Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.003.0005
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter explores how white adoptive parents construct Chinese identities for their adopted children in relation to their own understandings of Chineseness. It first considers the notion of ...
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This chapter explores how white adoptive parents construct Chinese identities for their adopted children in relation to their own understandings of Chineseness. It first considers the notion of preemptive parenting in relation to culture and race before discussing the birth cultures and the cultural difference of Chinese adoptees. It then examines the ways that white adoptive parents form conceptions about Chinese culture and its relationship to other elements of American life. It suggests that adoptive parents who strategically employ resources about China and Chinese culture for their adopted children are engaged in a type of reflexive, preemptive parenting and that in many cases, parents attempt to proactively pick and choose aspects of Chinese cultural identity to integrate into their children's lives to address salient issues of identity, while their understanding of and ability to change the broader racial and historical structures that continue to shape Chinese identities remain limited.Less
This chapter explores how white adoptive parents construct Chinese identities for their adopted children in relation to their own understandings of Chineseness. It first considers the notion of preemptive parenting in relation to culture and race before discussing the birth cultures and the cultural difference of Chinese adoptees. It then examines the ways that white adoptive parents form conceptions about Chinese culture and its relationship to other elements of American life. It suggests that adoptive parents who strategically employ resources about China and Chinese culture for their adopted children are engaged in a type of reflexive, preemptive parenting and that in many cases, parents attempt to proactively pick and choose aspects of Chinese cultural identity to integrate into their children's lives to address salient issues of identity, while their understanding of and ability to change the broader racial and historical structures that continue to shape Chinese identities remain limited.
Andrea Louie
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479890521
- eISBN:
- 9781479859887
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479890521.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China ...
More
Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China and Chinese culture, as many adoptive families today try to honor what they view as their children's “birth culture.” However, transnational, transracial adoption also presents challenges to families who are trying to impart in their children cultural and racial identities that they themselves do not possess, while at the same time incorporating their own racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Many of their ideas are based on assumptions about how authentic Chinese and Chinese Americans practice Chinese culture. Based on a comparative ethnographic study of white and Asian American adoptive parents over an eight-year period, this book explores how white adoptive parents, adoption professionals, Chinese American adoptive parents, and teens adopted from China as children negotiate meanings of Chinese identity in the context of race, culture, and family. Viewing Chineseness as something produced, rather than inherited, the book examines how the idea of “ethnic options” differs for Asian American versus white adoptive parents as they produce Chinese adoptee identities, while re-working their own ethnic, racial, and parental identities. The book analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course.Less
Chinese adoption is often viewed as creating new possibilities for the formation of multicultural, cosmopolitan families. For white adoptive families, it is an opportunity to learn more about China and Chinese culture, as many adoptive families today try to honor what they view as their children's “birth culture.” However, transnational, transracial adoption also presents challenges to families who are trying to impart in their children cultural and racial identities that they themselves do not possess, while at the same time incorporating their own racial, ethnic, and religious identities. Many of their ideas are based on assumptions about how authentic Chinese and Chinese Americans practice Chinese culture. Based on a comparative ethnographic study of white and Asian American adoptive parents over an eight-year period, this book explores how white adoptive parents, adoption professionals, Chinese American adoptive parents, and teens adopted from China as children negotiate meanings of Chinese identity in the context of race, culture, and family. Viewing Chineseness as something produced, rather than inherited, the book examines how the idea of “ethnic options” differs for Asian American versus white adoptive parents as they produce Chinese adoptee identities, while re-working their own ethnic, racial, and parental identities. The book analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course.
