True Colors

Saturday we took a trip over to Oakland for a Pact workshop on transracial adoption called 'True Colors'. In addition to being a great placement organization, Pact is dedicated and committed to quality adoption education with all members of the adoption triad (child, birth family, adoptive parents), regardless of whether they are using their placement services.

We highly respect Pact for their commitment to ethics and adoption education, and it was a primary reason we decided to work with them.

True Colors... what's that? Transracial adoption (meaning adopting a child who is of a different race than your own) requires additional sensitivity and parenting skills. An adopted child of color will naturally face challenges related to their race that parents of a different race have never experienced (for example, I will never know entirely what it is like to grow up as an African American because it is not something I can experience).

Is this really an issue? Does race really matter? Yes. Many of us, especially those who belong to the majority, were raised to treat race as if it was invisible. Just don't talk about it, and it won't matter. Treat everyone the same, and race will no longer be an issue. While this may sound like the ideal (after all, we know skin color is not related to a person's true character), it unfortunately has not worked. We continue to live in a racist society, and children need to be prepared to handle discrimination when it happens. We can't deny the fact our children will face racism somewhere. We certainly don't want our children to internalize racism as if it has something to do with them. Therefore, it needs to be talked about. For more on this, see my post from 3 Dec 2009.

The seminar was great. Lots was discussed. Lots was shared. Two adult transracial adoptees of color shared their personal experiences and gave insight on what it felt like to be raised by white families where they were the racial outsider. Both were raised during a time when adoptive parents were not told they should address issues of race, and in fact, both adoptees said their parents continue to be reluctant to talk about such issues even today.

Both experienced severe racism growing up, but felt they had no one to talk to about it. Both struggled with fitting in. Both experienced a time during which they wished they were white. Both internalized their racism at a very young age. Both felt they had to deal with their insecurities on their own. Both continue to grapple with their experience even today.

Interestingly, just last week Genilson and I watched a documentary called Adopted directed by Barb Lee. I had been wanting to see it for ages, and it just recently became available on Netflix, so I added it to my queue, and it just happened to arrive days before this seminar. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in the effects of international and transracial adoption, though I should warn it is equally (or perhaps more) depressing as it is hopeful.

Parallel to everything said by the adult adoptees at 'True Colors', Adopted's Jen Faro, a Korean adult adoptee, struggles intensely with the fact that her family refuses to discuss her "Korean-ness" and cannot understand why their 32 year old daughter never felt bonded to them, or why she is making such a 'fuss' over her race. Faro's journey is paralleled with another couple's excitement and joy as they travel and pick up their new daughter in China. The journeys of both are a dichotomy between overwhelming anticipation and overpowering regret.

Perhaps the most cutting comment made by Faro (at least for me) was her statement that "families adopt, but adoptees adapt". Faro continuously felt she had to adapt to what her family wanted of her rather than just being herself. She felt her family pretended, needed and wanted her to be white, so she did all she could to reject her Korean-ness and be as "white" as she could. She felt she couldn't talk about her Korean heritage, or even the fact the she was adopted, because it would hurt her family's feelings, and come across as ungrateful. Growing up, she chose to ignore her true feelings, and learned to adapt. As an adult, Faro attempts to reach out and speak with family about this reality. Unfortunately, her family members are confused and can't understand what their daughter is even talking about.

If anything, the film and True Colors definitely bring the "why" of so much adoption education to the forefront. We certainly want to built an attachment relationship with our child, and do not want our child to grow up in resentment of the fact that we cannot acknowledge their racial identity.

It is a blessing to know we are working with an organization as committed to education as Pact, and adopting during a time when these challenges are being openly talked about. x