In my previous post on naming, an in-process adoptive parent posed a question to me that actually touched on something I’d written about, then erased, before posting. I wanted to comment on that piece now that I’ve had some time to think about it (sorry for the long wait, Jackie).
The question was,
“We would like to keep our child’s Korean name . . . but if it happens to be a name that really makes them stand out and makes them more of a target for teasing/harassment – is it worth it? Is it better to have it as their middle name and let me choose when they are old enough? Also if the Korean name is given by someone other than the birthfamily (e.g. agency, foster parents) does it have as much resonance?
The short and unsatisfactory answer to this is, It Depends.
When I arrived in the US, I was almost 3 years old and presumably, I’d been called Jae Ran in Korea for that long (if my birth name truly was Jae Ran, as everyone I’ve talked to in Korea has indicated). My adoptive parents changed my name to an American one, yet it was an unusual name all the same. Although it’s fairly common now to hear “Kendra” as a first name, back in 1971 in a white, middle class suburb in Minnesota, it was unheard of. So even though I wasn’t “Jae Ran” at school, I was still teased about my name. In fact, I hated it.
Having an unusual name stood out for me because it was just another reminder that I was, as my daughter would say, the statistical outlier in my community.
In thinking about it, however, I do not blame my “name” for this problem.
The name issue is essentially a microcosm of the entire act of adopting a child from another culture and ethnicity. As an adoptive parent, if you are adopting a child from Korea (or any other country) you are already committed to bringing a child of color into your home and community. Keeping the name is admitting (as in, not trying to cover up) the fact that your child is, yes folks (drumroll please), an Asian child.
If you believe that keeping an ethnic name will target the child for teasing and harassment, I would wonder what kind of community this child will be coming into; and what would prevent those kids from teasing and harassing the child because of his/her ethnicity anyway. You will not, I repeat, not be able to prevent kids at school from teasing and harrassing your child because of their transracial and international adoptive status; nor will you be able to prevent others in the community from saying or thinking racist thoughts. Nor will you be able to prevent that future date rejecting them because their parents don’t want them dating a person of color or on the flip side, be able to prevent creepy Asian fetishists from exoticizing your teen/young adult.
A second thing that came to mind as I was thinking about names, is the memory of what it feels like to have people constantly question me over my name. I have a Korean face. I had an Anglo name. So it was a constant irritant in my life to talk to people over the phone with my “American name” and then to meet them in person have them do a double take once they put my face and name together. This happened every time I met a new person. The more obnoxious people would laugh at me, or outright question it (as if I was lying); most people just looked surprised and/or would be taken aback and try to look like they weren’t surpised. Often, people would come out and tell me, “I wasn’t expecting you” because they were looking for a white person.
That is what I mean by how deeply our names are part of a socio-cultural context.
Since I’ve legally changed my name, I find that I get a lot of questions over how to pronounce my name, but no one is ever surprised that a Korean person is walking into their meeting or appointment.
It makes me think of all the second generation immigrants whose parents gave them “American” (but really, just Anglo) first names, thinking that it will help them assimilate. Then again, they have their ethnic last names to help avoid the confusion.
For some reason, our society tries awfully hard to “normalize” the concept of adoption. That is why “we” work to legislate it – saying who can parent and who can’t, those age, weight and sexual orientation requirements some countries impose – those are all just a part of
trying to “normalize” adoption.
Why are we trying so hard to pretend it’s the same thing as a heterosexual, two-parents, biological nuclear family? Folks, it’s not the same, let’s stop pretending it is.
The only way to “normalize” transracial adoption is to stop pretending it’s the same as a biological family, and force society to accept our family structures as they are.
I guess in summary, I think that it’s a personal choice the adoptive parents will have to be comfortable with; ever since having children, I’ve made it a point to live in diverse areas and send my kids to diverse schools. It is no strange thing for them to have kids in their
classrooms named Ngyuen, Pa, Xiong, Khalid, Mariyama, Juan, Xochil, Saoirse or LaShondra (all real classmates of my children).
Adoptive parents must be advocates for their children (actually, shouldn’t all parents?) to help them navigate through the tough times they may have at school and out in the communities.
Keeping your child’s Korean (or Colombian, Chinese, Ethiopian) name is:
1) honoring the culture they were born into that is a part of their history,
2) helping them identify as a Korean- (or Columbian-, Chinese-, or Ethiopian-) American, which is how society will define them,
3) helping them (and yourselves as parents) see them as part of a diverse world that includes all kinds of family types, and
4) teaching the entire family advocacy skills.
And don’t forget, that every child is going to be different and there is no right answer to this dilemma. However, just remember that if you give your child an “Anglo” first name, it will not erase the fact that s/he is not an “Anglo” child.
Harlow's Monkey 