Amanda Roberts's Blog, page 18

Mulan Fan Art of the Day – Pocket Princesses by Amy Mebberson

I’ve seen Amy Mebberson’s fan art before. She did a really cute group image of the Disney Princesses as Dr. Who

Princess Time Lords

a couple of years ago that went viral. But I didn’t realize she was the same artist behind the Pocket Princesses series. Pocket Princesses is a one-panel comic series that started in 2012 and basically tells the story of the Disney Princesses all living as roomies. It’s a very cute series, but a few of her Mulan images caught my eye today, so I thought I would share some of my favorites. I think her depictions of Mulan show a real understanding of Mulan as a character but also of Chinese culture.

Meet Mulan!

Xinnian Kuaile!

Mulan is NOT a diva.

Time for a summer hair cut!

And my personal favorite: 

 

Is Mulan from Hunan?

These were just my favorites featuring Mulan, but she has lots of panels featuring all the princesses, including Princess Leia and Princess Kuzco.

She also does some nice fan art not related to the Pocket Princesses series and she does art related to My Little Pony, Jem and the Holograms, the Muppet Show, Dr. Who, and Star Wars. She is pretty awesome, so check out her Tumblr and Facebook page.

Who is your favorite Pocket Princess?

Book Review – The Incarnations by Susan Barker

When I was at the HK Book Fair a couple of weeks ago, I picked up a copy of Susan Barker’s The Incarnations. The description reads:

Beijing, 2008, the Olympics are coming, but as taxi driver Wang circles the city’s congested streets, he feels barely alive. His daily grind is suddenly interrupted when he finds a letter in the sunshade of his cab. Someone is watching him. Someone who claims to be his soulmate and to have known him for over a thousand years. Other letters follow, taking Wang back in time: to a spirit-bride in the Tang Dynasty; to young slaves during the Mongol invasion; to concubines plotting to kill the emperor; to a kidnapping in the Opium War; and to Red Guards during the Cultural revolution. And with each letter, Wang feels the watcher in the shadows growing closer …Sweeping between China past and present, The Incarnations illuminates the cyclical nature of history, and shows how man is condemned to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Author Susan Barker

I once heard Wuthering Heights summed up as, “Miserable people making people miserable.” I think that is also an apt description of The Incarnations. I found the modern setting of the book the most boring, yet the historical sections (which are more my cup of tea) were all rather the same: the two main characters rape and murder each other in nearly every incarnation. It paints the worst possible picture of Chinese history and culture. I am by no means saying that Chinese history and culture are all rosy and lovely all the time. One of the reasons I don’t like Mo Yan is because he isn’t harsh enough in depicting the realities of Chinese society. However, I think there should have been more balance to the experiences of the characters. I suppose that could have been her point, that these two creatures are meant to be together ruining each others lives for all of eternity. No matter her intention, it made for a rather depressing read. It was well-written enough that I did finish it rather quickly, but it didn’t spark my interest enough to seek out anything else she has written.

What about you? Have you read The Incarnations ? What did you think?

It is Legal to Buy a Kidnapped Child in China

I had only been in China for a few months the first time someone told me I could buy a baby in China. I had told one of my new friends at our school in rural, northern Hunan about my dream of adopting a child in China. “Why bother with that?” she asked. “Just go to the countryside and buy one for 10,000 RMB.” This suggestion is one that I have heard repeatedly during the years I have lived here. I make no secret about our desire to grow our family through adoption, and most people I meet, while curious, are anxious to help. I have been told to “simply buy a baby” in every place I have lived, from rural Hunan to the metropolis of Shenzhen. I usually reply with “well, we have to adopt legally so that we can get our child American citizenship.” This is enough for them, but I can’t help but wonder about just how easy it is for Chinese people to “buy babies.”

A recent story in the Shenzhen Daily was a real eye-opener on this issue. An article entitled “Child Buyers May Face Punishment” explains that “a draft amendment to the Criminal Law being considered by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress advocates ‘light punishment’ for buyers who don’t harm abducted children or hinder their rescue.” The article goes on to say that “most buyers treat abducted children as their own, and won’t be punished, said Chen Shiqu, director of the Ministry of Public Security’s anti-trafficking office.” Currently, people who buy abducted children in China do not face legal consequences if caught. 

Child trafficking in China is a huge problem. China has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world, with numbers ranging from 20,000-200,000 each year. Too often, kidnapped children are not just sold domestically, but to international adoption agencies as well. The kidnapping problem even affects China’s Southeast Asian neighbors, with many girls and women in neighboring countries kidnapped and trafficked into China as “brides” for China’s growing bachelor population.

I know the pain of not having a child. My adoption journey has spanned over a decade and we are still waiting. Of course, if adoption was as simple as “buying a baby,” it would be tempting. I want a baby more than anything. But adoption laws and procedures exist for many reasons, chief among them the protection of the child. It is important to make sure that adopted children are not stolen and that they will be well taken care of. How could you sleep at night knowing that the only reason you are a parent is because you stole someone else’s child?

A woman holds a candle behind a board showing photos of missing children during a campaign to spread information to search for them in Wuhan, in central China’s Hubei province.

The adoption system is flawed – and I mean every adoption system in every country and the international programs. The rules are too strict and the programs are much too expensive, but you don’t solve those problems by going outside the system – especially if going outside the system means kidnapping someone else’s child.

While I am completely sympathetic to the pain that would drive parents to buy a child to complete their families, I cannot condone their actions. People who buy children from child traffickers are child traffickers, and they should face legal consequences. Every link in the child trafficking chain must be smashed to stop this horrendous crime, and that includes the buyers who only want to be mommies and daddies.

I hope that the Standing Committee endorses the draft amendment that was presented to them that all buyers of stolen children be punished.

What about you? Do you think people who buy stolen children should be punished? Let me know in the comments. 

Book Review: The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I recently finished reading The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo. It is a really fascinating book that I highly enjoyed and would recommend.

The book’s description does not do the book justice. According to Amazon:

Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price?

Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family.

That is the basic plot of the book, but really only the first quarter of it. The majority of the book actually takes place in the Chinese underworld. This was something I have never seen in a Chinese novel before. Most references to China’s afterlife deal with how the dead interact in our world – ghosts. While the book does deal with this, Choo goes much further, actually taking readers into Hell, which is a fascinating place. Choo’s version of Hell is vividly depicted. If you want to read a book that does an excellent job of painting with words, I would highly recommend this one.

Author Yangsze Choo

The story itself is also very good. I enjoyed the characters and the plot and read the book quickly. It delves into Malaysian and Chinese culture, history, and and folklore, all things I enjoy. There is a bit of mystery in it, as well as love and murder. The book would appeal to a wide range of readers. The book really is an impressive feat as a debut novel and is sadly Choo’s only novel to date. Hopefully she will have a long and productive writing career.

I also have to say the cover is gorgeous. Mumtaz Mustafa, the cover designer, needs a pat on the back because the cover is beautiful and very eye-catching.

What about you? Have you read The Ghost Bride? Let me know what you thought in the comments.

 

Buying (Banned) Books and Getting Published at the Hong Kong Book Fair

This past weekend, Seth, Zoe, and I made our way to the Hong Kong Book Fair. The Hong Kong Book Fair is the largest book show in Asia, with over 500 vendors from over 30 countries and over 1 million guests. We had two purposes for our trip: finding a publisher and buying banned books.

Meeting with Publishers

About two years ago, I came up with the idea for a children’s book called Santa and the Christmas Dragon. Last year, I became friends with Ruth Silbermayr-Song (author of China Elevator Stories) who is an illustrator. Together, we started bringing Santa and the Christmas Dragon to life. The story was written for Chinese kids, so my dream is to find a Chinese publisher for it. So I printed sample pages from the story and took a stack of business cards with me to the book fair.

The fair was very crowded and none of the publishers officially sent representatives from their publishing or editing departments. The fair is almost exclusively for book buyers, so most of the publishers only sent their sales and marketing teams. However, a few editors just happened to be there, so we had good experiences with four different companies. I also have a meeting with a local publisher later this week, so hopefully soon I will have good news and more information about getting published in China.

Buying Banned Books at the Fair

I have almost every digital reader available on my iPad and downloading books from Amazon or via torrents is not a problem for me, so even if a book is banned in China, I typically don’t have problems acquiring them. Buying banned books in Chinese is another issue though. Amazon does not carry many digital books in Chinese and they are nearly impossible to find via torrents. Books avaialbe in Chinese on Amazon.cn are going to the be same ones you can find in mainland China that are either approved or edited by the government. While Zoe is fluent in English, reading novel-length books in English is difficult for her, and she would get a lot more out of them in Chinese. So we were hoping to find a lot of books that she can’t find in mainland China at the book fair. We faced two major hurdles though.

Most books sold in Hong Kong are in traditional Chinese.
Most English books that are translated into Chinese are in Taiwanese-style vertical text. That means the books are written in simplified Chinese, but are printed backwards, backwards, and backwards, The text goes vertically from top to bottom, right to left on the page, and from the back of the book to the front. If you aren’t used to it, it can be very dizzying to read.

There were mainland Chinese publishers at the fair, but they didn’t have anything you can’t already find in China.

In the end, Zoe ending up getting a book about Mao in English for young readers.

Buying Banned Books Elsewhere in Hong Kong

After the book fair, we ended up running into my buddy Ray, and he told us about “the banned book store.” The banned book store is actually ironically named The People’s Book Store (人民公社). The People’s Book Store is located right across from the entrance to Times Square in Causeway Bay (1/F, 18 Russell Street 羅素街18號). Unfortunately, they had the same problem as the book fair: books written for Hong Kong readers and Taiwanese readers. They had a few books in Chinese that mainland readers can read, but not many. Zoe did manage to pick up a book about the Great Famine. They also had a lot of books in English, which was nice. I picked up a copy of Jung Chang’s book on Mao and Seth picked up Xu Yong’s Negatives, a gorgeous photo collection that really is best as a physical book instead of as a digital one.

The next morning, we happened across another banned book store just around the corner called Insiders Books (內部書店) located at 1/F, 57 Percival Street 波斯富街57號1樓. This shop though was almost all political books and had nothing in English.

“Smuggling” Books into China

I really have no idea how many physical or digital banned books I own. Buying books in English in China is difficult, so we always buy books in English when we are in Hong Kong or the U.S. We have brought dozens of books with us to China over the years with no thought as to whether or not they are banned and we have never been stopped or inspected. This trip was no different. We and our books arrived home safe and sound.

So how about you? Did you go to the Hong Kong Book Fair? Have you ever been stopped for bringing books into China? Let me know in the comments!

 

Happy International Authors’ Day!

Today is the first ever International Authors’ Day! It’s a day to show appreciation for all of the authors you know and love. I am very proud that I am able to now tell people that I’m a writer. I haven’t made a lot of money (yet!), but I have decided to devote my life to my craft and it is finally paying off. My first cookbook, Crazy Dumplings, was published last year and I’ll be publishing volume two in a couple of months. I am going to the Hong Kong Book Fair this weekend to try and find a publisher for my children’s book. My first full-length romance will be published in March 2016. I am very nearly done with my first full-length novel set in China. I love writing this blog and I have written for magazines, newspapers, and blogs all over the world. I love what I do and I hope I can make a full-time career out of it.

Authors work really hard, many times spending months and years crafting their stories, countless hours trying to find an agent or publisher, and then countless hours marketing. It is often a thankless job. One of the biggest ways you can show appreciation for the authors you read is by leaving a review on Amazon and Goodreads. You can read all of my reviews here. And expect many more to come! I’ve been reading like crazy lately, far faster than I have been able to write reviews!

I would also like to send out some specific thanks. First of all to Ray Hecht, my first friend in Shenzhen and the person who invited me into the local writers circle. I would also like to thank the women of Women Writers of Shenzhen for their support.

Please sign up for my mailing list to receive a FREE SAMPLE COPY of The Crazy Dumplings Cookbook.

International Authors’ Day and this blog hop were organized by b00k r3vi3ws. Please visit them and let them know how much you appreciate this event!

Want a free gift? Just use the handy Rafflecopter entry form below to win a FREE COPY of Empress Dowager Cixi: The Concubine Who Launched Modern China by Jung Chang. Every entry wins!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Xi’An’s Very Own Capsule Hotel

Today’s guest post was submitted by Karen. I love staying in inexpensive hostels when traveling around China. This new capsule hotel might be worth checking out if you ever visit Xi’an. 

Taking up an entire floor of a commercial center near Xi’An’s train station is China’s first, fully-functional capsule hotel. Capsule hotels were popularized by Japan, and China’s construction of the same concept is a nod to the Japanese culture that’s popular among the Chinese youth.

Each capsule in the Xi’an Youth Capsule Hotel is 1.25 meters high, 1.2 meters wide, and 2.1 meters long. For about $10 a night, people can sleep cozily in a capsule that is complete with a WiFi connection and a small flat-screen TV.

Apart from the hotel rooms’ personal size, Xi’an’s capsule hotel differentiates itself from the rest by having zodiac sign themed areas. The staff classifies guests into different star-sign zones upon checking in. Men can only sleep in the Taurus and Sagittarius zones, while women may stay at the Aries and Virgo zones. Guests who snore loudly are assigned to the Leo zone, the zodiac sign for lion.

The hotel’s staff says that the Leo zone is not meant to embarrass anyone. It was constructed in order to be fair to guests who want peace and quiet while sleeping.

While the hotel is still very novel to both locals and tourists, experts are worried about the lack of amenities. Hotels around the world rely on casinos in order to bring in serious revenues. Staying in the hotel may only cost $10 a night but apart from an Internet connection, TV, and a small area for table games that offer entertainment like ping pong, there are no other facilities to entertain guests. Pundits have been suggesting that the hotel employ the services of an online casino provider since there’s WiFi and a small screen TV inside the capsules anyway. It would be very advantageous for the hotel to have an online casino service, and InterCasino – one of the biggest slot gaming providers in the world – enumerates several benefits of such games on this page. The capsule hotel’s management, however, doesn’t seem to be very interested in the idea yet. But hopefully it’s only a matter of time before the establishment looks to offer more entertainment to its visitors.

The Xi’an Youth Capsule Hotel is located at Building 7, Wanda Plaza, Mingle Yuan Xincheng District, Xi’an.

Have you ever stayed at a capsule hotel? Where do you like to stay when you visit Xi’an?

If you would like to submit a guest post to Two Americans in China , email us at TwoAmericansinChina@gmail.com. 

11-Year-Old Girl Takes on Chinese Government For Her Rights

An 11-year-old girl is taking the Luohu District Public Security Subbureau of Shenzhen to court for the second time in her fight for her hukou registration.

In China, every citizen has to have a hukou, or residency permit, in order to avail themselves of social services such as schooling and medical care. But millions of children in China have been denied a hukou because they are second or third children. China currently has at least 13 million unregistered children.

The young lady in the article, identified only as Rui, is fighting for her right to a hukou. Not having a hukou can handicap a person for life in China. Without a hukou, a person cannot receive an ID card. Without an ID card, a person cannot go to school, get medical care at a hospital, apply for a passport, rent an apartment, get married, or even open a bank account. As far as the Chinese government is concerned, millions of its own citizens do not exist. Rui is not just fighting for a hukou, she is fighting for her right to be recognized by her government as a human being.

In China, if a couple wishes to have a child outside of the restrictions of the one-child policy, they must pay a fine. The fine varies from place to place in China and is based on the local area’s average income. In Shenzhen, the current fine for having a child outside of the one-child policy is 240,000RMB (US$40,000). 

This case is a big deal because Rui represents millions of invisible children in China today who are being denied their basic human rights. Should she win, the effects would be felt throughout the country. I don’t think she will win because the government has already shown that these children are unimportant to them. However, hopefully more children and young adults like Rui will start speaking out, sharing their stories, and pressuring their government to give them legal recognition. When I was speaking to a coworker about this she said, “I just don’t think that people think so deeply about this stuff. They don’t complain.” Maybe Rui is an example of how that is changing. More and more people in China every day are looking at their government’s injustices in the face and fighting back.

How I Met Your Father – Love in 1980s China

While watching the American TV show “How I Met Your Mother,” I asked my mom how she met my father.

“Why do you want to know that? It is not romantic at all,” she asked.

“Oh, come on, I just want to hear your story,” I replied.

“I grew up in a family without much love, especially our father’s love,” she began. “I was the 4th daughter in my family, the child they never wanted. You can tell that from my name. My oldest sister was named Jia Lian, which means “family union;” my second sister was named “Jia Pin,” which means “family peace;” Third Sister was named Yuan Feng, which means “no more daughters.” Then I came into the world. I know they were disappointed – they just want a son. But it wasn’t my fault. They named me Ju, which means “chrysanthemum” just because I was born in the fall. Then finally, my brother came, so they gave all their attention and love to him. I was all but forgotten even though I was only 2 years older than he was.

“I never liked my father – he was his son’s father, not a father to his daughters. But I don’t blame my mother; she was always a kind woman. She did what she had to do. And I thank my sisters for being the ones who raised me.

“Anyway, that was the family I grew up in. I didn’t get much love from Father, and back at that time in the countryside, boys and girls didn’t really talk much. Your family would always arrange blind dates for you when you were old enough. I am talking about 16 or 17 here. And when both families agreed with each other, your marriage would be done. I didn’t want that. I was so scared that I would get a rubbish guy and then my life would be ruined.

“We 4 girls didn’t go to school much because your grandfather was saving every penny for his son, forcing us to leave school at young ages. But I worked really hard to make money ever since I was a child. I knew I would have to depend on myself for everything.”

I had to interrupt her at this point. “Yes, Mom, I have heard your tough childhood story thousands of times. But how did you meet Dad?”

“Alright, alright,” she said. “We were both paid to help a man to build his house. Our families lived pretty close actually, but we had never met each other before. Then he saw me and got interested in me.”

“Wow, romantic, huh? Fall in love at first sight! You must have been very pretty when you were young.”

“Haha, I was 19 years old when I met him, the best age of my life. But people in the village already started thinking of me as a leftover girl and my mom had started to worry about my marriage already.”

When she said that, I could see her cheeks blush. “Wow, Mom, you are blushing. Are you shy now? Haha!”

“Ah no, I just never talked about it to anyone before. So for several days, he helped me a lot. I was a little shy but would touch his arm and pay attention to him. He was a very straight and honest man; those are his best qualities.”

“So what happened later? You didn’t marry him after that, did you?”

“So for many days, we talked a lot whenever we had the time. His family situation was rough, too. His mom died at a young age because of cancer. He also had 3 younger brothers. His father, now your grandfather, couldn’t afford 4 sons at the same time, so as the oldest son in the family, your father accepted his responsibility. He dropped out of school and started working for very little money.

“This was the life for 70 out of 100 Chinese countryside families back at that time. Poor! We worked very hard but got very little in return. You think it unfair? Talk to Chairman about it! You do whatever the Party wanted you to do. When they wanted to make steel, every family had to donate whatever was made from metal in their houses… well, taken is a better word because if you didn’t do it, they just came to your house and smashed everything.”

“Oh yeah, I know about that time. Then you had to go to the community canteen to eat, and would only get a certain amount of food, barely enough to fill a stomach. And then after that period, you didn’t work for yourselves, you worked for the community and earned point tickets. Then you can buy food with those tickets. Of course, this was after they took all the cookers to try and make steel and failed. And the Red Army, just savages, tried to take down all educated men. Oh god, this was the darkest time and stupidest time, wasn’t it?”

“Haha, you tell me! I am so glad you didn’t have to go through all these things.”

“Oh, back to business. We can talk about that another time. What happened later between you and dad?”

“Oh well, it was a small village, so he used to walk me home when we finished work. One day, he told me he was going to Guangzhou because there were more job opportunities and salaries were much better. After hearing this, I was a bit upset, but I didn’t say anything. ‘I will call you when I can,’ he said. ‘And I want you to visit me there, would you?’ he begged. ‘Ah, well, I don’t have enough money to buy a ticket,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry. I will send you some money when I get paid,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to do that. You need to send the money to your family!’ ‘I like you, Ju!’ he said. For a few seconds, I couldn’t hear my heartbeat, and then I could feel my face burning and my heart was beating like a running deer. ‘Ah, umm… I have to go home now, bye,’ was all I could say. And I just ran off! After a few seconds, he shouted loudly, ‘I am leaving in 4 days. I hope to see you at the bus stop.’ I didn’t answer him; I just kept running and running.”

“Hahaha. Mom, you were so cute!”

“The next day, I saw him outside my house. He waved at me when he saw me, so I walked towards him very slowly, ‘I came to tell you I leave in 3 days. I hope you will come see me off at the bus stop,’ he said. ‘Ah, I am not sure if I am free that day. I will see, ok?’ I lied. ‘I really want you to come,’ he pleaded. ‘Ok, I will see,’ I said.”

“Oh, Mom, you are a terrible liar!”

“Time went fast. I didn’t see him for the next two days. On the last day, I was still hesitant about if I should go or not, so I talked to one of my sisters about it. She said, ‘well, I think you should go. It’s only a goodbye. It won’t do you any harm. I think you like him a little bit, actually. Just go to say goodbye.’

“So I went to see him off at the bus stop. I could tell he was really happy I was there. He waved to me even after he got on the bus and until I couldn’t see him anymore. For some reason, something in my heart was changing. That day was beautiful – pure blue sky and beautiful sunshine. The last thing he told me was ‘I will call you.’

“He called me after 3 weeks. He told me about his life there, that he missed me, that he wanted me to visit him, that he would send me the money to visit him after he got his first paycheck. We talked so much that day. It was nice. The next time he called me, it was a month later.”

“Why did it take so long?”

“You silly girl. Technology wasn’t so good back at that time. We didn’t have mobile phones, and your grandfather didn’t have a telephone. The only way he could call me was to call the central telephone house in the village, and then somebody would have to come over and tell me I had a phone call. Then after a few minutes, he would have to call again to check if I were there. That time he called me to tell me the factory he was working for was holding a month’s salary for some insurance. So later, after he got paid, he sent me the money to buy a ticket as he promised. I stayed there for 3 days. He took 3 days off work, showed me around, and we saw some interesting things that I never knew existed. And when it came time for me to go back home, your father gave me all his salary, only leaving very little for himself. He said I was going to need it.

“So that was how I knew your father was a reliable man and I decided to accept him. Then the next year, I went to Guangzhou with him and got a job there. After we had saved enough money, we got married.

“So that is the story how I met your father. It’s not as romantic as you may think, but it is pure and real. In a society where everybody cares about money and power and romance, he is the one and only in my life. He gives me love and I love him too.”

I can’t help but think to myself, ‘no, this is the most romantic thing and greatest love I have ever known.’

 

Zoe Gong was born in rural Hunan in 1995 and is fluent in English. She has worked in English training centers and at expat restaurants since she was 16. She is currently a tourism management major at Changsha University in Hunan. 

Rachel Dolezal’s Appropriation of Adoption Language

Rachel Dolezal today (left) and Dolezal as a teenager (right).

If you haven’t heard of Rachel Dolezal, then you are one lucky duck. Dolezal made international headlines last week when it was revealed that she, a White woman, had spent the better part of a decade masquerading as a Black person and was even the chapter president of the Spokane, Washington branch of the NAACP. What really captured people’s attention, though, was her rationalization of why she did what she did and the fact that she claimed to “identify as Black.” Since Dolezal’s story came out soon soon after Caitlyn Jenner revealed her true self on the cover of Vanity Fair, many people were quick to conflate the two topics – if people can be born male but identify as female, why can’t people born White identify as Black? I’m not Black and I’m not trans, so I don’t think I am the best person to explain the differences between transgendered people and what Dolezal was claiming to do, but there are many wonderful articles out there written by Black women, transgendered women, and Black transgendered women who have done an excellent job explaining this issue.

Dolezal with her adopted Black son (left) and her biological biracial son (right).

However, there is one aspect of the Dolezal controversy that I can talk about – the question of whether White people can raise children of color.

In her interview with Matt Lauer, Dolezal said that after she adopted her son (who was previously her adopted brother) who is Black,

He [her adopted Black son Izaiah] said, ‘You’re my real mom.’ And he’s in high school, and for that to be something that is plausible, I certainly can’t be seen as white and be Izaiah’s mom.

The idea that she couldn’t be her son’s “real mom” and be of a different race is an appalling stance to take since she is basically saying that every White parent who has adopted a child of another race is not a “real parent.” This hurts me deeply since, as anyone who has read this blog knows, adopting a child here in China has been my goal in life for as long as I can remember. I also have a god-daughter whom I love very much who calls me “Mom” and my husband “Dad.” I have always believed that family is not based on blood but on love. I know I will love my children just as much as if they had come from my own body and no one will ever love them more. Of course, they will also have a birth mother and birth father out there somewhere who will never forget them, but I will be my children’s mother, their real mother.

Raising children of another race is a challenge. 

However, I don’t deny that raising children of a different race is a challenge, for both the parents and the children. The issue of balancing race and culture in a multi-ethnic household is one that is constantly under discussion in adoption communities. I think Adoptive Families magazine (an excellent resource for adoptive families) has multiple articles in each issue about parenting children of another race and their website has hundreds of articles about it.

What is also disturbing, though, about Dolezal’s claims to Blackness is not only how she has appropriated Black culture to be something she isn’t but adoption culture as well. She claims that she once identified as “transracial.” Transracial is already a known term, but it in no way applies to what Dolezal has done. Transracial is an adoption term that refers to adoptees of one race who are adopted and raised by a parent (or parents) of another race and the spectrum of the relationship they have with both races. Not all adoptees consider themselves transracial, and the amount of difficulty or ease the adoptees and their families experience while navigating both cultures varies greatly. Dolezal’s claim of being transracial is extremely harmful to those who are actually transracial. As someone with wide media attention and a shocking story, Dolezal’s use of transracial is the first time many people have heard the term and are, thus, learning about it incorrectly, which could cause problems for transracial adoptees in the future.

Dolezal’s belief that she can’t be a Black ally while White or a mother to a Black son while White shows a pathological need to be something she isn’t that is harmful to everyone.

What do you think about this topic? Do you consider yourself transracial or are you part of a multi-ethnic family by adoption or by birth? Share your experiences or thoughts in the comments!