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Who Am I?
The Importance of Racial and Cultural Identity
By Michele St. Martin
Mary Coyle and her husband, Tom, of Virginia, are determined that their children's experience will be different than Jeannie's. The Coyles' son and daughter are from Korea. Initially they didn't feel their children's' race was reason for concern, as they had lived in Hawaii, where Asian people are the majority culture. But they learned too quickly that their own "color blindness" was not universal and began to prepare themselves and their children for life as a member of a racial minority. Coyle was shaken by reading about experiences like Jeannie's.
"Reading some of these articles not only was an eye-opener, but also brought with it the guilt of my children experiencing something as traumatic as this," she says. "As a parent you hope that they won't have to deal with these types of issues until they are adults. As an adoptive parent, I now realize that my children will have to deal with these issues of discrimination as early as kindergarten and first grade."
Coyle copes with these issues by viewing her children's heritage as one to be celebrated: The family celebrates Korean holidays, eats Korean foods and spends time with Korean people. The parents are learning about Korea and its culture. The children have joined a playgroup for Korean children, and when they are of kindergarten age, will begin attending a Saturday cultural school where they will learn to speak Hangul (the Korean language), as well as "the culture, language, history and cooking practices of their homeland."