Reactions and Thoughts on International Adoption

The other day, a good friend posted his reaction to a Newsweek article entitled, "The Case for International Adoption". I had a very strong, almost visceral reaction to his blog post and wanted to share my thoughts. He has been very generous in his response and invited me to be a guest blogger which I am very excited about. This isn't something that I usually talk about, and it was great to kind of purge a lot of my feelings about international adoption. I still have many conflicting views about what I believe, and am happy that this dialogue with AJ has begun. Stay tuned for more!

Here is my reaction to his blog, which can also be seen in the comment section under his post:

AJ, thanks for sharing your views as usual. As a fellow transnational/ethnic/racial adoptee, I fundamentally disagree with the main thesis of your article, which is that love and a caring environment are not sufficient in an international/transracial adoption. As someone who was raised, along with my adopted sister, through complete and total assimilation, my perspective and upbringing suggest one completely different from yours. I honestly don’t think that one is better or more appropriate than the other, they are just different. I have examined international/interracial adoption from a myriad of lenses, as you have – personal anecdote and observation, my own emotions and reactions, an attempted academic understanding through child development classes at university, volunteering with young Korean-American adoptees, and two years living and working in the country of my birth. My thoughts on your post:

1) Learning about birth heritage as a crucial component of interracial adoption: While I think that learning about the country of one’s birth is important, I would hesitate to say that it is a crucial component to one’s upbringing. Let’s say my parents sent me to language class every week (like my Korean-American friends did) and sent me to Korea every year but refused to hug me. Or refused to say “I love you”. Love is the crucial factor in interracial adoptions, not heritage. I know you write that you firmly believe in both, but it still seems you think that denying a family a child because they refuse to embrace the child’s birth culture justifiable. I take issue with this.

2) Same-ethnicity adoptions “are surely not, at their deepest level what an adopted person from a different ethnicity endures.”: This statement was deeply concerning to me as I consider it unfounded and insensitive. While I think that we do have unique perspectives as interracially adopted individuals, we, similar to the Newsweek writer, do not and cannot understand the perspective of every adoptee, whether same ethnicity- or transracially- adopted. You cannot judge the “deepest level” of someone else’s emotional and psychological development. I also have issue with the word choice of “endure”. I “endured” unconditional love from two wonderful parents? I “endured” an excellent education? I “endured” not being a social outcast (which would have been my fate in South Korea had I not been adopted). I wish you could clarify what “set of issues” a transracial adoptee “endures”. Do you think that these “issues” would be more or less bearable with more or less of a loving environment and/or understanding of one’s birth culture?… See More

3) Respecting birth culture as a child grows up: I appreciate how steadfast you are regarding these issues, but you use very strong language such as “you have no business as parents (I don’t’ care how much you love a child) raising an internationally adopted child without any association to their birth origins” and “You’re doing a child no favors by taking them from their birth culture and indoctrinating them in yours, except for physical comfort.” I think you take a very black and white view of adoption here – indoctrination? Really? You provide no qualifiers or examples of what a supposed exposure to one’s birth culture involves and indicate that the obvious opposite is “indoctrination”. This is a giant, unsubstantiated leap into a very strong accusation. I look back to my own upbringing – my parents don’t like kimchi, does that mean that they “indoctrinated” me to lasagna? I think that your post would be stronger if you provided concrete examples. How far do you expect adopted parents to go to expose their children to their birth culture? I remember volunteering with the Big Sis/Little Sis program at Tufts, which placed Korean-American college students with Korean-American children. My little sis was a seventh grader; I remembered the seventh grade. The only thing she wanted to do on her Saturday mornings was play with her friends, be liked, and not be reminded that she is different. My parents did not “indoctrinate” me, they made me feel loved and accepted and chose not to treat me differently. One look in the mirror and I knew that I was different – this did not change the way they loved or treated me.

4) General demographic trends of international/transracial adoption in America: At one point in your post you also opine/claim that the type of people who are adopting internationally are “those … who generally take interest in other cultures, eat different ethnic foods, have friends who don’t look just like them, and live in diverse communities.” Is this true? I could not find demographic information on the profiles of adoptive parents, but I could find the states from which Americans are adopting the most here (http://adoption.state.gov/news/us_map.html). Comparing these statistics with the countries where people are adopting the most (in order: China, Ethiopia, Russia, South Korea and Guatemala, found here http://adoption.state.gov/news/total_chart.html), I wonder what the statistics are per state. How many of the almost 2,300 Ethiopians make their way to Minnesota, a state with a high level of adoptions? Or how many of the (most likely) 3,000 Chinese baby girls find themselves in Michigan? I make no assumptions about the level of diversity in these states, but again, would ask you, what do you think is the cultural imperative for these parents?

5) Cultural socialization as a child versus as an adult: You write that “It’s one thing to make a conscious choice to get in touch with your birth culture when you are an adult. It’s quite another to be raised by a family that honors and respects your birth heritage by giving you chances to interact with it.” Again, because you provide no concrete examples of what it means to “honor and respect your birth heritage” I must assume the worst. After university, I decided of my own accord to learn about Korean culture, cuisine, and language on the Fulbright program. I choose this program because I was psychologically, mentally and emotionally prepared for this. It was my decision and I think it helped me understand that different is not better or worse, it just is…..different. My parents did not “dishonor and disrespect” my birth heritage because they chose not to raise me to understand who King Sejong was, the significance of wedding ducks, the two-handed handshake, and the depth of one’s deferential bow; they chose to honor and respect me and their unconditional love for their child irrespective of race, ethnicity and birthplace.

As always, thanks for sharing your thoughts, I always enjoy reading them. I look forward to the next post!

Blurb Book

I finally got around to putting my photos together as a Christmas present for my parents and grandparents.

Here it is! http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1104634

The quality of the book is pretty good although some of the photos are a little dark. I organized the book into five sections: monuments, landscapes, people, street scenes and flora and fauna. While it made me nostalgic for India, giving it as a present and sharing the stories with my family was therapeutic and also a bit of a reality check that my time in India has come to a real and finite end (for now anyways).

Getting reacquainted with amuurrrrica

Hello America,
Here are some things I am still getting accustomed to being back on your free shores...

~ I do not have to give my shopping bags to the security attendant at the store. Because a) there is no security attendant and b) you probably have security cameras and c) you want me to have to lug my huge bags all over your store like a bull in a china shop. One point for India.

~ It is apparently not appropriate or couth to walk around the city with a sweat rag, wiping all the driblets of sweat off my brow. Here you apparently call them handkerchiefs and I've only seen one person using them in this humidity. And he was South Asian. Since being back in your country I have ignored two people I know on the street (a sly turning around or looking at cracks in the sidewalk) because I was mid-wipe and melting in the heat. That's just not how you want to greet someone you haven't seen for a year.

~ Everything is in one place. And it's called Rite Aid. And it's ah-may-zing.

~ I can understand (almost) all the conversations around me. Including the obnoxious elliptical man at the gym yelling at the staff. Including the asinine teenage conversation on the Metro. Bah! Make it stop! I am no longer alone with my thoughts while walking down the street.

~ I have road rage. But so does everyone else here. So when I make inappropriate hand signals and yell in traffic, the recipient of my rage also does the same and it is not just a shoulder shrug apology or a hand twisty motion symbolizing anger (does anyone know what I am talking about?). Instead, I get, "I hope you don't have children with a mouth like that." Ooopsy.

~ Yogurt has become popular in this country. And Ice Berry apparently only hires Ko-reans. Which is fine, except that they charge me $6 for this fruity yogurty deliciousness.

~ I can look around when I walk because there is not the same feeling of fear and trepidation walking down the street. I am not constantly on the lookout for unknown puddles of water or feces. I am actually surprised and disgusted when I see spittle on the ground.

Le sigh.... I miss India.

Book Roundup

yay! i met my goal of reading 40 books in India!!! here's the list!

1. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
2. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
3. Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
4. Travelling Mercies by Anne Lamott
5. Divisadero by Michael Ondaatje
6. The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
7. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
8. Xenocide by Orson Scott Card
9. Children of the Mind by Orson Scott Card
10. Being Indian by Pavan Varma
11. The Interpreter by Leila Aboulela
12. Falling Man by Don DeLillo
13. Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
14. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsen Hamid
15. The Bottom Billion by Paul Collier
16. Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun
17. Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham
18. Home by Marilynne Robinson
19. Delhi is not far by Ruskin Bond
20. Q&A (Slumdog Millionaire) by Vikas Swarup
21. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
22. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
23. The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon
24. The Three Mistakes of My Life by Chetan Bhagat
25. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
26. Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey
27. Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier
28. Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
29. City of Djinns by William Dalrymple
30. Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
31. In Defense of America by Bronwen Maddox
32. Untouchable by Mulk Raj Anand
33. Letters to a Young Poet by Rainer Maria Rilke
34. Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie
35. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
36. A Far Country by Daniel Mason
37. To the Wedding by John Berger
38. Pitching my Tent by Anita Diamant
39. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
40. Molly Fox’s Birthday by Deirdre Madden

Happiness above all else...

About a month ago, colleagues from our New York office came to Delhi for a series of strategic planning exercises. Below is the conversation between a driver and a male NYC colleague....

Driver: Sir, I think that woman is very strong (speaking about the facilitator). Is she married?
Colleague: Yes, she is married. Her partner is a woman.
Driver: (pause...) To a woman, sir?
Colleague: Yes, to a woman, they live together and love each other. Just like I have a partner who is a man.
Driver: (glances into the rearview mirror with a look of confusion and consideration).

(Two minutes later, after some pensive silence and consideration.)

Driver: And are you happy, sir?
Colleague: Yes, very happy.
Driver: Ok then.

“So, how was India?”**

This question is impossible to answer. Having lived abroad before, I’ve received it a number of times (insert relevant country/city). There are long and short answers to these friendly queries, helping me to really figure out what I did for the past ten months, why I originally came to India, and why India will always be a part of my life, a port of call, a home.

Because I will return to living in Washington, DC, a city notorious for unabashed networking young professionals, I expect meetings with new and old acquaintances will eventually uncover that I lived in India for the past year. Sometimes attention spans are short and intentions disingenuous in our nation’s capital. The long answers are reserved for those special people who probably wouldn’t inquire about my job as their first or second question anyway. But I digress. I imagine conversations to unfold as follows…

New friend: Wow. India. How was that?
(short answer) Me: It was great. Thanks.
(long answer) Me: India is a country of fascinating juxtapositions and extremes, confluence, confusion, chaos, culture, spirituality, wealth and beauty. I lived in India for only ten months and expect that after living there for ten years I would still not be privy to the inner workings of the Indian mind and culture.


New friend: So what did you do in India?
(short answer) Me: I worked at a women’s rights NGO in Delhi.
(long answer) Me: I was an American India Foundation Service Corps Fellow (for eight months) and a Clinton Fellow (for two months). I worked with a human rights organization called Breakthrough, whose India office focuses on women’s rights, specifically gender and sexuality, reproductive and sexual health, domestic violence and HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination, using “edutainment” (media education) as a platform for social awareness campaigns. I was mainly responsible for communications collateral and producing training materials.

In my spare time, I traveled extensively throughout the country, took approximately 2,948,7592,875 pictures, practiced kickboxing, attended one yoga session and found breathing out one nostril at a time silly and booger-inducing, discovered the wonders of tailored clothing, took Hindi lessons yet am still unable to read Devanagari, read a lot of books, drank a lot of chai, learned to live without air conditioning (and thus hopefully never take it for granted again), got engaged, met some truly quality individuals, and as our Program Manager instructed us at orientation, learned to embrace the boredom.


New friend: Why did you go to India?
(short answer) Me: I love chicken tikka.
(long answer) Me: I had worked at what in common parlance is known as "The Bank" for about two and a half years at a small grants program called the Development Marketplace (DM). A large part of my work at the DM was monitoring small-scale, innovative projects; I interfaced with inspiring social entrepreneurs from around the world. Feeling as though there was a disconnect between my work at the Bank and on-the-ground implementation, I applied for this fellowship to bridge that gap in my experience.


New friend: And how did that work out for you?
(short answer) Me: It was a good learning experience.
(long answer) Me: It did and didn’t. My work at the DM was far more substantive and although I was working in a headquarters in Washington, DC, I felt like I was having more of a “development impact” in my job there. I was told by my colleagues in India multiple times that I was being underutilized, an appreciated comment and recognition, but disheartening nonetheless.

So I reached out to other organizations in India in my spare time - wrote grant proposals for a sustainable energy NGO based in Hyderabad and did some research for an education technology company in Delhi to supplement the work I am doing at Breakthrough. Tried to make it work. Tim Gunn would be proud.

But living in India and working in an Indian NGO were invaluable experiences. I was the only foreigner in my office of thirteen people, ten of whom are women (the two accountants and the office assistant are the only men). I worked with empowered, independent women who have a true passion to advance human rights throughout India and hope to tackle issues such as religion, caste, and peace and conflict in the future.


New friend: Do you think you will go back?
(short answer) Me: Of course.
(long answer) Me: Hopefully, I will be able to go back to India, not only to visit, but also perhaps to live and work. India is a country that grabs hold of the imagination, the senses and the intellect in a way that I have not experienced in any other country. It is a frightfully frustrating place; the highs and lows are extreme and can happen within two minutes of each other, but the entrepreneurial spirit and hopes for the future are undaunted by the vast and deep inequalities that continue to handicap a large percentage of the population. I am forever tied to this vivid country; I will be back.





** this is my blog post for the official AIF Clinton Fellow blog. I neglected to mention that when I do come back to India... if it's to work, it will be armed with the following: more education so that I can actually "do" more and contribute in a more tangible, productive manner, air conditioning, a driver, and an international staff salary. But thought maybe that would not be appropriate to mention in the official blog... erg.....

The Proposal

Perhaps all the signs were there that John was going to propose on this trip. Some friends thought it would happen in London in February, others at the Taj Mahal when John first arrived in India. Being so far from home, I was unaware of the wagers being placed back in DC.

Our tour of the south of India began last Saturday; after flying to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, we drove down the coast to the southernmost tip of the Indian peninsula, to a town called Kanyakumari, where the waters of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea meet. An important pilgrimage site as well, we maneuvered through the crowds on the beach waiting for the sun to set. All eyes were set on the horizon, and we watched the sun disappear over the waters where Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were immersed.

The next morning we awoke late, unable to motivate to see the sunrise, and headed for Varkala. We stopped along the way at Kovalam Beach before making it to the red sand cliff beaches of Varkala. Little did I know that John had intended to propose in Kanyakumari with the sunrise; the symbolism-laden time and place would surely have made a lovely proposal story, but the cloudy sunrise and my unwillingness to wake up and less-than-sunny morning demeanor negated that option.

From Varkala we traveled to Alleppey to board our houseboat that would take us through the famous backwaters of Kerala, which is aptly known as “god’s own country.” The day was perfectly relaxing and scenic – the backwaters, although they have recently become increasingly populated as the tourist scene is growing in the south, function as canals divided by thin strips of land. Since it is the low season, the waterways weren’t clogged with too many other houseboats.


We sailed calmly down the canals, helping the captain to steer the boat, eating deliciously-prepared tiger prawns and fresh veggies, bird watching and relishing our vacation time together. After the sun set, we ate more scrumptious food. After dinner, I turned away from John to put something in my camera bag, and when I turned around John was staring at me. Odd, I thought. Perhaps too much Kingfisher for John? I remember hearing the words “perfect for each other” and then the rest was jumbled until the “will you marry me?” came out of his mouth. Somewhere between those two phrases I think I realized what was happening. I think I said something like “are you serious?” (some of you know John’s proclivity for “fake” proposing by getting down on one knee… “Carolyn, will you… pass the salt?” I know - warped sense of humor). After realizing that he was in fact serious this time, he surprised me even further by producing a ring from his pocket. Although we had discussed not spending money on an engagement ring, I now cherish the new blingity bling on my left hand!



The details of the proposal from John’s side are quite endearing – the fake search for coffee early that morning so he could call my parents, buying the ring in India, writing drafts of the proposal on his desktop in a folder labeled as a work document so I wouldn’t open it…

Like I said at the beginning, I guess all the signs should have been there. On this trip, I was re-reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera in an attempt to find a quote to read at the marriage of a close friend this fall. I finished the book on board the houseboat and asked John if I could read the ending to him. The end of the book finds the protagonists traveling along the waterways, content in their newfound love, meandering down the river at an unhurried pace, savoring each other’s company.

The Captain looked at Fermina Daza and saw on her eyelashes the first glimmer of wintry frost. Then he looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love, and he was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.
“And how long do you think we can keep up this goddamn coming and going?” he asked.
Florentino Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months, and eleven days and nights.
“Forever,” he said.

John’s proposal is now written in the front of the book. Although I have had my answer ready for far less time than the fifty-three years of Florentino's wait, it was always, unquestionably, without a doubt, a “yes.”




** Click below for more photos from my Picasa Album:

South India Tour with John (June 2009)