Chinese Adoption Corruption and Maddening Stereotypes in the Media
These last few weeks there have been a flurry of large media stories covering major corruption in international adoption. Guatemala. Guatemala again. Ethiopia. Now China.
I hope this new exposure will eventually lead to some serious reforms.
It's not like there aren't ethical minefields in foster care adoption... but at least families have some degree of insight into the problems. When I have questions, I can pick up the phone and talk to everyone involved. Problems in international adoption are ten times worse, and they're also ten times less transparent. You're dealing with foreign legal systems, foreign languages, foreign cultures. International adoptive parents who shrug off these corruption stories by saying "well it doesn't apply to my case" usually have no evidence whatsoever. They just don't know at all and likely never will.
There are exceptions. International adoptive parents may or may not face the same knowledge barriers (e.g. some Chinese-Americans adopting from China). Or they're adopting older children and/or are in touch with their childrens' biological families. In fact, that's how I think a lot of these corruption cases have come to light: older adopted children tell their new parents that the agency's story is a lie, and the new parents have enough integrity to believe them and investigate further.
Anyway, I think the fact that these corruption cases are being discussed in the mainstream media is a good step. However, I still have major issues with the way they're being framed. The LA Times China article has two major failings: 1) it doesn't include the adoptee viewpoint and 2) it fails to challenge stereotypical thinking about China.
How hard would it have been for the reporter to ask an adoptee for their perspective? The same reporter, Barbara Demick, wrote an article several weeks ago --
Adopted teen finds answers, mystery in China -- about a teenager who had a reunion with his birth family in China. Why not include a few sentences of his reaction to the story? Instead, the American perspectives are all from adoptive parents. And this includes one randomly chosen adoptive mother who is pretty much the living embodiment of cluelessness.
She wonders what she would do if she discovered that her daughter was one of the stolen babies. She knows she could never return the Americanized 6-year-old, who is obsessed with "SpongeBob" and hates the Chinese culture classes her mother enrolled her in. But she said, "I would certainly want to tell the birth family that your daughter is alive and happy and maybe send a picture."
"It would be up to my daughter later if she wanted to build a relationship," she said.
Shades of the Anna Mae He coverage I complained about last year. There are so many things wrong in this paragraph. It presumes being Chinese as somehow incompatible with being American, ignoring the existence of 3.5 million Chinese-Americans who have somehow managed to pull off this incredible feat.
And SpongeBob obsession is supposedly total proof of being American. They don't watch Sponge Bob in China... actually, let me confirm that by doing a few seconds of searching on Google.
Variety: China sponges 'SpongeBob'
Cartoon sweeps ratings on CCTV
"SpongeBob SquarePants" has swept to the top of the ratings on Chinese state broadcaster CCTV's Kids Channel. The quirky toon has become the most popular children's show in 15 key cities, drawing viewership of 20.5 million to Bikini Bottom.
Oops!
And I won't get into that "because she doesn't like Chinese culture classes that lets me off the hook for everything" implication. This is an extremely complicated issue (see a great blog post on it here).
Leaving reunion totally up to the child is also a cop-out. There are many complicated steps that need to be taken as soon as possible in order to maintain relationships. Waiting until it's no longer your responsibility means removing choice from the child, not giving them more choice.
I can't stand this woman's attitude and what it represents about international adoption. It's so selfish and ignorant. If this were me, I would feel morally obligated to do a lot more than maybe send a picture.
Foster Care System Perspectives
3 comments:
There are a LOT of families searching for birth parents in China right now. Most of us are doing so very quietly because that is the way we are most likely to be successful.
Anyone who has done any research at all should know that China is like the wild west and there are corrupt officials all over the place. There is no way of knowing what may or may not have gone on in any particular city, village or orphanage until we start locating more birth parents. Adoptive parents who claimed they didn't know didn't do much research (or have much imagination).
The LA times story about Shaoyang has been circulating in Chinese adoption circles for over a year now. It isn't new news. There have been a number of different locations where family planning officials are involved in confiscating children. There have been stories of blatant trafficking of children into orphanages. Odds are, the worst thing we can imagine has probably happened somewhere to some child/family.
At this point, I am doing what I have to do to be able to look my daughter in the eye. If we find her family, we will begin the process of figuring out how to bridge the distance between our families for her sake. At the very least, she has a right to know who they are and where she comes from.
Good luck. And it's good to hear there are a lot of parents working on this.
Oh I *wish* I had a better chance of keeping ties between our son's foster family in Taiwan and ours intact.
We've been told - in very clear language - that culturally, this is not a Good Thing and makes us look like incompent parents.
So we keep a website up and tell the agencies when we update it. That's all we're allowed to do.
It SUCKS.
Post a Comment