Find A Local Ethiopian Adoption Group

Not to dis the internet, but my recent little crisis has reminded me how important face-to-face relationships and discussions are - both for families in the process a for the kids, themselves. For all the worry I've had over children feeling comfortable being an Ethiopian adoptee in America, it seems that these meetings, where the look, feelings and experiences of fellow adoptees can be discussed in a natural, unguarded way feels like the best first step in engendering open dialog and positive self-esteem.

I posted before about the inspiring story of Nancy Meyer & her group in Chicago.

Lately, on the Yahoo! boards, some folks have been wondering how to start/join a group in their area.

That's why I'm grateful to Brian (dad of 3), fellow "SoCal Potlucker", mix-master supreme behind the awesome blog ON THE FLY and man of science for compiling pan-American information about local adoption groups (and letting me re-post it):

We went to a potluck with families from our Southern California Ethiopian adoption group last weekend. Being the family that lives the farthest south, we often end up traveling the furthest to the event, but every time we attend one, I'm reminded how important it is to go. It's good for the parents to be able to talk to other families and it's good for the potential parents waiting for a referral so they can ask questions of people who've "been there; done that." Our kids are often the oldest ones there and they're not quite at the point of talking with their peers about adoption issues, but they're building friendships that will be helpful for those issues in the future. And of course its nice to (re)connect with people who's blogs you read on the internet (Blaine, Julie, and Kevin, was there anyone else that didn't out themselves to me?)

So where do you find a local group? Here's a good start:

Connecticut
Rhode Island
Boston
Midatlantic: MD, VA, WVA, D.C., PA, NJ, and DE areaNew York City
loosely-defined northeastern states (New England, NY, NJ, PA etc.)
Illinois
Arizona
Northern California (SF bay area
Southern California

If none of these are near where you live, you can check the Frappr map and see if anyone lives near you (add yourself while you're there) or post a message on the big group asking if others live near you. That's how our group formed with 5 or 6 families.

If I missed any groups, please add them in the comments. If you've got a blog about Ethiopian adoption, feel free to link to and/or post this list to your blog.

Thank's, Brian!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program

My wife and I are grateful beyond words for the generosity of everyone who posted. Some of you we know, some we know only online, some we don't know at all. Everyone has really helped put us securely back on the path of adoption.

Here's the ingredients of the breakdown:

My parents came to town and gave a very rosey portrait of their relationship with my sister (she was adopted at 13 mos. in a closed adoption in the mid-70's). This is VERY unusual, as there has been discord between my mother and my sister since she was a preteen, which deepened into real open hostility when she was 15 through 27. She moved closer to my folks because she needed financial help, and there's been a restoration of some sort of relationship. Still, they both play massive head games and every conversation I have turns into a "he-said, she-said". So when I heard everything was good, I was hopeful. I have not spoken to my sister at length about our decision to adopt. She happened to call during this visit and I talked to her, only to learn that she has formed a very close relationship with her birth mother and views my parents as not her parents (detailed in last post), good only for financial support. While I am very happy that she's reunited with her birth mother, I am uncomfortable with the way that she is lying to/using/manipulating my parents. I am not absolving my parents, as they did everything wrong, in terms of attempting to make her a "natural" daughter by denying her her history. Add to that the fact that much of the information they DID claim to "know" about her past is being disputed by the birth mother. I personally think EVERYONE involved is lying and trying to make themselves look good. Still, it's been pretty heartbreaking to be in the middle of what should be a happy and hopeful journey towards adoption and yet be in the middle of this ready-for-Jerry Springer drama, in which you are informed that your family was not "real" and was "abusive", and that the birth family is "real".

Only in that moment did I begin to understand what it must be like (on all sides) for an international adoptee to feel that he or she would rather have grown up an orphan in his or her native country than be adopted.

At the same time, my wife's mother, who is, frankly, a really amazing person, had a breakdown in her support. She's afraid of us traveling (we entered into the adoption with the intention of escorting, but have become convinced of the necessity of traveling). This spun out into an expression of many, many doubts and fears -- some legitimate, but many the kind of uneducated fears fostered by the mainstream media's shallow and sensationalistic coverage of adoption in general and international adoption in particular. It's important that I make it clear that none of this was based on race, but rather issues about bonding, corruption, mental illness and health history and the ethics of adoption agencies.

My wife is incredibly close to her mom and, even though my wife could argue against most of her mother's fears, the emotional toll of worrying her was very great. It eroded her confidence in the decision. More importantly, I think it made her feel that by pressing forward, she would be betraying her mom on some level. Add to that the fact that we have very little-to-no family or family support. She's the only person we have locally, and knowing that she's not supportive weighs on us.

The two events tapped into all of the reading we've done about first world "baby buying" and adult adoptee resentment, creating a perfect storm of doubt. We almost emailed our agency and told them that we were done.

So, that's the backstory. Now, thanks to your kindness, we've rediscovered our initial enthusiasm.

Here's what helped:

Brian (dad to 3) said...
Then again, many parent/child relationships are strained and many times it's the parents' fault, so I figure I have quite a bit of control over them not hating me and it's far from "nothing more than a gamble".

A woman from our agency, who's also the mother of many adoptees, some who've reached adulthood, and a few who are Ethiopian, said much the same thing -- that the method of parenting adoptive children has evolved tremendously in the last 30 years. Either through their own selfishness or through the legitimate fact that adoption was treated differently at the time, my parents basically made all the "wrong" choices in parenting my sister... and got a predictable result. You, this adoptive mother and others have pointed out that, while no guarantee, more enlightened, less selfish, more honest parenting can help make adoption seem more normal.

Jon said...

You may have already stumbled upon this, but here's a great blog written by an adoptive mom of two korean born children.

www.thirdmom.blogspot.com


I do read her often. Thank you for pointing out her most recent posts.


-Samantha- said...

Wow, what happened my friend? To tell you the truth, it seems to me that you think way too much. You are overanalizing everything... For all you know, your adopted child will become the one you are most compatible with...who knows.

Certainly, it has not been blood that has fostered my best relationships. To be honest, I am somewhat envious of many of the people in the ET adoption community who blog about their close relationships with family. I have an incredibly perfunctory relationship with my blood relatives. There's every possibility that the same deep connection I have with my best friends could also be forged between me and my daughter -- let's hope so!

Anonymous said...

I have felt very similar to what you wrote about, I have been on the other side of being the adopted child and "hating" my adoptive father at the time, now we have a really good relationship, and he is dear to me.
-Emmelia
www.corban7@wordpress.com

I know that becoming an individual is the point of childhood, and a natural part of that is a pulling away from the parents. I fully expect all my kids to go through a period where they pull away and reject. I think what freaks me out about my sister is that she's in her early thirties and has 3 kids of her own. It's nice to hear that not all rifts are permanent.


Anonymous said...

I've noticed that many of the adult adoptees (domestic) are in closed situations, or come from really abusive families. I feel more readily able to dismiss those situations as being too out of the norm to be relevant background for my situation. However, I think we have a lot to learn from the stories if we can sift through the anger (get ready for a wild ride). We have as much to learn from international adoptess who are coming of age.

So, the bigger question for me is: what can we learn and do differenly based on their experiences. I've got a long way to go on my learning curve, but so far I've decided:

1) I need to do more work integrating culture into my children's lives...more openness and communication will be necessary. It's going to be WORK, lots of work for me. I may have to move to a different neighborhood, go to a different church, find new physicians, and definitely surround my family with people "like" my kids.

2) Adoption reform, especially for domestic adoption, is needed.

3) Socioeconomic reform is desperately needed on a global scale. Read "The End of Povery" if you disagree. Such reform could result in a huge reduction in the availability of children for international adoption. Sucks for me personally, but I would get up on a table and shout 'hallelujah' if I knew that fewer people in the world were dying from lack of access to clean water or basic medication, that more families could afford to raise their children.


All of the above, I feel, is dead on. As most readers know, I've recommended THE END OF POVERTY highly a few times. It was a transformative book for me, paving the way to choosing Ethiopia over other programs -- long before we seriously considered adoption.

I try to incorporate economic justice into this blog as much as possible without having it overwhelm the focus on adoption, itself.

Anonymous continues, saying:

One of the biggest "catch 22" issues for me is that many Ethiopian children are not "orphans" by my standards: they have families, often families they know, who could and would want to raise them if those families had the cash OR in some circumstances if AIDS (b/c of death of one or both parents) wasn't such a social stigma. How do I reconcile that my children have living relatives who love them, but because of a long history of social, economic and political development, CAN'T raise them. So, then I fly halfway around the world to take them out of the only life they know and raise them as my own? And I know this is true because I get the chance to meet these relatives before I leave the country and give them a nifty map of where we'll be (as if they'll ever get to visit) and a generic photo of our "family"?


This weighs on me as well. I think I entered the process thinking of "orphans", and coming to understand that most are relinquished. In my posts about birthmothers, I've discussed how this has thrown me for a loop.

I read once that for some adoptees, the trauma of adoption is distinct from the event of getting a new family. In other words, adoption does not cause relinquishment. The relinquishment and trauma would occur anyway.

It's important, I think, to run a check on the idea that you are "saving" anyone. I feel that having selfish motives -- WANTING a daughter, ENJOYING Ethiopian culture, in my case, actually HELPS motivate me to do the RIGHT THING by my daughter and keep her culture and heritage alive.

As for "orphanage vs. family" and the disruption to culture and language...

Umm 'Skandar said...

What is the greater loss, to lose one's country, language, and culture? Or to have no family? It seems that right way to balance anger adult adoptee question is to seek out adults who lived their whole life in an orphanage. What can they add to this conversation?

I agree -- does anyone know if orphans have ever gone on record??

Carrie said...

My friend, I know exactly were you are in your adoption journey right now. The fear that you feel is real and you have real reasons to be afraid. Adoption, like everything in life, comes with no guarantees. You may adopt a child who has very real issues with being adopted or you may adopt a child who has none. Have you read “In Their Own Voices” by Rita Simmons? I found it to be a very realistic look at how transracially adopted children feel about their adoption and being raised in a white family. Many of these children had to deal with issues stemming from their adoption, but most still felt close to their adoptive parents. The people who had the most issues with their adoptive parents seemed to be the ones where there was “other”
issues with the child/parent relationship besides adoption e.g., abuse, neglect, poor communication.

I have not read this book yet, but was aware of it. I'll have to order it.

This post heartened me because the idea that adoption is a complication in an otherwise dysfunctional parent/child relationship applied to my parents and sister's relationship. Many of their parenting choices didn't have great results for either my sister or me -- but with adoption adding an extra wrinkle, her problems with them are more pronounced than mine. Once again, hopefully more selfless parenting can lead to a more healthy, respectful relationship all around.

Cathy and Abebech said similar things...

cathy said...

You wouldn't be a good parent if you didn't wrestle with these questions.

abebech said...

These are great responses. Please do check out thirdmom's blog, and my own post in response.
I am pro-adoption reform, pro-open records, do believe that children are best served by being raised in healthy families of origin, yet I feel very passionately that we did the right thing by our daughter, and will do so again by another child BECAUSE we've considered all these angles, listened to those very important voices, gave it all serious consideration and decided as we did. I also realize that doesn't mean she'll think we did the right thing when she's old enough to decide. But she'll know we did what we believed was the best thing, with our hearts full of love for her. Isn't that what most parents do?

A surprisingly cogent and effective argument. Also used by our African-American social worker, when I pestered her with questions during our home study. I may actually start believing it!

For those not in the know, Abebech is A NEW FLOWER BLOOMS. I have blogged about her awesomeness before.

jen said...
One thing I have considered, along with a lot of what has already been said here is that our children will grow up in a very different world than the adopted children coming of age. There are gazillions of books for us parents to read, there are studies that show what worked and what didn't, there are many more adoption communities and support groups, there are even more inter-racial relationships (marriages, adoptions, etc.) than twenty years ago. That's not to say that we have come so far that we don't need to work HARD, but it is to say that our children will have a different background than the children who are adult adoptees now.


Julie said...

I think the anger many adult adoptees have is a result of a line of thinking their parents' generation had toward international adoption (and adoption in general). Adoptive parents did not try (for the most part) to include their children's culture and did not address the issue of race. Some adoptees were even made to feel grateful for being "rescued" by their parents. Of course these are all generalizations, but awareness of the importance of one's birth culture and race are things that we as adoptive parents are only now starting to deal with in a healthy and constructive way. My thought (and hope) is the newest generation of adoptees will not be as angry as some of the current adult adoptees.

My wife and I attended a gathering of other adoptive families this past weekend. It was really amazing. It felt so natural, and the families were all really wonderful. I think these resources and the increasing awareness of adoption will help kids feel more "normal".

I must also say that part of my wife and my reason for continuing is all of you. We've met some of the most engaged, open, honest, decent people within this adoption community. People who are engaged in the world, people who are fighting for economic justice and racial equality. People who's relationship with God is about love and community, not division or oppression. People willing to admit to fears, mistakes and insecurities.

It may sound strange, but we figure such people can't be involved in something wrong, or something damaging to kids.

So, we're soldiering on, waiting for our referral. I'll continue to blog about race and culture and adoption, in hopes that such an education can making me a better parent -- and that by being such a parent, I really can tip the scales of fate in my (and my adopted child's) favor.

Confused, Need Help

HEEEEEELLLLLLPPPP!

For people who have OLDER ADOPTED KIDS and for ADULT ADOPTEES... I'm having real problems coming to grips with the idea of adoption -- how does an adopted person integrate her adopted family with her birth family. Does an adopted person ever get over that dissonance of coming from somewhere else -- and in this case another culture (which the child will, on some level, lose) and another race (which the child, on some level, will feel alienated from)and a birth mother a half-a-globe away, more imagined to her than real.

I've gotten so far into the experience of adult adoptees who feel "completed" by their birthfamily (some who are still on good terms with the adopted family, most who are not), that I'm beginning to feel that adoption is nothing more than a gamble.

I have a tremendous capacity to love an adopted child as my own. I have energy to do my best to compensate for not being raised Ethiopian, or even in an African-American family. I have energy to try to help, in my small way, to make Ethiopia better.

What I do not have the capacity for is to have the relationship with an adult child that I see many adult adoptees and their families having. I am so freaked about it that I feel it may be better not to "risk" the "experiment" of adoption at all.

I'm starting to side with the anti-adoption crowd. Their arguements are really starting to make sense. I'm even questioning the desire to have a third child by any means -- my wife and my unwillingness to play genetic roulette by getting pregnant over 35 was a major factor in chosing adoption in the first place.

Am I chicken? Am I having cold feet? Do I have a statistically skewed view of adoption? Or am I just being honest that I don't want to risk endangering my marriage and my bio kids' lives for a potentially bad outcome?

Birthmothers

You know what a broken heart looks like? Like a sobbing teenager in a hospital bed giving a two-day-old infant she knows she can't take care of to a couple she hopes can.

Orphans. The word is thrown around alot in cases of International Adoption. On those long walks in the summer with my family when all this first came up, I was comfortable with orphans. Who couldn't appreciate giving an orphan a home?

Then, while on the boards, people kept making references to "traveling south", once in Ethiopia, to meet the "family" - overtaxed aunts and uncles?

No, the poster made clear that she was in contact with the birthmother. Initially, I rebelled (in my mind) -- "Wait! Whoa, hold the phone, nobody said anything about birthmothers!"

Since that moment, I have worked on educating myself about open adoption, trying to visualize explaining it to a child, weaving it into our lives.

Much of my fear comes from the fallout from my sister's closed adoption, her birthmother's return and then her birthmother abandoning the relationship. In our case, the birthmother was a destabilizing influence, to say the least.

That's why Dan Savage's essay, LIVING WITH A VERY OPEN ADOPTION really spoke to me.

It provoked me to visualize a moment I intellectually comprehend happens, but on which I dared not dwell:

I was thirty-three years old when we adopted DJ, and I thought I knew what a broken heart was, how it felt, what it looked like. I didn't know anything. You know what a broken heart looks like? Like a sobbing teenager in a hospital bed giving a two-day-old infant she knows she can't take care of to a couple she hopes can.

I won't be there for that part. We will get a referral picture. Maybe, if she shows up, we will meet the mother months later. That doesn't mean that a moment such as the one described above didn't happen. It's just uncomfortable (or, maybe, emotionally crippling) to think about.

Dan continues:

Ask a couple hoping to tadopt what they want most in the world and they'll tell you there's only one thing on earth they want: a baby, a healthy baby. But many couples want something more: They want their child's biologincal parents to disappear. THey want their child's viological mothe rand father to be forever absent so there will never be any question about who their child's "real" parents are.

In my darker, less proud moments, I admit to this. I was shocked that Dan Savage put it in an essay in an actual book. (He goes on to explain that he never felt this way and wanted an open adoption).

Then, in other moments, I would find myself agreeing with the anti-adoption folks, that maybe the whole idea of adoption is wrong on the face of it -- cruel and confusing to the kid, robbing them of a sense of culture and history and family. Better to stay in Ethiopia.

I guess, at some point, I grew up. After long talks, my wife and I started discussing about ways to keep the birthmother "in the family". My wife would talk about feeling a connection "as a mother" to this woman -- knowing what it feels like to be pregnant and experience birth...

Um, no, I didn't get it. Intellectually, I was all about discussing it, but emotionally -- nada. My "heart" wasn't guiding me. My heart was shrunk back in my chest cavity hiding from the whole thing.

Then, I wrote that review for Bob Shacochis' essay, KEEPING IT ALL IN THE FAMILY. As I recall, my review reflected my initial feeling: "basically useless to me".

Well, yesterday, I found myself ruminating on it, for no particular reason, when, suddenly, my heart spoke up: "What if, for whatever reason, you were tapped to take care of your niece, like Bob was? How would that be? More importantly, how would you treat your sister in such an instance?"

Suddenly, it came to me, a gloss on the "Golden Rule" that made sense to me intellectually AND emotionally: The birthmother will become family. TREAT HER THE WAY YOU'D TREAT YOUR SISTER. TREAT YOUR ADOPTED CHILD THE WAY YOU WOULD TREAT YOUR NIECE, IF YOU HAD LEGAL CUSTODY. Instantly, everything became clear. I would never not "parent" her. I'd be the parental role model. I'd teach right from wrong, exert my "parental authority", or whatever, but I'd never try to create a fantasy that my sister didn't exist. I wouldn't fail to acknowledge her role in my neice's life, or try to quell the unique bond they would share. I would never try to deny her importance to my child's identity in a misguided attempt to make her feel "normal", "the same as the bio kids", "part of the family" or "ours". She WILL be "ours"... and she won't be. She will also be the daughter of a man and woman in Ethiopia... and that makes THEM part of our family, too -- to be treated with the same respect and decency as a sister or brother.

Community

Why reach out on the internet, if not to be part of a community? Statistically small, and spread out across the country though we may be, we all share a unique perspective. For months, my family and I found strength and comfort, information and provocative thoughts within our virtual community.

A morning or evening ritual has become "checking in" on blogs and boards. When contemplating my own blog and how I could add something of value to the community, the first thought was to make my daily surfing habit available and accessible to everyone:

THE BIGGEST ETHIOPIAN ADOPTION BLOGROLL ON THE INTERNET!

Other new features include:

SWERLFEEDS!

Every "Ethiopian Adoption Blog", "Other African Adoption Blog" and "Parent(s) Who've Adopted Transracially Blog" that has a feed has been subscribed to and is now a CLICK AWAY.

This saves you from having to subscribe to this list yourself! Make it YOUR morning/evening routine.

SWERLALERTS!

This is basically an "e-mailing" list -- for timely alerts, like "Hey, this person of interest is going to be on TV in a few hours" or for important site information. It will be used VERY SPARINGLY.

AMAZON STORE

This is a focused place for recommended books and products of interest to families like us, including books for adults and kids about adoption and race, products for co-sleeping and multicultural toys and gifts.

Our community has tremendous untapped economic, social and political power. Not conventional politics, where I'm sure everyone differs wildly, but specific to trying to uplift humanitarian efforts and stop easily treatable infectious diseases in Africa, eliminate racism domestically and support transracial families. For example, if I donate or buy something off the internet, I always try to go through a blog I like.

One question as I go forward is: "how much advocacy (for the above topics) do I include?" And, what causes? I've been working on two other link categories -- responsible shopping and non-profits. Literally, the list is endless and impossible to vet. Feedback is welcome.

After all, we're a community, so let's discuss!

A Family Affair

No Small Feat posted some interesting thoughts about public reaction to transracial international adoption. Check it out!

Through the Computer, a Connection

I stumbled across this today and was touched:

I think sometimes, when we are caught up in becoming a family, we can unintentionally separate our children's birthplace from our children... This new development -- finding someone intimately connected with their birthplace, someone who understands firsthand the situation there -- well, it's pretty intense.

Read the post at Holding Still: internet magic.

What I Learned from Harlow's Monkey

Like many husbands, I was the reticent one, when it came to adoption. Unlike most, my reticence came from only one concern -- that I wouldn't be up to the task. That after a wonderful childhood, I'd encounter a daughter who felt unprepared to be African-American, but wasn't accepted as white, and would be doomed to be forever alienated by both cultures. And it would be my fault -- for "sins" of commission, adopting her in the first place and "sins" of omission -- not giving her the tools she needed to explore her African-American identity, her "blackness", as it were.

Having been very close to some transracial adopted kids myself, some of whom had issues, some of whom didn't, I wanted to do more research before initiating the process.

I searched for any kind of study of adult transracial adoptees, and immediately came across The Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute's The Gathering of the First Generation of Adult Korean Adoptees: Adoptees' Perceptions of International Adoption by Madelyn Freundlich and Joy Kim Lieberthal.

Check it all out. It is fascinating. For me, it also validated my concerns (how's that for a nice way of putting "scared the hell out of me"?). I wasn't SURPRISED, as I said in my first post, I keenly understand racism at work in our world. But I'm not the victim, my daughter will be. Here's the pertinent part:

Experiences with Discrimination

The majority of respondents reported that they had experienced some form of discrimination while they were growing up. Race (70%) was cited more often as the basis for discrimination than was adoption (28%). A number of adoptees provided comments in response to the question, "If you felt any type of discrimination as you were growing up, are there any thoughts you would like to share about that experience?" The comments reflected a range of experiences. A few adoptees stated that they did not experience discrimination ["I feel like an oddball who grew up without experiencing any discrimination"]. Others recounted experiences with discrimination that they described as mild ["I didn't feel injured or threatened because it was infrequent or fairly mild;" "The only thing that bothered me was that a lot of people asked me if [or assumed] I was Chinese or Japanese;" "The discrimination was mainly the minor kinds of teasing that many children experience because of their peculiarities. Mine happened to be because I was Asian"]; as persistent ["It wasn't blatant -- just the everyday little things (ridicule, stares, comments, assumptions) which accumulated over a lifetime simply wore you down;" "Very sad memories of the constant teasing of my ethnicity, more frequent in elementary school but more intense in high school"]; or as severe ["It was very humiliating, degrading and painful"]. Some adoptees highlighted certain factors as most central to the discrimination they felt:

• Adoption: "I grew up in a small, predominantly Caucasian middle-class town where adoption seemed, to me, to be unacceptable because it was "un-natural" -- children, more so than adults, were more unaccepting and, at times, cruel;"
  
• Race: "Unfortunately, my parents were not particularly open-minded in the area of race despite having adopted two non-white children. They made racist comments to us about Koreans as well as other non-whites;" "The racism I experienced was enhanced because I felt like the people I most closely associated with . . . turned on me;"
  
• Stereotyping: "I had to be smart because I am Asian;" "Any discrimination I felt was because I was Korean and overweight. I didn't fit the 'tiny' Asian role;" "People tend to think you are really intelligent and a stereotypical nerd. I was discriminated against by Asians because I didn't speak my native tongue and discriminated against by Caucasians because of how I looked;"
  
• Gender: "Any discrimination I experienced was related to being female, not race or adoption;"
  
• A combination of gender and race: "It was mostly internalized attitudes towards gender and race combined that helped to foster [in me] an internal conflict between an assertive intellectual and a passive, shy Asian girl;" and
  
• Physical appearance: "The pointing out of physical differences made me think I was ugly;" "Being called 'greasy haired' and 'chink' was hurtful;" "Because I am Amerasian, I was not Korean enough and not Caucasian enough;" "Growing up in a small white community, I was a 'novelty' but very few people associated with me;" "I wanted to be like [everyone else]. Instead, I was always catching attention [both positive and negative] for being different."

Adoptees described different responses to discrimination. Some stated that experiences with discrimination did not significantly affect them because of inner strength or that these experiences made them stronger:

• "Those rare times [in which I experienced discrimination] did not affect my esteem or confidence because by that time I already had much pride in my heritage and a strong foundation of worth. My parents told me, instilled in me, to empathize with these children because they must have felt badly about themselves in order to have antagonized others."
  
• "I learned early on not to obsess over things that I could not change. I couldn't necessarily change how others saw me, but I could change how I saw others and myself."
  
• "I feel the discrimination I endured when I was younger made me stronger. It made me see me for who I was and not how people viewed me. I learned to see myself as special."
  
• "I think it made me stronger and more secure in my identity."

Other adoptees reported a negative impact from their experiences with discrimination:

• "[It] taught me to deny my Korean part."
  
• "The teasing and discrimination by other children made me deny and hate my Korean heritage."
  
• "The experiences of being picked on and singled out due to my Korean heritage made me want to hide my differences in order to 'fit in.'"
  
• "The persecution affected my personality -- [I became] introverted, unhappy, and hostile."
  
• "When I was younger, I tended to head off discrimination at the pass by poking fun at myself. Therefore, many of my friends felt it was okay to call me names such as 'squint eyes' or 'chink face' because I allowed it, even laughed about it."

Thoroughly freaked out, I hit the Transracial Adoptee blogs. I, evidently, am not alone in this, as almost everywhere I turned, I heard a variation on the complaint, "This blog is for me and my fellow Transracial Adoptees, and it's getting ruined by overly-sensitive adoptive parents, or ready-to-adopt parents, flaming my comment board." Ouch. (Twice the Rice, another great blog, candidly disclaims that she "doesn't do advice".)

Having not flamed, but understanding the anxiety that would lead to defensiveness, that would, in turn, lead to flaming, I tried to find some middle ground (for the Buddhists in the crowd, the "middle path") between doing it badly and not doing it at all.

I came across Harlow's Monkey, an unflinching but thoughtful blog, written by a Korean Adoptee and social worker. My earliest posts, in a large part, were my "answers" to hers, my reflections on how her language impacted my thought process. The best thing that I can say is that she is smart enough and informed enough to channel emotions which adoptive parents often view as open hostility into lucid, well written, but intellectually and emotionally uncompromising views from the transracial adoptee's POV. Our childrens' POV (or possible POV). Most importantly, she is not someone who opposes international transracial adoption out of hand. She points to that middle path. So I tried figuring out how to encapsulate her world-view. Luckily, she just did it herself, deep in her recent post:

If I could rule the process myself, I would have a few additional requirements for adoptive parents who wish to adopt transracially or transculturally - including proof that they had actively worked on investigating their own whiteness and that they have the ability to educate themselves and act as allies in the issues and concerns of communities of color. Because just loving and being "open" to a child of another race or culture is NOT ENOUGH. And just hoping that as a parent, one would be able to help them with racial "self-esteem" is NOT ENOUGH. Adoptive parents must be part of a larger movement of anti-racist work. If as a white adoptive parent, you can not picture yourself working within the political movement of your child's race or culture, then I believe you must take a hard look at why that is.

This goes way, way beyond issues of whether you can love your child, or parent them if they have "special needs" or even whether you live in a diverse neighborhood or read books to them about their culture or take them to culture camps. This is about realizing that your little one is a member of a group of people with a long history of struggle at the hands of whiteness and you, as a member of that oppressive group, must be willing and able to step up and actively work towards dismantling those very structures. This means you will be risking your own membership in the elite group of whiteness; others who are part of the dominant structure will begin to challenge you, call you a traitor and try to bring you down. It won't be easy. You may even risk losing friends and family who won't agree or understand.

In the White Racial Identity work by Helms* and Carter**, they point out that many white people who become actively involved in dismantling racism face a stage where they have to learn to give up their membership in the dominant white reference group and yet accept they will not be accepted as members of a community of color - having to exist being "betwixt and between." If adoptive parents can understand this, they might begin to understand the "betwixt and between" that their transracially adopted children will deal with in their lives.

This is tough work. My advice for pre-adoptive parents who think I am being unreasonable in suggesting they engage themselves in active anti-racist work? They should reconsider whether they are really about the child or their own needs. Nobody ever said that this work was going to be comfortable or easy.

My conclusion is that we are going to be DIFFERENT. We will not be WHITE families. We won't even be "Multi-Cultural" families, since, as I stated in a previous post, our kids don't have the leverage to introduce their own culture into the family. We are swirled (or "swerled" in my Google-friendly parlance). It is OUR JOB to make the families Multi-Cultural, and that means leaving our "white" selves behind and embrace a culture, tastes, expression and history of another race and another culture, even though we will never be able to embody that culture. In other words, we must make sure that our household offers a MIXED experience, even though we, ourselves are NOT.

In order to hopefully make our homes more of a comfort zone for our children, we need to venture far out of our own. If we are asking our kids to be different, we need to do the same.

Swerl POV: Angelina Jolie

Show of hands, folks -- how many of you have gotten ANY form of the "Brad and Angelina" jokes? You tell family and friends of your news -- you got a referral, you got your homestudy approved, etc., and the response is "Better hurry before Angelina takes all the cute ones!" or "Didn't you hear? Ethiopia is soooo yesterday, Vietnam is where it's at!"

Now that Angelina has brought home Pax, international transracial adoption is once again bracing for another round of ANGELINA: LOVE HER OR HATE HER. Currently, she is the public face of our extended "ITA" family -- how does that make you feel? (This is not rhetorical, seriously, COMMENT!)

How do you feel when international adoption is reduced to the following (all culled from the comment section of TMZ.com:

She collects kids like lap dogs or an "accessory". This month's accessory of the month is a Vietnamese kids. Next month, it will be a Laotian kid. Pretty soon she'll open up her own orphanage for her adopted kids taken care of by "nannies".

"That kid over there would go good with my Vera Wang outfit!"

And, most directly:

HOW BOUT ADOPTING FROM THE COUNTRY YOU LIVE IN, HELLLLOOOO AMERICAN CHILDREN ARE JUST AS NEGLECTED AS VIETNAME (sic) OR NAMIBIA OR F***ING CAMBODIA! IT SEEMS LIKE THIS B**** "BUYS" BABIES LIKE ITS A F***ING FAD...

And there it is... FAD. After soul-searching, agonizing decisions and a commitment to a very visible, potentially difficult lifestyle, this irreversible choice to add to your family through international, transracial adoption is being reduced to the most ephemeral media hype.

A complicated, emotional topic is reduced to a referendum on a celebrity. News, in the 24 hour cycle, gets turned into opinion, then drama -- "why not adopt from America?" "what is she trying to prove with her multicultural kids?" "who's the next celebrity to jump on board the 'trend'?" We are then either compared to, or asked to answer for, a woman we don't know -- sometimes by those in our families, communities, churches or schools.

One explanation is that there IS NO FAD. Angelina grew up with a narcissistic, often absent father. She acted out in showy, self-destructive ways, then, while filming a movie in Cambodia, realized that life exists beyond the Beverly Center Mall. She felt pulled to adopt a Cambodian child. Her husband at the time wasn't on board with this idea, and the marriage dissolved over this issue. She felt the need to do humanitarian work, to honor all those kids still in orphanages or refugee camps. A combination of that work and the realization that she had more love to give caused her to adopt more children. She met a guy. They fell in love. They had a baby. She does not feel a difference between her biological child and her adopted children. In fact, when pressed, she admits that the contrary is true -- her adopted children have been in her life longer, so, in some ways, she feels a stronger connection to them. She once again feels capable and willing to adopt, and would also like her oldest child to have a male playmate with whom he can relate. She adopts again. She keeps it quiet until the last moment. She gives money to the orphanage that helped raise her new son.

EVERY person who adopts internationally can relate to elements of this story. Is Angelina perfect? Who is? Does she mean well? Who cares? Did she bend rules? She said she didn't, but we all know how harrowing the process is, and everyone, to some extent, pads their case (who actually lives up the their portrayal in the letters of recommendation, for instance?) Finally, we know OUR OWN motivations. This is why it is so hurtful when, through the prism of Angelina, international transracial adoption is portrayed as...

...buying babies

...treating children as ego-stroking accessories

..."collecting" foreign children

...less valid than pregnancy

...a gross attempt to play "martyr" or "saint"

...insensitive to or rejecting of American kids in foster care

...a profound, life-altering decision(life-altering for us AND our children) made with all the thought that one would give a haircut (does it make me look "cool"?).

How does the media coverage of Angelina affect you?

Black Children, White Parents

I must admit that I do now have some concerns about the capacity of a large number of these [WHITE] adoptive parents to help their [African-American] children learn to deal effectively with the problems that will most probably arise as a result of being black in America.

This article was originally posted on NEW YORK HOME STUDY

White Parents - Black Children
by Miriam Vieni

For more information, contact
Miriam Vieni, New York Home Study Service at miriamvieni@optonline.net
Many years ago, I wrote an article which appeared in Social Work, defending transracial adoption as a solution for homeless black children. I was writing in response to an article by a black sociologist who was highly critical of the practice of placing black children with white adoptive parents.

I still believe that a black child, placed with loving white adoptive parents, is better off than he or she would be in an institution or a foster home, even if the foster parents are black. I also believe that the potential success of a foster home must be judged on an individual basis rather than on the basis of race alone.

However, our family has been through several changes since I wrote that article and in addition, I have a good deal more contact with white couples in the N.Y. metropolitan area who have either already adopted black children, or who are contemplating such an adoption. I must admit that I do now have some concerns about the capacity of a large number of these adoptive parents to help their children learn to deal effectively with the problems that will most probably arise as a result of being black in America. There is no doubt in my mind that the white parents of black children whom I have met, very much love their children and will therefore be able to help them develop a basic sense of worth and identity. They will guide their children toward the fulfullment of their individual potentialities.

The problem is that this is not enough. The family must act as the primary agent of socialization, helping its members to absorb the surrounding culture and providing role models so that children can learn to behave in socially constructive ways. Helping a black child to become a complete human being is a very difficult job because our society (1) arbitrarily defines certain individuals as black (2) segregates such individuals into a separate caste and (3) makes unreasonable and often conflicting demands on them. It becomes the function of the parents to make the basic racial insanity of white society explicit to the black child so that he does not internalize destructive values.

One of the issues which seems to cause tremendous difficulty for white adoptive parents is the definition of their children as black. Social agencies, which prefer to place light skinned or “interracial” children with white couples, often add to the problem. White adoptive parents, often, have not begun to think actively about racial issues or determine what their feelings about race are, until the black child is already in their home and the world outside the home has started to send confusing, unpleasant or absolutely negative messages into the home. Because, like other white Americans, adoptive parents perceive the races as separate entities and identify themsleves as being white, they are quick to capitalize on whatever white ancestry their black child may have, and to emphasize the child’s “white” characteristics as a link between the child and themselves. I have heard parents say that their black children have been mistaken by others as their biological children or that the child is not “just” black because one of his parents or grandparents was white. They miss the point that most black people in America have white ancestry, that here, there is no such thing as a “pure” black child, that if you look at a large number of black people, you will see many with features or characteristics that can be recognized as Caucasian. But always, to white Americans, it is the bit of BLACK ancestry that defines an indiviual and their actions toward him, and feelings about him will be influenced by their perceptions of him. A majority of white Americans are so concious of race, that dark skin, in and of itself, often causes them to define an individual as “black” whether or not he actually has any African ancestry.

This complicated and confusing reality is what we will have to help our black children understand. They need to know that people’s negative responses to them are not caused by something inside them, but by the sickness and fear inside the people who are responding negatively. They also need to learn that it is irrational to first define a person according to his race or skin color and then, only later, to perceive his uniqueness and become aware of his personal characteristics.

Another issue which seems to worry a lot of transracially adopting parents is where they should live. Many opt for an “integrated” neighborhood where, they believe, their interracial family will “fit in” comfortably. Because they identify themselves as white and often have white children as well as black children, they try very hard to find an area with a “good racial balance.” Just like most other white Americans, they mean a neighborhood where there are an equal number of black and white families, preferably, more white families than black families to “approximate the natural racial percentages in America.” They worry about racial balance in the schools their children attend and are concerned if they believe “the races are polarized.” They pride themselves on living in a community “where there are many kinds of people living in harmony.” All of it is a beautiful dream, the dream of naive white Americans who have not had to deal with the realities of being black in America.

Black people know the reality for the nightmare it really is. Ther know that if more than a few of them move into an area, white people begin to flee. They know that it is close to impossible to maintain a racial balance in schools because once the percentage of black children rises above 20 or 25 percent, white people take their children out of the schools and the percentage of black children rockets to 90 percent as a result. They know that if white people see a large number of black children in a school, then they are sure that the school must, by definition, be bad; that if there is a large percentage of black people living in a neighborhood it is considered by white people to be undesirable. They know that economic and political forces cause the deterioration of neighborhoods, not their black inhabitants, and that they have to fight every inch of the way to keep their neighborhoods safe and the quality of education in their schools high because white society tends to “dump” its problem population into areas where large numbers of black people live.

Some white parents of black children choose to remain in all white communities. Often the choice is dictated by economic pressures or is made because of family ties or other deep roots in the community. But sometimes, the choice is motivated by fear of living in racially integrated communities or reluctance to take on the problems involved in living in such neighborhoods. We do not yet have the results of research to tell us how the lives of adopted black children are affected by such choices on the part of their parents. We can only guess that black children, growing up isolated from other black people, may feel alienated from them because they have not learned the typical modes of verbal and non-verbal communication, and the implicit system of values and knowledge communicated among black people. While white America will define these individuals as black and the will be expected by both blacks and whites to function comfortably within black groups, they will not have the techniques to help them do so. Adoptive parents, who have been hearing about the importance of “black identity”, often try to expose their children to Black History or teach them about “black culture.” The children may then KNOW ABOUT black people but they will not KNOW black people unless they have daily contact with them. Many parents, who normally would have no contact with black adults, try to seek out black friends or find black playmates with their chidlren. There is, of course, an artificiality to these contrived situations, but they are honest attempts on the part of adoptive parents to handle the problem of their children’s isolation.

I believe that the most positive situation for the adopted black child occurs when the adoption is an outgrowth of the parents’ awareness of the reality and implications of race relations and when the adoptive parents have struggled with their own internal attitudes BEFORE the child comes into the home. I certainly would not expect anyone to have completely resolved the problems. Parents of black children function under unbelievable pressure from society and from within themselves. They have to develop a clear and consistent philosophy concerning black/white relations in the U.S., separate from their feelings about their adopted black children. I strongly suspect that part of this new philosophy is relinquishment of the strong identification with whites. It is not that one no longer recognizes that he or she is white but rather, that this racial definition is no longer of prime importance. This is a new way for most white adoptive parents of perceiving people. If they have white children, their attitudes must extend to thtem. There is a corollary to this which may seem contradictory. One must be committed to help in whatever way is possible, in the struggle of black people to attain their rightful place in America. Racism in our society is not only a personal problem–it is institutional. Our own adopted black children will never be completely safe and secure, nor will our adopted or biological white children, until all of the people in our country can look forward to a life of dignity.

Inaugural Post

As a white guy who is in the middle of an international transracial adoption, I'm looking to do everything possible to do right by my child.

I hope this blog will serve as welcoming nexus for a number of voices, allowing us all to learn, share, be challenged and grow.

The blog is born from nagging questions I have:

What can I do to prevent my adopted daughter -- who will be a black, Ethiopian-born girl raised by two white, American parents, in a family with two white, "bio-kid" (dislike that term) brothers -- from feeling alienated and isolated when she grows up?

How can I ensure that she is secure in her (multiple) identities -- as an African-American woman, as an Ethiopian-born woman and as a loved and cherished daughter?

How can I prevent her from feeling cut off from her roots and missing a piece of herself?

How can I prevent her from being too "white" for the black community, but, obviously, by virtue of being black, not feeling accepted by the white community?

How can I prepare her to confront racism when I have never been the victim of racism (but have been the de facto beneficiary of racism)?

How can I honor that which makes her unique in our family without also making her feel like an outsider?

How can I help her to cultivate her own sense of identity without inauthentically appropriating it myself?

I sometimes read blogs of white adoptive parents, and find them naive -- shocked by racism that I don't find shocking, hopeful in the face of that which I find worrisome. I also read the work of some adult transracial adoptees and feel very inadequate in the face of primal psychological issues of identity. Through this blog, I hope to find some middle-ground, between "no effort to address identity required" and "no effort to address identity will succeed".

In this blog, I would like to encourage PARTICIPATION. This is one blog that will only be as good as the comments posted.

Thanks in advance.