A friend of mine passed me a link to the blog Two in Taiwan, the blog of a couple living in Taiwan because they are adopting a child here. In adoption circles recently there has been a huge controversy over a Paula Zahn show on CNN in which the commentators unleashed a flow of stereotypes while discussing the recent changes in adoption laws in China. The nasty bit was here:
MALDONADO: Absolutely. I think we all know that China is a sovereign country. It has the right to place whatever restrictions on foreigners who are seeking to adopt their children that it wants. And adoption is really about supply and demand, and the reality is that there are many more Americans, many more Westerners seeking to adopt children from China than there are children available so the Chinese government can decide to do whatever it wants.
MARTIN: OK, why? What's the big deal with Chinese children? Enlighten me, please, help me out.
ZAHN: You understand this better than anybody. Why don't we see more Americans adopting black foster children?
MARTIN: That's my point. What's the big deal with Chinese children? Why the infatuation?
ZAHN: You think it's something with the color of their skin? Is that what you're driving at?
MARTIN: Maybe they think they can adopt a smart kid that is going to grow up to be a doctor? I don't know. They need to realize that's called training, not just inherent, it will happen when they're born.
Angel, help me out.
MALDONADO: Absolutely. This is something I've been looking into for a long time. Americans have this love affair with girls from China. There is this belief, this perception, irrational as it might be that if you adopt a little girl from China, she's going to be intelligent, she's going to be more lovable.
MARTIN: Like the porcelain doll.
MALDONADO: We definitely see that idea of the beautiful Chinese little girl, as compared to do, they really want to adopt a black boy.
Annie from Two in Taiwan was so incensed she wrote a wonderfully researched letter about the whole mess, excoriating CNN commentators for their lack of knowledge (whoa -- imagine MSM commentators not knowing what they are talking about!)....she observed:
Mr. Uygur implied that Americans are not adopting from Muslim countries due to prejudice. The true reason there are so few adoptions from Muslim countries is the difficulty. Out of 43 countries with a Muslim majority, in 13 countries adoptions are impossible due to Muslim Shari'a law, 3 countries require citizenship to allow adoption, 10 countries require residency periods ranging from 3 months to over 2 years, three of those also require adoptive parents to be Muslim and an additional 2 countries only adopt to Muslim parents. Of the 8 Muslim countries that have no strict requirements, only 2 have US agencies that they work with. Albania has only 2 licensed agencies and 22 children have been adopted from Albania in the past 2 years. Ethiopia is rapidly becoming a country of choice for adoptive families with 1,171 children being adopted from Ethiopia in the past 2 years. For more families to adopt from Muslim countries, adoption must be facilitated in the countries that allow it.
Actually, the lack of adoption is due to prejudice.....prejudice against non-Muslims in Muslim countries....it's a very well written letter that will no doubt cause some reality adjustments on those of us still carrying around the stereotypes. Welcome to Taiwan, guys.
[Taiwan] [China]
Clyde said:
ReplyDeleteCNN . . . ah, yeah.
Also, Ethiopia is a predominately Christian country.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I noticed that error too. I think she was responding to the whole "black" thing, though.
ReplyDeleteMichael
Oh please, Professor. Stop watching CNN, they are all bigots. Time to switch to the Fox News Channel; fair and balance. Don't forget to watch The O'Reilly Factor at 8PM EST or 1AM EST. =D
ReplyDeleteI don't think the numbers thrown around in that letter / blog post really answer the question. They simply describe the situation: pointing out that, say, comparatively few people adopt from abroad doesn't explain _why_ so many people adopt from China.
ReplyDeleteHaving talked to some people who adopted Chinese children, I still don't understand why people fly around the world to adopt while children in the US go unadopted.
And to pretend that race isn't involved is disingenuous at best -- as many of the children who aren't adopted in the US are black.
The fact that there is a system for adoption in China just means that the corruption pipeline is in place.
There's also a system in the US and it's there to protect and help vulnerable children. If people are going abroad to avoid those rules, I question their motives more than ever.
People in the US adopt internationally for several reasons. Often times it is because it is very difficult to adopt an infant in the United States, and there is a lot of risk involved. Adoptive parents have to wait for the BIRTH PARENT to choose the adoptive families, often from many photo books of beautiful people. The adoptive families oftentimes put up a lot of money to help the birthmother through her pregnancy, and then the after the birth the birthmother can change her mind, and the adoptive family's hearts are broken. Then they have to start all over, after they wasted a lot of money and time on a failed adoption.
ReplyDeleteAdoption is not an accepted practice amongst Chinese or Taiwanese.
ReplyDeleteThe fact it is allowed says more for them than what I just read about Muslim society.
Americans are big on adoption. My mother was adopted. Born in America and adopted by Americans.
It is fashionable to adopt African children right now due to high profile adopters Madonna and Brangelina.
Adoption is too a very accepted practice locally.
ReplyDeleteMichael
Anonymous -- I understand that the system in the US can be complex, time-consuming, and expensive (though I understand it also varies by state and agency / group).
ReplyDeleteBut is that necessarily bad?
If someone can't pass or won't go through the US process, should we be happy about them going abroad to circumvent the system?
If they aren't patient enough to wait for paperwork to be processed, should we be encouraging them to adopt a child? Parenting, by all accounts, can really try your patience sometimes.
And if they don't have or won't spend the money to adopt, should we encourage them to find a bargain abroad?
We can't do much about children who are poorly raised by their birth parents, until the problem reaches the level of abuse and is detected.
But adoption agencies have the chance to choose parents, and we should be happy that they are painstaking and cautious about selecting adoptive parents.
Although the CNN commentator's questions were badly phrased, they are reasonable and deserving of a considered and complete answer.
Anonymous -- I understand that the system in the US can be complex, time-consuming, and expensive (though I understand it also varies by state and agency / group).
ReplyDeleteBut is that necessarily bad?
If someone can't pass or won't go through the US process, should we be happy about them going abroad to circumvent the system?
If they aren't patient enough to wait for paperwork to be processed, should we be encouraging them to adopt a child? Parenting, by all accounts, can really try your patience sometimes.
And if they don't have or won't spend the money to adopt, should we encourage them to find a bargain abroad?
We can't do much about children who are poorly raised by their birth parents, until the problem reaches the level of abuse and is detected.
But adoption agencies have the chance to choose parents, and we should be happy that they are painstaking and cautious about selecting adoptive parents.
Although the CNN commentator's questions were badly phrased, they are reasonable and deserving of a considered and complete answer.
My Taiwanese wife disagrees with the contention that adoption is widely accepted in Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteShe said, " it may be popular with the foreigners who come here and Taiwanese would only adopt from within their own family".
Exactly, Taiwanese adopt from within their own family, meaning that adoption is widely accepted in Taiwan. Stranger adoption rather less so...
ReplyDeleteMichael
I think it's really poor to hear people comment on the topic of adoption in such a detached and uneducated manner. I would hope people would suspend judgement on other's family building choices, unless they have made the difficult, emotional, expensive- and permanent decisions involved in the adoption process. Many of these couples have already undergone years of infertility battles. they are exhausted and their marraiges are hanging on by a thread. International adoption offers a much more predictible path to parenthood than any domestic adoption. Not many people have the stomach for the US domestic adoption system- The fact that couples (or singles)are so willing to let go of the idea of "having their kid look like them" to avoid the emotional anguish of domestic adoption tells us something positive about trends related to cultural acceptance. In regards to the facination with Chinese girls- much of the choices related to which country to adopt from has more to do with the manner in which the country facilitates the process- in the case of China- they have major motivation to make it easy and predictible. Additionally- because there are so many chinese adoptions- people have that extra comfort that their child will have a community of peers. Most adoptive parents are simply trying to make sure their child can thrive in their environment. It's not simple- Our world is not black and white- and even if you do not consider yourself a bigot- do you want the world to treat your child as such?
ReplyDelete