Tag Archives: Racism

The Girl Who Found RUSH

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There wasn’t much room in my friend’s tiny Pinto, but somehow we all squeezed in. We were teenagers, high, laughing, and on our way to see RUSH at the Hirsch Memorial Coliseum. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about on the way there. I mostly remember the feel of it: being young and free, surrounded by friends, the anticipation of the concert ahead. For a few hours, nothing but laughter and silliness. We were just a group of kids who loved music.

RUSH was the first band I ever saw in concert. I was in high school at the time, an unlikely fan of a band whose music was probably more complicated than any other band I followed at the time. But something about RUSH drew me in. I’m certain it was more than just the music itself that resonated.

My friends and I were in marching band together. We were a raucous group of kids, and our band director had a difficult time getting the entire class to settle down, yet we were a top marching band. I loved music, but hated marching band. For one thing, girls weren’t permitted to wear makeup, which was nothing short of a tragedy to my teenage self.

My adoptive mom forced me to be in marching band after I casually told her that the band director invited me. I wanted to be a cheerleader. That, of course, was not to be. Band, despite being geeky, was where I eventually found my tribe.

Most of my friends, growing up in Bossier City, Louisiana, were white. I was not. In Junior High, I desperately wanted to be part of a popular group of girls, most of whom were white. For a while, they seemed to accept me. Then one day, I was told to find another group to hang out with. That stung. At the time, I didn’t understand why I had been pushed out, or consider that race may have had anything to do with it. The girl who seemed to lead the group was of mixed race and very popular, which made the racial exclusion even harder for my younger self to understand.

My band friends were white. I knew that. Race was never something we ever talked about, nor did anyone else. Growing up as a Taiwanese adoptee (although I was told I was Japanese and Vietnamese at the time) meant that I was often aware of difference in ways that I could not articulate. But with these friends, something happened that I didn’t fully understand then. They seemed to look beyond the obvious differences between us. We were simply kids in band together who shared a love of music and partying, and that felt safe.

Then there was 2112.

Exit Stage Left was the first RUSH album I owned. Of course, Tom Sawyer and Limelight were my favorites. My love of RUSH, and one of my band friends, led me to 2112. I must have listened to that album a million times over.

The story of 2112 is about individuality versus conformity. The protagnist discovers a forbidden musical instrument in a society that has eliminated music and individuality. The discovery awakens something in him that doesn’t fit the world in which he exists. I think something around the nonconformity was part of what drew me into the album so deeply.

Though I was in marching band, which was ostensibly about music, I hated being forced into it and the expectations that came with it. I was being told, in small and big ways, who I should be and how I should present myself. Then I found RUSH, a band whose music was expansive, strange, rebellious, and completely unconcerned with fitting into the expected mold.

In the music, I didn’t need to explain myself. My friends could not share my experience of being a Taiwanese adoptee or what it was like growing up racially different from the people around me. And yet, they saw me. We liked the same music. We laughed a lot together. We crammed into a tiny Pinto. For a confused teenage girl who carried an awareness of being different without having much language for it, their friendship was profoundly meaningful.

Sometimes belonging doesn’t come from people who are just like us. Sometimes it comes from finding people with whom we can simply be ourselves, without having to work so hard to fit in.

Belonging is messy and sometimes partial. What I know about RUSH, beyond the fact that they remain one of my favorite bands, is that their music gave me an escape from a messy, racially complicated adolescence. For a spell, I didn’t need to figure it all out. I could listen to the music, share thoughts about it with my friends, and feel like I belonged.

And I’d cram back into that Pinto with that group of friends any day.

If you haven’t listened to RUSH 2112, it’s a trip. Here’s the opening track, 2112: Overture…

international adoptee research study

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In my last post, I mentioned that adoptees in the U.S. adopted through international adoption are often subjected to racism, discrimination, and microaggressions. It’s a subject that interests me greatly because I know how damaging the effects of racism, discrimination, and microaggressions are. I chose to investigate this subject for my master’s thesis in social work.

Over the past two months, I’ve sent letters and announcements to numerous adoption agencies, primarily in Arizona, but also California and Oregon. I have contacted adult adoptee groups on social media platforms and reached out to friends who may know of families with adopted children. I continue to search for adoptees 18+ years of age who were adopted from another country to the U.S. by parents of a different race/ethnicity to participate in the study. Participation includes an in-person interview. In the interview, I talk with adoptees about their background, experiences with family, peers, and their community. We discuss incidents that the adoptee has experienced related to racism, racial discrimination, microaggressions, prejudice, and stereotyping. My hope is to interview at least ten adoptees for this qualitative study. So far, I’ve conducted five interviews. The interviews are about 1.5-2 hours in length and are conducted in a location that ensures privacy, i.e, a study room at a local library. I use participatory diagramming or visual timelines to examine critical points in each adoptee’s life related to racism, discrimination, microaggressions, prejudice, and/or stereotyping as part of the interview process. Participants are informed that the interviews are confidential and no identifying information will be revealed in the study.

How international and transracial adoptees personally cope with racism and discrimination is not an area that is well understood in the literature. It is hoped that this research will produce data that will inform the development of interventions for international adoptees and their families that will provide tools to manage the effects of racism and discrimination. I hope that the study will also prompt further investigation into this particular area. If you know of an adoptee or are an adoptee who resides in Arizona and might be interested in participating in this study, please pass along the above information. I can be contacted privately at mcnguyen@asu.edu if you’d like to know more about the study or would like to schedule an interview. Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

I believe that this is such an important issue for adoptive families and adoptees. It’s my belief that adoptive families and adoptees who are better equipped to face racism and discrimination will be happier and healthier. Thank you.

 

transracial parenting

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When I was a very young girl, I didn’t think much about being adopted. I didn’t think about the physical differences between my white parents and I. Since my parents and almost everyone around me were white, I thought of myself in the same way – white. This became a problem when I entered kindergarten and realized that my physical appearance was different than the other kids around me. As I’ve mentioned in other posts, I grew up in a predominantly white area, Bossier City, Louisiana. Our neighbours were mostly white, middle-class families. There were African American families, too, but I knew that I wasn’t black. There was prejudice and discrimination all around me. I was too young to understand the implications of such bias. In my family, we never talked about race, my race, my adoptive parents’ race, racism, prejudice, etc. But I perceived very early that whites were “superior” to other races. It makes me very sad that such racism existed (and still does) where I grew up and, furthermore, within my own family. I often wondered how my adoptive mother felt about me when I heard her make racist remarks toward others of a different race. It made me struggle and lose respect for my mom. I thought silently that she was a hypocrite.

At my current internship, I spend time with families who adopt children transracially through the child welfare system. These are typically white families who adopt African American, biracial, or Hispanic children. Maybe it’s me, but I am always surprised at how little time is spent discussing with adoptive parents issues of race, culture, and identity. Couples in the process of adopting seem to minimize the importance of these issues often thinking that because the child(ren) who will be placed with them permanently are so young, they have time to plan how to manage such issues. I would dare say that parents of internationally adopted children receive even less education on race, culture, and identity (less overall required training in general) than families who adopt through child welfare. Prospective foster and adoptive parents must complete a 10-week training at many Arizona adoption agencies called PS-MAPP (Model Approach to Partnerships in Parenting). Arizona is a little more diverse than Louisiana, but still mostly White at 84.3% of the population.

I would hope that White adoptive parents would want their adopted black or Hispanic children to grow up with a strong sense of identity and connection to their cultural heritage. I personally believe that, in the best interest of the child, children should be placed with families of the same ethnic/racial background. Unfortunately, there are few, if any, African American and Hispanic families who adopt children from the child welfare system, at least here in Arizona. I wish that we could recruit families of African American and Hispanic descent who are financially able, willing, and have the emotional/psychological capacity to adopt children through child welfare. I do believe it’s better for a child to be adopted into a family capable of providing the kind of love and care necessary regardless of race rather than languish in the system.

We would like to think that racism does not exist. We would like to believe that love is enough. Some would like to embrace the idea of being colorblind – that we are all human beings and that the color of one’s skin doesn’t matter. But in our society it does matter, and being colorblind does not really work. Racism is alive and well, granted that some areas of the country hold to racist views more than others. There are potential risks inherent in transracial adoption. Adoptive parents must develop cultural competence and the tools necessary to help their adopted child(ren) manage and integrate cultural differences. There are children’s books that discuss race at a level meant for very young children. Family discussions held regularly on issues of race and culture are another way to prepare children for racism and/or discrimination and to help children develop a sense of ethnic pride. Proactive is better than reactive. Studies show that adoptive parents who demonstrate a high regard  toward their adopted child’s race foster within their child(ren) a greater sense of ethnic pride.

Transracially adopted persons will explore their ethnicity sooner or later. Familial support, especially during the adolescent years, will help transracially adopted children develop a greater sense of self and ethnic identity. It may seem insignificant, but how race, culture, and identity are negotiated in a transracially adopted child’s developmental years will undoubtedly affect his or her psychological and emotional adjustment across the lifetime.