Another piece of the puzzle falls into place
I've often wondered why there are not more Chinese-American adoptive parent bloggers. In fact, I asked a well-known China adoption blogger about this, and she gave me some answers and linked to a few other Chinese heritage bloggers.
I'd like to establish that not all Chinese-American parents qualify to get expedited, as the rules are quite restrictive. Also, expediting doesn't sound terribly dramatic. If a non-expedited parent waits two years, maybe an expedited parent waits one year, or a year and a half.
This is just to give you some background on a very disturbing thing I stumbled on tonight. It's on the front page blog of a very large China adoption forum. It's sick, sad and racist... not the post itself, but the fact someone felt it was necessary to include the note at the end of paragraph.
http://chinaadopttalk.com/2007/10/03/notes-from-this-batch-2/
[...]
One thing to note, there seemed to be a bigger batch of expedite referrals this month than we’ve seen in a while. I’m guessing that there were between 30 and 50 expedited families referred in this batch. Still a very small batch, but at least maybe it’s not almost a tie with the smallest batch ever (yeah yeah, I know, in recent history, not ever). And, as a side note - I saw a lot of questions about expedites, so I’ll answer now that if one prospective parent was born in China (or if both parents of a prospective parent were born in China, and you can prove that, which often is not possible) then the CCAA expedites that family’s file. You usually don’t see any blogs listed of people who are expedited because oftentimes the adoption community says mean things to them. So please let these families bask in the joy of their new referrals without saying anything nasty to them in the comments. They followed the rules and didn’t do anything shady and I am happy for them.
So it's a preemptive defense against those out there -- and apparently they are somewhat numerous -- who are mad because Chinese-Americans are getting Chinese babies faster than they are.
It makes me so glad I am not a part of that community. Ugh! I feel like I need to take a shower now.
Foster Care System Perspectives
4 comments:
Ugh, I can't believe I'm defending these people, but here goes:
It's not racism. They'd do the same if it were parents who were expedited because they had one blue eye and one brown eye. It's the "expedited" part, not the "Chinese" part.
The context is (1) a dramatic, dramatic slowdown in referral speeds coupled with (2) agencies that haven't been as open about that slowdown as they could have been (there are still agency websites out there that have dossier-to-referral wait times of 12 months, when it's now up to 24). Then there's (3) word of a small agency that has quietly been using its connections for years to get its clients bumped to the front of the line, which just came out recently. This has caused great consternation in the Chinese adoption community, because the long-standing belief has been first-come, first-served, with the exception of Chinese-heritage adoptions and special needs adoptions.
Anyway, emotions are running high. People who were told by their agencies back in late 2005 that they'd be waiting six months are just now finishing up the 23-24 month wait. (BTW, the agencies should have known; I saw the handwriting on the wall and said as much then.) Waiting potential adoptive parents have heard that some folks are getting referrals earlier because of something that most Western folks consider underhanded (this "special connection"). They see a referral to someone with a log-in date of, say, 9/2006 getting a referral, and the immediate jump-to-conclusion is that this is One Of That Agency's clients, therefore on the receiving end of an unfair advantage.
The Rumor Queen is reminding folks that there are expedited referrals all over the place, that they may not be tagged as such, and please people don't jump to conclusions and don't be mean and nasty.
Someone recently got a referral for a Taiwanese adoption, which is MUCH quicker, posted her dossier date and referral date, and immediately got really angry responses, lots of them.
You can accuse these folks of being bitter, jealous, angry, immature, poorly behaved, rude, feeling entitled, and perhaps not the best parenting material...but on the whole in this case it's not racism, so far as I can see.
I appreciate your added contextualizing of the issue. I understand there are many subtleties I don't understand. However, it also fits into part of a pattern I see that goes beyond Chinese adoption: hostility to intraracial adoptions as somehow taking children away from the white parents who deserve them equally or more. According to your example, the fact that these people would equate Chinese heritage to having one blue eye and one brown eye is still racism to me... not in the sense of active discrimination, but in the sense of refusing to respect that heritage or accord it any of the proper weight.
Atlasien -- You are right. We were expedited (we waited a mere 4 months) and got a lot of hostility, expressed and subtle. But I was really slammed once when I said of course the government in China SHOULD expedite and prefer that babies be placed with Chinese-Americans because it it in the best interests of the child. If they can't stay with their birth families or in their home country, it is much easier FOR THEM to have a same-race adoption. I got a TON of heat. So there are race issues involved. Who would disagree with that? Clearly there are not enough Chinese-American prospective adoptive parents, so the children still need homes and a trans-race adoption with parents who are willing to tackle race issues is the next best option. But folks saw it as Chinese-Americans jumping ahead of them to get their babies and refused to concede that it is in the babies best interest to have a Chinese-American parent or parents.
DS-L
When we were waiting to adopt, the rules said we had to be 30 before we could apply. So we waited. I don't see anyone screaming about the unfairness about me having to wait several extra years.
The rules said we could be expedited, so now I am supposed to feel bad?? No way.
*OF COURSE* Chinese babies are better off with Chinese families. If there are not Chinese families available, then YES, of COURSE families of Chinese descent are better for a huge number of reasons, not the least of which is that those parents have experience living as an Asian in the US.
If expediting encourages more Chinese families to consider adoption, the kids needing families will be better off because of it.
It IS racist. It is racist to assume that white adoptive parents are equally qualified to successfully parent a Chinese kid. I say this as a white parent myself. My husband is infinitely more qualifed to teach my daughters about being Asian, racism and Chinese culture than I am. Anyone who thinks those are going to be a small part of raising a Chinese kid has their head in the sand.
I think this is just one more case in which adoptive parents forget that adoption is supposed to be about finding the best family for the CHILD, not finding a child for a family.
Given the number of extremely racist comments I see from white adoptive parents online on a regular basis, they should be glad that China hasn't restricted their adoption program to only Asian families. Not surprisingly, I have never seen one of them claim that "race doesn't matter".
And for what it is worth, the crap against expedited referrals far pre-dates the recently extended wait.
(This is AmericanFamily, btw. I am not sure how I will show up in these comments)
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