The Times, They are a-Changin'

Thirteen years ago, I walked across a stage at the University of North Florida to receive my M.Ed. With the exception of  a couple of high school graduations held in their arena, I haven't spent much time there since.
Until this past January...when Isabel began taking language lessons there at The Jacksonville Chinese School on Sunday afternoons. I have been waiting for years for her to be old enough to begin. As a foreign language teacher, I know the importance of being exposed to a second (or third) language as early as possible. While I was in China, I visited a multi-storied version of Barnes and Noble to buy as many Chinese language children's CDs as possible. I wanted Isabel to remember the tones and cadence of the first language she ever heard.
Fast forward five years and she is once again being exposed to Chinese. So, for two hours a week, we trek over to the university for her lessons. Is the classroom management the best? No. Is the pacing wonderful? Nope. Do I care? Not a bit. And do you want to know why?   
Because for 120 minutes a week, my child is no longer... The Asian.
Instead, I am...The White Woman.
And I like that.
I need that. I need to remember that my child's world is not my world. I need to be reminded that while I waltz through my days oblivious to feeling out of place, Isabel is acutely aware of her difference.
We have entered a new developmental stage. You know, the one of growing awareness that, for all our love for each other, there will always be hard things that will be our reality. Being a trasracial adoptive single-parent family, it pops up in different ways. Like recently, when Isabel commented that the Barbie she got in her Happy Meal had "brown hair and brown skin like me, Mommy." Or when I received her recent Valentine's Day card that was addressed to Mom and Dad. When I asked her about Dad, she replied matter-of-factly, "He's in China."


I see changes. In little things and big. In subtle ways and obvious ones.
Yup.. the Times, They are a-Changin'.


PS. After our trek to UNF on Sunday, we discovered the class was canceled due to the holiday. Isabel asked to hang out on the steps for a while practicing her "Take-Aways" (subtraction) in her notebook.
We did.
She did.
Here are some images from then.

OMG, My Daughter is a Racist… Ooops, Never Mind

You know the drill by now. Morning commute, I’m barely coherent, Isabel is talking up a storm in the back seat and then…she hits me with a doozie. It’s been going on for almost two years. Most of the time, they are quite funny! When they occur, Poor Laurie usually gets a call from me via cell because a) she has a great sense of humor and loves my child and b) I know I won’t remember the details by the end of the day. Thanks, chica!

Most of the time, they are quite funny! I have two all-time favorites.
Last summer (29.5 months) the following took place:

While at a stop light on the way to school one morning, Isabel looked at the truck in the lane to our right and said, “Mom, that man has toys.” I glance over and notice there is a little dream-catcher hanging from the rear view mirror. “Yes, Isabel, that man has toys.” Isabel: "We don’t have toys.” Me: “No, Isabel, we don’t have toys.” There is a 2-3 second pause and then, “Mom, that man has a truck.” Me: “Yes, Isabel, that man has a truck.” Isabel: “We don’t have a truck.” Me: “No, Isabel. We don’t have a truck.” Isabel: “Mom?” Me: “Yes?” Isabel: ”We don’t have a man.”
[I laughed so hard the car behind us had to honk to let me know the light had changed to green.]


Then this past January, there was this:

After her three-year-old check up, we went to "Old McDonalds" for a treat. We get to the drive-thru, I pull up to the speaker and hear an angst-ridden, prepubescent, voice-cracking teenage boy ask for my order. (I didn't think twice about it, as I teach 9th graders and am used to it.) I give him the order and start to pull around the building when I hear from the back seat:
" Whoa! THAT wasn't a girl!... " [Insert 3-4 seconds pause and then...] "but SOO not a man!"
I was laughing so hard, I couldn't even press the button to open my car window.

Other times, Isabel’s will comment on things that bring tears. For all her energy and laughter, she is a pretty perceptive little girl whose ability to process things touches me deeply. The recent incident with the homeless woman was brought up again as we drove past the bench that was, this morning, empty. Isabel immediately wanted to know where the woman was. I suggested that maybe she found a house. Without hesitation and with total conviction, Isabel announced, “She did!” I pray she did.

It is with this background, I bring you to the commute yesterday. We are not even 6 blocks from my house when I hear a police siren. I look in the rearview mirror and see nothing. I continue to drive in the right lane. Suddenly I see the lights in the windshield of an unmarked police car. He accelerates, passes us on the left, and then pulls over the car next to us. All of this is happening as we are approaching an intersection…with a light that just turned red. We had a front seat to the show. I’m watching. Isabel is watching. And then, THIS:

Isabel- I don’t like black police.
Me- (Feeling a pit in my stomach and thinking WTF????) What did you just say?
Isabel- I don’t like black police.
Me- (Determined to find out where this is coming from) Why do you say THAT?
Isabel- I like the white police. I don’t like the black police.
Me- (Starting to hyper-ventilate) Did someone say that to you? At school?
Isabel- No.
Me- (Really starting freak out that racism has entered my daughter’s life at THREE!!!) The white police are good and the black police are good. They are both good. We like all police.
Isabel- (Starting to get irritated with me, evidenced by the not to subtle crossed-arms-over-the-chest body language) Well, I don’t!

At this point, the light turns green and I glance over at the police officer (who, by the way, was WHITE!) and realize that the CAR was black!

I, of course, started laughing (somewhat) hysterically in relief. Later in the day, though, it really caused me to reflect on the whole thing and process what happened. I think that it is important for me to do that. Because I KNOW that this is going to be part of our life together… her walking through the subtle and not-so-subtle racism that lies before her, and me trying my best to give her the tools to do. As a white woman, I’ll never experience what she will. As a member of the majority population, I walk through my life clueless to the judgments that others have passed upon them simply because of their color. I wish it wasn’t so. But it is the world we live in. It is the world that I pray will change with my daughter’s generation. Change to such a degree that this morning’s conversation would never even take place. When a preference of white over black is about a car… and not a person.
Something to think about. At least for me.

A Wake Up Call

Up until now, life for Isabel and me has been relatively smooth, but I know that very soon she will begin to recognize the differences between us. She will realize that we have different skin color, eye color and eye-shape. She will struggle and wrestle with issues that I can’t begin to understand. She has been asking me to tell her about her foster mom and dad for several months now. She (the animal lover) tells me she’s going “to visit my foster daddy because he has a farm.”

The awareness is beginning to surface and with it, the first steps in the lifetime journey of coming to peace with being a transracial adoptee to a single mother. I know that she will have to work through many difficulties. I know that she will encounter prejudice and racism that I, as a white person, have never had to deal with. I know that I can’t protect her from the world forever. I know that. I just wasn’t prepared to deal with it so soon.

I was at the hair salon on Wednesday. (Isabel was not with me.) I was sitting in the chair and tuned in to the rambling of the young (I later found out) 12-year-old behind me. She was yakking away about her mother getting the color wrong on her hair and that she “looked like a flippin’ China baby.” She repeated twice, each time with even more disdain in her voice.

I felt like someone had kicked me in my gut.

…and then she continued. “You know how THEY get their names??? The mother throws something at the wall and the sound it makes is what they call their kid. Ping. Dong. Wang. Ha ha ha!”

I wish I could describe what I felt but I am still processing it all. I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me. I know there was anger…and disgust… and sadness. This was a TWELVE year old!!! Sixth grade!!!! How in the world could she come up with such things? Clearly, it was learned in an atmosphere of ignorance and fear and small-mindedness. It is a world that I have been protected from. It is a world that Isabel will be a part of.

I teach in an inner-city college prep school with a multicultural student body. My students are from Korea, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, China, the Philippines, Mexico and Russia. They are Hispanics, African Americans, White, bi-racial, multi-racial, rich, poor, big, small. Some live in the local neighborhood; others endure a 90-minute bus ride each way. It is a microcosm of the world. Though not perfect, there is a deep sense of respect for people and their culture. I love teaching there. I love that my daughter will have the opportunity to have classmates that look like her. I love that diversity is embraced. It is the world in which I have been living for the last 15 years.

However, it is not the world that a lot of people either live in…or want to live in. I needed to be reminded of that… not so much for my sake, but for my daughter’s.