September, 2010
Now as a Kindle book ($5) --

Heritage Support for Our Internationally-Adoptive Child: The Child's Need and the Parent's Response

A collection of seven practical articles (with an introduction and book/video list)


Downloadable from Amazon.com

Can be read also on PC, Mac, iPhone, Blueberry and other e-devices using a free downloadable app from Amazon.

 


------See List of Contents

 


Excerpt from article:

The Need for Chinese Cultural Support for Our Children

 While the adoption literature is in agreement that it is important to support the aspect of the adopted child's identity related to her ethnic and cultural heritage, not all adoptive parents have grasped this commitment, as may be seen in the following summary of a view offered by a China-adoptive parent recently in an Internet group discussion on the subject.

 

Here we are in the great melting-pot, all (except the Native Americans) a lot of immigrants, descended from Scottish, Irish, English, and their near neighbors as well as some folks farther afield, yet "very few of us speak our ancestral tongues ..." or bother ourselves much, if at all, with the particulars concerning our ancestors and their ways. We're making our own, new, world--concentrating on the future.

What's wrong with this picture?

Nothing is wrong with it as a general view of how things are (in the U.S.). What is wrong, however, is the assumption that our adopted Chinese children fit into this picture on the same terms as everyone else there.

The immigrants--ourselves, by the terms of this discussion--in the picture can afford to be casual about their history because not only do they know what it is, but also, they are surrounded by some--often many--of the others with whom they grew up (family, acquaintances) who know and share their personal and family or clan history. They also have enough information to be able to find out more about past generations of their relatives if they care to pursue the inquiry. --Bob C.


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