March 14, 2005 - Note: Ann Frechette is no longer affiliated with Hamilton College
Ann Frechette, the Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies in the anthropology department, gave a lecture titled "Saving Chinese Girls: International Adoption, Charitable Assistance, and the Economics of China's Orphanages" as part of the Hamilton Asia Forum series on December 10. Frechette discussed how the Chinese international adoption process is viewed both inside and outside China, and how this transnational family creation is related to a Western narrative of "saving" Chinese children. Her lecture was based on her upcoming book about American parents who adopt from China.
Frechette began by talking about how the US-China adoption process has grown over the past 20 years. In the early 1980s, the only Americans who were adoption Chinese children were people who were already living in the country, and the process was not standardized, with different agencies competing for control of the system. In the early 1990s, China created the Center for Adoption Affairs, which had sole responsibility for foreign adoptions and standardized the process. Since then, China has become the leading nation from which foreigners adopt children. From 1991 to 2003, the percent of international adoptions coming from China rose from 1% to 32%. The number will only continue to rise, as the Chinese government has now removed its quota system that limited the number of adoptions.
Adopting from China is a popular choice for many of the half-million American families looking to adopt because the children are generally healthy and the process is standardized and guaranteed. Families that adopt from China are 90% white, showing that racial differences between parents and children are not as much of a concern as they used to be.
Frechette talked about how American parents seek to normalize and naturalize the process of adopting from China by creating social networks with other adoptive parents. They communicate in online forums, as well as meeting up with other families to participate in Chinese cultural events. Frechette said that many of these adoptive parents come to see the idea of Chinese children with white parents as
so normal that they are surprised when they see Chinese children with Chinese parents. Many parents even begin to forget that their children are not white and not genetically related to them. Adoptive parents also integrate the orphanages where their children come from into their life, staying involved with them and giving regular contributions to help the "children left behind."
This charitable assistance serves to reinforce the normative frameworks that come along with adopting children from China, said Frechette. There is a "saving narrative" whereby adoptive parents see themselves as saving and giving hope to Chinese children (primarily girls) who would otherwise be "lost," "forsaken," or "left behind." There is a philosophy among these adoptive parents that taking them
out of China and giving them the opportunity to be part of a prosperous American family is the only way to ensure that they will loved, cared for, and happy. While Chinese orphanages are certainly not an ideal living environment for children, Frechette said, they are not the deathtraps that many American adoptive parents imagine them to be. Talking about them as horrible deathtraps devalues the good
actions of the many Chinese people who work in the orphanages or act as loving foster parents. Frechette also said that many parents have the idea of saving Chinese girls from a mysogynistic, Communist, poverty-stricken and underdeveloped culture where they would be suffering, which she said was often oversimplified or exaggerated. Some parents also see their adoption as a religious ministry that they are called by God to do.
While not all people who adopt from China hold all these beliefs, Frechette says, all of these concepts are certainly present in the discourse over US-China adoptions. She believes that a lot of this has to do with the anxiety that adoptive parents feel over both their ability as parents in general and their ability to raise children of a
different ethnicity. Downgrading the place the children were previously in allows parents to think that at least they will provide a better environment than that one. Normalizing the fact that their children are of a different ethnicity also helps them to feel comfortable with the fact that they will be raised out of their original cultural context.
The economics of Chinese adoption are also an important factor to look at, as Frechette explained. In the several provinces of China where most international adoptions come from, adoption is a big and lucrative business. In Guangxi province, for example, adoption brings in 11% of all the foreign currency that enters the province. The Chinese participants in the adoption process obviously want it to continue, both because of the economic gains associated with the
adoption industry and the fact that they do have many abandoned children that need homes. However, the "saving" narrative does not resonate with them at all. If anything, Chinese people believe they are doing Western parents a favor by allowing them to have their children. The idea that children adopted from China are being saved and taken to a better place only reminds them of Western imperialism, Frechette said.
-- by Caroline R. O'Shea '07
