It is interesting to me that over the past year I have seen more white families with African American children, and this makes me happy. Why? Because we are in the same boat - My husband and I adopted a beautiful brown-eyed, black haired, brown skinned GOREGEOUS baby girl last year. As she grew older and solidified herself into our family I have begun to wonder how I will be able to teach her about her racial history. As summer finally reaches Utah the festivals have begun in full-force. There are many different ones to choose from but I still haven't found one that caters to African American history. With this racial group growing due to the local colleges and the increased interest in inter-racial adoption shouldn't we provide this kind of celebration? Everyone deserves to know about their history, whether good or bad...are these children any different? No. So as loving parents what are we going to do about it? We owe it to our children to learn about their cultural history and then teach it to them. This way they can have an appreciation for all the histories that make them...them.
In our family this will include American History - including slavery, European History, and of course African culture. We also plan on teaching her about the Southern states, where she was born. We hope that this will give her a sense of identity, a feeling of belonging in this big wide world we live in. As part of her learning process we will also attend as many cultural events and festivals as possible, hopefully we will have an African Festival sometime in the near future...how fun would that be!
