Lucky number 13, just in time for Halloween! As an aside, I fixed several broken links in the adoption disruption blog post.

One of the things that you need to be aware of as an adoptive parent is that when your child is outside of your protective family or community circle, he or she will be perceived as Asian. That sounds obvious, but many white parents assume that their child will never face discrimination or hear racist comments. The past couple of weeks have had some high profile discussion of how well accepted Asians are in America.

• Fox News ran a segment where Jesse Watters visited NY’s Chinatown supposedly to get the Asian opinion on the presidential election but was nothing more than a way to make fun of Asians through endless stereotypes.
• Shortly thereafter, an editor of the New York Times wrote about how a woman had shouted “Go back to China” at him when annoyed at his family on the street.
• The readers’ responses to that article poured in, painting a sad picture of how those sorts of comments are a daily occurrence to Asian Americans.
• PBS ran an interview with Gene Luen Yang, author of graphic novel American Born Chinese discussing his experience growing up as a Chinese American. While I have not read the graphic novel yet, this sounds like a great resource to share with an older child for discussion.

Why Chinese Buy Trafficked Babies Instead of Looking in the Orphanage– Child trafficking does occur in Chinese adoptions but it is mostly contained to illegal domestic adoptions.

China’s Illicit Adoption Market Goes Online -Looking at illegal domestic adoption within China

Born In The U.S., Raised In China: ‘Satellite Babies’ Have A Hard Time Coming Home at NPR is a look at the flip side of the left behind children of migrant workers, those children of US immigrants or permanent residents who send their children to live with relatives in China so they can continue to work.

Seriously Blessed posts an interview with her three daughters who were adopted at an older age discussing their thoughts on adoption before they were adopted. This is a wonderful resource for anyone considering older child adoption.

Elizabeth at Ordinary Time writes a letter to the new adoptive parent from her perspective as an experienced adoptive mom.

The Holt blog featured a post on how to advocate for your older child to receive the ELL services they need at school.