‘My son is a foreigner’

In response to this column by Andrew Greeley, an adoptive parent writes as follows:

My son is a foreigner, but he was adopted and naturalized in accordance with the legal procedures of his home country and of the United States.

I love my son desperately, regardless of his nation of birth, and regardless of the fact that he is an immigrant.

But in sleazy, yellow-journalist style, Greeley accuses me of hating all immigrants because I support the principle that our nation should have the power to protect its borders and sovereignty …

“Regardless of the fact that he is an immigrant?” How very open-minded of you.

This is another example of how privilege blinds (primarily white) adoptive parents to issues that deeply affect their children. My child is an American, they say. My child was legally adopted. My child came to this country legally. Not like those people.

They don’t stop to think for a moment that their children may be perpetually seen as foreigners once outside the blanket of privilege that whiteness provides. They don’t think about how racist laws make it easy to bring an adopted child into the country while preventing parents from bringing their birth children. And they don’t see how their anti-immigrant bigotry affects their children. Do you think being American protected anybody at the L.A. immigration rally?

The average white American adoptive parent doesn’t see the issues of communities of color or immigrants as being issues that affect his or her children. On some level I believe this is because they don’t really see their children as persons of color or immigrants. They believe all that privilege will just rub on off.

Of course I love you, little Jason. You’re not like those people.

Of course I love you, little Jason. You’re not one of those immigrants. You’re the good kind.