‘I’m the centre part of a Venn diagram’: belonging and identity for Taiwanese-Australian intercountry adoptees

Abstract

Intercountry adoptees face many challenges in developing their identity and achieving a sense of belonging in post-assimilation Australia. This study uses a constructivist approach to analyse narrative interviews with a sample of Taiwanese intercountry adoptees in Australia ranging in age from early to middle adulthood. Social identity theory and postcolonial theory are used to frame thematic findings about the impact of micro, meso and macro influences on identity development and belonging. The article concludes with discussion of the importance of analysing the impact of colonisation and broader societal discourse in social work practice when working within the adoption sector.

Keywords

Intercountry adoption adoption ethnic identity ethnic socialisation belonging Australia Taiwan

Introduction

Intercountry adoptees can face obstacles in developing a positive identity and sense of belonging, particularly in relation to ethnic identity (Murphy, Pinto and Cuthbert, 2010). They typically have a different ethnic background to their adoptive parents and are often a minority ethnicity within their adoptive society, which can lead to issues for identity development and belonging (Ben-Zion, 2014). While ethnic identity is usually defined as self-identification in an individual’s ethnic group (Montgomery and Jordan, 2018), this identification process is much more complicated for intercountry adoptees. They often have a bicultural identity where they identify with both their birth and adopted cultures (Scherman, 2010); yet due to limited access they may not know how to identify with their birth culture. The level of security in their bicultural identity can affect their well-being, psychological adjustment and sense of belonging in their adopted family (Montgomery and Jordan, 2018).

Influences and interactions at the level of society, schools or communities and the family collectively impact the development of an adoptee’s identity. This can be understood through the application of social identity theory and postcolonial theory. The first of these postulates that an individual’s membership to a particular group greatly impacts belonging and identity and that individuals choose to identify with groups that are valued in society (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). Postcolonial theory seeks to examine the permeation of colonialist attitudes and discourse within contemporary society (Mayblin, 2017). It posits that race is socially and politically constructed to maintain the subordination of non-white sub-populations (Kim, 2012). These theories can be applied to better understand the obstacles in adoptees’ identity development and sense of belonging, on a familial, community and societal level.

Raising intercountry adoptees in ways that give them a secure, positive identity and sense of belonging is integral to their well-being. Their identity development, however, is highly complex and involves the influences of greater social discourses, community, peers and family. While these dynamics have been examined in the past, most of the scholarship on identity and belonging focuses on intercountry adoption in the US (see Baden, 2015; McRoy, 1991; Simon and Altstein, 2002; Soon and Reid, 2000) or Europe (see Bagley, 1993; Ben-Zion, 2014; Deguchi, 2013; Hübinette and Tigervall, 2009). By focusing on Australia, this article aims to investigate the unique contextual social and political factors which shape intercountry adoptees’ understanding of ethnicity and identity by examining the impact of parents, peers and society on their understanding of self. In doing this, it offers new insights to the research literature that has primarily depended on US and European samples. The empirical analysis draws upon narrative interviews with Taiwanese intercountry adoptees living in Australia and who ranged in age from early to middle adulthood at the time of the research.

Intercountry adoption in Australia

Intercountry adoption in the Australian context refers to the legal adoption of a child from another country by an Australian citizen or permanent resident (Department of Social Services, 2018). It emerged in the late 1960s and grew in proportion to overall adoptions over the subsequent decades as domestic adoptions declined. Between the late 1960s and July 2008, there were 10,221 intercountry adoptions (Rosenwald, 2009) with a further 1,470 up to July 2019 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). The first official intercountry adoptions took place from Vietnam when a group of 292 children arrived in 1975 as part of ‘Operation Babylift’ (Martin, 2014). These occurred at a time when the ‘White Australia’ immigration policy limiting non-European immigration was changing and more accepting attitudes towards multiculturalism were apparent (Moran, 2011). In parallel with observed global trends among receiving countries (Selman, 2012), intercountry adoptions in Australia peaked in 2004 at 434 and have steadily declined to a low of 57 in 2018–2019 (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019). This continuing decline is attributable to improvements in the economic and social development of sending countries as well as the tightening of adoption procedures in sending and receiving ones, in line with widespread implementation of the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (Hilferty and Katz, 2019).

While Australia has an active intercountry adoption programme that includes countries in Europe, South America and Africa, the majority of children come from Asia. The primary sending countries have changed over time. From 2006 to 2011, China and the Philippines were the leading countries of origin. From 2012 to 2018, this shifted to Taiwan and the Philippines. In the most recently reported financial year (2018–2019), the most common sending country was South Korea. In the same period, 57 intercountry adoptions were processed in Australia of which 15 were from Taiwan (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2019).

This article focuses on adoptees who originated from Taiwan and were adopted in Australia. Between the two countries, 386 adoptions¹ are recorded, with most of them having occurred since 2005. The practice of intercountry adoption in Taiwan originated with faith-based organisations, established as branches of US non-governmental agencies during the 1950s and 1960s. As they were opposed to growing numbers of abortions among unwed women and teenagers, these organisations shared the mission of supporting women to complete their pregnancies and place their newborns for intercountry adoption. This was seen as a solution for the shame and stigma of unwed motherhood, with adoption perceived as offering a better future for the child (Lai and Yang, 2012). Prior to child welfare reforms initiated in the mid-1980s, adoptions in Taiwan were often arranged privately, frequently involving secrecy or even human trafficking. An estimated 26 children were adopted from Taiwan to Australia in the early 1980s, organised by lawyer Julie Chu who was convicted by Taiwanese authorities of illegally obtaining babies and fraudulently registering these births to unrelated households (International Social Services Australia, 2013). Following a period of economic growth and decreased birth rate in Taiwan, legislative child welfare reforms were implemented between 1985 and 2012 (Wright, et al., 2020).

A major concern raised about intercountry adoption involves racial and cultural identity. Adoptive parents in Australia and other western ‘receiving’ countries are primarily white, while the majority of children from ‘sending’ countries are of colour. The move from one country to another means that children are generally raised without contact with their birth family and exposure to language or culture of origin. They have little or no choice in this change in status, from ‘fitting in to standing out’ (Anderson, 2014: 7; see also Castañeda, 2002; Kim, 2010; Yngvesson, 2010). While this is also an issue raised in relation to transracial domestic adoptions (Vonk, Lee and Crolley-Simic, 2010), intercountry adoptees have less direct access to their culture of origin due to geographic distance and therefore may experience greater challenges related to identity formation and feelings of isolation (Kirton, 2000). Moreover, white parents are more likely to be unprepared to educate their adopted children about racism.

Australian society has been characterised as transitioning from a legacy of Anglo domination and cultural superiority to gradual acceptance of multiculturalism, not unlike other settler societies with recent substantial immigration (Forrest and Dunn, 2006). Prior research, including public opinion surveys, has identified Asian-Australians as an ‘out-group’ of ‘key others to the Australian national imagination’ who face intolerance (Dunn, et al., 2004: 412) and are perceived as less Australian than white migrants, even if they display assimilation with the national culture (Thai, et al., 2020). As physical appearance may be the strongest indicator of who is perceived as Australian – what Andrzej Gwizdalski (2014) called ‘visual belonging’ (see also Ang, 2001) – Asian intercountry adoptees in Australia are likely to face challenges with developing their ethnic identity and confronting racism in different societal contexts.

Challenges in identity development for adoptees

Identity formation is one of the chief developmental goals of childhood and adolescence. Bronfenbrenner (1979) highlights the importance of relationships and environment on human development, from those that are closest to the individual at the micro level (e.g. family), the overlap between environments at the meso level (e.g. between peers and schools) and the societal context at the macro level (including dominant attitudes and values). Coll and colleagues (1996) draw attention to the power of environments to shape the relationships between different groups of children. Promotive environments protect children from racism and discrimination as well as holding norms that are consonant (e.g. when family and school hold similar expectations and values) whereas inhibitive environments expose children to incongruence and dissonance (e.g. where family and school cultural values conflict).

There are multiple influences on ethnic identity and these again occur on a micro, meso and macro level, and may operate differently for intercountry adoptees in transracial placements. Micro influences include the role of parents and family in identity development, meso influences include community socialisation and group identity while macro influences incorporate wider social processes and discourses that indirectly shape identity development (Kirk and Okazawa-Rey, 2010). In the following section these different levels of influences are considered and used to scaffold findings.

Micro influences on identity development

Adoptive parents play an important role in exposing intercountry adoptees to positive aspects of their birth culture and their contribution is crucial for a healthy bicultural identity and self-esteem, particularly in the context of postcolonial constructions of race (Bailey, 2007). They are themselves socialised into their roles, largely through the training, interviews and other requirements necessary to gain approval to adopt. As part of this process, prospective parents are required to complete educational sessions which include content on ‘cultural and ethnic identity issues that may arise and the importance of the adoptive child’s identity’ (Intercountry Adoption Australia, n.d.). These often feature adoptive parents and adopted adults sharing their experiences. Telfer (2003) noted how, during the lengthy approval process, an ‘imagined child’ is constructed which the government and brokers, such as social workers, use to help constitute notions of the adopted child and the parents’ role. For some, this may be a process of reflection and personal growth, but the state retains the upper hand through its power to select which families will be accepted (Young, 2012), demonstrating the link back to the macro level of policies and dominant social attitudes.

Meso influences on identity development

Peers and community also play an integral role in identity development, with both positive and negative outcomes depending on the nature of the relationship. Young East-Asian Australians are reported to experience disproportionately high amounts of racism from their peers, demonstrating the persistence of racist views in contemporary Australian society (Priest, et al., 2019). This experience can lead to identity conflict, where individuals consciously or subconsciously reject their Asian identity, instead preferring to identify with mainstream white society. Belonging in a multicultural or predominantly Asian community, however, is a positive contributor to ethnic pride, identity and cultural knowledge (Kim, 2012). This notion is supported by Long and Gale’s (2017) study of Australian intercountry adoptees where connection with the adopted person’s birth culture or adoptive community strengthened their sense of belonging. The influence of peers thus plays an integral role in the development of identity and belonging for intercountry adoptees.

Macro influences on identity development

In addition, wider social contexts and discourses can significantly affect adoptees’ identity and sense of belonging (Ben-Zion, 2014). In Australia, racism is entrenched in white settler history (Jayasuriya, Walker and Gothard, 2003). In the 1850s, the first wave of Chinese immigrants to arrive were viewed as ‘other’ and discriminated against by white settlers. In 1901, the newly formed Australian federal parliament introduced the Immigration Restriction Act which formally established the ‘White Australian’ policy. This policy systematically discriminated against non-British immigrants and specifically against Asians. Immigrants were expected to abandon their ethnic cultures and languages and assimilate into the Australian way of life and to maintain an Australian identity that was based on Anglo-European ancestry (Atkinson, 2015). These policies were dismantled in the 1970s and in line with other countries such as Canada, replaced by the start of a formal and state-promoted multiculturalism. Scholars define this shift as part of a symbolic politics that redefines the nation as inclusive and heterogeneous (Ang, 1996). In this sense, the ideology of multiculturalism became core to the new Australia and enjoyed support from governments across the political spectrum. While the 1990s encouraged migrants to retain and celebrate their cultures and exhorted Australians to value cultural diversity, tensions existed between this development and prior notions of Australia as a White British society.

Applying postcolonial theory, it can be seen that Australia’s historic racially discriminatory immigration policies and residual assimilationist attitudes are reflected in contemporary perceptions of western culture and whiteness as the norm within Australian society, with non-white Australians perceived as foreign (Hatchel, 2008). For intercountry adoptees, being perceived as an immigrant, no matter how great their social and cultural acculturation into their adopted society, can greatly influence their identity and sense of belonging. They are often viewed as migrants from their birth country who are ‘kinned and incorporated’ into a local family (Marre, 2009: 239). Their identity can be linked to the postcolonial theoretical concept of ‘hybridity’, defined as a new identity that emerges within postcolonial societies and which does not fit wholly into traditional identities (Ang, 2001).

Research on intercountry adoption has demonstrated that because of racial othering, intercountry adoptees struggle to assert the legitimacy of their nationality and identity in countries like Australia where that identity is associated with whiteness (Ben-Zion, 2014; Hübinette and Tigervall, 2009). Asian intercountry adoptees in the Australian context are often assumed to have migrant identities, revealing the rigid perception of Australian identity as strictly Caucasian. As a result, intercountry adoptees often absorb the negative social attitudes towards their ethnic/racial group, which can lead to internalised oppression (Baden, 2008); the difficulties they face from being ethnically dissimilar to their parents and the local population can lead to the incongruence of feeling white but having a different appearance. Conversely, knowing little about their birth culture can lead to exclusion by their birth culture group (Armstrong and Slaytor, 2001). In Armstrong and Slaytor’s (2001) study of Australian intercountry adoptees, almost all participants told of experiencing racism, with some reporting feelings of dislike towards their own ethnicity. This study demonstrates the impact of racialised and postcolonial constructions of intercountry adoptees as ‘other’, despite their Australian upbringing.

Methods

The current study aims to examine the attitudes of adult Taiwanese adoptees to their ethnic identity formation using a postcolonial framework and Tajfel and Turner’s (1986) social identity theory. To harness the many influences shaping an individual’s identity and explore the relationship between them, forces at three ecological levels (micro, meso and macro) are considered along with the application of Coll and colleagues’ (1996) integrative model of developmental competencies in minority children

This study forms part of a larger project that focuses on intercountry adoption between Taiwan and Australia and examines the views and attitudes of adoptees and adoptive parents in Australia, birth mothers in Taiwan and adoption professionals in both countries regarding connection and openness with family and culture of origin. Unlike the stark differences in development between many sending and receiving countries, both Australia and Taiwan are considered to be advanced and high income (data.worldbank.org). Hence, popular access to technology, including high-speed internet, and relative geographic proximity may reduce some of the potential barriers faced in other countries to interaction between birth families, adoptive families and adoptees. While Taiwan is not a signatory to the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, because it is not recognised as a country by the United Nations, it has a bilateral agreement with Australia that complies with Hague Convention standards (Australian Government, n.d.). Findings about adoptees’, adoptive parents’ and birth mothers’ perspectives on connection and openness in adoptions are reported in Wright and colleagues (2020) and findings on post-adoption services in intercountry adoptions based on the perspectives of adoption professionals from Taiwan and Australia are reported in Lin and colleagues (2020). This aspect of the study focuses on the research question: what are the factors that influence identity development and belonging for Taiwanese adoptees in Australia?

In 2018, the research team conducted 11 interviews with Taiwanese adoptees via phone, ‘Zoom’ video calling and in person. Once the research had received ethical approval, adoptees were recruited via social media, with information posted to adoption-specific Facebook groups, and through snowballing techniques where participants shared study information with other adoptees they knew. Participants were aged between 20 and 50 years old and were adopted between the 1970s and 1990s, with the majority adopted in the 1990s (see Table 1). The 11 participants represent a high proportion of the earlier adoptions from Taiwan.

Table 1.

Sample characteristics.

Characteristic	Number of participants	%
Gender
Male	4	36
Female	7	64
State to which they were adopted
New South Wales	7	64
South Australia	3	27
Victoria	1	9
Era of adoption
1970s	1	9
1980s	2	18
1990s	8	73

Semi-structured, narrative-based interviews were used, as this approach allows for the research participants to describe their own understanding of personal events and experiences (Andrews, Squire and Tamboukou, 2013). Open-ended questions asked them to share their adoption story in narrative form, with a set of prompts that covered influences on cultural identity and sense of belonging. Interviews were recorded, transcribed professionally and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s (2012) six-phase method of thematic analysis. The first phase involved gaining familiarity with the data. Codes were then created and identified. Phases three and four involved searching for broader themes within the codes and creating theme maps while in the last two phases, themes were organised into broader categories and illustrative quotations selected. Pseudonyms are used throughout to protect confidentiality.

The project employed an exploratory narrative methodology. This reduces the risk of the researchers imposing their constructed view of a phenomenon and encourages participants to identify the aspects of situations that are significant to them (Riessman, 2008). It thus allows corresponding social narratives to emerge. It may be argued that adoption sits within these two spheres – as a deeply personal experience on the one hand and an undeniably socially, culturally and politically defined process on the other. Further benefits are that narrative research has the potential to reduce power differentials between researcher and participant and may even challenge existing discourses and structures of power (St Pierre and Pillow, 2000).

A constructivist approach informed the data collection and analysis. Constructivism is based on the notion that individuals’ worlds are socially constructed and seeks to examine how people make sense of this through interactions with others in the context of historical and societal factors (Adom, Yeboah and Ankrah, 2016). Constructivist research is typically qualitative and inductive, with the researchers developing a theory based on the data while recognising the researchers’ values and perspectives as influential in the research process (Adom, Yeboah and Ankrah, 2016).

The research team included Asian Australians, among them an interviewer who was an intercountry adoptee, which positioned it along an insider/outsider spectrum of sharing experiences of adoption with the participants and being non-white (Breen, 2007), while not being a part of the target sample. However, the study has some limitations. The sample size was relatively small, which may affect the reliability of the findings and their applicability to other Taiwanese adoptees or intercountry adoptees in general. It is also a retrospective recall study in which adults were asked to reflect on their upbringing. Hence, there may be inadvertent omissions or distortions in the narratives, and participants may perceive continuities, logic and associations in their experiences that were not apparent at the time. The focus of the study is also on the adoptees rather than their parents and they might have different insights into the role that adoptive parents play in children’s identity development.

Findings

The results highlight the dynamic ways in which adoptees view themselves and their identity. This can be demonstrated through the analysis of micro, meso and macro levels of socialisation (see Figure 1). The impact of racism is present throughout each of these levels, through the social attitudes to adoptees’ identity, the experience of racism from peers and socialisation from parents. These factors all contribute to adoptees’ sense of self and belonging.

Figure 1.

Levels of identity development influences.

Belonging in White Australia: societal influences on identity development

Societal context plays a significant role in the development of cultural identity. Racism and negative attitudes towards Asian culture are still present in post-assimilation Australia and manifest themselves in different ways, as shown in the participants’ varied experiences and understandings of belonging and identity. The findings revealed an understanding that society views an Australian upbringing as superior to a Taiwanese one, which highlights postcolonial perceptions of western culture as superior to others. Societal rejection of Asian-Australian identities made it difficult for adoptees to achieve a secure sense of self. As Adrienne explained:

There’s that assumption that my life would have been absolutely dreadful [in Taiwan] and I feel like saying, ‘Are you a clairvoyant?’. Because no one knows for sure. And I’m not saying that my life wouldn’t have been different; of course it would have been culturally, linguistically, socially. Of course it would have been, because it would have been a different country. But here in Australia when people tell adopted children, ‘You should be so grateful,’ how does that fit in with the Australian ethos, ‘Fair go, mate’?

Adrienne narrates postcolonial assumptions of Caucasian-Australian cultural superiority and how this is in contradiction to Australia’s façade of egalitarianism. The postcolonial moment is captured here geopolitically, for where one ends up (in the Global North) seems more important than with whom (van Wichelen, 2019).

In retelling a narrative once heard, Bernie further underlines the perception of western culture as being superior:

[An adoptive parent] found out that [the birth] parent wanted their child back and she goes, ‘No, that child’s mine. The child’s better with me than in a rice paddy field in Taiwan.’

This highlights the language of humanitarianism that is central to postcolonial narratives legitimising international adoption. Humanitarian action (both Christian and secular) informed cross-border adoption practice and signified a politics of redemption and compassion (van Wichelen, 2019).

Achieving a sense of belonging in Australia was a challenge raised by almost all adoptees. They reported discomfort with their Asian identity as they did not fit into the stereotypical Caucasian Australian phenotype. Justin highlights the dominance of whiteness in Australia and the discomfort of being Asian in this context:

I didn’t hate the way I looked, but I didn’t like looking Asian either. So, during the 1990s, being a teenager and looking Asian and looking different in, you know, what was predominantly White Australia, yeah, I didn’t like that, I didn’t, you know; the typical Australian is blonde haired, blue eyed and I didn’t look like that.

The normalisation of a Caucasian Australian identity was revealed in adoptees having to constantly explain their identity. Typically, they raised the issue of not feeling fully accepted as Australian and having to respond to questions about their background. This form of racial othering challenged adoptees’ self-perceived identity of being Australian, as in Kelly’s statement:

It’s a very frequent thing that people ask, ‘What’s your nationality?’ and I say, ‘I’m Australian,’ but then they look at you and think you don’t look Australian.

This demonstrates their perception that society does not accept them as Australian based on their physical appearance and ethnicity, rather than where they grew up. The participants reported experiencing discomfort as a result of these interactions. Eileen described her emotional response to Caucasian Australians constantly questioning her identity – ‘It almost feels like they’re kind of attacking you’ – highlighting the microaggressions that result from racial othering (Zhang, Zhang and Pinderhughes, 2019). Adrienne conveys the frequency of such experiences and the lack of acceptance in Australian society: ‘I can count on my hands the number of times in my life … where I have been just Australian and nothing else.’

Some adoptees experienced dissonance where they did not feel comfortable expressing their Asian or Australian identity. This shows how bicultural identity and identification with birth culture are not straightforward and can even be problematic. Bernie highlighted her desire to disassociate from Asian people: ‘I wouldn’t take photos in [major city] when I was visiting with my friends because I didn’t want to look like a Japanese tourist.’

This comment suggests a desire to distance herself from the stigma she believed was associated with Asians. Moreover, these forms of disassociation demonstrate the difficulty of biculturality. While adoptees recognise that they look different from (Caucasian) Australians, they do not necessarily feel different from them or want to identify with Taiwanese culture or some form of ‘Chineseness’ or ‘Asian-ness’.

Thus, despite Australia’s public policy of multiculturalism, the historical ‘White Australia’ policy remains entrenched in contemporary Australian social consciousness. This manifests in western cultural superiority and the understanding of what it means to be Australian, both of which pose a challenge for non-white adoptees’ sense of belonging.

Discrimination and belonging: peer impact on identity development

Peers can greatly impact the identity and sense of belonging of individuals (Kim, 2012). Adoptees typically experienced racism from their peers on a variety of levels. This manifested in racism that is both overt and covert as well as intentional and unintentional. It tended to occur more in adoptees’ childhood years and in environments that were predominantly Caucasian. But adoptees also reported positive impacts of peers on identity development, specifically from being involved with adoptive and Asian communities. These findings highlight the importance of promotive environments that reinforce positive messages about cultural difference, among schools, peers and community groups. They also highlight the importance of recognising and addressing racism as it can be reinforced in subtle and overt ways, creating inhibitive environments that have harmful ramifications for children’s identity, belonging and well-being.

Adoptees generally experienced racism more during the earlier years of their childhood. Dean inferred that the lack of Asian students in his primary school led to increased bullying:

There wasn’t [sic] many Asian kids in my primary school. You get the normal like ‘slanty eyes’, ‘chingchong China’, that kind of thing. But kids are ruthless. They’ll say whatever they want.

But damaging experiences can occur at any age. Ivan, one of the younger participants, said he had encountered overt racism throughout his life:

People just making comments, slurs, like, ‘Oh, it’s your eyes of [sic], it’s your yellow skin or it’s ….’ Yeah, it’s anything like that, of course, which can trigger you but, as many might know, in Australia racism is actually very present.

The positive impact of connecting with an Asian or multicultural community was mentioned by a number of adoptees. This increased their sense of belonging and normalised a non-white Australian identity. Harris described the benefits of growing up in a multicultural environment:

My primary school was mixed cultures … I wasn't bullied in the racial sense at all from anyone because we were all different and we had a multicultural open school so that was not a worry for me.

Bernie described the positive experience of immersing herself in an Asian community later in life: ‘Do you know what? I didn’t even really learn to love Asians until I lived amongst the Asian race, which is only five, six years ago.’

Bernie demonstrates the importance of proximity to ethnic Chinese communities and exposure to multicultural or Asian societies for the understanding and acceptance of self and identity.

Similarly, engaging with adoption communities was also described as a positive experience. Dean described his feeling of belonging in the adoption group:

But one thing is with our group, the [Taiwanese adoption] group, we always have that weekend together which is – I don’t know, we feel like we all belong together, because we’ve all been adopted.

Eileen explained the impact of knowing other adopted people throughout their childhood, describing her relationship with a Sri Lankan adoptee:

I saw him sometimes when I was young and we would play together so I think that helped me … knowing that it was okay to be a little bit different.

This highlights the positive impact of connection to other adoptees and how this normalises an individual’s identity. Thus, despite the racism from peers experienced by most of the participants, involvement in a multicultural or adoptive community clearly aided their ability to gain a sense of belonging and identity.

Fostering bicultural identity: parental impact on identity development

Parents obviously play an integral role in shaping the cultural identity of their child and inducing a sense of belonging. But the participants explained that this could be achieved in several ways. Some attempted to engage their child in Taiwanese culture and multiculturalism but their lack of understanding of that culture often made this difficult and confounded the development of a positive racial-ethnic identity. Instead, some adoptees reported identifying with their parents’ cultural identity, over a Taiwanese one.

In describing these strategies, Eileen explained how her parents introduced her to multiculturalism from an early age through play:

[My adoptive parents] were also very open to multicultural and that sort of thing because I used to have this [doll] and it was a dark-skinned one. And I remember being like, ‘Why do I have to have this one?’… [They were] casually teaching me about being multicultural and things like that.

Others recalled the presence of Taiwanese cultural artefacts around the house and how the family ate Taiwanese food, celebrated Taiwanese festivals, bought their child traditional Chinese clothing and arranged visits to Taiwan. As Kelly described:

I feel like my parents have always been there for me, they’ve always supported it [cultural expression]. They’ve never been like, ‘Do this, do that, believe in this way or this culture.’ I’ve never felt that way and they’ve never pressed it upon me that, ‘You have to have it in your life and you don’t have to have it.’ I think it came from me that this is what I would like to explore, this is what I would like to show.

But despite good intentions, these attempts were not always successful. Parents’ lack of understanding of Taiwanese culture and how this made it difficult for adoptees to engage in it was a recurring theme. This was Eileen’s experience:

They tried to introduce me to it all and help me be as culturally aware as I could but it’s also very hard for them because… they’re Caucasian and they’ve never experienced anything different so it’s hard to kind of educate your child in their culture if you’re not really familiar with it to start with… I didn’t feel a great sense of connection because it kind of was new to everyone… it felt kind of like posed.

Some, such as Catlin, reported identifying more strongly with their adoptive family’s heritage. She described the cultural influences of their upbringing as coming from their parents’ Italian and Irish origins as well as from Australian and Taiwanese culture.

The most successful attempts recalled by adoptees were those which fostered meaningful relationships with people from that particular culture who serve as cultural mentors to the growing child. These relationships may come about in the context of community settings, such as schools, churches and playgroups, demonstrating the value of actively seeking out promotive environments that reinforce positive messages about the child’s cultural identity. Peer relationships with other families who have adopted children from the same country were another common source of cultural connection. Ivan shared his experience of having a group of family friends who had also adopted children from Asia:

Everyone wants to feel a part of something. And you do feel a part of the family who has adopted you, but at the same time I feel personally growing up having this adopted group, I felt a part of that. I wasn’t alone. Like I said, all the [people] in that group we’ve almost formed this feeling of being [siblings] together and always being there for each other. And I think that that bond is formed through adoption, but never really spoken about too much amongst us.

Ambivalence with bicultural identity: understanding of self

Nearly all of the adoptees interviewed reported issues or discomfort with their bicultural identity and many described a dissonance between this and their physical appearance. This impaired the development of their cultural identity, even in post-assimilation Australia.

Greta described her understanding of herself, highlighting the difference between her physical appearance and identity:

I look Asian, but I don’t feel it. …Because I don't speak the language and when I talk [with people speaking] Indian, Mandarin or another Asian language, it feels very foreign… I don’t feel like them.

Caitlin recounted similar unease:

I feel when I’m out and about with strangers, or just generally in the public, I’m the centre part of a Venn diagram; I’m not in the circle that is labelled ‘Asian’ and I’m not really 100% in the circle that’s labelled ‘Australian’.

The older adoptees (Adrienne, Bernie and Justin) tended to report more negative experiences regarding identity insecurity and a lack of belonging. Justin described the dissonance between his perceived and actual self:

I always described myself as feeling like I was wearing a costume, like, I was Australian, but then I had this mask on, that people would perceive me in a different way.

Adrienne echoed this by describing a feeling of dissonance between her identity and perceived self, describing herself as, ‘like a monkey in a circus, like a freak show’.

Discomfort with a bicultural identity can also affect an adopted person’s health, self-esteem and well-being, as Bernie explains:

I had issues, like I became a drug addict and other things, but I would never at the time attribute it to my adoption. I was just being a tool and having identity issues but not realising until later on what that could be probably nailed down to a little bit more.

These narratives all demonstrate the different ways in which racism, biculturalism, cultural dissonance and factors like physical appearance can make it difficult for Taiwanese children adopted to Australia to form a secure and congruent sense of self and overcome their negative impact on self-esteem and well-being.

Discussion

In identifying identity and belonging as issues facing intercountry adoptees, the impact of assimilationist attitudes can be examined on societal, community and familial levels. The findings of this study support previous research where societal attitudes towards Asian Australians have been shown to shape the way Asian adoptees view themselves (Ben-Zion, 2014). As with Feast and colleagues’ (2012) retrospective study of girls from Hong Kong orphanages adopted by British families, the experience of racism was common, as was the feeling at times in early life of wanting to look less Chinese. Similarly, a survey of 179 Korean adoptees found that three-quarters of the participants reported that racial discrimination was encountered with moderate to high frequency over their childhoods and the same proportion sometimes felt, or wished to be, white (McGinnis, et al., 2009). Other findings about intercountry adopteees are also supported by this study, such as the influence of community contexts on shaping perceived identity (Long and Gale, 2017) and the ability of adoptive parents to positively influence identity development by encouraging their children to engage with their birth culture (Ferrari, et al., 2015).

Influences on the adoptees’ lives at the micro, meso and macro levels clearly relate to one another in complex ways. The findings of this study point to the importance of messages from different environments (e.g. communities and schools) and relationships (e.g. peers and parents) and how these interact. Where these influences mirror one another in giving positive messages about the adoptees’ ethnic identity, the development of a positive ethnic identity for intercountry adoptees is highly likely. In particular, those who experienced multicultural school environments that embraced diversity, relationships with Asian peers, friendships with other intercountry adoptees and parents who integrated practices about the child’s cultural background into their daily life (e.g. through language, food, and other methods) reported a greater sense of comfort with being Asian Australian. Connection with multicultural or Asian communities also fostered ethnic pride, a positive identity and increased cultural knowledge (Kim, 2012).

In contrast, adoptees who experienced inhibitive environments that reinforced racism within their schools, communities and even families faced considerable difficulties in establishing a comfortable self-identity. The older adoptees in particular described practices that ignored their ethnic differences or led them to feel ostracised. Clashes between environments were also described as undermining the development of cultural identity development, for example, receiving positive messages about one’s culture from family while being bullied about it at school.

The identity narratives of the adoptees also conform with the postcolonial construction of a ‘hybrid’ identity, whereby individuals do not fit fully into either category of western or non-western (Ben-Zion, 2014). Ang (2001) argued that individuals with a hybrid identity can feel they do not belong in societies that have strict dualist boundaries of East and West, such as contemporary Australia. From the perspective of a social identity theory, adoptees’ rejection of their Asian/Taiwanese heritage was caused by a social perception that an Asian identity is inferior to a Caucasian one (Tajfel and Turner, 1986). The racism that adoptees experienced denoted this perceived inferiority. But there are additional complications, especially for the older participants, as the adoptees also reported being denied an Australian identity, therefore excluded from identifying with the socially perceived ‘valuable’ one. From a postcolonial analysis, this finding can be explained by assimilationist attitudes being more prevalent in Australian society in the 1970s and 1980s when the older adoptees came over than they have been in subsequent decades. Nevertheless, the results of the study indicate that post-assimilationist attitudes to an Australian identity are still making it difficult for Taiwanese adoptees to secure a positive sense of self and belonging.

Conclusion

The experiencing of racism was common across the sample of intercountry adoptees of all ages who took part in the study. Often this is expressed in subtle ways, such as in misrecognition or where community members routinely ask, ‘Where are you from?’ (Koskinen, 2015). Despite having an Australian accent, the adoptees said that this was a frequent question put to them, asking them to account for how they fit in as an ‘Australian’ when they look ‘Asian’. This has been widely reported in other studies (see, for example, first-hand accounts from adoptees in Long and Gale, 2017) and presents a constant reminder that they are not seen as belonging to the country where they have lived for nearly all of their lives (Walton, 2009). Taiwanese adoptees growing up with predominately white Anglo Australian parents cannot conceal their Asian ethnic identity and adoptive status and some participants said that they did not tell their parents about experiences of racism.

Rather than the onus being on the adopted person to manage such encounters, it is important for adoptive parents to be supported to know how to create an environment open to conversations about race and identity. This might include ways in which the adoptive family see themselves as a mixed-race unit or collectively work on an ‘adoptive family identity’ (Tan and Liu, 2019). Most adoptees’ parents attempted to engage their child in Taiwanese culture which research has demonstrated can improve the child’s self-esteem and lead to a positive ethnic identity (Chen, 2016; Ferrari, et al., 2015; Long and Gale, 2017). Yet there were substantial barriers to doing this due to adoptive parents’ lack of knowledge and understanding of Taiwanese culture. Forming relationships with Taiwanese people can create opportunities for cultural mentoring for the child and adoptive family, and building relationships with peers and role models who share the same cultural background is clearly helpful in supporting the development of children's cultural identity (McGinnis, et al., 2009).

Social workers, too, can play an integral role in this through assessing potential adoptive parents’ ability to foster a cultural identity and educating them about ethnic identity development (Bailey, 2007). Adoption professionals can specifically explain the effects of past assimilation policies on contemporary Australian society and how this determines adoptees’ sense of self and belonging. Intercountry adoptees also need to receive more validation for their Asian Australian identity and be raised in an environment that values their birth culture, which can be facilitated by connecting adoptees to multicultural, Asian and adopted communities. This normalises adoptees’ identity as non-white Australians, allowing them to achieve a secure sense of self and belonging. The important condition for improving the experiences and opportunities of intercountry adoptees is for congruence at all levels – macro, meso and micro. This requires national policies on anti-racism and good professional practice about intercountry adoption, schools and communities that provide equal opportunities and make children feel comfortable, and adoptive parents who are trained and supported to connect to their children’s birth cultures in meaningful ways.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank the adoptees for sharing their experiences. Thank you to Sarah King and Dhammika Morrissey for providing assistance with participant recruitment and interviewing.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. This research partnership was made possible through the National Taiwan University/University of Sydney Partnership Grant. Additional funding was provided by a University of Sydney Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences grant.

Note

Jennifer Stoddart graduated from the Bachelor of Social Work Programme with Honours at the Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney.

Amy Conley Wright is Associate Professor and Director, Research Centre for Children and Families, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney.

Margaret Spencer is Lecturer, Sydney School of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney.

Sonja van Wichelen is Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Social Policy, The University of Sydney.

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