There is no way around it: adoption is a complicated life journey. It has brought our family immeasurable love and joy but has also carried corresponding challenges—none more imposing than those we face today.
When we adopted our infant daughters from China and Vietnam, respectively, in 1995 and 1997, I did my best to prepare for these challenges. I expected a certain amount of racism in our small and predominantly white community, and my husband and I did our best to uplift our daughters’ image of themselves as Asian Americans in Minnesota. We still do. We worked to infuse Chinese and Vietnamese culture into our daily lives, including food, art, language, and culture. We made homeland tours with other adoptive families when each girl turned ten. We encouraged enduring friendships with other Asian adoptees and their families.
Speak up. Advocate for Asian Americans. Advocate as adoptive parents for our precious children. Advocate for families everywhere.
Nevertheless, our daughters inevitably experienced a state of being and feeling outside the norm—both within the structure of their friends’ families and within our community’s racial fabric. I hope that we have given them the tools to flourish.
However, I was not ready for the impact that a global pandemic would have upon our society and our family. Fear of this virus has brought out both the best and the worst of us as human beings. It’s the worst that has my attention today.
Anti-Asian sentiment in America is not new. It has always been an ugly subtext within our society, and it illuminates a consistent pattern of white culture ostracizing those who do not look like our nation’s founders. My German ancestors withstood deep resentment during two World Wars, but they continued to gather and worship in their native tongue without fear of being gunned down or put in internment camps. They were white.
I grieve deeply for the society into which we have brought our daughters. I worry about the physical and emotional safety of these two amazingly strong young women. In that spirit, I call upon each of us to reach out both to support and for support within the adoption community. It is our home as adoptive parents, and it is our children’s home as adoptees. It is where we belong. Let us support one another and the broader Asian community in the United States.
Speak up. Advocate for Asian Americans. Advocate as adoptive parents for our precious children. Advocate for families everywhere.
+Written by Guest Contributor Beth Christensen. Are you an adoptive parent, birth parent, or adoptee with a story to share? Submit your story to [email protected].
