Jennifer Jin Brower was born in South Korea, but until a few years ago, she had never used chopsticks or heard of kimchee.
Because she looks Asian, strangers ask, "Where are you from? Do you speak English?" But English is her mother tongue - her adoptive mother's tongue.
Ms. Brower, 29, was raised by a Caucasian family in Grand Rapids, Mich. As a child, she says, "I didn't think that I was Asian." But that didn't stop other children from mocking her features.
Ms. Brower, who now lives in Seattle, says she didn't feel confident in her identity until she spent two months in South Korea last year. "I finally felt proud to be Asian and Korean because I finally knew what that meant," she explains.
The generation of children adopted from Asia in the seventies and eighties - mostly from South Korea - has come of age. As adults, thousands are returning to their countries of origin to search for their birth parents, learn the language and reclaim the heritage they lost as infants.
Now, some adoption agencies are taking cues from their stories.
Agencies such as Children's Bridge, based in Ottawa, have started holding mandatory sessions for new adoptive parents on topics such as interracial issues and identity. Organizations such as Families with Children from China, which has chapters in four provinces, run playgroups and culture camps. They also match adoptive families with Chinese immigrant families.
Increasingly, adoption agencies are organizing visits to host countries and other cultural activities for families, according to Sarah Pedersen, information co-ordinator for the Adoption Council of Canada. "We are seeing a lot of this going back, reconnecting and maintaining the cultural identity of the child," she says.
In Canada, a little more than half of the 4,000 or so children adopted each year are from other countries, according to the Adoption Council of Canada.
Speakers at the Children's Bridge sessions include adult adoptees originally from South Korea or Vietnam, says Cathy Murphy, director of adoption services. "They let parents know the challenges they faced along the way."
The challenges are significant, judging by the outpouring of films and writing by international adoptees. Recent works include documentaries such as Operation Babylift: The Lost Children of Vietnam, anthologies such as Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption and online publications including Inthirdspace.net.
Adoptees have also founded organizations such as the International Adoptee Congress, KoRoot - a guesthouse in Seoul for returning adoptees - and Adoptee Solidarity Korea, which is lobbying for the end of intercountry adoption out of South Korea.
A small but vociferous group argues that all international adoption should be abolished. They exchange rants on websites such as Transracialabductees.org, calling the process a "racist system of forced assimilation and brainwashing."
The experiences of today's adult international adoptees are distinct from those of voluntary immigrants and domestic adoptees, according to Richard Lee, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota who studies how Korean adoptees form their identities.
"They were raised at a time when parents were encouraged to take a more colour-blind approach," he says, "which meant ignoring race."
But society treats Asians as a racial minority, Dr. Lee says. For some adoptees, "that came as a shock," he says, "because they were not always aware of their minority status as children."
Nevertheless, most international adoptees grow up to be well-adjusted adults, he adds.
Some become advocates for international adoption. Leah Buchholz, a 24-year-old Korean adoptee, was raised by a German-Canadian family in Vancouver. As an adoption advocate, Ms. Buchholz says, she encourages parents to accept children's curiosity about their birth parents and preadoption lives.
Language lessons, homeland visits and culturally diverse schools can all help give children a sense of their heritage, according to Ms. Murphy of Children's Bridge, who is the mother of two international adoptees in their teens.
