when you are an outsider to that culture. While I can expose my son to Guatemalan weavings, food, and some stories -- I can't make him think in ways that are common in Guatemala; I can't give him a Guatemalan world view that comes from a Guatemalan ethos.

This also made me think of a model of cultural competence in transracial adoption that has been developed by an adoption researcher (Vonk) that defines three aspects of cultural competence: racial awareness, multicultural planning, and survival skills. It's the "multicultural planning" that I mostly hear adoptive parents talking about -- learning native language or traditional dance, going to cultural festivals in the community, reading about the culture and history, etc. But that's only 1/3 of the equation. Pride in one's history/heritage is important, but by itself it's not enough to capture the "actual, complicated experience" (to use the phrase in this article).

They author calls for a "healthy middle ground". That resonates with me -- even as I realize it's not a ground that's easy to define; it may change as my son grows and has new experiences; and I can only find that middle ground by being very attentive to his experiences because my child is the one who will define where that ground lies, not me.

What do others think?

[mksilvermoon]

thanks for a great post Devora - i am also digesting this article and the challenge of finding other latino adults in a very white area of ireland ... and yes, we are prepared to move but it's a less ideal scenario than in other countries like the usa etc and thanks for the Vonk reference, it makes a lot of sense and i am now going to think about that too!

MK

[tooskis]

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

[blminter]

when i adopted my daughter, a friend who was born in Cuba but grew up in the states told me-she's american you know. and she may not want all the guatemalan culture.

i guess, that opened my eyes to be sensitive to what was important to my child. i will expose her to latino festivals and the spanish language-among other things.

i do believe, however, that her culture-as mentioned above- is a guatemalan born american, raised by a white mother. i believe the best culture i can offer her is to be able to connect with other children in this same life experience.

connecting with families that look like ours is my first priority. celebrating her country of birth will be our tradition, until and unless she asks me not to.

[Clare'sMom]

I had to laugh when I read this... it couldn't have been more timely in our house. It was a good article, a couple years ago I would have felt much diffrently about it then I do now...

We have tried very hard to keep "Guatemala" alive in our home for our children who came home as infants/toddlers. We have stressed the beauty and traditions that are heart felt and warm. We have told the stories of how much they were loved and how much they were cared for by everyone who touched their lives while they lived in Guatemala and waited for their family to bring them home....

Flip 180... We are now faced with trying to Forget Guatemala for our older daughters who have just arrived home. Their memories and experiences in the Guatemalan culture where anything but good they want to forget the pain and suffering and they just want to be plain old "American Girls" .......

How on earth will we get to a happy medium in our house.... I guess only time will tell.....

Ann

[Mommy K]

Thanks for haring the article!
It makes sense--balance is key, and the level of cultural immersion should be the individual childs preference. We introduced culture on the surface ( multicultural planning) when our older children were small, and it was up to them to decide wether or not this was enough.

While this may be not enough for some, it would be overkill for another. One of my teenage children loves reading about Guatemalan history and continues taking spanish class at school, whereas my other older child is not interested in bulding on this-this is his choice.
I look at it this way too, as if in most situations, people referred to my cultural ancestory, this would be very annoying, to the point of labeling.

For survival skills in regard to racism my children have been taught by us that narrow minded people who are afraid of differences will apply racist thinking and behavior to ALL races. Racism is not exclusive to any nationality. Archie Bunker is an example of this.
With this cognitive tool, my children are aware that it is the racist who has a problem.

[brink]

Excellent article. Thanks for leading us to it. I know it will vary for families, but I can certainly see her points. Our sons, in 7th and 9th grades came when they were 4yrs old. They have few recollections of Guatemala, except for photos and the friends we've kept in touch with through our agency. I do continue to push for going to the annual weekend, because most of the kids come from the same orphanage, and I want those connections there in case they want it in the future. Our daughters, 6th and 8th grades, came home at 10rs and 11yrs. One jumped right in learning the language, working hard to fit in, having no interest in keeping her Spanish. We're not bilingual, so it would have been hard to do much to retain it. She didn't want to listen to tapes or Spanish version videos, and would ignore people's efforts to get her to speak Spanish. Of course, when everyone is only saying "Hola", it gets tiring very fast! Our daughter who came home two yrs ago, the oldest to arrive home, was slower to learn the language, had more questions and recollections she shared about Guatemala. She also met her birth mom during the process (at the age of eight or nine). I think those ties have something to do with it, as none of the rest of them had that experience. But she also is embarrassed when someone tries to engage her in Spanish. We recently had visitors, friends from Mexico, and I had to remind her ahead of time that if they spoke some Spanish to her (they speak very good English), it would be polite to try to speak it with them. They didn't push it, as they saw she wasn't that interested in responding. I agree with the author that my kids would be embarrassed if I stressed too much their differences to their friends. Although I have been asked to talk to some of their classes, usually on how they became citizens when the class is talking about such things. They were fine with it, and each a little proud when their friends showed an interest in their lives, adoptions, birth country. But for the most part, our sons and first daughter are way into sports and friends and homework. And our second daughter is very interested in being more like her friends. I'm encouraged though, that she is finding more her own identity among them. It has less to do with her heritage than just becoming more confident about the decisions she can make for herself. I do think it's important to be proud of our children's country of birth, to let them know we feel good about it, as that's so much a part of who they are. But I agree that kids want to fit in and feel they belong in this culture and this country. I guess I'd hate to make a move to Guatemala (or any country) and constantly be reminded that I'm an American, that I don't really fit in because I wasn't born there. I've only lived in one foreign country, and that was only for three months in college when I lived in Austria. It was a temporary thing, of course, so I always felt like a tourist. But if I was making the move permanent, at some point, I would like to believe I could one day feel that I belonged to my new chosen country in more than just a tourist fashion. Hope that makes sense. We don't want our kids to grow up feeling like they're tourists and more "Guatemalan" than "American". I agree, that in our enthusiasm for our kids and wanting them to feel good about ourselves, that we tend to focus on the sights and sounds and colors, and wrestle with how we will one day explain the poverty that forces a birth mother to feel she has to place a child for their survival. And what about the serious issues in Guatemala? The Guatemala's civil war issues, "disappearings", labor and land issues involving large American fruit companies, etc? Even the very legitimate questions about the widespread corruption in the Guatemalan adoption process.Hard questions that one day our kids will be old enough to ask questions about. The author raises some good questions for each of us to consider, as we seek to find our own balance between embracing who our child is and how our child views themself.

[praying4rlittl1]

What a great article! Very thought provoking.

[GDSinPA]

I took a little something different from the article. Perhaps because I read some commentary over at Harlow's Monkey that expanded on some of this author's ideas.

I also gather (as some others have said) that some parents miss out on the concept that their children may have more in common with 2nd or 3rd generation citizens.

But, my main take a way is not just finding balance or being concerned about TOO MUCH cultural exposure, but finding the right kind and making it meaningful rather than superficial. Are you teaching your kid about Latin American culture, food, art, history? Or is someone with the similar ethnic background doing that. Are they going to the museum to see artifacts from Mayan civilization? Or are they also involved in activities and organizations with other people of color (including people in authority)? Are we the ones exposing our kids to the culture on our terms, or are we also giving them the tools and encouragement to seek out the parts of that culture that interest them the most?

Good article though - lots to think about.

Blessings,
-Greg

PS: Here's the Harlow's Monkey post...
Harlow's Monkey : Parents’ embrace of the ”home” culture can have its costs

[Devora]

finding the right kind and making it meaningful rather than superficial.

I agree -- that's what I was trying to get at in my comments about going deeper. In a conversation elsewhere another adoptive parent had a great analogy to the kinds of presentations in school that the author describes in the article where you just talk about traditional dress and foods --- This other mom said that's like if you gave a presentation on US culture and talked about cowboy hats and hotdogs. Reducing a rich, diverse, complex culture and history to Guatemalan weavings and chicken caldo is the same kind of thing.

Now, if with older children you really explore the history of Guatemalan weavings, how they are now part of Maya identity but the styles were originally imposed during the Spanish conquest, how village-specific dress was used during colonial times as a form of controlling indigenous movement, how in modern times it has become a proud part of Maya identity and the pan-Maya movement, the historical and social meanings of specific patterns, the connections between certain pattern and folklore, the reality that poor Mayas often have a single (or maybe two) outfits so they are made to be durable, gender roles related to production, etc.....then I think you have gone from the superficial to the meaningful. But that requires in-depth learning rather than simply admiring the beauty.

Lest anyone jump in with "but my child is too young to understand that stuff" --- I agree. But I think it's important that we as adults educate ourselves first. It will be years before I talk about this kind of thing with my son. But I need to know where we're headed so I can lay the foundation now. For example, we have the book My Pig Amarillo by Satomi Ichikawa. It's a lovely story about a boy and his pet pig that is set in Guatemala. For the most part and for a long time it was "just a story" that we read, although my son knew it was set in Guatemala. But as he got older he started to notice some things about how the house in the story looks different than ours and how there were animals wandering around the front yard. Because I know something about rural life in Guatemala I could start talking with him about those differences in an age-appropriate way. No, I didn't talk about dire poverty. But I could affirm his observations rather than dismiss them and slowly being to introduce the seeds of ideas that we will explore in more depth as he matures. It's a simple example, perhaps, but it's the kind of "thinking toward the future" that I personally think is important.

[DDAmasa]

Reading Brink's post made me think about my best friend and her family. My best friend is Vietnamese and came here when she was 11. She married an American and has two biological children and one daughter adopted from Vietnam. They're preteens/teens now. None of her children would learn Vietnamese despite her efforts. They couldn't be less interested in Vietnamese culture. She took all three of them to Vietnam a couple of years ago to meet her elderly grandparents. They didn't want to leave the hotel (which had a pool, gym, internet access etc). She forced them to see the country and she says they all but held their noses as they traveled around. She now uses Vietnam as a threat when they complain: "I'll give you a one way ticket to Vietnam and you can find you're own way back. Work in a rice paddy for a while if you think it's so bad here". She doesn't care they aren't interested in her birth country and the birth country of her younger daughter. To her, it's just a place far away where some of her relatives still live. She and her kids are American. She thinks she and her children are blessed to live here.

Another woman in my condo complex with two children from Russia say her children groan and leave the room when she brings up anything Russian. They just don't care. I also remember an interview with the son of one of ABC's staff doctors, Dr. Tim Johnson. The boy was adopted from the Phillipines (I think) but was asked what nationality he consider himself and he said Swedish-American. That's how he was raised and that's what he related to.

I think this may be pretty typical and it's the adoptive parents who feel obligated to somehow keep their children's birth culture alive when it's really has no relevance to their kid's lives and what's important to them. Although I'm sure there's a great deal of variation between kids. It seems like some parents feel obligated to teach their children to know more about Guatemalan culture and history than the average American teenager knows about the U.S. and probably the average Guatemalan knows about Guatemala. My son is only 3 1/2 so who knows how much or little interest he will show in learning about Guatemala. I'll follow his lead and support his choices. If he shows no interest, that's fine with me too. I'm not going to force him to learn Spanish or learn about Guatemala. Maybe he'll want to learn French or study Asian cultures.