Final Paper

3 mother’s ethnic identity had changed was tenfold as hard. According to what I had been taught outside of my home life, it was not okay to act as if you were anything other than what you truly were. And to this day, I wish that my mother was still in-touch with her Korean roots.

It is my opinion that – even though there is a greater appreciation for diversity and unity – people still like the idea of categorizing each other and highlighting the differences between themselves and the rest of the world. In that way, parochialism and an inherent need to be with people who share one’s race, culture, and/or value system still exist. Of course, that is not to say that people cannot or should not get along with people who are different from them. Rather, my point is that ethnicity still determines so much – and perhaps too much: it’s not enough for people to be Hispanic, Caucasian, Middle– Eastern, etc. We, as Americans, still live in a society where one’s culture and behavior is somehow linked to one’s race. Thus, I believe that it is essential for adoptees to maintain their sense of who they are and where they came from.

Interestingly, nowadays, it would be harder for parents to repress their adopted child’s culture than for them to expose their child to it. Beyond just providing the obvious service of adoption, now adoption agencies offer – and sometimes require – classes that encourage families to embrace the child’s heritage. Advertising such classes to families, an adoption agency in Orinda called Heartsent Adoptions includes the following statement on its website: “It is our commitment to the children that the parents are exposed to information, education [,] culture and customs of their child's homeland.”[1] Moreover, there are support groups, books, classes through other