When Kathleen Santora adopted a baby from a Shanghai orphanage, she worried about maintaining her daughter's cultural identity. She bought books and toys reflecting Emily's Chinese heritage. She made sure the little girl was enrolled in schools with diverse student bodies.
Eleven years later, though, Santora and her husband, Hugh, find it is their own cultural identity that is in question.
At China Garden in Arlington, families with adopted children from China gather for their annual Lunar New Year celebration.
(Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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Santora, who is white, says she feels more connected to Asian friends and to such holidays as the Lunar New Year, celebrated this week. Sometimes, when referring to Chinese mothers, she accidentally lumps herself in -- and sometimes, they do, too.
"We're not Chinese ourselves," said Santora, 46, an Annandale lawyer who has brown hair and freckles and is of Irish descent. "But our family is now multicultural."
Cross-racial adoptions aren't a new phenomenon. But the sheer number of Americans -- most of them white -- adopting Chinese babies in a short period of time is changing cultural and racial assumptions.
About 40,000 Chinese adoptees have arrived in the United States since China's government began easing restrictions on foreign adoptions in 1992, according to U.S. State Department statistics. The country became a popular destination for many prospective parents because of its efficient, secure adoption system and the availability of healthy babies.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington hosts an annual Lunar New Year party for the adopted children and their parents, much as it supports events for the immigrant community. Weekend Chinese language schools, which typically have served children of immigrants, have started programs for Chinese children whose parents are not native speakers.
Businesses have taken note.
Major bookstores display books featuring adopted Chinese children, particularly during this time of year. Vendors selling Chinese trinkets set up shop at social gatherings. Mattel offers a special Barbie: She has sandy-blond hair, wears hot-pink stilettos and carries a Chinese baby.
But going beyond the cultural tchotchkes is the hard part: Many parents question what parts of Chinese culture to introduce to their children and whether they can equip their Asian children with the tools to deal with racism. They are the same issues facing would-be parents who are not black but adopt black children, an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 annually in the United States.
Margie Neff of Frederick, who has two biological children and a daughter from China, has seen strangers stare at her family. One woman asked whether she ran a day care. "You may want to think, as a Caucasian person, that people don't see in color. But that's not my reality anymore," said Neff, who teaches classes on cross-racial adoptions.
Often, the questions about cultural identity are mundane. One year, when the local Families With Children From China chapter had a "cultural day" at Bull Run Regional Park in Centreville, the big issue was the moon bounce.
Some parents were decidedly anti-moon bounce: What does an inflatable trampoline have to do with Chinese culture?
The pro-moon bounce camp's response: How are we going to entertain the kids for three hours?
