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conulythe responsibilities adoptive parents have to maintain some sort of connection to the child's natal culture, however small. We were specifically talking about interracial adoption, so this person made what he thought was a good point, bringing up what if a (white) American couple adopted a child from Russia? The child would look like them and would not "look" Russian, so....
There were two ways to go with this. I chose to respond to his point and stay on-topic, but ever since, for the past three weeks, I've had a nagging desire for a do-over, to try out the other option - namely, to tell him, quite honestly, that my mother has been stopped on multiple occasions by strangers with no other desire than to inform her that she has "a Russian face" (and on one occasion by strangers who wanted to ask her directions in Russian, presumably because of her Russian face.)
She is half Russian. Or half Russian-ish, anyway, we're not sure exactly where her father's family comes from but it's somewhere in or adjacent to Tsarist Russia.
That answer would not have gone anywhere useful, and it would've been unnecessarily rude to somebody who didn't deserve it... but I still kinda wish I'd said it.
And if you're asking what a connection to that side of her heritage would bring her, she might have been able to respond to those tourists if she'd spoken Russian. She likes speaking to French-speaking tourists and immigrants, after all, and she likes to watch French-language TV. Speaking of which, are there any streaming services that focus on TV and movies from Francophone countries? France okay but not preferred over other nations.
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There were two ways to go with this. I chose to respond to his point and stay on-topic, but ever since, for the past three weeks, I've had a nagging desire for a do-over, to try out the other option - namely, to tell him, quite honestly, that my mother has been stopped on multiple occasions by strangers with no other desire than to inform her that she has "a Russian face" (and on one occasion by strangers who wanted to ask her directions in Russian, presumably because of her Russian face.)
She is half Russian. Or half Russian-ish, anyway, we're not sure exactly where her father's family comes from but it's somewhere in or adjacent to Tsarist Russia.
That answer would not have gone anywhere useful, and it would've been unnecessarily rude to somebody who didn't deserve it... but I still kinda wish I'd said it.
And if you're asking what a connection to that side of her heritage would bring her, she might have been able to respond to those tourists if she'd spoken Russian. She likes speaking to French-speaking tourists and immigrants, after all, and she likes to watch French-language TV. Speaking of which, are there any streaming services that focus on TV and movies from Francophone countries? France okay but not preferred over other nations.
A Mason’s Hidden Portrait Found After 900 Years
Watch an Amazing Time-Lapse of Growing Mushrooms
A Glass Floor in a New Dublin Grocery Opens a Window to Medieval Viking History
Elections in Colonial America Were Huge, Booze-Fueled Parties
End gerrymandering? Here’s a radical solution (Yes, but vertical map or horizontal? Maybe we switch it up after every census just for kicks.)
Why Left-Handed Quarterbacks Are So Rare (Admittedly I don't know much about the sportsball, but it seems to me that while one lefty on a team might be a mild hassle, carefully fielding an entirely left-handed team could be a sneak advantage - or at least a novelty! I'd root for them.)
Knifefish Suck So Hard They Can Make Water 'Boil'
The Hyper-Regional Chippy Traditions of Britain and Ireland
A Brief History of Children Sent Through the Mail
A Canadian study gave $7,500 to homeless people. Here’s how they spent it.
The ‘I Voted’ Sticker: An Election Tradition, Even in a Pandemic
Weary from political strife and a pandemic, some Americans are fleeing the country
'Vote and get home,' anxious voters say on Election Day
Is It Better to Plant Trees or Let Forests Regrow Naturally?
To teach my sick husband how to eat again, I turned to 19th-century recipes for bone broths, gruels, and custards
How the Coronavirus Hacks the Immune System
Inside a Prison Coronavirus Outbreak in ‘Disbeliever Country.’
This Addiction Treatment Works. Why Is It So Underused?
William O’Brien was a well-heeled doctor with a thriving Philadelphia medical practice. He was also at the center of a massive painkiller supply chain run by an outlaw biker gang.
How a C.I.A. Coverup Targeted a Whistle-blower
He waited 512 days behind bars for his day in court. It never came ("Swift and speedy" my ass.)
Kentucky State Police quoted Hitler and Robert E. Lee, and encouraged cadets to be ‘ruthless’ in a training program (Look at the materials. I don't care who they're quoting, these attitudes they're instilling are not useful.)
Four people 'killed in cold blood' in Vienna during night of terror
The boarding school ‘monster’ who always walked free (Content warning: Child abuse and rape)
no subject
Date: 2020-11-04 08:11 pm (UTC)I read an autobiography recently, All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung
and she talked about her anger/sadness/grief that she had not been connected to Korean culture or Korean language after being adopted by white parents;
and also about how several people in the Korean-American community rejected her as an adult when she tried to learn the Korean language as an adult, because they felt she should have learned it as a child.
"Nicole Chung was born severely premature, placed for adoption by her Korean parents, and raised by a white family in a sheltered Oregon town. From childhood, she heard the story of her adoption as a comforting, prepackaged myth. She believed that her biological parents had made the ultimate sacrifice in the hope of giving her a better life, that forever feeling slightly out of place was her fate as a transracial adoptee. But as Nicole grew up ― facing prejudice her adoptive family couldn't see, finding her identity as an Asian American and as a writer, becoming ever more curious about where she came from ― she wondered if the story she'd been told was the whole truth.
With the same warmth, candor, and startling insight that has made her a beloved voice, Chung tells of her search for the people who gave her up, which coincided with the birth of her own child. All You Can Ever Know is a profound, moving chronicle of surprising connections and the repercussions of unearthing painful family secrets ― vital reading for anyone who has ever struggled to figure out where they belong."
no subject
Date: 2020-11-04 08:31 pm (UTC)We're treading very lightly on the question of searching for Eaglet's birth parents. One Child policy, even loosened as it's been, makes the chances of finding them very slim, and we don't want to push the possibility (and possible disappointment) unless it's something Eaglet really wants.