If you adopted a child of another race...?

Kazi

Great question!

Our daughter is from China and we do the following:

1. Play groups with other children adopted from China
2. Attend traditional events, such as the lantern and dragon boat festival and Chinese new year celebrations
3. China-born babysitter
4. Learn how to make authentic Chinese food
5. We got the Mandarin channel
6. Read children's books about China
7. Frequent visitor to Chinatown (often enough that most of the shopkeepers know us by name)
8. Language classes
9. She will be attending her first culture camp this summer
10. Maintain connections with her orphanage. This was the first year that she put the Christmas care package together herself and wrote a letter to the kids left behind.
11. Maintain connections with the other little girls that were in her orphanage and adopted the same time she was. We will be visiting one of the familes in the fall. We feel this is very important.

What we will do:
1. Visit China in about 2 years time and hopefully every couple of years after that.

h s

At a young age tell the child about being adopted. From there tell them what you know about their birth parents and their culture. Do research with them if they want to know more. Find a place where they can take that language. Let them ask questions and be curious!!!

Randy B

My oldest daughter maintains the connections she wants to maintain with her Indian culture. Together as a family we do observe a few of the holidays in India and she's always been keen to watch different movies about India. Other then that she's never cared to do more with it. She has some special needs, mostly caused by the malnourishment she suffered prior to adoption so she really has no more interest then that in her previous culture and we don't push it.

Now, the baby is First Nations and once her adoption was completed last summer we visited her Band and participated in the large Pow Wow they hold each summer. Some of the elders have kept in touch with us and made themselves available to help us keep in touch with her First Nations heritage as she grows older and we will certainly take full advantage of that as well unless she states otherwise.

Snickette

2 of our 3 adopted children are of a different ethnicity to myself or my husband. We have tried to instill in them a pride of their ethnic heritage, we encourage them to view positive role models of their ethnicity. We take 1 of the children to the same church he was attending with his biological grandmother, to keep that aspect of his culture alive. We participate in cultural awareness activities in school and our community, etc.

More importantly we acknowledge and embrace their similarities and differences everyday in our home. We recognise that culture and race is an important part of a persons identity and this should be celebrated and utilised everyday. We never treat anybody as a different person because of their race, but we do understand the differences.

Swa

I'm going to approach this from the other side of the coin.

I'm adopted, both of my adoptive parents are white and I am multi racial.
I don't look anything like them, I have an 'ethnic flair' if you will.

Growing up young, my parents made of importance to me that I was family no matter what I looked like. I can remember filling out papers for different things and tests when I was young with my mom and having her always tell me to mark the "white" box.
It wasn't until I was about 7th-8th grade that I began marking "other" or "multi racial".
I'm proud to be of mixed race... My parents never celebrated that with me when I was young because they wanted me to feel included in the family with my siblings that are all biological.
When I was old enough to make my own decisions on how I was to live my life, they supported me in ever decision I've made.

kateiskate

My family didn't do much at all to help me maintain a sense of my race and cultural identity. That is why I stress it so much here, hoping that maybe someone will hear from a TRA and IA exactly how important it is that parents are supportive of their child in their efforts to get in touch with their heritage.

My parents did not expose me at all to my Korean culture growing up. It's sad to me that they never wanted to experience something so inherently a part of me.

wynn

We made friends with immigrant families from our children's home countries. We celebrate their holidays with those families. We go to their homes several times a month for language & culture classes. I've learned to cook the foods they were familiar with at home. The children have lots of clothes, artwork, music, and books from their home countries. We live in a diverse area, with lots of ethnically mixed families so my children don't feel out of place. We have networked with other adoptive families in the area so that our children besides knowing lots of people transplanted from their home country also know lots of adoptees. Hopefully, that will be a support system for them when they need it.

We're very careful to encourage our children to tell us what they think, and what they need. If there's something more they need or want to feel connected and comfortable, we pursue it. If they really don't want to do something, they don't have to. The only thing they don't like are language classes. I point out to them how horrible my accent is because I only started working at it as an adult. We've made a deal. For now I pay them to take the language classes with me. They can quit when they want to, but for now, it's an incentive.

Also, I'm half Asian although from a different country than my eldest son comes from. Still, the cultures are similar and he looks like a lot of our family, which helps.

Indian-vision

Lets see so far i have only done one thing- I celebrated navidad this winter, X-mas in a big way for her with our family. And we are not Christians.

Plans for the future--
1) I will enroll her in Spanish classes. And i've always wanted to learn Spanish too. So we'll do it together.
2) We plan to travel to Mexico in the future.
3) Connect with the Mexican Embassy here and see how we can attend holidays and celebrations. I hope its possible.
4) Put her in Salsa classes and this old lady will ask her to teach her mommy the steps too.:-)

Roberta P

We joined the local cultural group, attend the celebrations. learn the language, read about China, talk about our trip to China when looking at our photo albums, e-mail and IM their FF, wear the silk dresses we bought overseas, socialize with other Chinese people (either here as transplants or through IA). Last but not least talk about and "plan" our trip back to China when they are older.

WSMA

Tell the child at the age of 7 years old that it was adopted. Don't change the child's last name as it is not your child and your taking away his or her identity. Don't act like the child is yours (i.e. that you gave birth to the child). Don't hide the fact that it comes from a real mommy and daddy. If it's another race, then make sure it has a person of it's own race in it's life. Frankly I don't believe a white couple should adopt a black infant, just because the white couple won't have any experience with discrimination that black children face/will face, and they won't know anything about it's culture or how to teach it about it's culture.

Chip

Hey, my name is Hannah and i'm currently a student in my final year studying Sociology at Aston University. For my dissertation I am researching into transracial adoption. I would like to interview people that have adopted children of a different race and wouldn't mind sharing their opinions with me. I would just like your views in general about culture and identity. If anyone would be willing to share these views in an informal interview setting (perhaps on Skype) could you please contact me on pilcherh@aston.ac.uk Kind Regards, Hannah

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