Two important things happened in January. The first was the Families with Children from China sponsored Korean Adoptee panel discussion and the second happened one night at Lianne's bedtime.
It happened while reading her a bedtime story. Lianne, now two and one-half, began hitting her face. "What are you doing?" I cried. She said. "I don't like my face." Not liking the sound of this, I protested, "But I love your face, you have a beautiful face. I want your face." Lianne looked straight at me and replied, "I want your face...I want your eyes."
Her words echo in my head, months later. The episode in January, has not been repeated, but I moved ethnic diversity closer to the top of my list of nursery school selection criteria. We read the wonderful book Two Eyes a Nose and a Mouth which has lots of photographs of different kinds of noses, mouths and eyes and cleverly shows how dull the world would be if everyone looked alike. I'm a great deal more conscious of telling her how beautiful she is. I've begun to think more about what it means to be different.
My friend Pamela, who is Chinese and lives in Vancouver, remarked on Lianne's precocity. She said her two girls didn't start asking her about their "Chink eyes" and "yellow skin" until they were four. I was strangely reassured to hear this, realizing that experiences of racial prejudice will be something Lianne can share with her Vancouver "godsisters." On the other hand, my blond-haired Caucasian friend Dawn adopted two girls who are part Cree Indian. She tells me her girls didn't get teased for looking different until Dawn showed up at their school one day. The teasing began when the kids saw how different the girls were from their mother. This kind of prejudice may be harder to accept because it comes directly from my decision to adopt transracially.
A television reporter recently told me about an adoptive mother who says that when she looks at her baby, she doesn't see an Asian baby, see sees her baby. A social worker, said the reporter, cautions this mother to remember that while she may be blind to race, everyone outside the family will see an Asian baby. In a sermon, a black female preacher observes how diminished she feels when white friends say, I don't see you as a black person, I look at your soul and I see how we are alike. This comment, while well intentioned, indicates how her friends fail to appreciate their differences as positive. By denying difference, differences can grow in importance.
Looking different can imply exclusion. When a Chinese woman, looking at Lianne, asks me, sotto voce, "Is she adopted?" I say, "Yes," as matter-of-factly as I can, but I feel diminished. Her question has separated Lianne and me. Now I answer, "Yes, we are adopted." This answer brings us together. Standing in line for a Starbuck's coffee, a woman asked me if Lianne is Chinese or Korean. I feel more friendly when she tells me she adopted a Korean girl 22 years ago. "Do you have other children?" I ask. "Yes," she says, "I have two of my own." Then she stammers, "Well, two other, well, you know..."
As Lianne moves from babyhood to toddlerhood, the challenge of incorporating racial difference in our adoptive family looms larger. Against the background of these early skirmishes, the January panel discussion of Korean adoptees was like the bugle-blaring arrival of the cavalry in a John Ford western. The young people, aged 16-25, came to share their adoption stories. Three of the panelists were female and one was male. Two had met their birth parents and one met the policeman who fifteen years earlier, plucked him from the streets of Seoul and brought him to an orphanage. Kara and Jesse grew up in the urban multi-cultural world of Manhattan, while Anna came from St. Cloud, Minnesota and Joy grew up in upstate New York. They said it hasn't been easy. Twenty-five year old Joy says dating has not been a picnic. The Korean parents of her Korean boyfriends are not always accepting of her mixed, or as she calls them, her "mixed up" family roots. Eighteen year old Kara, from New York City, describes Anna, from Minnesota, as her first real Asian friend. They met a year ago as counselors at a summer culture camp of adoptive Korean families. Sixteen year old Anna vividly describes the silent treatment and slow service she sometimes encounters in restaurants in Minnesota. She walks open-mouthed in New York seeing all the different kinds of people on the street.
They talk about the difficulty of finding their place in the Korean-American community. Their mixed parentage is a barrier that must be overcome. Jesse and Joy traveled to Korea not too long ago. They both speak about the exhilaration of arriving in Seoul and seeing that everyone looks like them and not their parents. After spending time in Korea, they share their surprise at finding how much they are American and not Korean.
They all speak with pride about their adoptive parents. They encourage us to bring Chinese culture and customs into our homes - even if our kids resist - as did they, because our kids will be grateful. The fact that their parents are interested - genuinely interested - in Korean traditions helps them to feel good about themselves. Anna's mother, a blond haired, blue-eyed Lutheran minister has become an accomplished Korean cook. She tells Anna she is grateful for saving her from a life of mashed potatoes. They tell us how well their parents prepared them for the teasing and taunting at school, by arming them with an unshakable sense of their unique worth and the presence of a safe and loving home where they know they will always be accepted. Jesse tells us that being abandoned at 15 months is only part of his story, being chosen is the other part.
Listening to them talk, I am struck by the wisdom of their words which seem odd given their years. They are tough and vulnerable and passionate. At the end of the discussion, they say how grateful they are for including them in our program and listening to their stories.
They tell us how much they appreciate what we have done, adopting children who don't look like us. Anna shakes her finger and says,"Don't ever let anyone tell you that just because your child doesn't come from your womb, they're not your child...." That night, I look around the room at the FCC parents who are uncharacteristically hushed.Since then, I think about Lianne saying, I want your eyes, and what stopped me from playfully saying. "I want your eyes." I read in the paper about the violence born out of difference. Confronted with Bosnian atrocities and Hamas bombings. I hold fast to the memory of that evening with the Korean adoptees. I think about Lianne growing up and someday talking to a group who wants to learn about her life experience. I'm beginning to see how our family is growing.
NYS Citizens' Coalition for Children, Inc.
410 East Upland Road • Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 272-0034
office@nysccc.org12/4/01 lf