Asian and adoptee : a double invisibility

Voici la version anglaise de l'article "Asiatique et adoptée : une double invisibilité''.
Je remercie tout particulièrement mes amies Chloé et Anne sans qui cette traduction n'aurait pas vu le jour.

Here is the English version of my article "Asiatique et adoptée : une double invisibilité''.
I particurlarly want to thank my friends Chloé and Anne without whom this translation would never have been done.

Preamble note : the original French version of this article uses the newly coined term « asiatiquetée » : a portmanteau word combining the adjectives 'asiatique' (French for 'Asian') and 'étiqueté' (French for 'labelled').
It has been decided that this english translation of the article should use the term « Asian-labelled ».
Asian-labelled (''asiatiqueté'') : a term describing a person who is perceived as Asian, and treated in consequence to this perception. This is not related to the actual geographical origin of the person, who might not be from Asia at all. One can be Asian without being Asian-labelled (like an Indian person for instance) or be Asian-labelled without being from Asia (like Inuit people).

As an adopted Asian woman, I have often lacked the words to express my experiences and feelings. It took me some time to become aware of the structural workings of adoption as a heavy-staked international system (see my article in French on international adoption).
I was also slow to think of myself as both « adopted » and as racially assigned as an Asian-labelled person. Although I had been experiencing racism since my very early days, even within my larger adoptive family, I could not put it into words.

How experiencing racism has forged my identity

Nonetheless, I could always sense that anti-Asian racism had had an impact on my life as well as on the process through which my personality and identity had developped. I usually resort to this example : when I was younger and other kids on the street would call me out to racially insult me, I would cry. Later on though, out of necessity – these verbal abuses being fairly common in a typical average-sized french town with very few non-white people– I decided I would not take it lying down. I thus fought back, with my own attacks. Somehow, I know that racism has moulded my personnality and has toughened me up in spite of myself, all the while making me sensitive to injustice, taking stock from my own experience.

It is this sensitivity which drew me to mingle in far-left militancy circles which I believed were aligned with my own ideas. Disappointed (what an understatement) by the way these circles made up of mainly white educated middle-class people operated, and having been the victim of racist abuse which had been minimized (notably because of the strong kinship ties typically found in these circles), I made the decision to move away and to get closer to a decolonial and more radically anti-racist activism, which would better reflect who I was. Still, I always felt like the two types of oppression which impacted me most (not taking sexism into account) remained two blind spots, even in intersectionnal and anti-racist discourses and struggles.

Two blind spots

I was doubly invisible : being Asian, and being adopted.

A discomfort crept up within me as a result. I felt, and still feel, the need to justify, even prove that I am not white. As if not being alongside other racialised people in a sufficiently obvious way made me belong on the other side of the 'color line'.

As an Asian woman, I have to demonstrate that I am not a white-privileged person, not only to Whites, but also to other racialised people. As if our invisibilisation and our lack of representation within public spaces, the media and politics had morphed into an ambiguity about whether or not we, as Asian people, were faced with racism. As if we were made to compete and prove, in a hierarchy of struggles as it were, the importance and the seriousness of the racism we undergo. I will not play this game.

To me, being white is not a skin tone, or about having fair skin, it is a racial status which comes with its lot of privileges (economic, material, aesthetic…), as has been demonstrated by Peggy McIntosh in « White privilege : unpacking the invisible knapsack ».
For one thing, I do not embody the norm, and for another, I can at any time, like all racialised people, be assigned back to my « race » and the fantasies and clichés that go with it (all Asians are like this, all Asians do that…). I am also alienated from my body. I am not a white woman, because my body is fetichised. Moreover, I am not perceived as an autonomous individual, but as an un-willing « representative » of a community made into an orientalist fantasy.

Meanwhile, I fight daily to call out the international adoption system which has made me (as well and thousands of others) the object of a transaction within an asymetrical powerforce, which reeks of colonialism.

Although, being adopted could also be construed as a privilege. Why ? Because of a preconceived idea that most adoptive familes are well-off, and oftentimes catholic. Which is not completely off point. The main number of adoption agencies showcase their religious ideals. The white savious myth does derive from a christian self-righteousness alongside which goes a civilizing mission. This is how Holt, « The Amazon of adoption agencies » (as described by an article in the LA Times) founded by an evangelist couple at the end of the Korean war, advertised in a pamphlet directed to adoptive families their will to save Korean children from « darkness and misery » to bring them into « the warmth and love » of American households. Let us not forget either that transracial adoptions schemes have been put in place in countries like Canada or the USA in the XIXth and XXth centuries, separating black and native children from their original families to send them to white christian families, as a means to assimilate them.

From invisibility to rejection

Being an adopted Asian woman weighs on the way I am perceived in the activist social circles I frequent.

I do think it is hard for some anti-racist and decolonial activists to accept that an adopted Asian person could be a « colonized » or « racialised » person. I draw this idea from the following observations. On the one hand, in France, post-colonial ties are mostly analysed and called out either within the Françafrique pattern or in the perspective of critiquing state racism, particularly targeting muslim and/or racialised working class people as well as Roma people. Denouncing the asymetrical relationship still at play between metropolitan France and her former colonies, now under département status, is another entry point.

On the other hand, Asian countries and more particularly South Korea (my birth country) are seen as economically stable countries, competing with western powers. This notion gives way to terrible results in the way anti-Asian racism manifests in France. In the last few years, we have been witnesses to the rise of assaults on Asian-labelled people, based on the prejudice that Asians carry lots of cash on them. Clichés keep living on and kill amidst a bewildering silence from the media and politics. Another form of cliché can even be found in words from a french rapper I appreciate. Kery James, in his song « Constat Amer », reactivates the myth of a model minority by alluding to the « Asian community » in bulk, as if our condition as a racialised community differed from that of other communities. He puts forward an image of a successful Asian community, namely in terms of economic wealth, which should show the way to other communities. I quote « Respect is due, and the struggle is financial. Look at the Asian community. We make lots of noise, and little numbers. ». That kind of talk not only tends to deny our issues, but also to separate us from other racialised people.

Drawing from these observations, how can we make sense of the colonial relations at play between my two countries ; France and South Korea ? At first glance, it would be more natural to spot such relations bewteen France and Vietnam or Haiti (two adoption sources for France), because they are former French colonies. They are also perceived as being economically less well-off.

But in the matter of international and transracial adoption, the coloniality concept needs to be construed in a way other than economic neo-colonialism. Coloniality indeed allows for the conveying of some factors like asymetry – namely in the one-way pattern of adoption flows - power struggles (economic, cultural, diplomatic, etc) between source-countries and reception-countries, or even the impact of forced assimilation as well as the impact of racism in the image racialised adopted people have of themselves, and the psychological cost and racial burden this implies. Let us not forget the exterior perception of racialised adopted people’s bodies having to do with colonial history.

Finding and exploring the concept of « adopteephobia »

In the course of my one-and-a-half-year stay in South Korea, I was fortunate enough to meet with other foreign adopted people, who had gone through a journey of conscientisation. I also attended a symposium on « Korean adoption studies » led by adopted academics. All these encounters allowed me to learn new concepts and to use words which played a major role in my understading of my own experience (and of what other adopted people must have lived through).

I came across what we call « adopteephobia » a few years ago, a concept coined by an American adopted woman, Seugmi Cho, MSW (previously Laura Klunder). 
(site https://gazillionvoices.com/adopteephobia/)

I found this concept truly useful to make sense of the abuse I underwent, even coming from other anti-racist activits. As an example, one activist, a racialised anti-racist woman, once called me a « traitor to the cause » because I had dared to bring up the racism I was experiencing in the course of a debate on white privilege. At the time, I was questioning many things having to do with the kind of racism other racialised people were throwing at me, notably in public spaces. I had no reference, no theoretical compass to guide me and make sense of this specific form of racism which targets Asian people (theses references still are scarce, if not non-existent in France).

Furthermore, as an adopted person, I think I took more time than other racialised people to become aware of the racism I was faced with, but also and most of all, I took more time to call it out. Adopted people indeed carry a strong sense of gratitude, sometimes loyalty towards their adoptive family but also in some cases towards their adoptive country, as did I. The white saviour myth has had a significant influence on this sentiment, because the loyalty I was feeling towards France as a child did foster from the (material and symbolic) dominating relations between North recepting countries and the Gobal South source countries. Adopted people feel indebted for having been saved from a supposedly miserable life. And this loyalty as well as numerous other affects at play in the adoption relation often hinder a critical distancing process, not only about the racism we face, but also about adoption ; a reality which should be analysed as a system instead of being thought of as an individual, moral issue.

This activist had then insulted me, called me a « traitor to the cause » even though she had not attended the debate. She had insulted me based on hear-say and had not even bothered to insult me directly, but rather used my white partner as a messenger. Why that insult ? Because she felt I was absolving white people of their responsability by talking about the racism occuring among racialised people.
 

It led me to many new questions. Can we be true allies and not be honest ? Can we trust the words from a fellow racialised woman without calling her a traitor ? Not everyone is Eric Zemmour (French media commentator provocateur known for his extremely violently racist and misogynistic views. He had been found guilty of inciting racial hatred in 2019, but is still very regurlarly called upon by major media outlets).

It does matter WHO speaks, with what INTENTIONS, and with what GOALS in mind. I am an Asian women, I am Asian-labelled and I have been living with racism ever since my childhood years. I am through with being silent and invisible. Therefore, I talk about my experience not to be decredibilized by crying treason or victimisation. This last argument is incidently used to silence oppressed people. What is a victim if not a person who suffers an injustice ?
And I am anything but a victim who revels in victim status when I speak up to call out what I undergo instead of staying passive and taking it lying down, or instead of pretending the racism targeting me does not exist. Nor am I trying to absolve white people of their responsibilities in a system that privileges them. On the contrary, I’m striving to understand the mechanisms of the racism I experience while trying to build bridges and alliances with other racialised groups. I will always support the struggles of other racialised people without ever minimizing islamophobia, negrophobia or rromophobia even when these racisms are conveyed by Asian people. The fight against racisms is a long-term endeavour which must begin with oneself.

This activist who taxed me with “a traitor to the cause” was blind to the specific features of anti-Asian racism and was, in my opinion, totally wrong regarding the expression “the cause”, as though there were only one anti-racist cause. There are as many causes as there are racisms. The struggle is plural. Not recognizing this aspect often means imposing a view of racisms and an agenda of struggles that match one’s own concerns. Hence, listening to the first concerned is of paramount importance as much as is the involvement of anti-racist and decolonial activists into this multifaceted struggle. For a critical and political analysis of racism will never be comprehensive unless it takes into account all forms of racism affecting racialised minorities.

But this story didn’t end there. I voiced my disagreement and at the same time I let her know how painful her words had been to me. She went on putting me down by saying that her discourse was “methodical and analytical”, as if mine were not. As our disagreements sank into a fruitless discussion, she ended up comparing me to “Fadela Amara” (referring to the association “Ni putes ni soumises” – “neither whores, nor submissive”, the governmental instrument which served to stigmatise racialised people in working-class areas, especially, Arab boys) while saying I was “a bourgeois from the North” whereas she was “an immigrant from the South”.

It took me a long time to digest those words and also to understand what was happening to me. In the end, it was thanks to the work of other adoptees around the world that I was able to find the right word for this situation. Besides having been confronted to a denial of anti-Asian racism, I had experienced adopteephobia. This person had not taken into account my situation as an adoptee and she had assimilated me to her stereotypical representations of adoption and adoptees. By saying I was “a bourgeois from the North” , not only did she reactivate the myth of the economically successful Asian community, she denied my whole past as an adoptee, keeping exclusively the result of this deportation, namely the fact that I had been raised in a middle-class white French family. She also denied the actual acculturation (first name modified, French language imposed), the separation from the country of origin as well as the absence of an Asian community as a reference to piece myself back together. In addition, she dismissed the whole colonial dimension at play in the international system of adoption. Furthermore, instead of showing benevolence by taking into consideration the fact that adoptees take more time to become aware of these issues, she chose to silence me by relegating me to the status of traitors and privileged oppressors.
 

I allowed myself to detail this situation because I think this is telling of difficulties and obstacles encountered in making oneself heard and understood – including by other minorities – when one belongs to invisible minorities.

An attempt at conceptualising « adopteephobia »

Finally, I’d like to suggest a more general definition of what is adopteephobia in my opinion. Adopteephobia consists of a set of ideas, representations, clichés which otherize, stigmatise and infantilize adoptees.

All those stereotypical representations may bring about the myth that there is only one experience and identity among adoptees. This single identity is conveyed by the main and dominant narrative, be it adoption agencies, adoptees or the media, which maintains adoptees in the position of eternally grateful children. This myth of adoptees having to be grateful can lead to a certain affective and psychological precariousness. Thus, in the event of a family breakup, when the adopted child stops being “indebted” according to criteria set by the adoptive parents, material precariousness may also arise while increasing the existing affective and psychological fragility. Actually, it would be interesting to have studies on the psychological cost of adoption born by adoptees throughout their lives.

As racism can be interiorised including towards one’s own community, adopteephobia may also be internalised by adoptees themselves. This can take the form of distrust or rejection towards other adoptees. This phenomenon is particularly noticeable among children who view their adoption as an isolated case and thus perceive other adoptees as potential competitors. The cartoonist Jung brings this feeling up in his comic book Approved for Adoption when he recounts the competition he felt when his adopted sister arrived from South Korea. He was no longer the only adoptee or the only Asian person in the family. We can thus see the limits of affective bonds in the context of an adoption. Even if the parents show the best of intentions by perceiving their filial love and feelings as unconditional, it is not necessarily understood in the same way by the adopted children who may feel that this love is under conditions. They may have in mind, consciously or unconsciously, either the fear of another abandonment or the fact that they are not legitimate (especially when there are biological siblings).

Likewise, adopteephobia can be expressed as a denial of one’s own adoption leading to contempt for oneself as an adoptee. Since adoption deviates from the norm of biological filiation, I sometimes felt ashamed of being adopted. As a child, I could see the curious and indiscreet looks that strangers cast on me and my family when we were together. As an adult, when I was with my father, we would also attract the questioning looks which seem to confine us to the role of a mixed couple – a mature white man and a young Asian woman. In those moments, I would feel the need to speak louder for others to hear me say “Daddy”. And this feeling of shame, I also sensed it among other adoptees. This is the case of a South Korean adopted friend who currently lives in Australia. As a young girl, she lied about being adopted by saying that one of her parents was Asian. She did not accept the fact she was adopted and so considered “abnormal”. She preferred to reject a part of her identity for fear of being rejected by others.

Adopteephobia occurs in countries of origin where adoptees are not necessarily welcome and where their issues are made invisible. They are often denied the resources needed to carry out successfully their quest for identity: language courses at their own cost, ineffective post-adoption services, denial of access to information on origins and medical history, etc.

Adopteephobia can also take the shape of promoting adoption as a charitable act or anti-racist act that saves a child. This vision of international and transracial adoption is predominant in mainland France. This structural adopteephobia can therefore lead to a refusal to listen, or even a willingness to silence adoptees and all those who think critically and systemically about mechanisms of adoption. Such thinking may indeed harm the intercountry adoption system as it is currently maintained in favour of the interests of recipient countries, adoption agencies and adoptive parents.

Therefore, adoptees who dare to criticise the adoption system have their words delegitimized, or even pathologized instead of being taken seriously. They are seen as “angry”, “suffering”, “having had a difficult childhood”, “having undergone a failed adoption” adoptees (which implies that an adoption is always successful as a matter of principle), etc. These adoptees are thus never considered to be lucid, rational individuals, or human beings thinking through their own conditions who seek to put their analysis of adoption on the table for debate.
 

If we define discrimination as the denial of access to certain rights, then we can claim that we, the adoptees, are deprived of :
 

• breaking the soothing narrative of the myth of adoption as a charitable and/or anti-racist act,

• information about our medical records,

• having direct access to all the information in our adoption files without resorting to intermediaries who are likely to withhold information while infantilising us,  

• being able to objectify our own issues and not being reified as mere objects of study by "experts". Once, during a public lecture, I heard a psychologist referring to us as " children with options"  (here she clearly meant drawbacks) compare to non-adopted children, as if we were cars or amenities,

• the biological filiation which allows up to feel that we are part of a family, a community, a country, on a long-term basis,

• enjoying the affective and psychological security of an “unconditional love” as we grow up (since we have seen that the love from adoptive parents can be consciously or unconsciously perceived as conditional love),

• receiving support (psychological, experiential and material) from a reference community. In this very context, accusing an adoptee of “traitor” or labelling her or him as white constitutes adopteephobia, as I experienced it,

• assistance and understanding from family and close relatives to explain the racism we face,

• our origins and a biological mother (or parent) that may be waiting for us somewhere,

• recognizing, as we grow up, familiar traits on the faces of those who raise us,

• the first name given to us by the person who brought us into this world,

• the ability to return and live in the country where we were born if we don’t have the amount of money and the psychological resources to cope with the cost of such an undertaking,

• being recognized as a full-fledged member of the society of our birth country where our issues are made invisible and our endeavour to seek our biological family may be hindered,

• having access to citizenship, social assistance, voting rights, inheritance benefits, etc. in countries which do not benefit from the automatic full adoption system, such as the United States for the adoptees born before 1982¹. These adoptees risk being deported and sent back to their birth country at the first troubles with the law (see Adam Crasper’s case). Fortunately, some adoptees are getting organised to fight for their rights (Adoptees for justice).

It is also important to remind that most transnational adoptees are non-white people as well. And therefore, in addition to these discriminations linked to adopteephobia they are subjected to multiple expressions of structural racism that characterize Western societies which adoptees are sent to and which target us as Black, Arab, Asian, Caribbean, Latino-American people and others.

¹ The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 grants automatic American citizenship to international born children adopted by U.S citizens. Only the children ''under the age of eighteen'' are eligible. And all undocumented intercountry adoptees born before 1982 can still be deported to their birth countries.