Eleana Kim’s book Adopted Territory
struck a chord for me with its discussion of the tensions between
adoptees’ socialization, identification, and societal classification. I
have four adopted cousins who are black. Though they were born in the
United States, I believe there are certain similarities between the ways
various family members treat and discuss them and the ways family
members treat and discuss the Korean international adoptees described in
the book. Since I rarely see these cousins, who range in age from 4 to
12 years old, and I never discuss serious issues with them when I do, I
do not know how they respond to these sorts of issues. I see that aunt
and uncle with similar infrequency and have never discussed their
perspective on their children with them, but certain behaviors and
reported discussions help indicate what they think about issues of race
and socialization.
Kim discusses, for example, how Korean international adoptees are
brought up to sometimes think of themselves as white and other times as
Korean in their families. She describes the prevailing trend originally
of ignoring racial difference despite societal assignment of such
difference and contrasts it with a more contemporary trend of
celebrating what is perceived as the cultural heritage of the adoptee.
With regards to my aunt and uncle, I believe they bring in aspects of
both of these trends to their method of raising their children.
They
attend a Black Catholic church because, as other family members have
told me, they believe that it is an important source of connection to a
cultural heritage for their children. On the other hand, they have
reportedly expressed an aversion to adopting any more black girls
because they have difficulty dealing with their daughter’s hair. This
perspective (combined with the fact that they hire a black woman to come
in and do her hair) seems to indicate an odd kind of essentialism.
They seem to believe that hairstyling skill is somehow innate rather
than learned, and additionally that the gender of my cousins determines
the hairstyle they should have.
Ahmed,
Castañeda, Fortier, and Sheller’s discussion of home in their
introduction raises some interesting questions. They discuss ways in
which home and belonging are related to each other and to migration,
bringing up issues of how identities are used to both ground and
unground people in certain circumstances. How might a personal identity
as a white person that conflicts with a socially assigned identity as a
person of color influence where and who people think of as home? How
do Korean international adoptees define home individually and
collectively? How might the existence of community groups for these
adoptees affect their conceptions of home?
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