Family and Nation in US Adoptions from Asia A
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Race and the Violence of Love: Family and Nation in U.S. Adoptions from Asia A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Ethnic Studies by Kit Myers Committee in charge: Professor Yen Le Espiritu, Chair Professor Denise Ferreira da Silva, Co-Chair Professor Rosemary Marangoly George Professor Natalia Molina Professor K. Wayne Yang 2013 Copyright Kit Myers, 2013 All rights reserved The dissertation of Kit Myers is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________ Co-Chair __________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2013 iii DEDICATION For my adoptive and birth families. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS SIGNATURE PAGE …..………………………………..……………………………….iii DEDICATION …..………………………………..……………………………………...iv TABLE OF CONTENTS …..………………………………..……………………………v LIST OF TABLES …..………………………………..………………………………….vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS …..………………………………..………………………..vii VITA ..………………………………..………………………………………………......xi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION…..………………………………..…………..xii INTRODUCTION..………………………………..………………………………….......1 CHAPTER ONE The New Normal: Positively Defining (Adoptive) Motherhood and Family……..………………………………..……………………………………….50 CHAPTER TWO Opposite Futures for the Orphan in (Neo)liberal Adoption Discourse and Law ..………………………………..………………………………......107 CHAPTER THREE Reifying ‘Real’ Families in Popular Adoption Discourse .……...165 CHAPTER FOUR ‘Birth Culture’ and ‘Critical Adoptee Perspective’: Desires and Pedagogies to Address the Violence of Adoption …..……………………………..206 EPILOGUE………….………...…………………………………………..…………....274 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………….……………………………...........284 v LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Positive Adoption Language………………………………………..………...60 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply thankful to the scores of people who helped make this dissertation possible. This section could continue for pages. My sincerest apologies to the significant folks who I forgot to mention by name. Thank you to everyone who had a hand in this process, for believing in me so that I could believe in myself. I was honored to work with the members of my dissertation committee, and I sincerely thank them for their encouragement and support through this long and arduous process. Yen Le Espiritu has been an out-of-this-world mentor. She poured over hundreds of draft pages. Her feedback, whether to make broader connections or be more specific in my argument and analysis, has strengthened and elevated this project. Professor Espiritu has shown great faith and given me needed encouragement, making sure that I not only finished but pushed me so that I could be proud of my research. Denise Ferreira da Silva, my co-chair, chaired my master’s thesis and generously stayed on my committee when she went to Queen Mary, University of London. Denise had a significant hand in shaping my dissertation prospectus, challenging me and her other students to think more critically about race. Despite their immensely rare intellect, both Yen and Denise have always made me and other graduate students feel smart, which was half the battle. K. Wayne Yang has especially assisted in the development my last chapter, which began in his critical pedagogy seminar and then morphed into a series of different conference papers. He has also helped me think about how I might use desire more centrally in my future research. Natalia Molina carefully read drafts of my chapters, giving me valuable feedback on how to better organize and clarify my argument as well as vital tips on how to take on the task of writing a dissertation. I also appreciated the two courses I took with vii her, one on historical methods and the other on race, motherhood, and adoption, which gave me important tools to do my research. Rosemary George gave me insightful feedback for my prospectus and dissertation defense. I warmly thank her for her continued investment in my project. I also wish to thank Mariam Beevi Lam and Ross Frank who Lam have been amazingly supportive of my work There are many people from the University of Oregon who were also integral to helping me be where I am today. Thank you Mario Sifuentez for persuading me to major in Ethnic Studies; Fiona Ngô for sending me a moving email of encouragement to stay in her impossibly difficult class; and Lynn Fujiwara and Steve Morozumi for teaching me about social justice. Thank you also to Adria Imada, Kathy Campbell, and the whole staff at OMAS, who supported me academically. Thanks to Maria Hwang, Chris Finley, Angie Morrill, Mark Padoongpatt, and Margarita Smith for making class fun. Also thanks to my dear friends from Eugene (Haben Woldu, Latina Lewis, John Joo, and Andrew Munson) and Canby (Buck Stone, Richard Walker, Spencer Porter, Lindsey McEvoy, and Kirsten Rittenbach) and Michael and Josiah. I would not have finished without the moral, social, and academic support of my friends and colleagues at UC San Diego. Both Yen and Denise hosted writing groups that were vital to helping me finish and surviving the isolation of graduate school. Thank you Angie Morrill, Maile Arvin, Rashne Limki, Ayako Sahara, Long Bui, Angela Kong, and Vinh Nguyen for your much needed care and supportive feedback. My cohort was a tremendous support system during my first years of graduate school. Thank you to Rashne, Eugene Gambol, Candice Rice, Ayako, Thea Tagle, and Angelica Yanez. I am also thankful to the “fist” cohort—Long, Cathi Kozen, Angie, Tomoko Tsuchiya, and Ma viii Vang—who adopted me as an honorary member. Thank you Tomoko for sharing your home with me for three and a half years and letting me be your unofficial roommate. Many graduate students were informal mentors who gave me key survival tips. Thank you to Tere Cesena, José Fusté, Thuy Vo Dang, Becky Kinney, Blu Barnd, and Traci Voyles. Thank you to Laura Beebe, Seth San Juan, Marilisa Navarro, Linh Nguyen, Davorn Sisavath, and Lila Sharif who offered their friendship and support. I am extremely appreciative to have met and formed friendships with many scholars in critical adoption studies. Thank you Mark Jerng for inviting me to my first adoption studies conference at University of Waterloo. Thank you also to Bert Ballard, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Steve Kalb, Eleana Kim, Kimberly McKee, Kim Park Nelson, Sarah Park, and Jenny Wills for your friendship and support. It is exciting to know that there is such a smart intellectual community working to change the way we think about and practice adoption. I am deeply indebted to the Adoptee Camp, which gave me the opportunity to build friendships within an adoptee community, and to the staff members who generously offered their time, stories, and insight in their interviewees for which chapter four would not be possible. Thank you to the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University and to Stephen Novak, head of Columbia University’s Archive and Special Collections at the A.C. Long Health Sciences Library, for helping me navigate my first archival research trip. Additionally, the staff in the Ethnic Studies Department was wonderfully encouraging and a key for all graduate students trying to finish. Thank you Yolanda Escamilla, Samaria Khazai, and Christa Ludeking. I also appreciate the wonderful ix students whom I had the privilege to work and grow with while I was a teaching assistant and in my “Law and Civil Rights” and “Contemporary Asian American History” courses. I want to thank my family—my parents, Doug and Lynne; my brother and sister- in-law, Stefan and Jennifer; my grandmother and late grandfather, Annette and Robert; and my aunts and uncles, Enid, Eric, Mary, and Tim as well as Frank and Lori Mehay— for your unconditional love and for supporting me through these years even after I kept adding years in my responses to the question, “When will you be done?” I also want to thank the Vang family for welcoming me into their home and family, especially Mai Hang and Vue Vang as well as Mai and Thomas Vang. Lastly, I would like to thank Ma Vang, possibly an honorary committee member, for being a part of the messy, anxiety-ridden, and seemingly never-ending process of brainstorming, drafting, and revising and for getting me past the occasional moments of fatalism. Your love and strength has always inspired me. I literally could not have done this without you. Thank you also for joining me in the journey of love and life. Chapter three, in part, will be published in Winter 2014 of Critical Discourse Studies. Thank you to the anonymous reviewers who gave astute and timely feedback and to John Richardson, the editor, who was generously flexible with my resubmission date. x VITA 2006 B.S., Ethnic Studies & Journalism, University of Oregon 2009 M.A., Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego 2008-2009 Teaching Assistant, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of 2010-2011 California, San Diego 2009-2010 Teaching Assistant, Thurgood Marshall College Writing Program, University of California, San Diego 2011 Summer Graduate Teaching Fellowship, University of California, San Diego 2011-2012 Lecturer, Department of Ethnic Studies, University of California, San Diego 2012 Barbara & Paul Saltman Excellent Teaching Award for Graduate Students, University of California,