Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
-
Shumin Lin
,
Ming-Hsuan Wu
Abstract
Unlike Korean or Vietnamese adoptees who came to the U.S. during the postwar era, Chinese adoptees are mostly abandoned female infants under China’s one-child policy from 1980 through 2015. Little work has documented Chinese adoptees’ identity (trans)formation across time and space. This study examines how three Chinese adoptees from the U.S. who chose to go to Taiwan to teach English make sense of their Chinese heritages and their lives in and out of Asia. Drawing on the frameworks of positioning and chronotopic identities, this cross-sectional, multiple case study documents the participants’ identity (trans)formations through their narratives on their moves across the U.S., China, and Taiwan during different points of their lives. Our adoptee participants’ home and work experiences over time represent diverse pathways for their negotiations of various aspects of their identities – linguistic, cultural, Chinese, American, Asian American, and adoptee – in their life trajectories transnationally. Their diverse experiences complicate current understandings of adoptee identities within and across the adoptive home, the “homeland” of their birth places, and beyond.
Appendix A: Interview questions (2017–2018)
Tell us about your language, cultural/ethnic background.
Other than English, what languages do you speak? What made you interested in coming to teach English in Taiwan?
When you teach English, do you use Mandarin or other local language to assist your teaching? Why/why not? How does your Mandarin ability (if you can speak Mandarin) influence your teaching?
Do you talk with your co-teacher or school faculty in Mandarin outside/inside the classroom? Why or why not?
In addition to English classes, when you have extra time, what else do you teach to students? What elements of “American culture” do you teach your students?
Tell us about a time when your Asian American identity was seen as an asset in Taiwan.
Tell us about a time when your Asian American identity was seen as a disadvantage in Taiwan.
What has been the biggest challenge for you living and working in Taiwan?
What has been the biggest joy/accomplishment for you living and working in Taiwan?
Blending in v. Standing Out: Identity is fluid and changes depending on which spaces are you are in. Are there times in which you play on your race and purposefully blend-in? Are there times in which you are adamant expressing the difference?
How do you answer the question, “Where are you from?”
Because of your race, do you feel that there are expectations placed on you such as language and cultural understanding?
What are your plans after you leave Taiwan?
Appendix B: Interview questions (2022)
How would you describe the impact being in Asia, Taiwan in particular, has had on your life (if at all) after returning to the U.S.?
Did being in Taiwan change the way you think about your cultural identity/ies? How?
Did working with children in elementary schools in Taiwan make you think of your own childhood in the U.S. (and/or China, if applicable?) Did it change the way you think about your own future relationships (parenthood)?
Does your time in Taiwan distinguish you from other transnational Chinese adoptees? If yes, in what ways? If no, why not?
When you were in Taiwan, were you in a relationship(s) with local Taiwanese people? What were those relationships like?
Did any major life changes happen between when we interviewed you 2–3 years ago to now?
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
- Research Articles
- Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
- The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
- Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
- I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
- Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
- Editorials
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
- Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
- Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
- Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
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- Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
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- Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
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- The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
- The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
- Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
- Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
- The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
- A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special Issue: The Yellow Peril or the Model Minority? Racialized identities and discourses of Asian Americans and Asian Canadians; Guest Editor: Christian Chun
- Research Articles
- Paradoxes of the Canadian mosaic: “being, feeling and doing Canadian”
- The Asian American teaching method? An overview of language education, social justice issues, and challenging ‘Oppressed’ versus ‘Model’ minority binary discourse
- Life and work between home and “homeland”: a narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space
- I ain’t your f*cking Model Minority! Indexical orders of ‘Asianness’, class, and heteronormative masculinity
- Special Issue: Assessment and Creativity through a Translingual Lens; Guest Editors: Lavinia Hirsu, Marta Nitecka Barche and Dobrochna Futro
- Editorials
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: introduction
- Assessment and creativity through a translingual lens: transdisciplinary insights
- Creative translanguaging in formative assessment: Chinese teachers’ perceptions and practices in the primary EFL classroom
- Creativity, criticality and translanguaging in assessment design: perspectives from Bangladeshi higher education
- Integrating translanguaging into assessment: students’ responses and perceptions
- Research Articles
- Investigation of factors underlying foreign language classroom anxiety in Chinese university English majors
- Why can’t I teach English? A case study of the racialized experiences of a female Ugandan teacher of English in an EFL context
- Primary-concern solicitation in Chinese medical encounters
- The relationships between young FL learners’ classroom emotions (anxiety, boredom, & enjoyment), engagement, and FL proficiency
- Visualising the language practices of lower secondary students: outlines for practice-based models of multilingualism
- Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an ESOL classroom: a translanguaging perspective
- Foreign language teacher grit: scale development and examining the relations with emotions and burnout using relative weight analysis
- Vocabulary learning in a foreign language: multimedia input, sentence-writing task, and their combination
- The predictive effects of reading speed and positive affect on first and second language incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading an authentic novel
- The effects of cultural and educational background on students’ use of language learning strategies in CFL learning
- Transl[iter]ating Dubai’s linguistic landscape: a bilingual translation perspective between English and Arabic against a backdrop of globalisation
- Exploring Tibetan residents’ everyday language practices in Danba county, Southwest China: a case study
- The mechanism for the positive effect of foreign language peace of mind in the Chinese EFL context: a moderated mediation model based on learners’ individual resources
- A latent profile analysis of L2 writing emotions and their relations to writing buoyancy, motivation and proficiency
- “Part of me is teaching English”: probing the language-related teaching practices of an English-medium instruction (EMI) teacher
