ELLEN E. PINDERHUGHES, JESSICA A. K. MATTHEWS, AND XIAN ZHANG“‘Chinglish’ … I’m part Chinese and I’m part English, so you would put the two words together and make that … ”
7-year-old girl (Ponte et al., 2007)
“I didn’t think [not being exposed to the black community impacted her], but now reading her answers … I thought maybe it was, to a degree.”
Adoptive parent (Simon & Roorda, 2007, p. 93)
“I can’t make her Chinese. I don’t know how. I am not Chinese. I don’t want people to think that Chinese language and dance is it. I don’t want people to feel like I was trivializing the culture … we want to be respectful of the depth and richness of that culture.”
Adoptive parent (Fong & Wang, 2000, p. 24)
“I’ve seen a lot of kids who have been transracially adopted and they are very confused.”
Adult adoptee (Simon & Roorda, 2000, p. 38)
AS THESE REFLECTIONS INDICATE, the experiences of transracial adoptees (TRAs) are varied and reveal the complexities of growing up as an adopted person of color in the United States, as well as the challenges transracial adoptive parents face preparing their children to become successful adults. The communities and society in which we all live and work further complicate these families’ lives.
Throughout our lives, identity development is central to the formation of a healthy sense of self. In today’s world, we hear about “intersecting identities,” a term that typically refers to the reality that each of us has multiple characteristics, given our race or ethnicity, gender, sexual or romantic orientation, religious background, socioeconomic status, and nationality (e.g., Rosenblum & Travis, 2012). For each of these characteristics, we have an identity—a view of ourselves and others sharing the respective characteristic (Tajfel, 1981). The different characteristics and identities combine in unique ways to form intersecting identities (Rosenblum & Travis, 2012). For those in the adoption triad, one’s status (first or birth parent, adoptive parent, and adoptee) also is an important identity. Throughout the life span, adoptees face the task of incorporating an evolving adoptive identity with other developing identities.
Importantly, society confers different statuses (and privileges) for individuals with certain characteristics. For example, within the United States, European Americans, males, heterosexuals, Christians, individuals who are middle to upper income, and U.S. citizens have higher statuses and receive more societal resources and privileges than do their counterparts (e.g., African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans; females; homosexuals; people of Jewish, Islamic, and other or no faith; people who are low income; and immigrants; Feagin & Feagin, 2011). Many of us have intersecting identities that incorporate different status levels. For example, the three authors share the benefits associated with being well educated and also share the less privileged status of being female. The second author benefits from the status of being European American, whereas as an African American and an Asian immigrant, respectively, the first author and third authors have statuses conferring less privilege. As we incorporate these intersecting identities with different statuses, we must manage not only how we view these identities but also our interactions with others who may view our identities differently.
As we consider the issues of ethnic identity development for TRAs, it is essential to understand that they must integrate multiple identities that typically have lower status: being adopted; being a person of color; and, for intercountry adoptees, being an immigrant. Adoptees receive the benefits conferred upon their adoptive family, given the characteristics of their parents (Lee, 2003), but they also contend with experiences associated with lower status. Thus, adoptive parents must recognize that their transracially adopted children face challenges and stressors that parents themselves may not face.
This chapter addresses the ethnic identity development of people who are adopted transracially. Because ethnic identity is one of multiple identities that TRAs must integrate while growing up in the context of their family, community, and society, we briefly discuss contextual influences and then address several aspects of identity development—adoptive, cultural, and ethnic or racial—as well as challenges to healthy identity development and tasks parents face in promoting racial and ethnic identity development. We conclude the chapter with recommendations for how parents and professionals can support TRAs in this area. We draw from various sources about adoption, including research on children and families, adopted adults’ retrospective accounts of their experiences in their families and communities, as well as more recent literature, including lessons learned from earlier waves of transracial adoption. In addition, we draw from certain writings from the literature on identity development of immigrant children, given the reality that internationally adopted TRAs are immigrants. But first, we turn inward.
WHAT WE BRING TO THE TABLE
We are all cultural beings. Each of us, as a cultural being, has learned important lessons from our elders and ancestors, about relationships, interacting with strangers, work, how to get along with others, how to deal with our frustrations, how to resolve disagreements with others, and how to be happy in life. These essential lessons are the “stuff” of culture—the practices, beliefs, and rituals that ensure the physical, social, and economic survival of a group of people (Pinderhughes, 1989). As we all know, cultures and societies differ—sometimes subtly, other times dramatically—in the values, beliefs, and behaviors that underlie our interactions and who we are. In a country as diverse as the United States and with its historical tensions regarding differences, especially racial and ethnic differences, individuals who are noticeably physically different often find themselves as targets of comments and questions—whether intentional or unintentional—that call attention to their difference and that can leave them feeling invalidated or even threatened. Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, and Holder (2007) refer to these experiences as microaggressions, or “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults” (p. 271). In some cases, individuals also have direct experiences of bias, discrimination, or stigma. For example, two adolescent African American males were walking down the street in a summer resort town known for its historically amicable relations between African Americans and whites and heard a white man yell from a passing car, “COONS!” (Hereafter, we refer to all these experiences, intentional or not, as bias.) All individuals need to have ways of interacting with others in the context of or despite these experiences, and having a clear understanding of oneself as a cultural being can provide an important foundation.
Parents raising children in diverse countries such as the United States face the task of helping their children become successful adults as cultural beings, drawing from their own socialization experiences. When parents raise a child from a different cultural, racial or ethnic background, they face the added task of figuring out how to help their child develop a healthy identity, given his or her backgrounds and the potential lack of expertise possessed by the parents.
To help children develop a healthy sense of self as a cultural being, and develop skills in interacting with others across differences, parents face the task of facilitating conversations about differences. Children need to be able to come to their parents with questions and concerns. To facilitate these discussions, we must understand ourselves as cultural beings, including the attitudes, beliefs, and values we hold about ourselves and about others that can influence how we treat others, whether or not we are aware of the influence. In countless moments, we find ourselves giving children lessons without realizing it—through our actions and inactions and with words spoken and not spoken. Consider the following example: Waiting with her three-year old daughter to check out in a store, an African American parent, Paula, noticed a young white boy apparently with his mother and grandmother. While feeling sorry for the boy because his teeth were rotted, and assuming the family was quite poor, Paula was startled to realize that she and her child were objects of pity. The young boy innocently asked why the daughter’s skin was brown and his mother and grandmother reacted with horror and embarrassment. Realizing the power of this teachable moment, yet humbled by the dual assumptions, Paula knelt alongside the boy and explained why her and her daughter’s skin was brown and his and his family’s skin was white.
Thus, we each must come to better understand who we are and what views or attitudes we bring to the table as we interact with others across difference and as we raise our children to do so. Myriad resources are available to support those who take on this task. Perhaps most immediately available, the Internet provides a vast array of resources that we can use to engage in self-reflection about our views and beliefs. To get readers started, we provide a brief description of a few we have found particularly helpful in our ongoing growth as cultural beings.
RESOURCES
TED Talks (www.ted.com) address a wide range of issues with thought- and emotion-provoking presentations. “The Danger of a Single Story” (2009) by writer Chimamanda Adichie calls on each of us to consider the ways that we make assumptions about others, given just a little information about their background (single story). In turn, she helps us connect to the experience of being the target of single story when someone else engages with us using assumptions about who we are. Actor Thandie Newton powerfully draws us into considering what it is like to be “othered” in her talk, “Embracing Otherness, Embracing Myself” (2011). Through her words as a biracial person facing messages from others about her background, we have a glimpse into the challenges experienced by those of us who are physically different. With this glimpse, parents and professionals can consider our own reactions to the pain inflicted and suffered and what it would mean for us to help our child manage such experiences.
Another useful tool for self-reflection is the Implicit Association Test (access the IAT at implicit.harvard.edu), which measures attitudes and associations that we might not be aware we hold (Greenwald et al., 2002). The IAT provides an opportunity to learn about our implicit tendencies to pair certain associations (e.g., race, gender, skin color) with certain evaluations (e.g., good, bad). Nosek, Greenwald, and Banaji (2007) have developed a range of IATs for varied characteristics. After taking the web-based test, you receive feedback that suggests the degree of preference you might have for people with a certain characteristic rather than others (e.g., degree to which you prefer white people to black people). You then have some information to consider in terms of how consistent it is with your explicit beliefs about difference and whether your implicit associations might affect your responses to others.
We encourage readers to access these and similar tools to stimulate ongoing self-reflection about oneself as a cultural being. This reflection provides an opportunity to read this chapter with a new (or for some, renewed) look at one’s beliefs and values about cultural differences. As we have, we hope that readers find these tools useful to revisit periodically to maintain an ongoing self-reflection process, which is so critical to being prepared to support others who are working on themselves as cultural beings. Even the most progressive, reflective person has work to do in this area; an important lifelong process, this type of work is never finished. We now turn to contextual influences on identity development.
CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES
The modern adoptive family sits within a larger ecological context that is constantly changing over time. Any understanding of the adopted child must occur in context. Bronfenbrenner (1979) proposed what has become a commonly used framework for examining the levels of context for children and families: ecological systems theory, which includes the microsystem, mesosystem and exosystem, and macrosystem as contextual levels and processes, personal characteristics, contexts and time as a model of comprehensive constructs. Palacios (2009) used this framework to explore the extant research on adoption and identify gaps in the literature. For thoughtful discussion of these contextual concepts, we refer readers to the original sources; here we briefly address the concepts as they relate to TRAs and their families.
Microsystem
The first level of ecology relevant for adoption is the microsystem. Consideration of the adoptive family microsystem, for example, involves attention to the child’s characteristics, interaction processes with parents and siblings, and specifics of the family’s home environment, and rearing practices all studied over time (Palacios, 2009). Few studies offer a comprehensive view of the entire microsystem that is the adoptive family (e.g., Palacios, Sánchez-Sandoval, & León, 2005; Quinton, Rushton, Dance, & Mayes, 1998; Rushton & Dance, 2006; Rushton, Mayes, Dance, & Quinton, 2003), and other microsystems that affect adopted children, school in particular, are underresearched (Palacios, 2009). Regarding the developmental process of identity formation in transracial adoption, examples of microsystem considerations might include the adoptee’s understanding of adoption, the adoptive parents’ race, ethnicity, and feelings of ethnic or racial affiliation or pride, as well as the amount, quality, and nature of communication between parent and child about adoption, race, and ethnicity. In schools, another microsystem, racial and ethnic diversity of the adoptee’s school or communication about race and ethnicity by schoolteachers could be of particular importance. For example, professionals often advise parents to share information about intercountry adoption, and the particular country of origin, with their adopted child’s class as an additional strategy for supporting their child’s self-esteem given his or her cultural, racial, and ethnic background (Huh & Reid, 2000). Adoptees in school also might benefit from teachers’ increased sensitivity to their needs, such as enabling discussion or study of their culture of origin, diversity education, or even native language instruction (Huh & Reid, 2000).
Adoptive family dynamics are similar to those of any other family, with the added layer of adoption. Previously, research focused on identifying differences between adoptive and nonadoptive families and how adoptive families dealt with those differences (e.g., Kirk, 1964). Although inconsistent (e.g., Lansford, Ceballo, Abbey, & Stewart, 2001; Lanz, Iafrate, Rosnati, & Scabini, 1999), findings generally demonstrated that adoptive and nonadoptive families have more similarities than differences in their interactions (Reuter, Keyes, Iacono, & McGue, 2009).
Although many developmental tasks are not affected by adoption, the adoptive family faces some additional unique tasks. For example, within identity development, the adoptive family must assist in scaffolding the child’s emerging sense of self as an adopted person (Grotevant, Dunbar, Kohler, & Esau, 2000). Thus, identity development may include the adoptee’s individual cognitive and affective processes, communication about adoption between adoptee and parents, and the salience and meaning attributed to adoption for each family member and the family as a whole (Brodzinsky & Pinderhughes, 2002).
Within adoptive families, communication is a critical ingredient for positive adoptee adjustment (Brodzinsky, 2006). At least three elements of communication are critical: family communication patterns (Rueter & Koerner, 2008), communication about adoption (e.g., Brodzinsky, 2011), and, for transracial adoptive families, communication about race and ethnicity (e.g., Suter, Reyes, & Ballard, 2011). Here, we discuss family communication patterns and communication about adoption; communication about race and ethnicity will be discussed later in this chapter.
High levels of family communication along with listening and warmth are linked to better emotional and behavioral adjustment among adoptees (i.e., less delinquency, hostility to parents, fewer externalizing behavior problems and fewer classroom problems; Rueter & Koerner, 2008). By contrast, having at least one adoptive parent who is controlling and engages in little communication, or having low levels of family communication, warmth, and listening, place adoptees at risk for adjustment problems. Positive and affirming communication is only one consideration. Adoptive families face the task of talking about adoption, including the adoption story and birth parents; for many, this is an ongoing process (Wrobel, Kohler, Grotevant, & McRoy, 2004). Openness in communication about adoption is linked to a more coherent and flexible adoptive identity in families with birth family contact (Von Korff & Grotevant, 2011) and to higher self-esteem and positive adjustment in children whose families varied in the degree of contact with birth parents (Brodzinsky, 2006).
Developmental considerations in adoption communication require our attention, as well. Brodzinsky (2011) reminds us of the importance of remaining aware of children’s developmental level when parents discuss adoption with their children. (For a careful description of key developmental tasks regarding adoption for children from preschool through adolescence, see Brodzinsky, 2011.) Wrobel et al. (2004) have suggested three developmental stages to adoption communication: adoptive parents take the lead in sharing unsolicited information; next, adoptive parents respond to adoptees’ curiosity and questions; and, finally, adoptees take the lead with pursuit of answers to their questions. This developmental sequence reflects the changing cognitive capacities of children as they develop and suggests that parents need to be prepared to support their child when she or he moves to the third stage and may pursue information within the context of the family or outside the family.
ADOPTION VISIBILITY
Visibility is particularly important in understanding contexts for transracial adoptive families. Adoption visibility represents the relative ease with which it can be determined that a family was formed through adoption—that is, how “visible” the adoption is. This term was adapted from studies of adoptees in the context of feelings of difference. Brodzinsky (2011) noted that adopted children recognize their physical dissimilarities to their adoptive family members, but also notice both real and perceived differences in interests, personality, temperament, talents, and skills. Furthermore, this concept of adoption visibility extends outside the family context and must be applied within the larger societal context.
Lee (2003) describes transracial adoption as the most visible type of adoption because the differences between parent and child are more “apparent and immutable” (p. 712). Although many intercountry adoptions are transracial or transethnic, visibility falls on a spectrum. Some multiracial adoptive families share physical characteristics such that it is relatively difficult for the average person to determine the family was formed through adoption. Similarly, some inracial adoptive families look quite dissimilar, making their adoption more visible. One must also consider that the visibility of the adoption outside the family context does not necessarily correlate with how visible the child feels—as this may be due to within-family factors like personality or temperament differences. Thus, the perception of visibility and difference felt by the adoptee within the family should be considered.
Mesosystem and Exosystem
The mesosystem involves the connections between settings (Palacios, 2009). Mesosystem considerations in a transracial adoption include issues such as whether adoptive parents educate teachers or classmates about adoption, and how adoptive families and teachers address potential bias in school because of the visibility of the adoption, as well as adoptive and birth parent contact.
The exosystem consists of elements that have an indirect impact on the adoptee. Within transracial adoption, exosystem facets like the influence and impact of the values of the extended family might be particularly important, as adoptees experience bias within their own families (e.g., http://youshouldbegrateful.tumblr.com). Additionally, adoption professionals are often the first people responsible for providing resources to transracial adoptive families, and their competency in so doing may have a distinct impact on the adoptive family. Other exosystem contextual considerations for transracial adoptive families would include issues such as neighborhood diversity, geographic location, or availability of cultural resources.
Macrosystem
Finally, when discussing the macrosystem, Palacios (2009) notes the long global history (chronosystem), the anthropology, and the sociology of adoption. This is especially important for international transracial adoptees (ITRAs) and transracial adoptive families, as there is a long history of debate about the value and ethics of transracial placements (Herman, 2012). Additionally, for international transracial adoptive families, macrosystem values about race, gender, ethnicity, culture, and adoption are communicated to the adoptee and the adoptive family. For example, the meaning of “adoption” in certain countries varies from the Western notion of adoption as severing the ties to one family and replacing them permanently with ties to another, which may have differential impacts on children adopted from countries that have a different cultural understanding of the word. Mezmur (2013) has discussed the impact on Ethiopian mothers who had placed their children for adoption understanding the arrangement more as “boarding” than a permanent severing of family ties, and adoptive families have reported the impact of these misunderstandings on the whole family (Pinderhughes, Matthews, Deoudes & Pertman, 2013).
One important macrosystem impact on ITRAs and citizenship lies in the intersection between immigration and intercountry adoption policies. In the past, children adopted into the United States did not automatically become naturalized citizens. The naturalization process requires the filing of paperwork on behalf of the adoptee by the adoptive parents. In some instances, children adopted from abroad have come to discover as adults that they are not U.S. citizens, and they have been deported to a country of origin with which they may have no familiarity, affiliation, or understanding of (e.g., Pertman, 2012). Many of these adult adoptees have discovered their illegal status when they apply for passports or have some sort of engagement with the U.S. legal system, thus making them subject to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act that mandates deportation of noncitizens for criminal records for which a sentence to a year or more of prison time applies.
The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 made the process easier for people adopting internationally into the United States to guarantee citizenship for their children. If the adoption is finalized before reaching the United States, or the moment that families touch down on U.S. soil, their children will be U.S. citizens without the need to file extra paperwork. Those children adopted on different visas (i.e., IH-4 or IR-4), however, with adoptions originating in countries that are not signatories to the Hague Convention for Intercountry Adoption (HCIA) will require additional paperwork (Form N-600) once the adoption is officially finalized. If that paperwork has not been filed, those children may have difficulty getting college scholarships, working legally, voting, and enjoying other privileges offered to citizens.
Although no research suggests that TRAs are disproportionately affected by their adoptive parents’ failure to complete the appropriate paperwork, significant evidence suggests that there is disproportionate minority contact within the juvenile and adult justice systems. Thus, it is of tremendous importance that parents adopting from non-HCIA countries file all necessary paperwork.
IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT
The process of identity formation likely is more complicated for TRAs, who may face additional challenges in identity development, such as a lack of knowledge about their pasts, an inability to access or acquire information, and social attitudes that stigmatize adoption. Recent research recognizes the need to look at multiple layers of identity when describing the processes of identity formation in adoption (Grotevant, 1997; McGinnis, Smith, Ryan, & Howard, 2009).
Adoptive identity is defined as the sense of who one is as an adopted person (Grotevant et al., 2000). The adoptee’s cognitive processes, family environment, and greater context are all important contexts for adoptive identity development (Grotevant et al., 2000). The nature of adoption for the adopted child involves complicated concepts like abandonment, rejection, grief, loss, and gratitude. Some of these concepts have the potential to be painful or even alienating for people who have been adopted. Challenges to adoptive identity development are evidenced by the many adopted individuals who have expressed concerns about “fitting in” or “belonging.” Adopted individuals may feel that they belong neither to their adoptive families, nor to their biological families or birth countries (McGinnis et al., 2009).
Conversely, adoptees may find a way to incorporate and integrate aspects of both birth and adoptive families into their emerging identities. Children who are able to integrate these aspects into a positive sense of self tend to have parents who are more supportive, open, and empathic in their discussions with their children (Brodzinsky, Schechter, & Henig, 1992). Access to information about adoption and preplacement histories facilitates adoptive identity development (Brodzinsky et al., 1992; Grotevant, 1997). Families with more open styles of communication about adoption issues have fewer adolescent identity problems (Stein & Hoopes, 1985). Adoptive identity also remains important over the life span (McGinnis et al., 2009).
For ITRAs, cultural identity development may be a distinct process from adoptive identity. Adoptive families may have a cultural identity that may not align with the birth culture of the adoptee. Thus, the ITRA may face trying to navigate and incorporate additional cultures into his or her identity. This process may involve understanding a link to one’s heritage and feeling connected to the country of origin; adoptive parents’ support of this process will have an impact. Adoptees may incorporate the culture of their country of origin by learning about the cultural history, the language, the food, and the cultural celebrations, which may be distinct from those represented by the adoptive parents.
Cultural identity development may be particularly difficult for adoptees who are in cultural-resource-poor areas. For example, ITRAs living in rural or homogenous geographic areas may have a much more difficult time finding and accessing representations of their culture of origin; consequently, they face significant challenges formulating their cultural identity.
Racial and Ethnic Identity
Racial and ethnic identity development was first studied with respect to minority race and ethnicity among nonadopted individuals. Debated as having either a biological or social definition, a modern understanding suggests that racial identity “refers to a sense of group or collective identity based on one’s perception that s/he shares a common heritage with a particular racial group” (Helms, 1993, p. 3).
Early theories of racial identity development posited a process of initial identification with whites and internalization of racial stereotypes, disrupted by an encounter (often in adolescence or adulthood) that causes the individual to question white culture and values, seek information about and connection to one’s own racial group and culture, and over time come to a balanced view of one’s own racial group and culture and that of white culture (e.g., Cross, Parham, & Helms, 1991). More recently, scholars have articulated theoretical models of racial identity development for different racial groups (for African Americans, see Cross, Strauss, & Fhagen-Smith; 1999; for Asian Americans, see Kim, 2001), which suggest that children are socialized from infancy through adolescence with exposure to conversations with their same-race parents that may vary in the messages about the importance of their culture.
Ethnic identity refers to one’s knowledge of self as a member of a group that shares a national or cultural origin, along with the emotional significance linked to that group membership (Feagin & Feagin, 2011; Tajfel, 1981). Ethnic identity has been shown to be important across diverse ethnic groups, including various white ethnic groups (e.g., Driedger, 1976). In an important study among nonadopted youth, Phinney (1992) showed that ethnic identity was significantly correlated with self-esteem among minority students and among white students who were a small minority in their school setting. Researchers have further explored the nature of ethnic identity by focusing on the components of ethnic identity, including self-identification, language, social networks, religious affiliation, positive attitudes, and varied cultural traditions and practices (Phinney, 1992). Ethnic identity is manifested normatively in the following ways: exploration of ethnicity through involvement in social activities or cultural traditions with other group members; positive or negative attitudes toward one’s group demonstrated by ethnic pride or feelings about one’s background and group membership; and, finally, commitment to one’s ethnicity through expression of interest and awareness of ethnic identity (Phinney, 1992). Most of these aspects of ethnic identity are dimensional—for example, from high to low group esteem or from more to less confusion or ambivalence about ethnic identity.
Building on the literature on racial or ethnic identity development among nonadopted individuals, adoption researchers have begun to investigate racial and ethnic identity among TRAs. Some researchers have differentiated between racial and ethnic identity (e.g., Baden, 2002), but most have examined racial and ethnic identity together. In the following section, we refer to the terms used by the respective researchers.
Within Transracial Adoptive Families
Adoptive parents are predominantly white (73 percent); thus, many intercountry adoptions are also transracial. The most common transracial placements have been the adoption of Asian children to white parents (Lee, 2003; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007). Given the high rates of adoption from countries like China, Ethiopia, and Guatemala, 40 percent of adoptive families in the United States find themselves part of bi- or multiracial families (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2007).
Baden (2002) suggests that in transracial adoptive families, one must consider both the adoptee’s and parents’ cultural groups and racial groups as one is examining cultural identity and racial identity. In her cultural-racial identity model, the adoptee’s racial identity is likely to reflect some impact of the values and beliefs from not only his or her racial group, but also his or her parent’s racial group. Possible outcomes might include a pro-parent racial identity, in which adoptees endorse their parents’ racial views and values; a pro-self racial identity, in which adoptees develop views and values consistent with their racial group; a biracial identity, in which adoptees have high endorsement of values and beliefs from both their parents’ and their own racial groups; or an undifferentiated racial identity, in which adoptees might feel marginalized and uncertain of who they are. Baden also suggests four similar outcomes for adoptees’ cultural identities and notes that when both cultural and racial identities are jointly considered, the possible outcomes become even more complicated.
Lee (2003) suggests that although TRAs are ethnic minorities, they are perceived as members of the majority culture because they were adopted into white families—a phenomenon he calls the “transracial adoption paradox.” McGinnis et al. (2009) found that many Korean ITRAs felt white and did not identify with their race until later adolescence and emerging adulthood (high school and college). Indeed, the authors described reports from adult Korean adoptees indicating they did not know they were Asian until they were informed by classmates.
Studies on ethnic identity among adoptees generally examine the extent to which adoptees use ethnic self-descriptors or express pride or comfort with their ethnicity (Lee, 2003). A meta-analysis of studies of domestic TRAs and non-white, inracial adoptees showed that TRAs had significantly lower racial/ethnic identities (Hollingsworth, 1997). Given the increase in ITRAs, however, and the increasingly popular opinion that adoptive parents should support the adoptee’s access to and involvement with their birth-country culture (i.e., cultural socialization [CS]), this finding may be outdated. TRAs with the support of and access to racially and culturally appropriate role models and life experiences are better able to negotiate adoptive and ethnic identity development (Brodzinsky et al., 1992; McGinnis et al., 2009). Some adoptees in adolescence, however, resist their parents’ attempts at CS because they seek to belong with their peers (Freundlich & Lieberthal, 2000).
Additional factors may influence identity, such as age at adoption, community diversity, and even developmental level of the adoptee. ITRAs placed at an older age identified more strongly with their ethnicities and races than those placed at a younger age (Wickes & Slate, 1996). Reflecting the influence of community diversity, studies in more ethnically homogenous settings like Sweden (e.g., Cederblad, Hook, Irhammar & Mercke, 1999) found weaker ethnic identity among TRAs. In the United States, some transracial adoptees’ sense of race and ethnicity diminished by adolescence; importantly, this study found that parents’ efforts to encourage birth-country ethnic identification also decreased (DeBerry, Scarr, & Weinberg, 1996). Other studies, however, found an increase in the birth-country ethnic identification of ITRAs from childhood into adulthood (Freundlich & Lieberthal, 2000; McGinnis et al., 2009). We know little about whether gender is related to racial or ethnic identity development.
IMPACT OF PARENTING
Parents of TRAs fall along a spectrum of parenting strategies concerning race and ethnicity. Some parents may seek ethnic or racial assimilation of their adopted child, such that they reject or downplay the unique racial and ethnic experiences of their children. Early studies suggested this was the case for many adoptive parents (e.g., Andujo, 1988; McRoy & Zurcher, 1983). More recent studies, however, have found that adoptive parents acknowledge differences within the family and promote the birth-country cultures and ethnic and racial heritages of their children (Carstens & Julia, 2000). This finding in part may be due to changes in intercountry adoption policies with the ratification of the HCIA, which includes, as a regulation for agency accreditation, that potential adoptive parents receive 10 hours of preadoptive training, including racial and cultural education (Hague Conference on Private International Law, 1993).
WHEN ADOPTEES ARE IMMIGRANTS
Because 25 percent of adoptees are internationally placed (Vandivere, Malm, & Radel, 2009), and thus are immigrants, we look selectively to the literature on identity development among immigrant children. Of course, a critical distinction is that in stark contrast to other immigrant children, ITRAs experience the host culture alone within their families.
Among immigrants, Padilla (2006) found that although ethnic loyalty persisted across generations, knowledge about one’s home culture decreased as years of residence in the United States increased. ITRAs are likely to have less cultural knowledge than are children raised by parents of the same racial or ethnic background, but their identification with an ethnic group can be strong. For example, although Korean adoptees were less likely to have a strong sense of belonging to their ethnic group, they identified more strongly with it (McGinnis et al., 2009). Separating cultural knowledge from ethnic loyalty might be useful in understanding identity development in ITRAs.
TRAs face the task of integrating multiple cultural identities. In this regard, the bicultural identity integration model, which focuses on bicultural individuals’ perceptions of how compatible their cultural identities are (Benet-Martínez & Haritatos, 2005), might be helpful. Among Latin American adoptees in Italy, ethnic and national identification was related to more compatible cultural identities, which, in turn, were related to positive well-being (Manzi, Ferrari, Rosnati, & Benet-Martinez, 2014). Mistry and Wu (2010) point out the dynamic nature in which one navigates between multiple identities. Thus, in addition to considering whether a TRA’s multiple identities are compatible, parents, researchers, and practitioners may focus on helping TRAs navigate between multiple identities to achieve a coherent sense of self.
ETHNIC–RACIAL SOCIALIZATION
Ethnic–racial socialization (E-RS) encompasses several facets. Researchers used different terms such as ethnic socialization, racial socialization, and cultural socialization (CS) among others to capture various facets of racial and ethnic socialization. Hughes et al. (2006) hence clarified the usage of terminologies and proposed four themes describing racial and ethnic socialization. CS refers to activities that promote cultural pride and skills that enable a person to function as a member of a culture group, “preparation for bias” (PfB) refers to parents’ efforts to make children aware of racism and to teach children how to cope with it. “Promotion of racial mistrust” emphasizes interracial mistrust; with “colorblind attitudes,” parents with an “egalitarian” approach encourage children to look beyond race and promote an attitude that is silent about race. In this chapter, we focus on CS and PfB.
Cultural Socialization
Many TRAs experience identity struggles (e.g., McGinnis et al., 2009). A positive ethnic identity, however, is predictive of better psychological adjustment in TRAs (DeBerry et al.; 1996; Tan & Jordan-Arthur, 2012; Yoon, 2000), and CS facilitates building a positive ethnic identity (Huh & Reid, 2000; Yoon, 2000).
Among African American TRAs and their parents, a family’s degree of verbal and behavioral endorsement of E-RS predicted Afrocentric reference group orientation, which contributed to later adjustment (DeBerry et al., 1996). Participation in Korean cultural activities was associated with the extent of adoptees’ identification with Korean culture (Huh & Reid, 2000). In international transracial adoptive families in which parents supported and participated in Korean ethnic socialization experiences, Korean adoptees showed better psychological adjustment (Yoon, 2000). In short, for TRAs, ethnic identity is related to well-being and adjustment, and CS is an important source of a positive ethnic identity.
For young adoptees, parents play an important role in CS. Some parents are more proactive and they initiate participation in cultural activities, whereas others choose to wait for their children to ask for such participation. Adoptees’ interest in cultural activities was related to parents’ proactivity (Bebiroglu & Pinderhughes, 2012). Quiroz (2012) argued that parents who waited for children to initiate CS relinquish their responsibilities for socialization, and this is an implicit form of cultural avoidance.
Often families must support TRAs and ITRAs who have special needs that may require substantial family resources, including time, energy, and finances. Some children with developmental delays may not understand concepts of racial or ethnic difference. In these family situations, parents must weigh what is best for the adoptee and family in terms of providing any exposure to CS. For example, the Windom family adopted Anthony at age 2 from India, knowing he had language delays. However, other special needs emerged after placement, notably reactive attachment disorder and severe tantrums, which disrupted many family activities in and out of the home. In combination, Anthony’s disabilities were sufficiently serious to require intensive supports by his parents. Although Anthony’s parents and older siblings initially had planned to incorporate Indian culture into their home to support him, it soon became clear that addressing his special needs had to take priority. His mother left work to be with him full-time, working to provide corrective emotional experiences, as well as to take him to his various therapies. Given the priorities to address Anthony’s special needs, the Windoms decided that the best they could do was to incorporate Indian artwork and food.
Parents’ racial and cultural attitudes also are important to CS. For example, parents endorsing colorblind attitudes were less likely to believe in the importance of CS, and in turn, provided less CS (Lee et al., 2006). The authors concluded that awareness of racial differences was insufficient to ensure CS practices; parents need to value the importance of providing cultural experiences to engage in CS behaviors. Little research has examined parents’ or family ethnic identity and CS. Although parents’ ethnic identity was not related to CS (Berbery & O’Brien, 2011), parent-reported family ethnic identity was related to parents’ provision of CS and to their Chinese-born adopted children’s ethnic labels (Pinderhughes et al., in press)
With limited knowledge and resources about a child’s culture, transracial adoptive parents’ provision of CS might not be sufficient for a child to develop a positive ethnic identity. Quiroz (2012) differentiated “cultural tourism,” which features a consumer approach (e.g., purchase of ethnic meals, books, celebrations; sending child only to CS activities without family participation), from “culture keeping,” which features deeper engagement in activities (e.g., language lessons, culture camp; regular contact with cultural experts). Quiroz (2012) noted that culture keeping provides more authentic exposure and is more likely to promote a positive ethnic identity. Korean adoptees, however, reported TRA-specific activities such as culture camps and ethnic festivals were insufficient to fully develop a positive ethnic identity (McGinnis et al., 2009). What helped, according to these adoptees, were “lived” experiences such as traveling to the birth country, attending racially diverse schools, and having role models of their own race and ethnicity. In another study, although African American adoptees were exposed to their ethnic culture to various degrees as a child, they had to “relearn” the culture when older (Samuels, 2010). This “relearning” experience was coined “reculturation” (Baden, Treweeke, & Ahluwalia, 2012) and refers to the individual’s need to make sense of their culture as active adult participants.
Research supports beneficial effects of “lived experiences,” such as heritage trips. For immigrants and their children who may experience alienation in their daily lives, heritage trips to ancestral lands satisfy longings for belonging (Cohen, 1979). Heritage trips, in the same way, provided ITRAs a potential sense of belonging and home (McGinnis et al., 2009; Wilson & Summerhill-Coleman, 2013) and were related positively to adult adoptees’ ethnic identity (Song & Lee, 2009). More specifically, ITRAs reflected on their group-based heritage trips as providing opportunities to connect with other adoptees, create a coherent adoption narrative, relate to birth parents and share grief, and explore ethnic and racial background (Wilson & Summerhill-Coleman, 2013). Heritage trips, however, are not universally positive. Adoptees experience mixed feelings during their trips. Children who visited China felt positive emotions regarding the trip, but they found visiting the orphanage and the finding sites emotionally challenging (Ponte, Wang, & Fan, 2010). In some cases, adolescent adoptees have been so unsettled by their experience that they have needed therapeutic intervention upon return home (B. J. Lifton, personal communication, 2007). Thus, parents need to carefully consider if and when during their child’s development to plan a heritage trip (Pinderhughes & Pinderhughes, 2010). An excellent resource for parents and professionals is From Home to Homeland (Jacobs, Ponte, & Wang, 2010), which features a collection of personal accounts and writings by professionals and researchers on the experience.
In sum, CS is indeed complex. Considerations include how much and how frequently CS should be provided, who should participate, and the extent to which a cultural expert engages with adoptees and their families. Parents who believe in the value of CS are more likely to provide CS, and their children are more likely to benefit from CS. As parents consider how they will incorporate CS into their family life, it might help to contemplate whether the family is multiracial or multiethnic or is American with a TRA.
Preparation for Bias
Being visibly adopted and a member of an ethnic minority group make TRAs vulnerable to unsolicited public comments, whether with their parents (Wegar, 2000) or alone (Vashchenko, D’Aleo, & Pinderhughes, 2012). Across numerous retrospective accounts, whether research-based or personal accounts, almost all TRAs report being the target of bias (e.g., McGinnis et al., 2009; Oparah, Shin, & Trenka, 2006; Trenka, 2003). Despite this near-universal experience for adoptees, there is great variation in whether parents communicate with and provide support to help adoptees deal with their experiences. Family communication processes about adoption, notably visible adoption, are complex, complicated, and involve flexibility by adoptive parents (e.g., Harrigan 2009; Suter, Reyes, & Ballard 2011). Some adoptees’ accounts of communication about bias suggest that they do not tell their families about their experiences because of prior parental unresponsiveness (Docan-Morgan, 2011). Other adoptees perceive that their parents will be unresponsive because “they don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes” (Docan-Morgan, 2011, p. 345). Some adoptees feel the pull to blend into their white family’s identity and not disrupt the family’s life by talking about bias (Docan-Morgan, 2011). Parents’ failure to model discussions about race can contribute to this pull: “So I think some of it was that my parents didn’t bring [race] up” (Docan-Morgan, 2011, p. 346). Yet other adoptees seek to protect their family members from the reality of their experiences (Oparah et al., 2006). When TRAs do not feel that they can discuss issues of bias with their parents, they often hold their vulnerability quietly and alone, without guidance for how to deal with these painful experiences.
By contrast, some accounts indicate that some adoptees feel supported by their adoptive parents. Docan-Morgan (2011) reported that although most adoptees in her sample avoided telling their parents about bias, those who chose to talk with their parents had received prior validation and empathy from their parents. Docan-Morgan (2011) observed that these parents were comfortable enough to talk openly about race issues. She also noted that these adoptees’ validating experiences were consistent with general family communication styles marked by the warmth, openness, and emotional or instrumental support that facilitated victims of bullying to tell their parents in nonadoptive families (Matsunaga, 2008). Our previous discussion about openness in adoption communication is directly relevant here: not only does adoption communication facilitate a positive experience of adoption but also likely enables parents and children to talk more openly about bias.
For transracial adoptive families, PfB is complicated in at least two ways. First, parents may not have experience navigating stigma related to their child’s characteristics. Some adoptive parents understand the limitation that “the privilege of being White puts us at a disadvantage for helping our children cope in the world” (Harrigan, 2009, p. 643). Second, unlike most inracial adoptive families, transracial adoptive families face unsolicited comments and questions that often invalidate the adoptee, compromise the adoptive parent, or challenge their identity as a family (Wegar, 2000). Often comments intended for the parent are communicated in front of the adoptee because parents only become visible adoptive parents when their child is with them. As parents receive, consider possible actions, and respond to queries and comments, they also must remember that in that instant, they model for their children choices about dealing with bias. These processes are consolidated into brief teachable moments—so having practice with self-reflection about cultural differences can facilitate more effective choices during these experiences.
We know less about PfB in transracial adoptive families than we do about CS. The extant literature has focused on relations between PfB and children’s functioning, with less attention given to associations between parents’ role, provision of PfB activities, and children’s functioning. PfB was associated with higher self-esteem (e.g., Mohanty, 2013) and lower levels of marginality (feeling like one belongs nowhere; Mohanty, 2013). In a study of discrimination frequency and stress among transracially adopted adolescents, youth receiving higher levels of PfB reported lower levels of stress than did youth receiving lower levels of PfB (Leslie, Smith, & Hrapczynski, 2013). Regarding parents’ role, parents who believed in the value of PfB were more likely to provide it (Berbery & O’Brien, 2011). Parents with colorblind attitudes were less likely to provide PfB and, in turn, had fewer discussions with their children about racism (Lee et al., 2006).
Consider the following case: Jason was born in the United States to his Haitian mother and Ghanaian father, each an immigrant to the United States. Shortly after birth, he entered the foster care system, remaining there until he was adopted at age 4 years of age by the Bostrips, a white family. His family embraced his Haitian and Ghanaian backgrounds, posting artwork and seeking out students from these backgrounds from the local university. Over the years, the Bostrips were thrilled when different Haitian students would teach Jason words in Creole and Ghanaian students taught him some of their customs. The Bostrips, however, were horrified when they heard the students talking with Jason, now 12 years old, about racism, sharing lessons they learned about being black in the United States. The Bostrips adamantly instructed the students not to talk about race, citing their expectation that Jason not see himself as African American but rather as Ghanaian and Haitian. Confused and feeling invalidated, the students began an ongoing conversation with the Bostrips to help them understand what Jason already was experiencing but had not disclosed to his parents. Although they did not want issues of race and racism to enter family discussions, over time, the Bostrips came to understand it was a critical process to support Jason in dealing with bias.
In sum, from the limited research on PfB, we see that although PfB can benefit TRAs, parents’ attitudes and beliefs about racial differences or the benefit of addressing these differences appear to be linked to their choices about providing PfB. More TRAs might be better supported in dealing with experiences of discrimination if parents acknowledged racial differences and could see the benefits associated with this activity. Personal accounts as well as research on TRAs’ experiences with bias and family communication point to several important aspects of communication regarding bias experiences. Communication about bias ideally includes encouraging children to talk about their experiences, listening to adoptees’ experiences, validating their vulnerability and hurt as a member of a targeted group, discussing ways to deal with future incidents, and advocating with others on the adoptee’s behalf.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Self-Reflection
As a foundation for our recommendations for professionals and families to promote children’s ethnic identity, we first return to our call for ongoing self-reflection. This should be viewed as a critical foundational task and process in which adults engage. Responsible for providing the most formative context in which children grow up, parents set the tone for how children will view and experience transracial adoption through direct parent–child discussions, interactions with those outside the family, and degree of CS. Professionals fundamentally affect adoptees’ lives by how they prepare families, with whom they place children, and the quality of postplacement services designed to support transracial placements. Whatever one’s role, even the most enlightened people have ongoing work to do to remain aware of their multiple identities and the way in which their privileged statuses influence their attitudes, beliefs, and values and to consider ways to improve interactions with others. Moreover, the work professionals do in adoption, both with adoptees and with adoptive families, can always benefit from a deeper understanding of privilege and status as well as structural and institutionalized inequality (Fong, 2001). Our work on ourselves is never done. Whether in person, in chatrooms, or on listserves, this process should involve discussions with others who are engaging in similar journeys.
We place this suggestion first because unless one learns to be comfortable with and talking about one’s views about race, culture, and stigma, parents may not be prepared to participate effectively in these typically difficult discussions with children or with others on behalf of children. Moreover, professionals who lack such practice are likely to experience difficulty facilitating these discussions with parents and risk intimidating parents from learning to have these discussions. For example, consider the first author’s experience consulting with a predominantly white elementary school with some black students to provide support for teachers in their work with students. After two successful workshops on cultural diversity that facilitated teachers’ initial work on self-reflection, the school leadership encouraged teachers to explore with black parents during parent-teacher conferences whether their children had faced difficult race-based experiences. Unfortunately, although interested in having these discussions, some teachers had not had sufficient practice and discussions went poorly.
With ongoing self-reflection as the foundational recommendation, we turn first to parents, and then to professionals because a key part of professionals’ responsibilities is to understand and support parents’ tasks. Our recommendations for parents address what parents should do to be as effective as possible in proactively and reactively supporting children. Proactive support involves planned activities and discussions designed to provide CS or PfB. Reactive support entails responses to situations that present as “teachable moments.”
SUGGESTIONS FOR PARENTS
Your child needs you to share this journey of cultural exploration so she or he can have a healthy sense of self. You need to become comfortable with cultural and racial differences and with talking about differences to best support your child’s journey.
Your support should include planned (proactive) activities and discussions; but support also means being prepared for those teachable moments that happen unexpectedly (reactive).
Your support should extend to teachers and other professionals working with your child. (You may be the only person who can help others hear your child’s voice.)
Communication About Adoption
TRAs are always visible, but they may not be heard. Their experiences and their voices need to be heard by their parents and other important adults in their world (see Brodzinsky, 2011, who provides twelve guidelines for how parents should communicate with children regarding adoption). As discussed, Brodzinsky (2011) notes that discussions should be dialogues between parent and child, start early, and evolve throughout their child’s development; parents should be emotionally available and listen to and validate their child’s experiences and questions, respect the birth family in discussing the adoption story, and be aware of their own feelings about the birth family, adoption, and their child’s history. These guidelines directly apply to CS and PfB processes within transracial adoptions.
Children Grow and Change
Parents must keep development in mind. As children develop, how, what, and how much parents talk with them about adoption, race and ethnicity and culture will shift. As parents of young children balance how much to share and how to deal with unknowns in the child’s history, they must keep in mind that what they share likely will need revisiting, clarification, and elaboration as children grow older. Parents should remember that adoption communication has a developmental sequence that reflects children’s changing cognitive capacities. How open parents are to discussions of adoption and race and cultural differences throughout childhood may shape the child’s willingness to seek parental help (Wrobel et al., 2004). If parents find themselves feeling challenged by the adolescent adoptee’s or young adult adoptee’s interest in learning about his or her birth family or culture of origin, it is critical to remember that such curiosity and interest is normative. Parents also should be prepared to support their teen or young adult should she or he pursue adoption information within the context of the family or outside the family. A final developmental note is that one’s child may resist CS at a number of points in time: “I don’t want to go to Korean camp; I want to go to soccer camp with the rest of my friends.” Just because one’s child is not interested at that moment, does not mean she or he will never have renewed interest. It is important not to give up even if it seems that one’s child has. If she or he does not want to participate, it may be up to parents to take the lead and pursue the information for their own benefit. At a point later in development, children also can benefit from what their parents have learned.
Balance Multiple Identities
Parents should consider the importance of balancing family identity with supporting the development of children’s multiple identities. How the family views itself racially, ethnically, and culturally may serve to provide a sense of connection or disconnection for a TRA. In line with ongoing self-reflection, parents should consider what choices they make for family-based activities, parent- and adoptee-based activities, and adoptee-only activities. As in all families, promoting a family identity that embraces all members should be balanced with supporting activities that enable individual family members to develop and integrate their multiple identities, including nonculturally based identities (e.g., athlete, artist).
About CS
CS tends to involve more proactive and planned rather than reactive activities. CS is never a one-shot deal. No one activity, one idea, or one experience is sufficient to teach a child about their country of origin, race, ethnicity, or culture. Thus, parents should consider which activities to initiate or whether they should wait for the child to express interest, who should participate in which activities, and whether to engage cultural experts in the activities (e.g., language teacher, mentor from same cultural background).
About PfB
PfB discussions should entail both proactive planned processes as well as—and especially—reactive discussions. Children need tools to deal with bias, and parents should be prepared to help children develop strategies or identify someone who can provide this support. Public settings present minefields for TRAs and families: How should they respond to insensitive comments or seemingly naïve questions? Parents should remain mindful that the story is their child’s to tell. Because parents are always modeling for their children, self-reflective work on one’s motivations for responding to different questions and comments might start with consideration of how comfortable one would be if the story being told was one’s own story.
Work on Behalf of Your Child
School, the neighborhood, and even extended family are settings in which children may need parental advocacy. As children develop, the opportunities presented by schools for parent engagement and advocacy on the adoptee’s behalf change. Educating teachers and peers about the adoptee’s culture of origin, including customs, practices, and rituals, would be appropriate in elementary years, but not likely an option in middle to high school. Addressing bias situations, however, will be advocacy that parents may find necessary at any point in the adoptee’s elementary and middle and high school experiences. Parent advocacy may be less welcome by school administrators in the middle and high school years, but it may still be a necessary support for the adoptee. Thus, adoptive parents need to be prepared for such advocacy, as do other parents raising a child of color. As parents of color know, figuring out when to support one’s child through home-based discussions about addressing bias or through direct advocacy at school is challenging. Transracial adoptive parents would directly benefit from being able to consult with other parents or adults of color or who have experience advocating with schools regarding bias. In short, having a community that can support parents in this area is important.
As one adoptive parent said, “You have to, yourself make some connections so that this child won’t see his color/ethnicity as unnatural” (Simon & Roorda, 2007, p. 49). Parents raising TRAs need to consider not only the family identity they foster but also the broader community of support they provide for their adopted child and family. These considerations include where to live; a diverse community is likely to present fewer situations in which adoptees feel isolated, alone, and too visible. When parents cannot change their residence, it is important to actively cultivate friendships with adults and families from the child’s cultural background or diverse cultural backgrounds as supports for themselves and for the adoptee. Possible settings include churches, local recreation centers, or universities. Family friends can provide direct support, whether through CS or PfB discussions, not only for parents as they work on their parenting challenges but also for adoptees.
SUGGESTIONS FOR PROFESSIONALS
We learn best through relationships. Parents need your help to see the difference that relationships make. You may be the family’s first and last authority on raising a child of color.
Given that you are the “expert” helping the family, you need to do the work to develop the expertise and become comfortable providing this support.
This work includes developing relationships within and across cultural differences through which you learn about yourself and others.
Your support of the family should not end when the adoption is finalized. Parents will need to access ongoing support as they raise children of color.
PROFESSIONALS
In addition to ongoing self-reflection and related professional training, professionals should incorporate into preplacement preparation and postplacement content that would support parents to carry out the previous recommendations.
Before Placement
Preplacement preparation should include training that includes self-reflection processes about parents’ attitudes and beliefs about cultural and racial differences. Such training—provided before placement—would focus parents’ attention on critical issues and questions they will face should they choose to raise an adopted child who does not share their racial or ethnic background. Training should include assigned readings or viewings from resources that subsequently are discussed in preadoptive parent groups. In addition to professionals facilitating these discussions, adult TRAs and seasoned transracial adoptive parents could serve as (compensated) consultants. As these supports are developed, it will be important for professionals to carefully evaluate their effectiveness.
After Placement
Postplacement support for transracial adoptive families could include group-based experiences that are supplemented with individual or individual family sessions. Group-based services could include, as suggested for preplacement services, adult TRAs and seasoned transracial adoptive parents as consultants. The development of theoretically grounded and evidence-based postplacement supports will serve a critical advancement in the field.
Over the past two decades, camps have emerged to address TRAs’ needs (and in some cases, families’ needs). These camps typically focus either on adoption or providing culturally based experiences. A simple online search will point to a variety of camps across the United States. Given the diversity of camps available, one critical support adoption professionals could provide is assisting parents in assessing the quality of camp experiences and the potential fit of certain camps for specific child and family needs. A unique camp experience that directly addresses the needs of TRAs and families is offered by Pact, An Adoption Alliance, a California-based agency focusing on transracial placements (http://www.pactadopt.org/app/servlet/HomePage). The Pact Family Camp staff also provides consultation to other groups across the United States who seek to offer an integrated family-based camp experience by addressing issues faced by transracial adoptive families.
Consultation with Other Professionals
Another important resource adoption professionals could provide to families is consultation to teachers and health professionals who regularly interact with TRAs and their families. Consultation that normalizes the challenges that TRAs and families face and that places relevant challenges in the context of school or community experiences might be especially helpful.
It is clear that parents raising transracially adopted or internationally transracially adopted children face multiple challenges. The task of scaffolding the identity of a child is indeed complex and ever changing, as our local and national contexts change. On behalf of children in need of loving, supportive, and affirming homes, it is important to support parents trying to navigate all the advice, recommendations, prescriptions, and demands of transracial adoptive parenting. Parents who have put in the work to seek information are taking critical steps to learn and understand how best to support their adopted children. Similarly, in the face of limited requirements for professional development in this area, adoption professionals who put in the additional time and effort to learn how best to support families position themselves to provide more effective services.
The task of TRAs’ identity development is extremely important, especially because of its difficulty. This chapter has addressed the most important facets of identity development, including communicating about adoption, bias, race, and ethnicity; understanding the greater contexts the adoptee and adoptive family will face; understanding the different layers of identity related to adoption, culture, ethnicity, and race; and developing a process of exposing an adopted child to their culture of origin and helping them navigate bias—all in balance with the rest of the family, their agency, preferences, thoughts, feelings, values, and characteristics. As we conclude this chapter, we refer readers to the following two sets of resources: key questions for parents to consider regarding CS and PfB, and sample web- and print-based resources to support self-reflection about cultural differences in general and transracial adoption in particular.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Cultural Socialization Activities
1. Why do I want my child to do this activity?
2. Why would my child want to do this activity?
3. What are short-term rewards for participating in this activity?
4. What are potential long-term rewards for participating in this activity?
5. How well does my child engage in the activity?
6. Why am I participating in this activity? Why aren’t I participating in this activity with my child? What would it take to get me to participate in this activity?
7. What messages might I be giving to my child about this activity?
8. Who is responsible for imparting this cultural knowledge to my child and our family? Is it a cultural expert?
9. At what age does my child get a say in what kind of cultural activities we engage in as a family?
10. What if my child doesn’t like this activity?
Preparation for Bias
11. Whom am I raising?
12. How would I describe my child? (ethnically, racially, culturally) How does my child describe himself or herself?
13. How comfortable am I raising a child who is seen by others as [stereotype: Black, Asian, Latino]?
14. When is my child old enough to describe herself?
15. When is my child old enough to tell his or her own story? And to decide who tells his or her story? Who gets to hear it?
16. What is my model for how I see our family? Did I simply adopt a child into my family? Did I incorporate a new culture into my family? How does the whole family practice this new culture? Is one member of my family no longer being exposed to aspects of the culture? Are all family members getting exposed to all aspects of everybody’s culture?
Context
17. Where do we live? How racially or ethnically diverse it our neighborhood? Is my child the only person from his or her racial or ethnic background in the neighborhood? Or is my child the only person of color? If yes, am I able or willing to move to a more diverse neighborhood? If not, am I willing to look to cultivate relationships or friendships with folks from my child’s ethnic or racial background? Or with others from different backgrounds? Where can I look?
18. What about the racial diversity of my child’s school? If the school is predominantly white, how does my child feel “being the diversity” in their school? How would I feel if I were the only member of my race at my school? What am I prepared to do to support my child?
SAMPLE RESOURCES
Web- and Print-Based
Implicit Assumptions Test. Retrieved from implicit.harvard.edu
Videos, Movies, and Films
Blogs and Online Magazines
Books
MEMOIRS AND TRIAD VOICES
Trenka, J. J. (2003). The language of blood: A memoir. Minneapolis: Minnesota Historical Society Press.
Fifield, A. (2001). A blessing over ashes: The remarkable odyssey of my unlikely brother. New York: HarperCollins.
RESEARCH/ACADEMIC (ALSO SEE REFERENCE LIST)
Simon, R. J., & Roorda, R. M. (2009). In their siblings’ voices: White non-adopted siblings talk about their experiences being raised with black and biracial brothers and sisters. New York: Columbia University Press.
Andujo, E. (1988). Ethnic identity of transethnically adopted Hispanic adolescents. Social Work, 33(6), 531–535.
Baden, A. L. (2002). The psychological adjustment of transracial adoptees: An application of the cultural–racial identity model. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless, 11(2), 167–191.
Baden, A. L., Treweeke, L. M., & Ahluwalia, M. K. (2012). Reclaiming culture: Reculturation of transracial and international adoptees. Journal of Counseling & Development, 90, 387–399.
Bebiroglu, N., & Pinderhughes, E. E. (2012). Mothers raising daughters: New complexities in cultural socialization for children adopted from China. Adoption Quarterly, 15, 116–139.
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Berbery, M., & O’Brien, K. (2011). Predictors of white adoptive parents’ cultural and racial socialization behaviors with their Asian adopted children. Adoption Quarterly, 14, 284–304.
Brodzinsky, D. M. (2006). Family structural openness and communication openness as predictors in the adjustment of adopted children. Adoption Quarterly, 9(4), 1–18.
Brodzinsky, D. M. (2011). Children’s understanding of adoption: Developmental and clinical implications. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 42(2), 200–207.
Brodzinsky, D. M., & Pinderhughes, E. E. (2002). Parenting and child development in adoptive families. In M. Bornstein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. I. Status and social conditions of parenting (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Brodzinsky, D. M., Schechter, M. D., & Henig, R. M. (1992). Being adopted: The lifelong search for self. New York: Doubleday.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). Contexts of child rearing: Problems and prospects. American Psychologist, 34(10), 844–850.
Carstens, C., & Julia, M. (2000). Ethnoracial awareness in intercountry adoption: U.S. experiences. International Social Work, 43, 61–73.
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DeBerry, K. M., Scarr, S., & Weinberg, R. (1996). Family racial socialization and ecological competence: Longitudinal assessment of African-American transracial adoptees. Child Development, 65, 2375–2399.
Docan-Morgan, S. (2011). “They don’t know what it’s like to be in my shoes”: Topic avoidance about race in transracially adoptive families. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 28(3), 336–355.
Driedger, L. (1976). Ethnic self-identity: A comparison of ingroup evaluations. Sociometry, 39, 131–141.
Feagin, J. R., & Feagin, C. B. (2011). Racial and ethnic relations (9th ed.). Boston: Prentice Hall.
Fong, R. (2001). Culturally competent social work practice: Past and present. In R. Fong, & S. Furuto (Eds.), Culturally competent practice: Skills, interventions and evaluations. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Fong, R., & Wang, A. (2000). Adoptive parents and identity development for Chinese children. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 3, 19–33.
Freundlich, M., & Lieberthal, J. K. (2000). The gathering of the first generation of adult Korean adoptees: Adoptees’ perceptions of international adoption (pp. 1–24). New York: Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute.
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Grotevant, H. D. (1997). Coming to terms with adoption: The construction of identity from adolescence into adulthood. Adoption Quarterly, 1, 3–27.
Grotevant, H. D., Dunbar, N., Kohler, J. K., & Esau, A.M. L. (2000). Adoptive identity: How contexts within and beyond the family shape developmental pathways. Family Relations, 49(4), 379–387.
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