2 Books: New Perspectives

The two books I'm sharing below offer unique perspectives on issues you may have previously considered black and white, or less complex than other, harder issues.  What will change your perspective isn't the annoying, in-your-face authors that slam their political views in your face.  These books aren't dripping with sentimentality--colorful language tugging at the hem of your apron with wide eyes, wanting to be picked up and cradled.   They are narratives.  True stories.  Stories that are contemporary; events representing other events that are happening as you read.  They are dirty and true, unique and current.  Let's take a closer look.


Behind the Beautiful Forevers

So much has been said on this beautiful narrative.  I'll try to add a few brush strokes to the painting of praise.  Katherine Boo follows the story of several individuals from the same slum in Mumbai.  They are poor, but it is a different type of poverty than what we may picture.  The Indian children aren't holding their hands out to taxis that go by, but rather, digging through the airport garbage looking for recyclables to sell. Much of their life is luck.  Not only in the "What piece of scrap metal will I find in the trash heap today," but "Will we have to use all of our savings to bribe the police today?" or "Will our gossipy neighbor tell a lie and turn everyone against us today?" or "Will today be the day the airport kicks us off their land?"

Poverty coupled with corruption creates a complex society.  When court cases could be based off of which side provides the bigger bribe, or when anything that isn't nailed down could belong to your neighbor tomorrow, getting ahead isn't easy.  Katherine Boo explores this question of whether it is possible to rise out of the slums, and do so honorably, in her narrative Behind the Beautiful Forevers.  

 The Language of Blood

Jane Jeong Trenka was adopted with her sister from Korea as an infant in the 70's and raised in rural Minnesota by a white couple who were incapable of having children of their own.  Jane's story is common--we see it every day.  A kind, white couple doing the right thing--adopting poor children from overseas who deserve a better life.  But is adoption always the ultimate good--a situation for which the adoptive children should be eternally grateful for?

From the moment Jane and Carol were picked up at the airport, their previous lives were wiped away.  In their new steak and potatoes upbringing, there was no mention of adoption, Korea, or their true culture.  When a young Jane asked her adoptive mother, "Why do some mommies give their babies away?" her adoptive mother got up and left the room. 

As a child she was constantly on display--not because of the behavior of her adoptive parents, but simply because she was Asian.  As a child her family was constantly bombarded with racist questions ("Are they good at math?") or stared at because of their visual differences.  As she grows up she is stalked, harassed ("I just want to be punished.  I've been bad.  I know your people do the caning, right?"), and told to "go back to where she came from."

As Jane grows up and rediscovers her past--involving a long-sought relationship with her birth mother, who had to give Jane away as a baby before her alcoholic husband threw Jane out the window.  On her first trip to Korea, Jane sees other white families accompanying their Asian children on cultural tours.  She writes, "Over the course of the tour, I would grow envious of these children whose parents were so enlightened.  Many of them were not 'replacement' children, as I had been, but children who were genuinely wanted for who they were.  Their parents already had one or two children of their own, and because of their religious or social beliefs they 'made room for one more' and welcomed a Korean child into their home.  How I wanted parents like that, parents who wanted me for me, not to act and look like their white child who never existed."

As a person who has considered adoption for many years, this book raises many questions on culture, race, and identity in adoption.  Why do we adopt from overseas?  What are the implications of this, and do we truly want a Korean child, or do we want a white child in an adorable Asian baby body?