Becoming a ‘Chinese-American’ Parent: Whiteness, Chinese Cultural Practice, and American Parents of Children Adopted from China

Abstract

At the time of this writing, American citizens have adopted more than 65,000 Chinese children (US Dept. of State, 2012). The vast majority of these children are girls adopted by white parents (Pertman, 2000). In the face of socio-historical pressures to acknowledge the racialized ethnic incongruence in their families, white American parents of children adopted from China face a significant conundrum: how do they construct an ethnically ‘rooted child’ without marking that child as ‘naturally” [belonging] to another [family] or place’ (Yngvesson, 2000, p. 169)? Drawing on original data gleaned from semi-structured in-depth interviews, my research examines how white American parents respond to this puzzle by personally identifying with the cultural heritage of their ethnic-Chinese children or, in the words of Donald, a white father of a ten-year-old girl from China, becoming a ‘Chinese-American’ parent.²

In the last year, I have started to think of ourselves as being a Chinese-American family. Not everybody probably accepts that, but I think it’s really key that it’s not just that the daughter or the child feels that she is Chinese-American. I think it’s really important that the family incorporate that and make it something that they are.

(Donald, a white American father of a ten-year-old girl from China¹)