Should Know Better

The following is a re-post of a piece I wrote for the Taiwan R.O.C.K.s blog at the request of my friend, Tiffanie.  As a co-chair of the team that is planning an upcoming reunion of Taiwanese adoptees, she asked if I'd consider authoring a post for the group's new blog. After muddling through half a year of writer's block and struggling one too many nights to sort out my own feelings on the subject at hand, I finally hit "send" on the following:

Consider this: a few years ago, a friend told me about a situation at his workplace involving one of his employees. She had come to him complaining about her salary, feeling she was owed more for the effort she had put forth. Eventually, she tendered her resignation, claiming she had been the victim of gender and racial discrimination. However, as my friend told it, her history of performance simply didn't rival that of her higher paid co-workers. Try as he did, he could not think of an instance in which he might have spoken to or treated her in a demeaning way. The employee herself failed to offer up any specific examples of bias on his part.

While I can’t assume to know what happened - after all, we’re all flawed individuals capable of anything and everything - I was upset when I heard the story. The idea that my friend might discriminate in such ways made me want to shake my head in disbelief. In the 15 years that I have known him, he has gone out of his way to treat women equitably and honorably. His circle of friends includes many people of different ethnicities. His family circle includes a child adopted from Asia. Of all the people to accuse of gender or racial discrimination, he would be the last person who’d come to mind.

My incredulity skyrocketed when my friend mentioned that the employee is Asian-American. That a person of Asian heritage would lodge such loaded charges and be guilty of lackluster performance, as my friend told it, stunned me. “She should know better!” I wanted to protest. True, faultless job execution and relentless work ethics aren’t virtues unique to Asians alone. However, they are qualities towards which many of them are raised to aspire. And it’s quite true that Asians can sometimes be the worst at speaking up for themselves when wronged, perhaps fearing they’ll rock the Confucian all-for-one, one-for-all boat. But to levy such loaded and (presumably) empty charges smacked of a degree of entitlement and a lack of self-awareness that I – and no doubt other Asians – would consider embarrassing to the race as a whole.

Then, my friend happened to mention something: the employee in question was trans-racially adopted. Suddenly, a light went off in my head. Aha! All made sense now. The woman didn't have traditional Asian parents to inculcate the ages-old lessons in her. Her non-Asian parents probably never smacked her across the mouth the one time she dared to talk back to them, didn’t guilt her with stories of how they shared a ball of rice between them each night to pay for her school tuition, didn’t raise her to cringe when she read stories like this because she knew that this would inevitably ensue.

Her adoptive status suddenly exonerated her from hypocritical expectations I didn't realize I had held of Asians up until that point. I suddenly became aware of a double standard at work in my heart. For many years I have bemoaned the fact that many non-Asians expect me to speak fluent Mandarin and read the language, to be an expert on Chinese and Taiwanese culture, to be a demure and passive female with bound feet, or to be a 10th degree black belt in karate with a sixth sense. And yet, despite my own list of grievances, I found myself demanding that this woman be “Asian” in ways that I had personally defined. Shame on me! If others’ stereotyped expectations bother me as much as they do, I should have had enough sense to recognize the same faulty thinking at work in myself. I should know firsthand the yearning to live a life free of the mantle of race and its concomitant associations, to simply be human. I should have known better.

Sadly, I’m aware that I’m not the only Asian person in the world guilty of this hypocrisy. My own self-deception makes me wonder how my two boys will fare as they face a lifetime of interactions with other Asians. Will some of those Asians be their harshest critics? Or have times truly changed? Perhaps today’s kids more accepting. Even if they are, I don’t for a moment pretend to think that my older, biological son is exempt from racial expectations since he is Eurasian. Being biracial can come with its own particular set of obstacles. But for my younger son, adopted from Taiwan, I foresee potential challenges already. The world is a hard enough place for adoptees, particularly internationally adopted ones who may feel out of place in both their adoptive countries and their native lands. They don’t need people of their own heritage, the same people who should be the most supportive of them, to offer further resistance, either inwardly felt or outwardly expressed.

The possibility of such adversity has been weighing on my mind as my husband and I consider schooling decisions for our two boys. Andrew, our 7 year-old son, now attends a small private Christian school with strong academics and a diverse student body. Minority students form the 60% majority of his grade. His friends are Latino, Caucasian, and African-American. Unfortunately, there are very few Asians in his school. It’s a regrettable statistic, but I’m not overly concerned. As an introvert who thrives in smaller crowds, whose life doesn’t revolved around athletics, and whose partial heritage is substantially represented by the school’s 40% Caucasian population, Andrew would probably be well-served by staying there.

But enter 3 year-old William. Social William. Athletic William. Bright William. Adopted William. So much of the school district to which we’ve recently moved seems to be a good fit for him. True, he would lose out on the quality Christian education and the diversity that attracted us to Andrew’s school. But the impact of the district’s almost 8% Asian student population (higher than the 4.8% Asian population in all of America according to the 2010 census) cannot be overlooked. I can’t help but wonder what being surrounded by other children of Asian descent might do for him.

Having been shuttled in and out of various public and private schools in which I and sometimes another student comprised the entire Asian population, I know firsthand the strain of being the odd one out. It’s speculative, of course, but perhaps my 13 year-old self might have been more at ease with the looks God saw fit to give me. Perhaps I wouldn’t have stood before the mirror pulling wide the ends of my eyes and tugging at the tip of my nose, wondering if I’d be more attractive if my features were more traditionally Western. For William, for whom the world suggests at every turn that he’s less valid, just not the same because he is adopted, looking like many of the kids around him could have a powerful effect.

Or, it might not.

Could it be possible that surrounding our kids with others who loosely resemble them actually do more harm than good?

“Don’t be silly!” many would retort. “There’s everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

I would like to believe that those people are right. However, my own experiences make me stop and ponder. If we do place our boys in the local public school, we would be putting adopted William in an environment in which he would be surrounded by Asian kids who are mostly children of immigrants, if not immigrants themselves. The same kids who might help him feel more comfortable with his ethnicity may also be the same ones who might give him the greatest grief about his heritage and how he might choose to express it.

In my 36 years, I have found that it is sometimes the 1st and 2nd generation Asian-Americans who hold the narrowest view of what Asians should or shouldn’t be. They can sometimes be quick to make their opinions known. On multiple occasions, I have been given a hard time about my sorry Mandarin (“How come you Chinese but you no speak Chinese?”), my Caucasian boyfriend-turned-husband (“Hey, Judy, do you know what a Twinkie is?”), or my choice to join Christian groups in college that weren’t Asian-specific (whatever happened to the apostle Paul’s declaration that “there is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”?).

Don’t get me wrong: I’ve had countless positive interactions with Asians, too. Not all are back-biting, self-loathing critics. However, my less-than-pleasant encounters have given me cause to think about our differences and the friction that may ensue as far as my children are concerned. While William is technically a first generation American (or 1.5 generation as some may classify him), his upbringing will probably be more similar to that of a 3rd generation Asian-American. His experience won’t be marked by the rigid adherence to old-world mores and the cultural groping-about-in-the-dark that characterize many 1st generation Asian-Americans, particularly those who moved to America as adults. It will lack the one-foot-in-the-West, one-foot-in-the-East dichotomy that many 2nd generation Americans, myself included, feel. Rather, like many 3rd generation Asian-Americans, I imagine William’s outlook will be more traditionally Western, that he will feel less tormented about picking and choosing which cultural expressions he wishes to retain or forego.

As such, he could very well have a harder time relating to his 1st and 2nd generation Asian-American peers. Whether those kids recognize it or not, there is an invisible bond that joins them. They can laugh at jokes like this, understanding the humor on a surface level that would engage anyone, regardless of race. Yet, they can also appreciate the immigrant frugalista mentality that gives the picture an added layer of humor because they’ve likely experienced it firsthand in their own family. They can read something like this and roll their eyeballs with everyone else at the harshness of the father’s response. However, they’re less prone to charge the father with emotional abuse because they can probably relate to the uncanny mix of severity and love, of sacrifice and good intentions that prompted his words. And, chances are, lists of commonalities like this will have them wiping away tears from laughing so hard.

As the adopted child of a 2nd generation Taiwanese-American whose ways are more traditionally Western than Eastern, the deeper humor may well be lost on William. Sure, he’ll pick up a traditional mannerism or two from being around me, things that will naturally transmit with little effort on my part. For better or worse, he can already spot a sample cart at Costco from 100 feet away and maneuver his way toward it like a guided missile. As he gets older, nothing will thrill him like scoring a good bargain via multiple discounts and sad puppy-pleading for an additional price cut because the item is slightly stained. He will learn to honor his elders (though I won’t threaten to disown him if he puts me in a nursing home). He will learn from early on that he represents not only himself but every Asian because frankly, the world is watching, because there are enough ignorant people out there who’d sooner impute the crimes of a single Asian person upon the entire race. And whether it’s an Asian value or not, he will learn the value of a strong work ethic and not making excuses for himself (though if he breaks his arm, he will not force himself to operate on a patient the next day as my father did). Still, in the end, William’s cultural education will be one diluted by my own upbringing, filtered through my personal assessments of what did or didn’t work. As a result, he just might not be laughing as hard as his 1st and 2nd generation Asian peers.

Will a potential inability to relate innately to others of his heritage be just another thing he lost when he was placed for adoption? Only a fool would think he could return to Taiwan one day and be able to “disappear” among the native crowds. My own mother, who spent her first 20 years growing up there, can be easily spotted for a tourist when she returns to visit. Time and distance have an uncanny way of altering one’s mannerisms, style, and general outlook. Even here in the great melting pot of America, William could just as well have a hard time blending in with his non-adopted Asian peers. It would seem that the very act of adoption has wedged him between a rock and hard place when it comes to being fully accepted by people of his own heritage.

Perhaps it’s the worrier in me that fears this conundrum will one day be my son’s. For all I know, there are many international adoptees who go about their lives without wondering whether they’d fit in on either side of the ocean. Perhaps they live in communities that hold looser views of what people of their race “should” and “shouldn’t” be. Or, perhaps they experience antagonism but have the inner confidence to not be shaken by it. In William’s case, I’m hoping for the former scenario but will willingly accept the latter.

Like most parents, adoptive or not, I have resolved to do the best I can to raise my son to be happy and healthy, both inwardly and outwardly. I want so much to make William’s life one that is free of pain, but I know that this is just not possible on this side of heaven. Humans are imperfect beings capable of hurting one another deeply. Knowing that, what can I, as a concerned parent, do to prepare my son to deal with potential opposition from those of his own race? I could teach him to use chopsticks and speak Mandarin so he might “blend in” better with his Asian peers. (I’d argue that there is strong value in having our adopted Taiwanese and Chinese children learn these things.) But I also realize that such outward expressions can only go so far.

In the end, I know that it is the inward lessons that will have the greatest impact. Thus, I am endeavoring to teach my son how to forgive, to have a sense of humor in the face of adversity, and most of all, to place his self-worth in something far beyond his ethnicity and his ability to adhere to someone else’s notions of how to express it. For my husband and I, as Christian parents, this means teaching William that he is so precious that God himself would lay down his own life in order to live out eternity with him. Our child has worth because he is immeasurably worthwhile to his heavenly creator. To root his self-esteem in anything on earth, ephemeral as those things certainly are, would only lead to an endless cycle of disillusionment and bitterness. And isn’t there enough race-related anger in the world already?

These are not easy lessons to apprehend. As an adult, I find myself constantly struggling to learn and re-learn them. But if both William and I can have teachable hearts and learn that we have significance because of Who loves us and not because of the heritage into which we’ve been born, we might slowly but surely find ourselves knowing just a little better each day.