Does She Speak English?

Today was another first, but not a good one. It's one that I have been dreading for awhile. An older boy chanting "Chinese girl, Chinese girl" while pointing at Camille. I didn't hear it or find out about it until driving home in the car with Noah and his cousin. She reported that one of her classmates was making fun of Camille. My heart sank and my inner mama bear roared. I was proud of how Isabella told him to stop and we discussed how to handle future incidents. But several hours later I am still mulling it over. The whole thing kind of transported me back to childhood when I would also mull over teasing incidents. Feeling sad and mad and thinking of all the great things I should have said. I know that all children get teased at some point about something and I know that my children will not be immune from that especially because of their minority status in terms of religion and/or ethnicity, but it doesn't make it any easier.

I think the incident also feels even more raw because I have been very conscious of the fact that Camille is clearly in the minority here. I haven't seen any other Asian faces in the small town where we are temporarily living and only a handful in the larger surrounding towns. Last week while taking a walk around town an older woman with a strong Cajun accent stopped her car in the middle of Main Street to shout out "Is she one of those adopted ones?" Startled I replied "Yes" and took note of the traffic starting to line up behind her. She then smiled and said "Mais, chere she's so pretty". Then she asked "Does she speak English?" I quickly answered "yes" and then started to pull the wagon along the street. She smiled, waved and drove off. I kept walking down the street with two sweaty children bickering in the wagon. It was such a strange exchange and another one that left me thinking about how I could have/should have responded. It seemed as if her interest was sincere, but at the same time I also felt as if we were a moving cultural exhibit on Main Street and that didn't feel so good. I was grateful that Noah and Camille were too busy jostling for a better spot in the wagon to really take note of the conversation in the middle of the street.

Both of these incidents are ones I have thought about and as much as I have tried to read or prepare for them it always seems to catch me off guard. I am just not as eloquent or quick witted as I would like to be. Both of these incidents also feel like the tip of the iceberg of what is ahead for us and for Camille. I wish it wasn't so, but it is. But the conversation I had in the cell phone store last week (yes, I had to get another new cell phone...that's for another post!) has left me reeling with revelations on a very different level. The woman at the counter made the comment "she must really look like her dad" without thinking I responded "I imagine so" (stupid me, why did I say that?). And seeing her puzzled look, I added "she's adopted". She smiled and went about giving me another poor quality phone to replace the new one I bought that barely lasted a month,while I stood there and felt as if I had been hit in the stomach with a bag of bricks.

Camille will never know her birth father as I knew mine. She may never know anything about him including what he looks like. One of the reasons we chose to adopt from Taiwan is the ability to have contact with her birth family. But at this point that is only her mother and her mother's family. We don't have any information about her father. That has always made me sad, but it never really hit me on such a guttural level until that moment in the cell phone store. I am sure my response is more intense now as I am dealing with the grief of losing my father, but I think it is also heightened by Camille's recurring statements during the past few months: "I lost my daddy (deployment). I lost my grandpa". She is struggling with the absence of two of the most important men in her life and yet she is too young to realize that there is another man missing in her life. The one who shares her genes, her looks, and perhaps her love of reading, eating, and dancing.

So, yes,she does speak English but some days I wish she didn't. It would be so nice to somehow protect/insulate her (and Noah) from all of the sadness, cruelty, and loss that is a part of our world and her story. But I can't and that is one of the most painful aspects of parenting.