Chinese Children Shift Families' Culture

When Kathleen Santora adopted a baby from a Shanghai orphanage, she worried about maintaining her daughter's cultural identity. She bought books and toys reflecting Emily's Chinese heritage. She made sure the little girl was enrolled in schools with diverse student bodies.

Eleven years later, though, Santora and her husband, Hugh, find it is their own cultural identity that is in question.

Santora, who is white, says she feels more connected to Asian friends and to such holidays as the Lunar New Year, celebrated this week. Sometimes, when referring to Chinese mothers, she accidentally lumps herself in -- and sometimes, they do, too.

"We're not Chinese ourselves," said Santora, 46, an Annandale lawyer who has brown hair and freckles and is of Irish descent. "But our family is now multicultural."

Cross-racial adoptions aren't a new phenomenon. But the sheer number of Americans -- most of them white -- adopting Chinese babies in a short period of time is changing cultural and racial assumptions.

About 40,000 Chinese adoptees have arrived in the United States since China's government began easing restrictions on foreign adoptions in 1992, according to U.S. State Department statistics. The country became a popular destination for many prospective parents because of its efficient, secure adoption system and the availability of healthy babies.

The Chinese Embassy in Washington hosts an annual Lunar New Year party for the adopted children and their parents, much as it supports events for the immigrant community. Weekend Chinese language schools, which typically have served children of immigrants, have started programs for Chinese children whose parents are not native speakers.

Businesses have taken note.

Major bookstores display books featuring adopted Chinese children, particularly during this time of year. Vendors selling Chinese trinkets set up shop at social gatherings. Mattel offers a special Barbie: She has sandy-blond hair, wears hot-pink stilettos and carries a Chinese baby.

But going beyond the cultural tchotchkes is the hard part: Many parents question what parts of Chinese culture to introduce to their children and whether they can equip their Asian children with the tools to deal with racism. They are the same issues facing would-be parents who are not black but adopt black children, an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 annually in the United States.

Margie Neff of Frederick, who has two biological children and a daughter from China, has seen strangers stare at her family. One woman asked whether she ran a day care. "You may want to think, as a Caucasian person, that people don't see in color. But that's not my reality anymore," said Neff, who teaches classes on cross-racial adoptions.

Often, the questions about cultural identity are mundane. One year, when the local Families With Children From China chapter had a "cultural day" at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville, the big issue was the moon bounce.

Some parents were decidedly anti-moon bounce: What does an inflatable trampoline have to do with Chinese culture?

The pro-moon bounce camp's response: How are we going to entertain the kids for three hours?

We ended up with a moon bounce with a panda on it," said group president Derek Sweetman.

The fact that such discussions even occur, some sociologists say, is a sign of progress. A generation ago, many social workers told families adopting internationally to assimilate their children as much as possible. The belief was that the children would be more confused if their cultural heritage was emphasized

In recent years, many of those adoptees have spoken out against that philosophy. A few have published blistering memoirs. Nearly all cross-racial adoption experts now promote a bicultural approach. But there are no definite answers on how much of the child's previous culture to adopt, partly because each family's situation is unique. The current average age of adopted Chinese children is 7, and experts say adolescence is usually the period when children -- adopted or not -- explore identity questions.

Richard Tessler, a University of Massachusetts sociologist who recently surveyed about 500 such families, said many of the children appear to have developed cultural pride. But, he said, the most significant finding has been the children's on society.

"It's not just the adoptive parents who are being introduced to Chinese culture but also grandparents and neighbors and the children's day-care center," said Tessler, a father of two Chinese girls, who co-wrote "West Meets East," a book about adoptions of Chinese children. "When the kids go to school, the families advocate for a multicultural curriculum."

Many of the couples are well-educated, financially comfortable and starting a family late in life. Adopting a child can mean a commitment of as much as $15,000 and a two-week trip to China.

Within the Chinese immigrant community, such families also are provoking some soul searching.

Only recently have Asian American groups reached out to the families of Chinese adoptees. For the older generation of immigrants, adoption is taboo. Some younger Asian Americans privately worry that efforts of white parents to learn about Chinese culture seem disingenuous.

Rita Lewi, a Chinese immigrant who helped start a language program last year for adoptive families, said that both sides are discovering more similarities than differences. "We all want the same things for our children," said Lewi, who has a teenage daughter who embraces Chinese culture and a son who she said does not. "We want our kids to know they are not alone."

As an adoptive father, David Thompson of Clifton is discovering new emotions. He buys Chinese knickknacks and wonders whether it's goofy. He feels outraged when he hears a radio show host mimic Chinese speech.

As he prepared for a Lunar New Year party with other families with adopted children, he fretted over a detail: Should 2-year-old Amelia wear a Chinese-style dress or not?

That night, at the China Garden restaurant in Rosslyn, Amelia was wearing the dress -- a green, printed number with Mandarin collar.

Toddling out onto the banquet hall's dance floor, she was surrounded by other adopted children. The little girl grinned, and from where he sat with other parents, Thompson smiled back.

For the moment, at least, Thompson had no identity problems.