Inverse

I was thinking about how disorienting it is, the inside-out-and-backwards kinds of parallels between parents of young transracially adopted children learning to enable cultural connections to their children’s heritage, and adult transracial adoptees deciding if and how rigorously to “educate” our families and friends about our heritage and discoveries as we come into our own ethnic & cultural identities.

I don’t mean to imply that the two are the same. In fact, if the former task were executed more — shall we say — “effectively,” perhaps the latter task might not need to exist. Or at least perhaps it might not be such a battle.

As for the latter: Do we go there? If so, how much energy are we invested in expending?

Is it even our responsibility to educate them? If not, do we take it on anyway?

How persistent are we prepared to be, if we encounter resistance? If there is already a perceived cultural rift present, do we risk widening that rift at this stage in the game? Or is it in everyone’s better interests to maintain the peace we’ve fought to come by with our families as adults?

For those of us who have two families to make room for, we ask ourselves these questions twice.

Perhaps it is wiser to maintain the separation of the spheres, if that is how we adoptees can best reconcile our dichotomous identities.

I’ve chewed on this before, masticating out loud in previous blog entries, but as always, I continually return to and question the conclusions I’ve drawn in the past, and realize anew … there really are no simple endings.

(Addendum: Thanks to an off-blog conversation with a thoughtful adoptive parent, I would like to emphasize that the adult adoptee and the adoptive parent certainly have different circumstances on their hands. I wasn’t so much comparing our positions as equal and/or opposite parallels, but more juxtaposing them as warped through-the-looking-glass mirror images, when it comes to making these “cultural connections.”

I would say something about “coming full circle” if those words didn’t prompt my gag reflex to kick in.

It’s sort of like when Jor-El (birth father) tells Superman (trans-planetary adoptee) in the crystal Fortress of Solitude: “The son becomes the father, and the father, the son.”

Hmm. Or maybe not quite. Come to think of it, I’m not even sure what that means. How did Jor-El become the son? Whatever.

Korea is my Kryptonite.

You know, my abeoji did actually mumble a little bit like Marlon Brando.)

Another reason why Oprah chaps my hide

You knew it was just a matter of time until O had to stick her fingers into the Toby Dawson birth family reunion pie. Thanks to my friend K, I was able to tune in to everyone’s favorite Original Black Woman yesterday in time to see TD talking about his experiences growing up as a transracial Korean adoptee in Colorado, and his (very, very public) recent reunion with his abeoji in Korea.

Although it was great to see “one of our own” on the tube telling his story — one that many others among us can relate to and find validation in — I think O overstepped her boundaries in a misstep almost as large as her ego.

I know O is beloved by many, and I’m not knocking her role model potential, or denying that her show has the power to bring many important issues to light where they might otherwise go unnoticed.

My beef with the almighty O is that — in addition to behaving as if she personally discovered race, oppression and books — she took the liberty on yesterday’s show of flying TD’s abeoji to Chicago to “surprise” TD and his parents, both of whom were in the audience. And neither of whom had previously met their son’s Korean father.

Typical. Because now she gets to take credit for playing a role in introducing TD’s parents to his Korean father for the first time. With cameras rolling. On her show. Named after herself. Featuring all the magical things she does to make the world a more Oprah place.

But it makes for great TV, doesn’t it?

After Toby’s father walked out on stage, to the audience’s applause, O turned to Toby’s mom and dad in the front row and said, “So you’ve never met.” (Obviously.) “Wonderful. Wonderful.”

And I got the feeling that the “Wonderfuls” weren’t so much about whatever emotions the Dawsons and Toby’s abeoji were cycling through, but about congratulating herself for how wonderful she is, to orchestrate such riveting television.

Check yourself, O. Adoptees have the right to determine their own boundaries and, post-reunion, decide if, when and how to introduce their families to one another. Nobody else should own this decision. Not even the almighty O.

Making cultural connections: Non-advice for the record

(Note: I’m cross-publishing this post, which I wrote for Anti-Racist Parent. Please feel free to comment over yonder, if the urge strikes. It will help create the illusion that I have more readers on ARP!)

Some months ago, I was quoted in a newsletter article about an adult adoptee panel I participated in last summer, regarding the importance of adoptive parents helping transracially adopted children make connections to their heritage and birth culture. I just came across the article recently for the first time, and as I read part of my quote, I had to wonder if what I said about “persisting [to encourage cultural connections] if children resist” came out the wrong way.

I hope that all those newsletter readers and panel audience members out there don’t think I make a habit of advising adoptive parents to drag their kids kicking and screaming into the Indian restaurant to tube-feed them curry, or otherwise thrust cultural interaction upon their wildly flailing children. Obviously, if your kid is howling like a banshee until she barfs up her rice cakes at the Chuseok picnic, she isn’t going to get much out of the experience.

I think it’s important to let adoptees ultimately determine their own comfort zone, both developmentally as children and as adults — and everywhere in between.

At the same time, I believe it’s up to parents to introduce cultural connections to young adoptees early on, and to see that the kids have a variety of mentors and role models — people of color, people of their shared heritage, older transracial adoptees — in a way that’s presented as the norm, rather than as a way of underscoring how “special” they are to be adopted.

I need to read the newspaper more closely

Korean adoptee comedian Kevin Shea was right here on O’ahu over the weekend, and I missed him!

When I realized my grievous error, I did what came naturally. I looked him up on MySpace.

Visit his Web site, where you can see his schedule of upcoming shows, so you don’t miss him like I did. Then read this article from The Honolulu Advertiser in which Kevin is interviewed, along with three other Asian-American male comedians.

I wish I had found out that I was really two years younger than I thought I was when I met my Korean mother. Although that would mean I would have been -20 months old when I was adopted, so not much chance of that happening, I guess.

Renaming as honorary whiteness

The Unapologetic Mexican has an excellent blog entry about being bestowed with the gift* of honorary whiteness through being renamed when he was transracially adopted by the white man who married his mother.

So I said ‘Yes’ and with the sweep of a pen, the placing of a shiny, gold, sticker onto a sheaf of papers and the pressure of a seal, the surname I was given at birth—the one I’d had for the first eight years of my life and that tied me to my physical appearance, my nanita, my papi, his papá, and all my Mexican lineage—was stamped out. It was neutralized, made Irish. Made short, and common, and easily (oh so easily) pronounceable, and something everyone could appreciate. The State reached back into all my documents and changed them. My caretakers, the government of Maryland, USA, and the spirit of George Orwell worked together to create the impression that I had always had the New Name; that I had always had the White Father, that my real father and my real last name had never existed. To this day, my legal birth certificate has the wrong man listed as my father. It’s a lie. And I lost the original. There was (and is) no place and no document I could go to to prove my memories were real. Except one. There was one sheaf of papers only that showed the change. The adoption papers, themselves. Otherwise, I had been given a new name, a new father, a new identity, and the rare chance to be White®. As long as I stayed out of the sun, I was pretty good at honoring that idea. The White Idea.

Shout out, brother.

I have the same documents — both the falsified “birth certificate” and the adoption decree, which until recently served as my only proof that the Korean Me and the White Me were, indeed, the same person.

I tried to think of a worthy comment to leave on his post, but couldn’t. Oh, how I know so much of what he writes. It’s in my skin, too.

Read his full post. It’s fortified with vitamins and minerals.

*Those who are familiar with me or my blog will know the tone with which I speak these words.

Coloring outside the lines

Adoptive families with children of color, don’t miss out on this summer’s Pact Camp.

From July 2 to July 6, at the Redwood Glen Camp and Conference Center at Loma Mar, Calif., this year’s camp, “Coloring Outside the Lines: The Art of Being an Adoptive Family,” will promote learning innovative and creative ways of being a family.

From Pact’s site:

The focus of Pact’s program is to promote family connection by creating safe spaces for children and adults to explore their issues as well as just plain have fun. Families with adopted children of color are always coloring outside the lines that society draws for them – we don’t fit into standard boxes, and at Pact Camp that can be celebrated and explored without fear or shame.

Many of the families who have attended previous Pact Family Camps referred to the event as life changing for them and their children. They continue to contact us with stories of new conversations and breakthroughs their children are experiencing about both race and adoption. Whether you’re parenting a child who shares your race, or parenting across racial lines, whether your adoption was domestic or international, whether you have birth kids along with adopted kids or not, Pact’s gathering for adoptive families of color is designed with your family in mind.

Esteemed multitasker Susan Ito and her colleagues have a great camp program in store for adoptive families this summer, and it’s exciting to see some familiar names and superfabulous adult adoptees of color Lisa Marie Rollins, John Raible and Robbin Rasbury on the program lineup already. Lisa Marie and Robbin were two of my co-panelists at last summer’s Pact Camp panel of adult adoptees. And you may have already read John’s fantastic piece, “Lifelong Impact, Enduring Need,” in Outsiders Within. Campers will be in good hands this July.

You can read more about this summer’s camp, and register, or apply to volunteer or work as a camp counselor at http://www.pactadopt.org/events/camp.html.