Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 11, 1993 TAG: 9308110062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CELESTE KATZ STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Kori Parr has no problem describing his family.
"I'm a Korean," said the 5 1/2-year-old. "My sister's Korean, too, I think. My mom's Korean. My dad's a fireman."
Kori's three-for-four. He and his 3 1/2-year-old sister, Kari, are Korean; and Danny Parr is a Salem firefighter.
But neither Parr nor his wife, Kay, are Korean. Kori and Kari are their adopted children, and the couple is experiencing what families who adopt outside the United States must go through - the difficulty of preserving the child's native culture and language while helping them be assimilated into American society.
"We try to tell Kori that he's Korean, and it's, `No, Momma, I'm like you,' " said Kay Parr at her Salem home.
As for Kari, "She's starting to recognize that her eyes are different from the other kids at day care," Kay Parr said, adding that Kari looks at the copies of Eastern Child magazine in the house and says, "Those little girls look like me."
The Parrs are not alone. Last year, according to the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, 6,536 children born in other countries were adopted by Americans. Almost half of those adopted children came from Asia, and 22 percent were from South America. The biggest group of the Asian adoptees - 59 percent - came from South Korea.
In addition to the expense, travel, waiting and bureaucratic hassles often involved, international adoptions are especially difficult because the adopted children rarely resemble their adoptive parents. This sparks uncomfortable questions from outsiders.
Parr, for example, has answered "yes" to people who ask if the children's father is Korean - true in a way, untrue in others.
Communication between parent and child is a major concern - not only about issues related to physical appearances, but even as fundamental as language itself. Parents often have a desire to help preserve whatever language skills the child gained before adoption; but at the same time, learning English - whether or not it blots out the child's previous language - is a necessity.
Sara Anne Duff already was speaking full sentences in her native Russian when Jim Duff and Lindy Tinsor adopted her from an orphanage in Novgorod, several hundred miles northwest of Moscow.
The couple brought back numerous pictures, art objects and stories to help Sara learn more about her Russian heritage. They are seeking Russian speakers in the area in an effort to help the child retain what Russian fluency she has left.
The couple hopes Sara will keep as much of her "Russian-ness" as possible, but decided to change her name from Sasha (a Russian nickname for Alexandra) to Sara because, Duff explained, "We thought she'd assimilate better without an oddball name."
Sara had been in state-run Orphanage No. 1 in the Russian republic for more than two years and had never had a visitor. It's possible, Tinsor said, that Russian child-seekers considered her undesirable because of her Gypsy heritage.
The couple immediately fell in love with the dark-skinned little girl - even though they could hardly understand a word she said - and with the assistance of a translator made the arrangements for her adoption.
Sara, now 3, no longer has a problem telling her parents in English exactly what she wants, thinks, likes and dislikes.
When spoken to in Russian, she seems slightly puzzled, like an adult trying to remember the tune of an old lullaby.
But she talks up a storm in English, two of her favorite expressions being "Oh, my gosh!" and "Super-duper!"
"She's so gregarious; she'll go up to anyone and start talking to them. You can't take her to a restaurant - she'll end up owning the place," Duff said. Sara doesn't seem very interested in practicing her Russian; she knows English is the way to get through to others here. She still uses the Russian words for "car" and "boo-boo," but few others.
"She's aware of English as the `right' language," Duff said.
Tinsor says Sara occasionally blends Russian and English into a jumble, especially right when she wakes up. Seemingly forgetting where she is, she'll begin speaking Russian, stop, and switch to English when she sees that no one understands.
"We still have our moments. As with any small child, they don't enunciate as well as they should, and you can't understand them whether they speak Russian or English," she said.
Even after the language barrier is hurdled, multicultural families must face other concerns, such as whether or not to encourage children to learn about their birth countries and embrace their cultures.
Anne Marie and Mac Green, a Salem couple who adopted their daughter Emily from Peru, documented their perilous trip to South America in a photo album for the child to peruse when she is older.
Anne Marie Green tells Emily that she lives in Virginia but was born in Peru, and thinks the child is, like Kari Parr, beginning to see that she is different from her parents.
"We look in the mirror and I see her studying me, and I wonder if she's realizing her skin is darker than mine," Green said.
Green, a co-founder of the recently-formed Blue Ridge Adoption Group, or BRAG, says her only major worry about Emily's background is that she has no medical history for the child or her family previous to the adoption in 1991 and "doesn't know what's back there" in terms of health problems.
She will be pleased if and when 2-year-old Emily decides to take an interest in her homeland, but she's not going to press the issue.
"I think the Incas are a really rich, interesting part of her heritage. She might be interested in studying them. I wish I spoke Spanish; it's such a beautiful language," she said.
Through BRAG, valley families have the opportunity to meet others in the same situation. The organization publishes a newsletter and sponsors picnics, cultural events and parties. The organization consists largely of families who have adopted abroad, Green said, but all are welcome.
No one has drawn away from the family because of Emily, Green said, but people do ask the occasional prying question.
"Once in a while, someone will say, `Wow, her father must be really dark,' and what can I say? - `I guess he was'?" Green said.
Life has been fairly smooth because most of the preschooler's contact with others so far has been with the parents and children of BRAG, who naturally understand the situation.
This kind of support group is exactly what Marge Savage of Catholic Charities sees as a useful tool in dealing with the trials of foreign adoption.
"There are lots of great resources out there," said Savage, supervisor of the Intercountry Adoption Program. "Parents need to be pro-active about the child learning about their culture, rather than just waiting for issues to crop up."
As for whether or not to encourage a child to learn about or acknowledge his birth ties, Savage says the final decision is best left to the child.
"Some adopted children have a burning desire to know; they feel that their native country is a part of them. Others say, `I'm an American and I'm at peace with that,' " she said.
Parents in the Roanoke Valley deal differently with the challenge: The Duffs are learning basic Russian by way of a computer program; the Parrs have a collection of Korean items as keepsakes for their son and daughter and have tried out a Korean-style Christmas; the Greens have taught Emily to enjoy Peruvian foods they sampled during their stay in South America.
Most parents say that they don't think as much about the child's nationality as about his or her personality.
"You feel a bond to that one special child, and you don't really think of what their heritage is," Tinsor said, watching her daughter color with crayons. "She doesn't look that different to me; she doesn't seem like a member of a different ethnic group. We just see her as Sara."
Of course, at so young an age, these children are more interested in playing with toys than searching their souls.
Kari Parr, for one, seems unconcerned for the moment.
When asked which country she was born in, she replies, "I want my triceratops."
by CNB