The Color Purple?

Abstract

During the past two decades, Canadian parents have been regularly adopting infants from China, and have been facing a confusing dilemma on how to introduce their children’s Chinese heritage and language. The aim of this qualitative study is to uncover the beliefs and attitudes of the adopting parents about how to best promote a healthy identify development that includes their Chinese background. Using in-depth interviews, 19 parents of 14 adopted children explored their beliefs about incorporating the Chinese heritage in the development of their girls. The findings reveal that some parents feel that it is best to emphasize Canadian culture - “she is just Canadian.” Some parents feel that it is best to leave it alone and allow the children to choose their “identity” – “she has both feet in both worlds”, whereas, other parents are proactive by introducing Chinese heritage and culture to their children at an early age. Some parents feel that their children created a new identity with the “color purple” – a hybrid and new culture that combines both their Chinese background with a mainstream Canadian lifestyle.

From China to Canada: The Identity Formation of Chinese-Canadian Adoptees

“…Costigan, Su and Hua argue that these adolescents had an easy time in integrating the Canadian side of them into their overarching identity (Costigan, Su and Hua, 2009). Bian, Blachford and Durst (2015) wrote about the cultural upbringing of Canadian adopted children from China, focusing on the parents' perspective. It is not hard to find articles about Chinese-American or Korean-American adoptees, but it has been more challenging to find work done on Chinese-Canadian adoptees.…”

“…It is not hard to find articles about Chinese-American or Korean-American adoptees, but it has been more challenging to find work done on Chinese-Canadian adoptees. Bian, Blachford and Durst said that international adoptees' parents are faced with at least two difficulties in raising their children: how to acknowledge that the child is adopted (the fact that they "look" Asian but are not perhaps brought up in the same culture) and trying to include discussions of birth culture into the lives of their children (Bian, Blachford and Durst, 2015). Bian, Blachford and Durst recognized that many adoptees struggle to connect their identity of their current country to that of their birth heritage.…”

“…What they bring up, however, is that while it may be difficult to connect two identities and two cultures together, it can and should be done. In their work, I noticed that it would even be considered worse to cut the ties these children have with their ethnic heritage (Bian, Blachford and Durst, 2015). Pylypa (2018) discusses the meaning of culture, and how discussions of culture can come up between adoptive parents and their children.…”