Dominicans Are Adding to My Confusion!

I have been struggling with these zombie-like dark circles lately, so I decided to get a makeover. I went into a large department store (not in my town) and the makeup artist assigned to help conceal these circles was named, Yvonne. Through conversation, I learned that Yvonne was half African-American and half Filipino. We talked about all kinds of things as I sat there...what I was doing wrong with my makeup (ugh!), our kids, and adoption. 

As I was finishing up, Yvonne's co-worker, Tamara, reported to work. Tamara appeared to be a very light skinned, African-American woman. Come to find out, she was Dominican. As she walked around the counter, I caught a glimpse of her hair. Beautiful!! Exactly how I would like my daughter's hair to look. She wore her hair down and curly. It wasn't an Afro, more like borderline ringlets. I guess this wasn't a typical hairstyle for her because her coworkers were going on and on about how much they liked her hair curly.

At the sight of Tamara, I said..."I love your hair! My adopted daughter is African-American, how do I get her hair to look like yours?!" Well, that started an entire conversation about what type of hair my daughter has, how to get it looking like Tamara's, hair products, cultural differences in styles...I guess Dominican's don't wear braids...and more! By this time, Yvonne had entered the hair discussion, too.

Both women were in agreement; I must find a Dominican hair salon for my daughter. That was the best thing for her. "Dominican's are the best!"

Hummm....that puts a whole new twist on things...could my daughter possibly wear her hair down and curly? Could the Dominicans teach me a thing or two about hair products? What makes Dominicans the experts on Black hair care? And most importantly....Where are on earth can I find a Dominican hair salon?

I began researching Dominican hair salons as soon as I got home. Come to find out, there are no Dominican Salons within 300 miles of me. Not a complete surprise. But I also learned, Dominican hair salons are considered good because they are cheaper than the traditional African-American salons. Because of the Dominican's style techniques, a style lasts longer, and the Dominicans use a blow out method that involves a "round brush." The brush makes all of the difference! Supposedly after a good "blow out," the hair is bouncy and blows in the wind!

Well I supposed I won't be driving to a Dominican hair salon anytime soon. However, the ladies at the makeup counter did give me a list of hair products I should try, so I will start there. Even though my investigating did not lead to a Dominican hair salon, I did get Yvonne's number if I should have any hair questions, some hair advice which is always appreciated, and I look a little less zombie-like now that my circles are nicely covered!

Just Keep Swimming

Those of you have been reading my blog, know I am on a quest to connect my daughter to her culture and her heritage. During the summer I take the kids to the pool...the pool that has only white people...so considering I'm on a quest to connect my daughter to her race, I do feel a little bad that 99% of the time, she is the only minority there.


It is interesting, because every time we go to the pool she is drawn to the same woman. She is so obsessed with this woman that I have enacted a new rule. If your "friend" is not sitting in the pool, you may not talk to her. When the woman ventures off of her chair and into the water, my daughter splashes over to the edge of the gradual entry pool, sits down, crosses her little legs at the ankles, and visits with the woman. After several days of this, I went up to the woman and said, "I'm so sorry if my daughter is bugging you, for some reason she is really drawn to you." The woman assured me that my daughter wasn't being a problem. The woman, who is Caucasian, but extremely brown noted that maybe my daughter is drawn to her because they both have such brown skin. I thought this was very interesting and probably quite true. My daughter is looking out for someone that looks like her…she is searching.

Today at the pool...yes we are there quite a bit, but it is 101 degrees in the shade and there is nothing left to do...my daughter found a little girl to play with that looked to be just her age. This little girl and my daughter not only had their age in common, but also they were both adopted, and they were both minorities. The little girl was Asian. There were lots of little girls at the pool, little white girls, but only one other adopted, minority girl and that is the one my daughter decided to play with. I wondered if at the tender age of four, somehow she knew this little girl was more similar to her than all of the other little girls. Did she realize they were both minorities or was it just a coincidence? I don't know. But it does seem as if she has begun the search of finding who she is in this world and how she fits into it.


Since the beginning of my blogging journey, I've considered this to be something I'm doing all by myself. I am wanting to connect my daughter to her heritage. I am looking for answers. I am on a quest. I am searching. Maybe...just maybe...I am not alone. It seems as if she has all ready begun her own journey of discovery, I need to travel this road with her. We will have much more fun together!

God Odds

I recently finished the book, Growing up Black in White, by Kevin D. Hofmann. He is a bi-racial man that was adopted into a white family as an infant in the late 60's in Detroit. In the book, Hofmann addresses racial tensions in the community, the loving support of his white family, and his desire to "define and embrace" his own identity. I really enjoyed his book, and it gave me an inside view into the mind of someone being black, growing up in a white family.

One thing in the book I thought he said beautifully was that it is his belief that each adoptee is "divinely matched and placed with their adoptive family." I believe this to be true! He went on to say the union between himself and his adoptive parents were "God odds; odds only God could overcome."

When we got the call that we had been matched with a healthy, 3-month-old baby girl, it was incredibly hard to believe, because we had been waiting years.  We were to pick her up in just a few days. Word began to spread we were getting a baby and gifts began to pour in. We were excited, nervous, and scared all at the same time. It was quite the emotional roller coaster to say the least. On the day before we were to pick her up, I was trying to get some work done before my maternity leave. Out of nowhere, completely blindsided, our agency called to let us know that the baby's birth father had decided to raise his daughter. We’d waited for years, never been matched, and then we get our dreams squished just like that! Ugh!

Words can’t really express the sorrow. I’ve never had a child die...thank heavens...but I can imagine it would feel something like the moment when I was told the birthfather was raising his daughter. I was devastated.

Well, we mourned her loss, returned the gifts, and moved on. What else can you do? Three months later, the agency called again. They had another match for us. This one was a little different. This baby was also a girl, she was also black, but a major difference was that this baby wasn’t healthy. She was born 3 months premature, weighed less than 3 pounds, wore a heart monitor, had acid reflux (which included formula shooting out her nose like a horror film), had potential for delays, and retinopathy  (a potentially blinding condition often seen in preemies). Yikes! We were very torn…not only did this baby have health issues, but also her birth parents' rights weren’t terminated yet…so there was the whole legal risk issue again. We just weren’t sure if we should take that leap of faith or not.

The agency was giving us a week to think about it. In that week, I was really on the fence. What to do? What to do? Then I began putting pieces together…a light bulb came on over my head…I grabbed a calendar…I realized three months earlier on the day we lost the first baby was the very day this new baby was born! The SAME day, I thought our hopes were squished, was the day God was making a way for our new baby!! At that moment, I began to weep because I knew this new baby was meant to be ours. She was "divinely matched" and placed into our family. Those odds...were God odds!

Speaking of...

I have just been invited to speak at a Catholic Charities training event. I will be speaking about the ins and outs of transracial adoption. It has been a while since I have spoken to a crowd of people that are not in elementary school, so I am a little nervous. However, I am very excited about teaching people about what I've learned about raising a child of a different race and the joys and challenges that go along with it.

As I begin to prepare my presentation, I was wondering...what questions would you want answered if you were thinking about adopting a child of a different race? Let me know.

Hair I Come!

I have finally done it! I have taken the leap into black hair care that I have wanted to take for quite some time. I ordered hair snaps for my daughter's braids. For those of you not familiar with this hair bling accessory, it is somewhere between a bead and a barrette. You just snap it on at the end of the braid and wall-ah! You have a braid that doesn't unravel and a little girl that is happy because she makes all kinds of noise when her snaps are bumping together!

The snaps came in the mail today, so we immediately ripped open the package and found a large assortment of flower shaped, colorful snaps. Red, blue, yellow, pink, white, green...you name it. She immediately said, "put them in, put them in!"

So I began the process of putting one snap onto the end of each braid...all 60 of them. That is a lot of bling! Once we had them in she immediately began swinging her hair around, the hair snaps making a happy noise as they clinked together. To add to the party, my daughter began skipping and singing her own made up song about hair in her very big, four year old voice. "I love my Afro hair, I love my Afro hair." 

I want her to be proud of her "Afro hair." So that skipping, singing, snaps a-clicking girl, makes this one happy mama!

I am including on of our favorite hair videos: 

I Love My Hair, by Sesame Street http://youtu.be/enpFde5rgmw

The Elephant Doctor

My daughter was born into generational poverty. It is important to me that she breaks that cycle of poverty that her birth family has struggled with for so long. In Bill Cosby's book, Come on, People, he mentions a study, which in a nutshell says, parents who asked their children, "What kind of doctor do you want to be?" were more likely to raise children who became doctors (PhD and medical) than those parents who just say, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Hmmm....interesting...


So I ask my daughter on a regular basis that very question. 


Today's conversation, "What kind of doctor do you want to be when you grow up?"


"I don't know. Can I have a snack?"


"Just tell me first, what kind of doctor do you want to be when you grow up?"


"An elephant doctor."


"Really? Do you mean you want to help sick elephants?" In the back of my mind I was thinking she could have been considering being an elephant that was a doctor. Just last week, she wanted to be a "princess doctor." Not a doctor that takes care of princesses, but a princess that happened to be a doctor. Anyway, I digress...


"Yes, I want to take care of sick elephants."


"How are you going to help the elephants?"


"Feed them water, bananas, and nuts."


"Where are you going to live when you grow up?"


"The North Pole!"


Ok...Probably not a high demand for elephant doctors at the North Pole, but you never know! At least I am getting the idea of higher education into her head and she is goal setting. Right? I know in time she will discover a goal and purpose that will fulfill her and bring her joy...even if she isn't a doctor and even if she isn't taking care of elephants at the North Pole!

Is that man from Africa?

I'm always looking for opportunities to take my daughter to African-American events that embrace her culture. Not long ago, the African Children's Choir was in town and I thought that would be great learning experience for her. On the night of the event, I wanted to make sure I picked a seat up front so she could get a good view of the action. The Ugandan children, mostly aged 7-11, came dancing and singing down the aisle wearing their traditional African clothing. My daughter was literally dancing in the aisle! She loved it!

In moments such as these, I like to point out to her how her skin looks like their skin...brown and beautiful. This particular night, I was also telling her how these children are from a continent far, far away called Africa.  She was so engrossed in the music and dancing I really didn't think she heard me. She is only four and doesn't always pay attention to me when I talk.

A few days later, we were at the mall. There was a black man walking toward us and as she points at him she says very loudly, "Is that man from Africa?"

"Shhh and don't point," I say.

"Well he has brown skin."

"You are right sweetie, he does have brown skin, but I don't think he is from Africa. I think he lives in our town. His ancestors are from Africa"

She stopped the questioning and I could tell she was mulling something around in her brain. Perhaps trying to process why some people with brown skin are from Africa and some people with brown skin are from her hometown or quite possibly why her mother would use a big word like "ancestor" with a girl of only four.

A few minutes later, another black man passes...can you guess?

"Is that man from Africa?"

Ugh! At least I know she was listening! :)

Raising a Strong Black Woman?

When my oldest, and somewhat sheltered,  child was in 4th grade, she came home from school a little frustrated because someone at school had said the "F word." Actually, she hadn't heard the word, but someone told someone that so and so said the "F word." So she sat at the table and told us the story about the kids at school talking about the kid who said the "F word." In an exasperated tone, and hands waving, she said, "kids at school keep saying that someone said the "F word" and I don't even know what that means...Funny? Fabulous? Fantastic? What? What does it mean?"


I hear the label "strong black woman" all of the time. I feel a little like my oldest daughter in that I don't know exactly what that means but I hear that label being dropped frequently.  I think I want to raise my daughter to be a strong, black woman. I think...but since I don't know what the label means, I decided to do some investigating.


First, I decided to look up the word "strong" in the dictionary. Of course, it means the typical "having strength," but I wanted to see what else that word had to offer. Other definitions included: powerful in influence, competent, and having courage. All of those definitions set well with me. I can handle it if my daughter is influential, competent, and courageous!


However, I still wasn't sure what it actually means to be a strong black woman. I found a Facebook page called "Beyond Black & White" by Christyelyn D. Karazin. I read several of her blogs and decided I would pose the question to her: How do I raise my daughter to be a strong black woman when I don't know what that means? I found her answer to be both informative and interesting. Christyelyn basically said that she doesn't believe in the label "strong black woman." She went on to say that she has three daughters, and she is not raising them to be "strong black women." She is raising them to be WOMEN, educated, refined, and with high expectations in what they want out of life and out of a partner.


Wow! That sounds like a big task, doesn't it? But you know, there was a great sense of relief there for me because, even though that task is monumental, I can do that! Forget about the label. Forget about being exasperated because others are saying so and so told so and so that I should be raising a strong black woman. I just need to raise my daughter to the best of my ability and teach her along the way to be a WOMAN...educated, refined, and with amazingly high expectations!

It's OK if She Screams!

One time we were in Kansas City on a short trip. At the time, my daughter was only about 6 months old and her hair was short and fairly straight.  There was a black woman that was working in a department store that stopped us and asked us a few questions like, "How old is she?" And "Where is she adopted from?" After we left the store, she came running out. She was hollering, "Wait! Wait!" I couldn't imagine why on earth she would be running out of the store...while at work...to flag us down.  We stopped, a little apprehensively. She ran up to us clearly out of breath, and said, "I just want to tell you that white people that adopt black girls don't always comb their hair out very well and it gets ratty. You need to really comb her hair out, even if she screams. It is the best thing and eventually, she will get used to it."

So began my journey into black hair.

My hair is straight as a string. I've never had a curl on my head that wasn't put there by a curling iron, blow dryer, or hot roller. I have always wanted naturally curly hair, but that just wasn't in the cards for me. Since I have no knowledge of what it is like to have curly hair and I have no experience with African American hair, bringing our little, black baby home was an eye opening experience.

I can't really compare my daughter's hair to any other black person, since I have no experience with Afro-American hair. But I can tell you that her hair is the curliest, thickest, hardest to comb, hair I have ever seen. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not complaining. I love her hair. Her hair is soft as cotton and when it is down I could just touch it all day. I love her hair in her afro-puffs (little pony tails), braids, corn rows, or just in an afro. It is beautiful.

Today it is time to wash and braid my daughter's hair. It is a day I both dread and love. The challenge of having a toddler sit for hours while I remove the braids, wash her hair, and then re-braid is a pain. It is time consuming and makes both of us slightly irritable. On the other hand, it is a wonderful because we spend hours of quality time together, talking, singing, and watching our favorite Disney movies.

Since black hair is very different from white hair, I have had to learn a lot of new things. For example, black hair is very dry, does not have to be washed daily, and breaks off easily. Unfortunately, I have first hand experience at how easily black hair can break off. I can't really explain the trauma it causes in a mother when you realize the cute hairdo you put in your daughter's hair, the one with all of the little plastic hairbands, begins to break off at the root. The root! All of the hair, at the root, around the perimeter of her head...gone! Did I say, at the root!!! It was like something out of a horror movie. I actually thought about suing the company because there was no disclaimer on the package  that said, "WARNING! This will cause your daughter's hair to break off at the root!" Needless to say, I have not used that hair do again and hair moisturizer is my friend.

To learn how to work with her hair, I watch videos on YouTube and talk to lots of black women. I have been known to stop strangers on the street for the sole purpose of discussing black hair. "Excuse me ma'am, sorry to bother you, but I have adopted an African-American girl and I was wondering if you could tell be about how you got your hair to do that?" or "Excuse me, but what hair cream do you use?" or "Excuse me, but does your daughter mind sleeping in all of those beads?" I don't know if these women appreciate my curiosity or just pity me, but they always oblige and answer all of my questions.

When I am combing out my daughter's hair and she is screaming, I tell her about the kind woman in Kansas City who told me how important it was to have her hair combed out. She doesn't seem to appreciate my story of the sweet women, but maybe, one day, after the screams fade and she is grown, she will.