There was a momentary silence as the Ethiopian-born youth introduced his parents to those milling around. The family had just arrived at their assigned table for the dinner and awards ceremony. The parents were proud of their son’s selection as a college minority scholarship award winner.

But the introduction had unsettled at least one man at the table. He hustled off to find other members of the scholarship award committee.

There could be a problem. Something wasn’t right.

While the youth was clearly African and a minority, his parents were not. His mother had blond hair and blue eyes.
Fortunately, the powers-that-be that night dismissed the discrepancy and the youth received his award.

“In a country obsessed with dealing with race, identity and filling in the right box, I am hopeful that we are the many generations that will help our country understand and accept that love, friendship and family have no bounds,” said Joy Kim Lieberthal, a Korean adoptee, whose Jewish adoptive parents have encouraged her unique identity.

Lieberthal spoke at an annual summer camp for families with children adopted from India at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Pa. While my wife and I have adopted a daughter from India, Lieberthal’s frank discussion also forced adoptees like myself, to confront a reality I had long ignored.

For an article last year in the Westchester (N.Y.) Journal, Lee-Ann Hanham recalled growing up on Long Island. She could easily forget she had been adopted from South Korea, until she passed a mirror.
“And you would stop and you would be surprised that, ‘Oh my God, I’m not 5-foot-10, blond-haired and blue-eyed,” she said.

In 2005, the Department of State issued orphan visas to U.S. families for 7,906 children from China; 4,639 from Russia; 3,783 from Guatemala and 1,630 from South Korea. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. These were figures from the top four countries.

International adoptions are changing this country’s demographics and challenging our understanding of race and culture.
Such as the time when a third-grade teacher asked students to draw family trees.

An Asian-Indian girl stared at the blank paper on her desk unsure of what to do. An African-American girl cried.
The first girl was found abandoned on the streets in India and spent her early years in an orphanage before being adopted and coming to America. The other girl was a foster child with a history of abuse.

The American family today is far more diverse than it has ever been.

J.J. Johnson, the African-American postmaster of our previous home in the village of Palmyra, N.Y. - a community with a racial diversity similar to our new home in Plymouth - used to remark that our family visit to the post office was like a visit from the United Nations.

My youngest son is Hong Kong-Chinese-American, and my youngest daughter is South Asian Indian-American; my wife and our two older children are considered European-Americans. I was born in Singapore, raised in Geneva, Switzerland and in Columbia, S.C. I’m Chinese, but my adoptive mother is a southerner.

Advocates of adoption point out that incidents such as the ones at the award ceremony and in the school simply mean more sensitivity training is needed. And teachers need to consider more appropriate class assignments. Change is needed and inevitable.

“Families are made. They are not born,” my proud South Carolinian mother, Betty Toney, has repeated many times.

She goes on to explain that it isn’t a right to call yourself a mother or father because of a biological bond. It is a right that is earned by what you do and the responsibility you uphold as a parent. The bonds of adoption can be just as strong, if not stronger, than biological ones in any family.

Another mother wrote recently about how adoption affects the understanding among the young.
“One day, out of the blue, my daughter said ‘some kids come from the hospital. Others, like Amy, come from the plane.'”

Lieberthal, a social worker, is a former president of the New York-based organization Also-Known-As, which celebrates, promotes, and helps adoptees forge their unique identity, whether they were born in the hospital, or came to this country on an airplane. The organization is hoping to expand its nationwide network of chapters. There is also a speakers bureau, which helps further the understanding of adoptees and what they have to offer in building a multi-racial and multi-cultural nation.

“With our adoptive families and our personal ethnicity, we have the potential to represent an unusual blend of all that is wonderful about claiming a dual identity, albeit Asian-American, Latin-American, African-American, or European-American,” Lieberthal said.