Well, not exactly Losing Isaiah, since a crack-addled Halle Berry isn’t directly involved, but you get the gist: the Tennessee Supreme Court ruled today that a 7-year-old girl raised by an American couple since infancy must be returned to her Chinese parents, who claim they never intended to give her up for adoption, just as a necessity due to “financial and legal hardships they faced at the time.”
The lawyers of the Chinese couple point out differences, cultural and otherwise, between this case and standard international adoption issues:
The case “does not reflect on international adoption at all,” Allen said, since “this was a domestic issue because the parents were here on a student visa. This was not an adoption. There was never an adoption at all.”
It is “commonplace in Chinese culture” for parents to place children temporarily with members of their extended families to raise, Allen said, adding that the Hes apparently sent a son born after Anna Mae back to China to be raised by relatives for two years.
So now a bitter custody battle ensues, between her biological parents, and her other set of adoptive parents that she has grown up with. One side will ultimately “win,” but it may not necessarily be for the best interest for the child.
Or will it be?
What next?
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4 Comments to “Losing Isaiah, the Chinese version”
Christine Zilka wrote:
ah yes–this news story. it has me up in arms! i’m so sad for that daughter.
Posted on 23-Jan-07 at 6:33 pm | Permalink
Susan wrote:
The Chinese parents won!! Amazing, and so, so late. I blame all of the ensuing distress of the daughter on the “adoptive” parents – because the Chinese parents never did consent to adoption, and they never legally adopted her. What a travesty.
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 11:33 am | Permalink
Eun-jung wrote:
Yeah but just imagine the internal suffering that poor girl has to go through. As an adoptee myself, I know that I have had to deal with so much extra crap in my life, extra issues, extra identity crises…this girl is going to have a whirlwind of change in her life. Either way the court ruled she still has a long road ahead of her.
Posted on 07-Mar-07 at 1:28 pm | Permalink
8Asians.com » Anna Mae He, Family To Move Back To China: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] one year ago to the day, 8Asians.com blogged about a real-life version of the movie Losing Isiah – a seven year old girl had been adopted since infancy, but was returned to her Chinese parents. [...]
Posted on 10-Jan-08 at 1:01 pm | Permalink
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