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Comments and questions to webmaster@macalester.edu
Macalester College · 1600 Grand Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55105
· 651-696-6000
Posted at 11:35 AM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
link to the Kersten column http://www.startribune.com/kersten/story/1559420.html Katherine Kersten: Noose outcry is a new entry in the campus hall of shame"
Here is the letter I submitted to the Strib on 11/19, but it was not published, so I'm posting it here.
Dear Editor,
I, a “real adult” would like to respond to Katherine Kersten’s most recent column, “Noose outcry is a new entry in the campus hall of shame.”
We see the dialogue that has resulted from “the noose incident” as part of an important and ongoing public discourse on the power of American symbols. A noose is not only a symbol of course, but the thing itself—a tool of murder, a tool with a bloody and racist history. Whether Keith is racist or not is not the issue. The fact that his noose was made of sweatshirt string and was posted for a few minutes is not the issue. The issue, thanks to people like Kersten, is the racist backlash. Kersten seems so proud of herself, so smug--doesn't she know that the KKK has already "been there, done that"?
Newsflash
to Kersten: people of color have better things to do than to label individuals
as racist. Honestly, we're quite busy living our lives. Yes, some of us are
busily engaged in structural analysis of institutional oppression—within,
across, and outside the borders of the United States
In
her article, Kersten strains to turn Mr. Keith into a victim, a martyr who
sacrificed for his country in Iraq
We don’t remember seeing any sound reportage that proved that people at MCTC were out to make Keith the “arch racist.” In fact, I can think of several people with significantly more institutional power who might wear that tag.
Star Tribune, shame on you for printing such shoddy journalism and hate mongering. Be careful, or you’ll be next on the list of “laughingstocks” of the “larger community.”
Sun
Yung Shin
co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption
Posted at 06:06 PM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted at 06:01 PM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
http://relativechoices.blogs
"A girlfriend who is now on the waiting list for a child from Ethiopia
says that the talk of her adoption group is a recently published book
in which many Midwestern Asian adoptees now entering their 30s and 40s
complain bitterly about being treated as if they did not come from a
different cultural background. They feel that this treatment was an
attempt to blot out their differences, and because of this, they
resent their adoptive parents.
So in a way it is kind of nice to know as a parent of a child,
biological or otherwise – whatever you do is going to be wrong. Like I
say to Willow: "Well, you know, if you were still in China you would
be working in a factory for 14 hours a day with only limited bathroom
breaks!"" - Tama Janowitz, "The Real Thing"
Here is my response, which I submitted as a comment to the NYT blog:
I am one of the co-editors of the book mentioned but unnamed by Ms. Janowitz and I would like to respond.
The anthology is Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption and it was published by South End Press in fall of 2006. My co-editors are Julia Chinyere Sudbury and Jane Jeong Trenka.
I would like to offer a note of appreciation for the comment by Lori Askeland. Ms. Askeland and I happen to share a publisher, Greenwood Press, which produced her (mentioned) anthology and The Praeger Handbook of Adoption, for which I wrote an entry ("Infertility and Adoption").
I find Askeland's analysis and response to Janowitz's article to be intelligent and well informed by the larger picture of global child welfare. I very much appreciate her critique of Janowitz's statements as reductive. It's very easy, and certainly can be "funny," to mimic and make sport of the concerns of people of color regarding issues of race and class inequities. There's no shortage of historical precedent. So I thank Ms. Askeland for lending dignity, intellectual inquiry, critical thinking, and her conscience to the discussion.
I also want to make a correction to her description of the
book's authorship. Only a handful of our contributors are Asian; and
only a few of those are from the Midwest. My co-editor Julia Chinyere
Sudbury is a Nigerian-English woman born in the U.K. and has settled in
Oakland, CA; several of our contributors are from countries other than
the U.S.
I
could create a little table of ethnicity and country of origin (and
age, a topic to come further down)--but that's not really the point
here.
I'm not sure if there is some investment, not just by Askeland, or by others, in configuring our book as a project by "young adult adoptees" (the age range of contributors is through the 50s) and "Asian Americans from the Midwest" but that assessment is inaccurate, and has undertones of dismissal in terms of the book's potential relevance to a global audience. I don't believe Askeland was dismissing the book, but clearly others (in the book group mentioned by Janowitz) have, perhaps for a variety of reasons. Certainly individuals can be compelled by the book's overarching thesis and the individual pieces, or not, but the reality of the discourse around adoption is such that I felt moved to give some context.
I am positive that neither Julia Chinyere Sudbury, the author of one book and the editor of two others, plus a possessor of a PhD in Sociology and a professor of Ethnic Studies at Mills College, nor Jane Jeong Trenka, the author of two memoirs + the anthology, nor I, the author of two books + the anthology, consider ourselves "young adults" or "young adoptees."
I'm a mother myself, of two children aged ten and seven, and have been in a committed partnership for over eleven years, and have supported myself independently since I was twenty years old, working as a business analyst in information technology at a variety of multi-national corporations. I have a BA and a master's degree and frequently speak in public. I have a mortgage and so forth. Although none of these things in particular define adulthood (certainly a contentious category for some), if I'm not just a plain old adult, I'm not sure who is. I realize this sounds like "she doth protest too much," so I'll leave off the adult tip and move on.
Outsiders Within was/is a collaborative project of artists, writers, and scholars--and includes the work of non-adopted persons, most of them (tenured) academics. All of us are "adults," for whatever that's worth, and in adoption discourse, it actually is worth a lot, as many adopted people of color continue to be infantilized. In terms of linguistics and social history, the word "adoptee" denotes a state of childhood (as an adult cannot be adopted) and connotes, sometimes, indigence and certainly dependence.
Readers of the NYT must be aware that people of color are--in material terms and through representations--subjected to neo-colonial notions and practices that reduce us to children in need of the great white savior. Very often our concerns about racism, sexism, classism, and imperialism are variously pooh-poohed through a well-oiled rhetorical machinery of historical denial.
Our, whether we're adopted people of color or non-adopted people of color, revelations and critiques of these oppressive practices are often assessed by whites as the ungrateful whining of children (regardless of our actual age) in a developmental stage posited as universal and timeless of immature (and unfounded) complaint against their parents. It, to my sorrow, sounds all too familiar in terms of US history and relationships of power.
A close(r) reading of Outsiders Within will reveal that the thesis of the book is not that adoptive parents make mistakes or that we'd rather, hm, be working in sweat shops (and yes, that was offensive on a number of levels, and sickeningly casual and classist because some of our birth mothers--the women who provided adoptive parents with their new children--with whom we've reunited _do_ work in factories under sweatshop conditions--and of course some of them are middle class, and some of them are even white, as is the mother of some of the contributors to OW), but that the economies, politics, and intimacies of transracial adoption have much to reveal about the world today, if those most profoundly impacted, the adoptees themselves, are to be listened to.
I'm not certain that a full discussion can be had about transnational adoption, whether from China or elsewhere, without the voices of adoptees. And the question is--why would adoptive parents such a limited discussion anyway? Would white women want a discussion about white womanhood solely by white men? I think American history has shown that not to be the case.
I actually find it sad and sadly curious that white women who are champions of the rights and innate equality of women would derogate the attempts of people of color to participate in conversations that are essentially about them. Of course if we are dismissed as children and as young(er than the parents), our voices remain immature, undeveloped, and easily ignored unless we are grateful, unless we unequivocally privilege the primacy of our adoptive families and adopted cultures--whether white or Chinese, apparently we are not to give "any guff" to our "real mothers." Truly, it's not an either-or scenario--it's much more complex.
I am not here to state that one culture is better than the other, that it's better to be adopted than to "languish in an orphanage" etc., or to promote nostalgia for one's "biological mother," or to imply that (some American) children don't complain bitterly about what they don't have or their parents' "parenting,"--I know all the arguments against adopted people speaking for themselves, unless they say, "I don't care about my home country. Don't send me to camp. ______ is dirty and smelly, I don't want to go back. You are my real mother. I love being American," etc. I really do, I've heard them all. I've said them--when I actually _was_ a child. I get it. As an _adult_--things are more complicated. Absolutes such as "real" and "where I belong" are oversimplifications for many of us who are in fact immigrants. People are free to pathologize me (or any immigrant, or any minority) as wanting to be part of the "Victim Olympics" and so forth. People have the freedom to chastise me as taking advantage of my "model minority status" and "biting the hand that feeds me." Everyone has a right to her or his opinion. Certainly I'm at risk of blindness as much as anyone else. But, what's at stake if the critiques of people like me are actually valid?
What I want is for there to be a kind of ongoing truth and reconciliation process--for US citizens, including myself, to examine our privileges and sense of entitlement and ethnocentrism. I want us, as women, as men, humans in history, to examine, unflinchingly, the realities of reproductive choices around the world, and to see the long-term effects of children being relocated, en masse, from one country to another. What does this relocation of resources mean? Friends, it's larger than the family, it's larger than an individual woman or man's fertility or infertility, it's larger than the one-child policy, or "relative choices." Who has choices and who doesn't?
Posted at 09:15 PM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (17) | TrackBack (1)
Posted at 08:19 AM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Korean adoptees talk about finding their birthparents.
by Elizabeth Larsen
October 24, 2007
Since the end of World War II, over 100,000 Korean infants and children—approximately one out of twelve Korean Americans—have been adopted into American families. While there are no statistics documenting what percentage of them have been reunited with their birth families, it's clear that the number is growing steadily. As the oldest and largest population of transnationally adopted people in the United States, their experiences of search and reunion shed light on what the future may hold for younger generations of adoptees from China, South America, and other parts of the world.
—Ji In, a Hawaii-based writer and editor and the
author of Twice The Rice, a blog that in part explores her experience
as a transnational and transracial adoptee
Elizabeth
Larsen has worked for both Sassy and the Utne Reader. She wrote about
her daughter in this year's Choice: True Stories of Birth,
Contraception, Infertility, Adoption, Single Parenthood, and Abortion.
@2007 The Foundation for National Progress
Read the article online:
http://www.motherjones.com
Check out the latest from Mother Jones at:
Posted at 10:28 AM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Photo by David Joles, Star Tribune
Rachel Kupcho, left, reached across Duane Reynolds to give Odanas Day'Castro a comforting squeeze at a gathering of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Kupcho and Reynolds were adopted as children by non-Indian families. The band may be the first to formally welcome back adoptees.
At a homecoming on the White Earth Indian Reservation, some who were adopted out were welcomed to their place in the circle.
By Curt Brown, Star Tribune
Amid the sweet smell of burning sage and the heartbeat thumping of Ojibwe drummers, Reynolds, 60, and Kupcho, 30, stood side by side in a circle of 60 people as tribal spiritual elder Joe Bush prayed and performed pipe rituals.
The hand-stitched banner on the wall proclaimed in Ojibwe: Ishkwa Niibawa Dasobiboon Niiawind Abi Endad. And in English: After Many Years, We Are Home.
With the all-day healing ceremony, White Earth became Minnesota's first reservation, and perhaps the first in the nation, to formally welcome back some of the thousands of children adopted off reservations under a decades-long federal policy that encouraged their placement in non-Indian homes.
"Just to literally be on this land has been incredibly powerful," said Kupcho, who grew up in Chanhassen. "When I drove up and saw the sign, I just started crying. I've always believed my relatives are from here, so it's an emotional time, but a good time."
With so many children unaware of their roots and heritage, the White Earth ceremony is one that Native organizations across the nation are watching closely.
"The White Earth band is on the forefront and taking the national lead on a very important trend we hope will take off across the country," said Terry Cross, founder and director of the Oregon-based National Indian Children Welfare Association. "Tribes are collections of families, and to be healthy and intact, they must know who all their members are."
The adoptions were common until 1978, when Congress enacted the Indian Child Welfare Act that gave tribes more control over adoptions. But at the peak of assimilation, roughly one in four Indian babies was adopted out, according to Cross and White Earth Chairwoman Erma Vizenor.
Federally funded programs enabled nonprofits, counties and states to remove children from reservations. The practice was often prompted by good intentions to help kids escape poverty. But many Indian leaders insist it came at an insidious price by forcing native people to forsake their culture and heritage.
"Many of these people have been stolen from their relatives, and we have had these people stolen from the tribe," White Earth Chief Tribal Judge Anita Fineday told the group of 20 adoptees, including Reynolds and Kupcho. "We need these people to come back. We need to make these connections.
"We need these resources to make the tribe whole again. So our arms are open to those adopted out to reconnect."
'I really wondered'
For the first 59 of his 60 years, Reynolds, a social worker from New Hope, knew nothing of his White Earth roots. His parents, Stella and Robert Brown, married in 1946 and separated a year later when he was a toddler.
Reynolds grew up in Northeast Minneapolis, taking his name when his mother remarried and his stepfather adopted him when he was 9.
He never met his birth father. His only wisp of a clue came from five words his mother uttered only once when he was 7.
"Your father was part Indian."
Talking in the circle of adoptees last weekend, Reynolds said: "I carried those words around in my head my whole life. Like anyone with a parent they don't know, I've spent time looking out the window of my house ... wondering who those people might be."
By the time his curiosity grew, no one was left to ask. His mother died when he was 27. He'd once asked about his dad. But his mother, trying to protect him, lied that his father had died.
In fact, his father had tried to find him, but his mother refused to help. So Reynolds never said a word to his wife of 39 years, Patty, or their two now-grown daughters in Crystal.
A call and an epiphany
Last Dec. 21, a tribal probate attorney called out of the blue, hoping to close his father's case.
Robert Brown had died in 1994.
In the past year, Reynolds tracked down his uncle, Gaynard Brown, whose kidneys were failing in hospice care in Seattle.
Gaynard died 10 days later, but not before telling Reynolds how his father had grown up on White Earth, been bused to Indian schools, joined the service and moved to Seattle to find work building planes.
"Hearing about his escapades was like an epiphany," Reynolds said. "I was finally facing someone who could answer my questions, and I learned that my father fought his demons, but was an honorable, honest person."
Reynolds has exhaustively researched his family tree and determined that he's three-sixteenths White Earth Ojibwe. He has met other cousins, and the trek to the reservation "is part of an ongoing process that gives me an opportunity to learn more. ..."I've had a wonderful life, but there has always been a fleeting sadness," Reynolds added. "Coming here, to this homecoming, puts some of the questions to rest and gives some meaning and truth to what my mother told me so long ago."
"I know I'm amongst family"
Rachel Kupcho's adoption papers were sealed in 1977 when her birth mother gave her up in a voluntary private adoption through Catholic Charities. She grew up in the western suburbs and was surrounded by adopted siblings of Irish, Filipino, German and African-American descent.
She had never stepped foot on White Earth.
She's petitioned Ramsey County to obtain her birth certificate, but so far has been rebuffed. The White Earth Tribal Council is now trying to help.
All Kupcho has to go on were the words of a social worker who oversaw her adoption 30 years ago. The woman said her mother was from White Earth.
As she stood in the circle of adoptees, she said: "What I do know here today is that I have relatives here -- whether I know who they are or not. I know I'm amongst family, and that feels good."
Kupcho said her adoptive parents, Lisa and Keith Kupcho of Chanhassen, have always encouraged her to be proud of her American Indian heritage.
"They had given me all of the love and support parents can give, but I think realized there was always something they couldn't give me," said Kupcho, who monitors youth court proceedings in Hennepin County. "And that's what I can find here."
Walking two roads
In the hall of the casino, Joe Bush, the spiritual leader, talked about what was going on at White Earth last weekend, that his people "travel two roads -- the red road and the white road."
To see those on the white road returning to the red road that their ancestors had followed brings him pride.
"Today is a first, and the White Earth band is the first to welcome home those adopted far away," Bush said. "I hope to see more reservations take the same step and initiative to welcome back those lost."
Sandy White Hawk, who runs the First Nations Repatriation Institute in St. Paul, organized the ceremony and expects other tribes to follow suit.
"You are here because of the prayers of your ancestors," White Hawk told the adoptees.
"They don't know your names and you don't know their names. But the Spirit knows, and all those prayers for health and happiness have been heard."
White Hawk, now 54, returned to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota 19 years ago.
It was the first time she'd been back since her mother passed her through the window of a pickup truck to a Christian missionary when she was a toddler.
Since unlocking her past, she has organized healing ceremonies for others of similar circumstances.
"As Indian people, we believe we are all part of the sacred circle of life that has no beginning or end," White Hawk.
"There is a sacred energy that connects us in this circle. As you come back to the circle, know there is space waiting for you."
With that, each adoptee walked from outside a circle formed by tribal members and stood in its middle where they each embraced one another -- and their now less-distant pasts.
Curt Brown • 612-673-4767
Curt Brown • curt.brown@startribune.com
Posted at 08:37 AM in Social justice | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)