Culture Clash. Have you ever experienced culture clash? If so, what kind of cultural clashes have you experienced? If you're an intercountry adoptee have you dealt with language barriers, different cultural values, or prejudice? If you haven’t experienced any of these things, what do you perceive to be differences in your adoptive culture and your natural culture and how do you reconcile those differences?
I was born to a low to middle income white family in a smallish town in southern Ontario. I was a adopted by a middle income white family from the same town. So not a whole lot of culture clash happening there.
My non-identifying information that my parents got when they picked me up from the adoption agency indicated that my birth father was French Canadian. And so was my adoptive father. I`ve always identified as being French Canadian as well, and I think that I do so partly because it gave me a connection to my birth family.
Something that I have often pondered has been how adoption affects an adoptees religious beliefs. Born and raised in one family, you believe XYZ. Adopted into another family and you believe ABC. Most adoptions from my era followed fairly conventional religious sects. Christian born children were adopted into Christian families (although not necessarily the exact same religion) and Jewish born children went to Jewish families. I was raised in the Catholic faith by my adoptive family, but would not have been Catholic had I been raised by Iris. I may have still believed in the same God, but would I have read a different bible, not believed in purgatory and not been able to pray to Saints of my choice? Now as an atheist, I wonder if any of those subtle differences even matter. But it does make for some interesting "what if?" scenarios.
No comments:
Post a Comment