I’m not following how this equals racism. The parents are probably just guessing that the kids might be interested in their biological background at some point. Normally this might involve meeting the biological parents or grandparents. For these kids that probably isn’t an option, so learning something about Chinese (or other relevant culture) is probably the best way for them to see what their ancestors might have been like. What’s so weird about that?
Only in your paranoid mind. Maybe part of your problem is that people don’t like you and you blame it all on racism. I know plenty of white people married to people of Asian descent, and I don’t recall any major problems with their families over it. Asian-Americans seem to assimilate very well into American society, compared to other non-white groups. Care to trade your place with a black person in American society? Didn’t think so. So enough of the poor-persecuted-me act. Nobody cares that you’re Asian-American. Trust me, I grew up in serious Jim Crow country, and no one really cared that much about Asians - to the local bigots, Asians were honorary whites. The model minority. If your son married a Filipina or Vietnamese or Japanese he picked up on his tour of duty, that wife was accepted the same as any other bride. Ask the millions of GIs in America who came back with Asian brides how much “racism” they had to endure. You really don’t understand the genuine America, do you?
And in your individual case, I can think of one particular reason why people don’t consider you fully American. That’s because your first loyalty isn’t to America. It’s to China.
Well, think of this from a white American perspective. Or a black American perspective, for that matter (how many black kids in America know how to speak any African languages? 0.00734%?) I speak English, of course. But just because my grandpa was Cajun doesn’t mean I speak a lick of French, and neither do I care to. How many German-Americans can speak German? How many Irish-Americans speak any Gaelic, or do anything remotely “Irish” except for getting drunk on green beer on St. Patrick’s Day? What’s so Italian about Italian-Americans besides eating Itali-mien and getting misty-eyed over the good’ol days of the Mob via watching the Sopranos?
Part of being American is realizing that, “My ancestors left the Old World for a reason. A good reason. They were fucking peasant serfs living off rotten potatoes and getting slave-whipped by dukes and counts, all to live in some miserable dirt-hovel 16 people to a family, dancing the jig to Martha O’Riley barefoot because we couldn’t afford shoes in our poor little village.” That’s the immigrant experience of America. Fuck Europe and Asia. The Old World just brings us down. Let’s create a New World that’s better than all that old racialist and nationalist and ethnic crap. A world in which all peoples are equal, no matter your social class or racial situation.
Chris’ definition is just an extension of Tigerman’s. Believing that a person’s race inherently defines his character in some way is racism. Using that belief to discriminate against him is putting that racism in action.
No, we’re stating that it is racist to assume that a person of Chinese race will necessarily identify with Chinese culture and display various characteristics (or at least knowledge). Whether the parents themselves believe this or recognize society’s expectation and bend to it, racism is being perpetuated.
No, we’re calling it absurd and racist that a child who leaves China as baby and is racially Chinese “should” learn about “their” heritage. We’re refuting the idea that the child’s heritage is defined by race and geography of birth.
Define “origins.” If that consists of essentially being born in a geographic location, should a white American born in Japan, who is taken by his biological parents back to the US learn about Japanese culture, study Japanese language, etc.? Or are his “origins” really American? Does it make a difference if he was born in an American hospital on base or at a Japanese hospital in town? What if someone is born in a plane while crossing multiple countries? Do all of these countries then define his “heritage”?
And this has nothing to do with practicality. Nor does it have anything to do with whether or not the child becomes curious about their country of birth and wants to learn about it. That’s all fine and dandy. What this has to do with is the belief that the child’s heritage, culture, language, etc. is defined by his race/geographical location of birth.
If I have children, I will probably send them to a Spanish after school program for purely practical reasons. I am not Hispanic, nor is my wife. But Spanish is a useful language and will only be more useful as the Hispanic population grows. Or maybe I would send them to learn Chinese, because as you say that may prove quite practical in the coming years. However, I would not inform my children that “their culture” is Chinese. Nor would I tell teach them to embrace Chinese values and beliefs, despite the fact that racially they will be half Chinese.
Only in your paranoid mind. Maybe part of your problem is that people don’t like you and you blame it all on racism. I know plenty of white people married to people of Asian descent, and I don’t recall any major problems with their families over it. Asian-Americans seem to assimilate very well into American society, compared to other non-white groups. Care to trade your place with a black person in American society? Didn’t think so. So enough of the poor-persecuted-me act. Nobody cares that you’re Asian-American. Trust me, I grew up in serious Jim Crow country, and no one really cared that much about Asians - to the local bigots, Asians were honorary whites. The model minority. If your son married a Filipina or Vietnamese or Japanese he picked up on his tour of duty, that wife was accepted the same as any other bride. Ask the millions of GIs in America who came back with Asian brides how much “racism” they had to endure. You really don’t understand the genuine America, do you?
And in your individual case, I can think of one particular reason why people don’t consider you fully American. That’s because your first loyalty isn’t to America. It’s to China.[/quote]
Sure if you’re a GI bride in the boondocks of the US. Really, no one calls them “me so horny” these days. But what if you’re an Asian American man. What footing do you get in mainstream US society?
But I’m pretty confidant of who I am, and to no small part my confidence is derived from the fact I understand my parent’s countries of origin. Which comes from being fluent in some of the popular dialects of Chinese. This fluency of course came from the fact my parents tried to send me to whatever passed as a Chinese school in the US back in the days.
Of course my background is common enough in the US, that enough of us can come together once and a while and laugh at 1.5 generation issue.
However, there are now Chinese being raised as Jews, WASP, and who knows what other identities in the US. Will these individuals be strong enough grow up to be productive adults, being that they will be that unique and isolated from all other social norms out there.
For the longest time I grew up in a poor Black neighborhood. Listened to Kool Moe Dee, had fat laces on leather pumas, and played pick up B-ball. I thought it was normal to get into fights after school every day on the way home.
But let’s say I didn’t learn Chinese and my parents continued to live in a Black neighborhood. Would Blacks eventually accept me as Black? Maybe when we were kids. But I went back to the old neighborhood a few times it definitely isn’t easy, even with childhood friends.
If there is already a divide among young Asians about those that are bi-cultural “FOBs” and those that are "twinkies,” adoptee are so far out on the identity spectrum as to being FUBAR. I’ve date 3 adoptees in various stages of my life. They had some serious issues. Perhaps it was because of individuals like them that there are new attitudes about how to raise these adoptees, so they can become productive adults.
Now if it was tough for me to figure it all out with two Chinese parents and limited access to Chinese language education. I can only imagine the hell it must be for an adoptee.
But I do know of one Chinese American couple (3rd generation, little or no Chinese language skill) with 2 kids of their own that recently adopted PRC girls. But then again they are in NYC where Chinese is a second language taught in the public school system. Their two other kids took it.
I think the point of the question is really, what expectations does American mainstream society have on Asian Americans. Currently I believe it is that Chinese Americans should have some Chinese language skills. If you want that individual to conform to mainstream expectations, then best provide them with the tools.
Unless the prevailing belief is that Asian American is mainstream culture now. And that there are no expectations placed on someone that looks Asian in America. Which I believe has not occured in the US yet.
Of course this doesn’t even touch upon the issue of what kind of Chinese should the couple I know raise their adopted daughter as. I believe the girl was adopted in WenZhou. The husband is Toishan and the wife is Cantonese. Among Chinese this is even a greater issue than how should non-Chinese parents raise their Chinese adoptee.
So by your logic, if I, being partially of Irish decent decided to trace my ancestry back and learn something about 19th century Irish culture, I would automatically be a racist? Less of an American maybe?
Or how about this. On many of my childhood road trips my Dad would make it a point to take the route that went through the Texas panhandle, so we’d see what it was like where he grew up. Is he a Panhandle supremecist?
[quote]Well, think of this from a white American perspective. Or a black American perspective, for that matter (how many black kids in America know how to speak any African languages? 0.00734%?) I speak English, of course. But just because my grandpa was Cajun doesn’t mean I speak a lick of French, and neither do I care to. How many German-Americans can speak German? How many Irish-Americans speak any Gaelic, or do anything remotely “Irish” except for getting drunk on green beer on St. Patrick’s Day? What’s so Italian about Italian-Americans besides eating Itali-mien and getting misty-eyed over the good’ol days of the Mob via watching the Sopranos?
Part of being American is realizing that, “My ancestors left the Old World for a reason. A good reason. They were fucking peasant serfs living off rotten potatoes and getting slave-whipped by dukes and counts, all to live in some miserable dirt-hovel 16 people to a family, dancing the jig to Martha O’Riley barefoot because we couldn’t afford shoes in our poor little village.” That’s the immigrant experience of America. Fuck Europe and Asia. The Old World just brings us down. Let’s create a New World that’s better than all that old racialist and nationalist and ethnic crap. A world in which all peoples are equal, no matter your social class or racial situation.[/quote]
You know, AC, I don’t really give a shit. Honestly. Who cares about your phoney angst? Most Asian-Americans I know are shallow Valley Girls. They don’t give two thoughts (edited for obscense language) about their Asian heritage. You think too much.
…
Red Andy,
That is my entire point. Wipe out the Old World. Who cares about what happened 200 or 2000 years ago? People are still killing each other in the Old World over nonsense that happened centuries ago. Our ancestors fled to America (and Canada, and Australia, and South America) to escape from that crap. To live as individuals as our own people, and not as members of a tribe. If you are still a tribalist who still bears Old World grudges, then you are not a true American. One essential part of being a New World person is to accept a person as who he or she is, not by his or her ancestry. You’ve lived in Taiwan for a bit of time. Taiwan’s main political divide is between Benshengren/Waishengren - isn’t that the most disgusting, Old World example of politics I can give? Most of European and Asian politics is still defined by these Old World Ethnic divisions.
I’m sure a lot of people will get ticked about AC’s comments, but I’ll go ahead and jump out there and say he isn’t crazy. I’ve had this discussion on with him on another thread, and while we disagreed on matters of degree, we were pretty close on the basics. There are too many accounts of Asian Americans acknowledging that there are totally different set of expectations to just overlook them. Is it as bad as some of the other social stereotypes? No. Does it mean all Americans are racists or whatever? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Just a couple weeks ago I had a lady come up to me in the grocery store and tell me “don’t marry her, she only wants your white genes.” I laughed at her because she sounded ridiculous, but it’s a case of someone holding on to a ridiculous stereotype about my wife just because she’s Asian.
Quentin,
I agree, we don’t need to live in the old world. But there’s a difference between studying and appreciating the old world, and trying to revive it. It’s natural for some people to be curious about where one came from, whether from a cultural or biological standpoint. In fact, it may actually help people appreciate what they have now. Your line describing how our ancestors were all poor peasants just bolsters that. Obviously you had to have learned that somewhere from some sort of old-world study, and now you appreciate even more the fact that you don’t have to live like that.
I had an Asian American (male) friend growing up. He never complained of any “identity issues” in all the many years I knew him, had a white girlfriend for a long time, went to college, became a completely normal adult.
My wife’s brother is a normal, productive adult, and he was raised in a small town in Texas with only a few Chinese families in the town.
My wife has no identity issues whatsoever. She is happy being a good person, and doesn’t care that one of her passports says “ROC” and the other says “USA.” In her entire life, she was taunted because of her race exactly one time. She was in junior high and some idiot came by and said “ching-chong ching-chong” during lunch break. Her brother told me nothing like that ever happened to him.
Good for you. But to keep this on topic, we’re talking about babies being adopted from China and raised entirely in the United States by English-speaking, white Americans. I would think they would have far more confidence problems if their parents insist on telling them “their culture” is not American but is in fact Chinese, based on nothing but their race.
So are you saying that the “social norms” of the Jewish and WASP communities is not “strong enough” to raise productive adults? Or are you saying they can be, but only for people of Semitic or Caucasian blood? Smacks of racism, AC.
I’ve certainly never heard of a generation of irate adoptees demanding modern adopters teach the cultures of the countries of origin. Sorry but I’ll need a bit more than your speculation before I’ll believe that adoptees from China can’t lead happy, productive lives if they aren’t taught Chinese culture. More hints of racism, with a splash of Chinese nationalism thrown in for good effect. Nice touch.
It would surely be hell if that expectation exists. Take away the expectation, raise the child to be a good person, not a good Chinese or good American. As Tigerman said make sure they feel completely welcome in to the family, and in no way whatsoever try to ascribe an “otherness” to them. Don’t tell them “their culture” is different or place expectations they learn about or embrace that other culture.
Is it always desirable to conform to mainstream expectations? It used to be the mainstream expectation that blacks are depraved, sex-crazed degenerates who are too dangerous to share public space with whites. Should white couples in the 1940s who adopted babies from Africa have raised their children to fulfill this expectation? If not, why not?
I’m saying that people in the USA still hold ethnic sterotypes. An Asian wearing a yamika is going to get some giggles and double takes. Just because the individual is brought up as a Jew all their lives, doesn’t mean the Jews will accept that person as a Jew. Same for any other group.
Take for example the movie “Malibu most Wanted” where a WASP child is total wigger. Why is that movie funny? Because it portrays a white guy trying to be Black. How about a real life wigger rapper, Eninem, do Blacks accept him as Black?
Asians have it so bad in mainstream media that there isn’t even an Asian version of “The Jerk,” where a white guy is raised by a Black family.
US has progress far enough that there is less outright racial violence. But it is not a melting pot yet. Is it at best a salad bowl, where people actively pursue self segregation.
As a child, I was able to cross these self segregation barriers, get invited to Bar Mitzfa, etc. But as you get older you notice that society does self segregate. There are sterotypes being used in day to day life.
How will that prepare them to deal with a world where people are still sensitive to race, if a Chinese adoptee is being told all their life that racism doesn’t exist in the US and that it is okay to not learn Chinese.
Do Asians have to political clout in the US to change mainstream perception of them yet?
If a Chinese adoptee doesn’t look white enough to garner sympathy from Whites. Or Black enough to be considered Black. And is not bicultural enough for Chinese American to sympathize. Will that individual be strong enough to become well adjusted?
Who will riot with a Chinese adoptee? There is not enough critical mass for them to form any political movement if they feel their upbringing was unjust.
Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst means a responsible parent would teach that child Chinese and how to interact in a Chinese community, in the very worst case that Whites, Blacks, or whatever don’t accept that individual as an unhyphenated American when they become adults.
Why does anyone need to be accepted as anything but who they really are… beauty is only skin deep, so they say… This, IMO, is where people have problems with identity… when they try to fit in or belong to some group or another… what’s the point?
Only if they care a lick whether someone else’s definition/perception of who they are is at all important.
What hell is that? My oldest friend was adopted into a Jewish family. Physically, he bore no resemblence to his adoption parents and siblings. But, he never seemed to have any identity issues. He was raised a Jew and that was good for him. He considered his adoption parents to be his parents, and his adoption siblings were his brothers and sisters. If there is any hell for adopted Chinese kids, it must be created by busybody outsiders, as far as I can tell.
Why should anyone conform to mainstream expectations? So, if lots of stupid white people somewhere believe that black people are stupid, any white couple who adopt a black infant in that area should bow to that area’s mainstream expectation and dumb down thir adopted child’s education so as to conform to that area’s mainstream expectations? Is that what you are saying?
[quote=“ac_dropout”]
US has progress far enough that there is less outright racial violence. But it is not a melting pot yet. Is it at best a salad bowl, where people actively pursue self segregration.[/quote]
So? Even if it’s as bad as you describe (which it by far isn’t) that’s better than every other society in all of human history, in 5,000 years of recorded human history. No other society in human history has accomodated so many various peoples and races and tried to treat them reasonably equally. There has never been a society in human history that has ever been a true “melting pot” as in we are all beige. The US society is the best that multi-cultural society on planet earth can do; yes, there is self-segregration - but what does this say? It says a lot about humans on a global level.
And AC, whenever you mention “racism”, I keep thinking about the giant elephant in the door – the racism Chinese have against anyone who is darker than them. You, as an American citizen, are an extremely privileged person. Let’s talk about the Thais, Vietnamese, Filipinas, Indonesians, for a change, and how they are treated in Taiwan, eh? No, you don’t want to talk about any of that, because it totally destroys and defeats your point about how “awful” you are treated in “AmeriKKKa”.
I agree completely and I’m surprised at all the strong opinions on the other side.
A girl I almost married years ago was adopted from Korea as a baby and was as American as any white kid from Kansas, though she was teased in school by other kids who pulled their eyes slanty at her and made jokes about chopsticks and eating rice. I loved her and it pained me immensely to see the emotional turmoil she endured as a result of being adopted. I read up on the subject and learned that most adopted kids go through serious emotional turmoil as a result. One can’t just pluck them from their home, parents and culture, plop them down on the other side of the world with a new family and expect everything will be fine. The problems stem not just from being teased, as my friend was, but from being uprooted from ones family and culture and plopped down elsewhere.
I don’t know about you, but my family history means a great deal to me. I’m fascinated by family trees that have been drawn going back to my grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather, etc. My family was kicked out of our homeland due to WWII, but I returned once, ten years ago, met up with my dad who was also visiting there, saw the house where he was born, the grave where my grandfather is buried, contemplated the native people, how they resembled my dad, and how I would be one of them (theoretically, almost) if it hadn’t been for the war. My past, even generations before I was born, is important to me. I believe the same is true for many/most people. Most of us do not begin life as a child but are the result of our family and culture which have a profound and lasting effect on us.
The girl I almost married lacked all of that. Since she was anonymously dropped off at an orphanage, it is impossible for her to ever know who her parents were. While I never said so to her, I always thought that seemed incredibly sad and lonely. Yes her adoptive parents did the best they could to raise her and love her, but they only seemed like temporary caretakers to me and I got the feeling it could be a very moving, emotional and important experience for her to some day travel to Korea to see the culture that she came from. Her older brother, who was also adopted from Korea, did that and it did mean a great deal to him. But she never did.
She did, however, find employment with a major US adoption agency (the one she was adopted through), which places many Asian babies with families in the US, and I think that had a similar cathartic effect for her. Though her speech and mannerisms and most of her life experiences were white American, it wasn’t just her appearance that was Asian. That was where her parents and their parents and their parents were from and I suspect from time to time that thought occurred to her and it may have caused her to feel lonely and distant.
My brother just adopted a boy from Nepal. Of course he is now fully American and they are embracing him completely into their family, culture, community and lifestyle. But I’m sure they’ll travel to Nepal with him over the years and I’m sure he’ll appreciate the opportunity to see where he came from and where his ancestors live.
Or consider the white family that adopts a black kid. Would it be racist for them to make an effort to expose him to aspects of black culture, history, historical figures and role models, in addition to all the white culture that thoroughly predominates in the US? I don’t think so. I think it’s just offering the child an opportunity to contemplate the culture where he and his ancestors came from, because that may be as important for the adopted child as it has been for most of us, including me.
As John Donne said, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.”
In this case, I see no reason why the cultural immersion should be necessary. I suppose many of these parents look on it as opening (or keeping open) as many doors as possible for their children, and there’s nothing wrong with that. (Or maybe a better metaphor is opening windows onto alternatives that aren’t really within reach?)
In cases where children are adopted outside of marginalized cultures, I can see why the community of origin wouldn’t want the child to be completely estranged from their cultural heritage, because children are their best means of preserving and handing on that culture. But there too, I see no ‘duty’ being imposed on the adoptive parents.
Take adoption out of the equation. Should my parents and grandparents have attempted to ensure that I got a proper taste of all aspects of my German-Norwegian-French-English-Canadian heritage? Might be a bit much, I think.
I doubt anyone white (or any other color) adopts a kid thinking, “I’m going to raise a good Chinese child.”
You raise your kid to be like you, better than you if at all possible.
If said kid wants to learn about Chinese culture, fine, do you job and help. But “cultural education” should not be a precondition for adoption.
No child has any choice in the matter of his/her birth or care as an infant/toddler.
That’s right. I’m just thinking that ethnicity/race is not important.
I would be the only parent that child ever knew. I would be the only parent who ever cared for and loved that child. I would be that child’s parent.
Again, IMO, ethnicity/race has nothing to do with nationality.
I don’t know why anyone should feel guilty about adopting any child, if they did so because they wanted a child/family and they love the child as their child.
I know what you are saying… but, I think it best to strive for the ideal rather than accept the current reality as unchangable.
You are correct… I would speak to the person first in Chinese… but, the decision to do so would not be based entirely on appearance (race) alone. It would be based on location. Here, I expect Chinese ethnics to speak Mandarin, Taiwanese or Hakka. Were I to see the same individual in the US, I would expect him/her to speak English, notwithstanding his/her racial appearance. If you met a Pakistani gentleman in London and stopped to ask him directions, would you attempt to speak Pakistani or would you address him in English?
It’s not racism, its middle class guilt added to a fundamental desire to do the right thing, or at least be seen doing the right thing. The origins lie in a sense of guilt for having taken a kid out of its culture. Its all bullshit, of course.
The real racism in the China adoption story was the recent passing of laws requiring that the parents of adopted Chinese kids provide a health report proving that they are not obese or have ever taken anti-depressants. Nothing about what sort of parent they might be, mind you.
There’s a whole industry geared to middle class Americans adopting Chinese babies centred around Shamian Island in Guangzhou (see the link for an example). Groups of adoptees stay at the White Swan Hotel,* apparently because the US embassy is nearby. Walking around Shamian there are oodles of shops geared to these folks selling all manner of cutesy Chinese clothes and other Chinosoire for kiddies. By the way, I’ve heard that the procuror of those babies is the PLA. Given the scope of the kidnapping and selling of babies in China you would have to wonder.
In any case, given the sort of Chinese ethno-nationalism readily displayed by the ac_dropouts of the world, one almost expects a clause in the adoption agreement requiring some promise to maintain those five thousand years of glorious pig shit shovelling.
HG
- I’d never heard of this until sat at the White Swan with Miss Huang and overly enjoying a superb buffet lunch which included all the wine you could drink for an extra Rmb20, I suddenly noticed that all the white folks around me were merrily nursing Chinese kids. To my eternal gratitude Miss Huang refused to act on my suggestion to wander over to the nearest new family and shriek, “that’s my baby.”
And many of them might not ever until they themselves consider themselves “full” Americans.
Anyway, you say that we should conform to mainstream expectations and that as such any ethnic Chinese person living in the US should be taught to speak Chinese, as the mainstream expectation is that such individuals should be able to speak Chinese. I don’t accept that notion as accurately reflective of reality… but, I’ll play along and pose this question to you:
My boy is part ethnic Chinese. He has grown up in Taiwan and attended Taiwanese schools. He speaks Mandarin like any kid born here of and raised by two Taiwanese parents. Yet, in our experience, in excess of 80% of Taiwanese people we encounter express shock and astonishment that my boy is fluiently conversant in and can read and write Chinese. Bowing to what appear to be mainstream expectations in Taiwan, should I have kept my boy out of local schools so that his language proficiency conformed with local mainstream expectations?
My experience is limited to the personal… but, my oldest friend was adopted into a Jewish family and raised as a Jew. He looked nothing like his adoptive parents and siblings. He was a monster-sized guy - wrestled and played football - living in a family of thin, short people. As far as I know, he was completely accepted into the Jewish community as a Jew… he had his Bar Mitzvah in the temple and still considers himself Jewish. I was his best man at his wedding, and all of the Jews in our community attended his wedding… a Jewish friend of my father called me on the night that his mother died… it seems to me that he was accepted in the Jewish community as a Jew.
My experiences must be completely different from yours.