NYHOMESTUDY BLOG

by
Miriam Vieni

Over the past twenty years, there has been an emphasis in the field of international adoption on the importance of helping a child adopted from another country to feel a connection with that country and its culture. This focus on cultural roots mirrors a movement in American society toward multi-culturalism. If we look back to the years before the mid 1960’s to how North Americans conceptualized their identity, we can see how the pendulum has swung. Back then, we talked with pride about “the melting pot”. In this vision of America, the richness and variety of the varied cultural backgrounds of our citizens melded together to form an “American identity” that incorporated the different cultural strains into something new and uniquely American.

It was in the 1950’s that Americans began adopting children from Korea. The emphasis seemed to be on assimilating the children into their adoptive families and their new communities. There was little discussion of race or of cultural roots. Things are very different today. Adoptive parents enroll their Korean children into Korean Culture Camps. Parents who adopted children from China ensure their children’s participation in Chinese cultural events and often enroll them in programs which teach the Chinese language, music, and dance. Even playgroups for internationally adopted children seem to be organized on the basis of which country the children come from. Adoptive parent support groups have also been organized on this basis; e.g. Families With Children From China, Latin America Parents’ Association, Families For Russian and Ukrainian Adoptions, etc. Certainly, it is important to help children understand the circumstances of their lives, including their racial and cultural backgrounds. However, it is also important for their emotional health to help them feel strongly connected to their adoptive families and the communities in which they live. It is important for the social and political health of our country for all of us to feel that we have a common bond and common cultural and national ties. There needs to be a balance between individual identity and the individual’s feeling of connectedness with the people around him/her. Some people have been made to feel guilty for having “stolen children from their countries and cultures. It is important to remember that the children whom we adopt are without families, living in orphanages. They are not incorporated into the life of their birth countries and the culture in which they live is “orphanage culture”.

Adoptive parents are particularly concerned about language, as it impacts on children who are old enough to speak the language of their birth countries when they join their new families. This is an important and complex issue for adopted children and one that I would like to focus on in some detail. Many of the children, whom we adopt, have been living in orphanages for almost their whole lives. Although the more fortunate among them have formed strong relationships to caregivers and to some of the other children in the orphanage, life in the orphanage was not happy. Because resources are always limited as is the time and energy of caregivers, we can assume that our children’s needs were not adequately met, even in the best orphanages. Orphanages vary in the quality of care they can offer children. Therefore, some children experienced severe deprivation and need. Fear, anger, and depression are feelings that often develop as a result in orphanage children, and these feelings may become emotionally connected to the language that was spoken in the orphanage. So although the child’s original language has been his or her primary means of communication, it also has negative associations. When the child arrives in his new adoptive home, his primary means of communication is usually lost to him. He usually wants very much to be in his new home and to fit in with his new family and he expends a great deal of psychic energy in order to do this. He tends to suppress the past, including his language.

Be Sociable, Share!

•