East West - The Asian American Lifestyle Magazine

Lily Russell knows she is Chinese and that she came from China, but for several years the 8-year-old didn't think anything of it. Lily was certain that all babies came from China.  

"She just thought that is how you get a baby," says Beth Russell, Lily's mother.  "She even asked me if I had a big tummy when I went to China to get her.  But when she went with us to China for the second adoption and saw the process, it was put into perspective and was a bit like finding out Santa Claus doesn't exist."

Today, Russell says Lily, who was adopted from an orphanage in China when she was 13 months old, doesn't want to deal with the fact that the two are not biologically related and that they are different.

"She will ask when she is ready," Russell says.

The number of international adoptions increased more than 20 percent between  2000 and 2005 according to State Department figures. Furthermore, many of these adoptions are from Asian countries. State Department figures, which are based on the number of immigrant visas issued to orphans coming to the U.S., show that China, South Korea, India and the Philippines are among the top 10 countries of origin for adoptees. Mainland China is number one.

Chris Winston, the founder and president of the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN), a group which aids families and adoptees, has two adopted children from Korea — Diana, who is now 19, and David, 22. 

"It is weird," she says, "because on one level, ethnicity makes no difference. But in other ways it can separate. My son, for example, only wants to date Asian girls because he wants to blend, because that is his comfort level."

Winston—who recently released “A Euro-American on a Korean Tour at a Thai Restaurant in China,” a book about her experiences raising Korean-born children—says many adult adoptees are now taking back their Asian last names. "They think that way they don't have to explain why 'I look like this but have this name.'"

Thinking Multiculturally

Even for adoptive parents who have the same ethnic background as the adopted child, there are cultural and community challenges. While a second- or third-generation Chinese American generally has a feel for China and the language, the transfer of culture can be difficult. Building a multi-ethnic and/or global family often means changing the way you think and who you seek out as friends and associates.        

Winston felt she was always open to people of different ethnicities but says she had no idea of the issues people of color face.   

 "When my son was hiding behind me when he saw someone that was Asian, I knew that was a problem. I knew he needed Asian American friends," says Winston, who then consciously sought out Asian American friends for the family. "We just never had to think that way before."

Russell did the same for Lily who now attends Chinese language courses with other adoptees.

All the Right Reasons

Both women say it is also important to put the concept of international adoption in the right light, regardless of ethnicity.

"We don't see ourselves as rescuers," Winston says. "I am really glad I have my kids, but I don't have the arrogance that I have rescued somebody … It is just that we never know what every individual's life will be."

Winston doesn't want to weaken her children or for them to think they couldn't have made it without the American couple who adopted them.

"I think it is really bad to romanticize too much. Who really knows what is a better life?" she adds.

Russell agrees, but feels in Lily's case, there was only one choice.

"It was clear to me that she was hanging on by a thread, she was emotionally traumatized and had lost her will to live," says Russell, recalling the first time she saw 13-month-old Lily in China.

The author of "Forever Lily: An Unexpected Mother's Journey to Adoption in China," — a part fiction, part non-fiction account of Lily's adoption — Russell went to China in late 1999 with no intention of adopting a child.  She was accompanying a friend who was on her way to adopt Lily. But once in China, Russell's friend changed her mind, and that’s when she decided to be the adopter.

"I couldn't see her being able to survive the orphanage. I couldn't leave her," Russell recalls. "I felt strongly that she would respond to love and attention. And she did."

In her book, scheduled for release in March, Russell explores the plight of girls in Chinese orphanages. She says she isn't assuming she knows what is best, just hoping to share her views and stimulate discussion.    

Problems in the System

One topic of discussion common in adoptive families is the option and possibility of children reconnecting with birth parents. The Russells say they want to give Lily this option, the opportunity to visit and return to her home country if she so desires.

Winston's kids, with her encouragement, have already taken this step. For her daughter Diana, she says it was important because it was some kind of "resolution of what her story was." Diana met her birth family, a family that claims they never wanted to let Diana go, and continues to have contact with them through letters.

"She was in an orphanage, but I have heard and have some evidence that she came from an intact family. They say they tried to get her back," Winston adds.

Winston says that while such news is concerning, she doesn't think the system is corrupt. It is not baby selling, but rather many Asian countries don't have a social welfare system in place that is working to keep these kids in the country and to resolve issues.

"I think many of these kids enter the system, the orphanages, legitimately but because of the lack of a system, once they are in, families can't track them again. They can't get them back; there is no system for that."

It is a system where birth parents don't seem real, an often appealing prospect to couples who have been through years of infertility or have run into complications with domestic adoptions. 

Understanding the Challenges

Still, international adoptions are by no means easy. The process can be expensive and taxing. Winston says they spent about $7,000 on their last adoption, but that was years ago, and the costs keep climbing.

There also is an often grueling waiting period involved. Russell, who adopted a second girl, Jaden, from China in 2004, says it took 19 months to get a referral after their first call to the adoption agency.

According to estimates made by one agency with contacts in Asia and North and South America, Russell's case isn't unusual. The wait for a child is normally from six to 18 months.   

Other obstacles include immigration paperwork and individual state and country regulations. But most significantly, international adoption brings with it a life change for the entire family.

"All we knew was that Jaden was left on a bench and brought to the orphanage, and they estimated a birth date," says Russell, adding that cursory information like whom this little girl really is, what she likes and how she will adjust was absent. Russell says this was the hardest part and that the adoption process does little to emotionally prepare adoptive parents. "You wonder how am I going to feel when they hand me a baby I have never seen before and that is going to be mine. How will I find it within myself to give her what she needs?"

She encourages potential adoptive parents to ask these questions from the very beginning and to seek out emotional support. It is better to be prepared, she says, rather than risk compromising the adoption.

Winston says it also is important, especially for parents of a different ethnic background, to "look at where you live and what the people around you look like. Is this a place where there is a lot of diversity?"

The more diversity these women say, the easier it is for adopted children and the entire family to forge and understand their unique identity.

"When I go out with the girls, Asian people will talk to me," Russell says. "But when I am without them [her daughters] they don’t, and I often wonder, 'don't they know I am Chinese, too?’"