Call us mommy and daddy

The other day, as I was standing on line at a store, I saw a tall skinny white man with red hair play with the long black hair of a young Asian girl.  The girl could have been no older than 8 or 9; she was wearing a stunningly beautiful holiday dress,  a matching ribbon in her hair, and very lovely black suede shoes.  No other "related adults" seemed to be around these two, so I accepted this as being an adoptive dad out holiday shopping with his adopted daughter.  I'll be blunt, the image of a white man stroking the hair of an Asian girl seemed a bit creepy to me, but then, I happen to know quite a few men who find Asian females exotic and the whole East-meets-West relationship-theme as being very erotic.   By no means do I suggest this was the case between this man and child, because I believe this was nothing more than a mere moment where the man was caught admiring the large curls put in his adopted daughter's long black glossy hair.  However, I'd by lying if I said the thought of impropriety did not cross my tainted mind. 

The point is, I could not stop looking at these two, because as an adoptee I'm always aware of obvious family differences and how a couple finds the child they call "their own".  I often want to ask, "Where did you (the AP) get this child?"  You see, when it comes to race and ethnicity, I like to learn which governments/countries are willing to relinquish their own to those from different borders, politics, cultures and history.  Somehow I see this farming-out of "unwanted children" as being some sort of social purification process, one that benefits the sending country more than it benefits the receiving one... so I like to know who sends out what, when and why.  For instance, when you look at one country's history, you can easily understand why so many Amerasian children in both Korea and Vietnam were placed in orphanages, or sold to Americans through agencies like Pearl S Buck:

During the Korean and Vietnam Wars, many of the unions between American fathers and Asian mothers happened through client-prostitute relationships. Mixed blood children, whatever the reality of the occupations of their parents, have inherited this social stigma. In poor countries where impoverished women have little choice but to consider prostitution as a means of survival, the resulting sense of disempowerment among men and women alike can bring seething resentment. Additional resentment may be fueled by the common knowledge that many servicemen fathers made promises to support the children, and simply left for the U.S., never to be seen again.  [From  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amerasian]

 More telling about the fate of an Amerasian child in an Asian country is this:

 A study made by the University of the Philippines' Center for Women Studies further disclosed startling facts affirming that many Amerasians have experienced some form of abuse and even domestic violence.

The findings cited cases of racial, gender and class discrimination that Amerasian children and youth suffer from strangers, peers, classmates and teachers.

The study also said black Amerasians seem to suffer more from racial and class discrimination than their white counterparts.

White female Amerasians are highly vulnerable to sexual harassment, the study noted.

Even more disturbing is the finding that parents of Amerasians sometimes discriminate against their own children.

According to the Learn. Ph. Foundation, a nongovernment organization that aims to improve the welfare of indigent groups through technology training, about 50,000 Amerasians are found mainly in Subic in Olongapo and Clark in Pampanga.

Abandoned early in life, these Amerasians, the NGO says, continue to suffer needlessly.

Most of them were abandoned after the US government closed its military facilities in the country in 1991.

The number of Amerasians, however, continues to rise because Filipina sex workers continue to flock to areas where US soldiers are stationed, particularly during military exercises between the Philippine and US troops.

Reports also said the sex workers from as far as Cebu in the south sometimes go to Clark and Subic to have sexual trysts with American tourists.

Perhaps owing to skin color and the fact that most have been born out of wedlock between sex workers and visiting American soldiers, the Learn. Ph. Foundation said these groups are not being given the chance to become productive citizens and that up to now the US government seems reluctant to recognize the lineage of the Amerasian children and withholds the benefits due them by virtue of their having American fathers.   [From:" ‘G.I. babies’: Little outcasts", Joel D. Pinaroc, The Manila Times, Sunday 25 April 2004, http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54a/239.html ]

So, in spite of my own understanding of child-placement overseas, friends have told me over and over again, "It's not polite to ask unprepared parents such probing questions about their adoptions".  Instead, I have learned to bite my tongue, and become one of those polite passive PC people who will sit/stand stare and wonder, "What's the story?", without saying a word to upset a man and his little adopted (foreign) girl.  [Because being caught watching with a very curious expression is so much more comfortable, isn't it?]

As I stood, waiting on line, watching these two, I began wondering... in what country was this little girl born, and did she remember her Mother-land.  If so, what were her memories, and how did that life compare to this very Americanized one?  Did she like being in an American family, or did she simply play the role she knew she had to play?  [Because that's what grateful appreciative adoptees do!] 

Then it began to hit me...  how long does it take for an Asian child to lose her cultural/racial identity?  I mean, I'm sure this girl at the store got the same speech I did from my afather -- "You are one of us now.  (It makes no difference who your parents are... we accept you as one of our own)".   Sure, in terms of being a "mixed-breed", lots of people have a little of this and a little of that mixed in their blood, (no one in my afamily telling me what that real mixture was....), but I believe the point my adad was always trying to make was quite simple: "We're Americans, and because of us, you're American, too." 

[Well, what if I didn't WANT to be American?  What if I was proud of my birthplace, what if I was proud my parents were NOT Irish or Italian, and what if I wanted others to know I was a Canadian brought to live in America?  What if did NOT want to be "different" from what I already was?!?  Then what?] 

At this point in my wandering thoughts, I began to realize what bothered me most -- by looking at the girl in front of me, I could not tell what her true ethnic identity was, and I wondered if that bothered her, too.  After all, based on the coloring and eye shape, I think most would assume she was either Korean or Chinese -- as if they were the same thing.  However, "Asian" can mean any of the following to the un-knowing eye :  Asian Indian, Bangladeshi, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Japanese, Korean, Loatian, Pakistani, Taiwanese, Thai, Vietnamese, not to mention any of those races/ethnicities found in the Pacific Islands.  

[I know in my case, I used to hate being told I looked just like my Irish amother, and had eyes like my Italian father, when in fact, I have none of their blood, genes, or ethnic history in me.]  

So I'm very curious... how quickly DOES a child lose his/her sense of cultural/racial identity in a land that tries to embrace the homogenized melting-pot theory that "each blended family is the same", (even though we all know this is not at all true...)?   When did you become less Korean (the only identity you knew) and grow to be more "white"?