Thursday, August 27, 2009

Adoption Info #2 - Including cultural elements

Chris and I definitely intend on including Taiwanese/Chinese cultural items and events in our lives in order to help our future daughter feel more comfortable with her birth culture. We already have a lot of Asian cultural things in our lives, in fact. I thought the following article is quite interesting, as it talks about how having too much "culture" forced down one's throat can be counter-productive.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/23/one_overseas_adoptee_explains_parents_embrace_of_the_home_culture_can_have_its_costs/?page=1

I do think that adoptive parents need to really think about what type of culture they want to share with their child. The article really made me think about what it will be like for our daughter to be Taiwanese American. She will never be truly Taiwanese, as she will be raised as an American. But she can be raised to be Taiwanese American, and to be proud of the many influences she has in her life. I don't expect that she will ever be 100% comfortable in Taiwan, but I would love to see her be comfortable being around 2nd or 3rd generation Taiwanese Americans--individuals who are proud of their heritage, but don't try to pretend they aren't American.

1 comment:

Precious Wonders and Little Monkeys said...

Awesome article. This is one I am printing out. I figure if this is going to influence any of my thought processses now, my daughter may want to read where some of it came from. So thank you for posting it. =0)