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June 29, 2004
On transracial "abduction" and other angry myths
I've been doing a little reading around lately, looking into the writing of now-adult transracial adoptees. For a starting point, you could do worse than Jane Jeong Trenka. For me, this little excursion into unfocused anger started with an obnoxious and, in my opinion, ill-constructed post to the APC group at Yahoo!.
I'm more than a little shocked at some of the things I've read, though I suppose I shouldn't be. It's the world's worst-kept secret that blogs and Websites are primarily the desmene of those with axes to grind -- people who are pissed off and feel the need to let the world know about it. So coming across transracialabductees.org was really less of an event than I might have thought at the moment.
What's really missing from the Web -- in other words, what you have to go to actual books to find -- is a positive perspective on transracial and/or transcultural adoption. That's a pity, because I think the good outcomes far, far outnumber the bad.
Most of the angry-young-Asian sites I've come across recently seem to get their impetus from one of two things: either a poor family structure in the adoptee's childhood home (and hey, here's a bulletin...lots of us come from broken homes, and manage to get by without having it screw up the rest of our lives), or a wild scattershot hatred of the "white power structure" that is somehow responsible for destroying all that is good and worthwhile in the world. The first is indicative of a real lack of social experience on the part of the writer, in my opinion. The second is so silly on the face of it that it simply doesn't bear arguing.
I don't have a handy way to tie together all the things going around in my head at the moment, so let me present a bullet list of a few points I think are worth thinking about. The "you" I might address here is, for purposes of this post, no one in particular:
- You were not "abducted." That's a word you use because your family situation was/is harsh, and it makes you feel better to cast yourself as a victim. None of us choose our parents, and the fact that you grew up in an adversarial relationship with yours doesn't make you any different, in my experience, from about half the teenagers in the country (and probably the world). You just have a convenient hook to hang your anger on, and it's probably little more than a roadblock to actually getting over things and getting on with your life.
- The fact is that the grand-daughter of two Chinese immigrants and the adopted daughter of two white Seattle residents will be functionally indistinguishable to the casual observer. Both will be Americans with yellow skin. Cultural assimilation is a fact, and it's a benefit to both the assimilator and assimilated when it works. If you're not comfortable with the way yours went down, that's no one's fault but your own.
- Do everyone a favor, and stop acting as if "birth culture" is a concept with any real meaning. "Culture" is a construct -- the accreted traditions, norms and mores of one group of people in one particular place. An infant, like it or not, has essentially no concept of culture. They might be accustomed to seeing people who look a certain way, accustomed to eating certain foods, or acclimatized to a particular type of weather, but at six to eight months, that's about all the "culture" they're going to possess. The only culture that owns a child is the one he/she grows up in. As an adopted Chinese-born infant, our future daughter may elect to be one of two things: either an American with yellow skin and dark eyes, or a Chinese native torn from the bosom of her motherland. I can tell you which way I'm going to steer her, and which will be healthier.
It's really hard for me to process some of the anger and the sheer bile that's out there, but I think my response comes down to something Abraham Lincoln said: Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. If you're not happy being a Chinese or Korean or Russian child raised in America, then stop trying to be. Be yourself -- a minority of one, and an individual worthy of respect independent of your race, creed or gender. If you can't muster up that level of self-respect, then you surely aren't going to be happy, nor are you going to earn the respect of your peers.
You can't control the opinions of others, and that's a fact. All you can do is learn to be comfortable in your own skin. If you're not at home there, it's nobody's fault but your own. Life's tough. I didn't choose to have an abusive stepfather. I didn't choose to have a broken home. I didn't choose to watch my wife's family torn apart by an ugly divorce. But every minute of your life, you have two choices. You can pick up the burden you're given and keep walking, keep moving forward...or you can drop to your knees, collapse and surrender.
Lara and I will keep walking. Our child will learn to shoulder the burdens that life gives her, and keep walking. And she'll learn something else as well -- those burdens are exactly as heavy as you choose to make them.
Make your burdens light. Learn to live in your own skin. Become the person you are meant to be, not the person others want to see in you.
Posted by at June 29, 2004 10:33 PM