Su Hijo?

Our family status has been questioned in Mexico much more than at home. We hear the question "Su hijo?" a lot. I guess it's because people here recognize E as Mexican, and me especially as "guera." At home, I think people are more likely to ascribe our race to E, not looking closely. I don't really know because we have almost never been asked to explain our relationship to him. In four years, I can think of only once. I'd say it happens twice a week here. Intellectually, I know all this, but it's still jarring when you're explaining you adopted your son to the clown making him a balloon animal for 5 pesos at the mercado.

A Diversity of Faces

Sometimes, I'll catch someone who has the face of a Mayan statue. It's remarkable.

A number of times, I've had the experience of thinking someone looked downright Asian, until they turn full to me, and I can see they are Mexican. I mean, I know the anthropological history, but seriously, some of the children look just like my Korean-American hapa friends back home.

Anytime I see someone with tight curls, though, it's like I'm looking into the face of my child or his birthmother.

At this age, I don't think he sees the differences in his facial structures from the traditional Mexican appearance. He's so focused on the brown skin and black hair and black eyes (because this is the language that was taught to him at his preschool in the US. They didn't describe wide noses, soft cheek bones, or epicanthic folds.) But someday, I imagine he will notice or be made aware of how soft his features.

I feel comforted knowing that, while he does not have the typical Mexican face, when he looks around the city, he'll see faces like his own.

Disturbing

And this is the new packaging!

Color Coding

One of the reasons we were so keen to come to Mexico as a family was to give E the experience of being in the majority ethnicity. I'm hoping that he feels some sense of belonging and connection, laying down some subconscious experience of a world where his color is the norm.

At home, he rarely discussed skin color or feeling different. I tried to bring it up every once in a while, in service to the revelations of Nurtureshock and my other readings on transracial adoption. For example, when we were in Mexico two years ago, I asked two-year-old E if he noticed that everyone had brown skin. He looked at me blankly. (In a similar conversation, we learned that he was oblivious to the fact that people were speaking a different language.)

This time, I pointed out (casually, I hoped) the same phenomenon in our first week here. And it was like a light went on. He started mentioning how people, especially children, have brown skin like him. At a park, he described two, young Anglo women with "They're visiting. They have white skin." (Not my favorite terminology, as I'd like to avoid the white/black race dichotomy at this point. "Light" skin is problematic too, as I think it leads into the whole colorism problem. I'm trying to say "pale" as a prompt.)

Now I'm noticing that he lists brown skin as the one of the first attributes to describe himself. (He may put boy first, I'm not sure.) I over hear D and E  playing some silly game - D asks "Are you my son?" E says "Does your son have brown skin?"

What a change this is! What fortunate timing for us to be back in Mexico when he was developmentally ready to incorporate this information about his identity.

But it also leads to harder thoughts: that identity development requires this kind of external mirror. How important it is for us to connect him with role models, mentors, and peers of color. Should we choose the more-diverse bilingual elementary school, even if it has other drawbacks?