China's Hidden Children: Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy
Description
In the thirty-five years since China instituted its One-Child Policy, 120,000 children-mostly girls-have left China through international adoption, including 85,000 to the United States. It's generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China's approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story-a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter. Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China's Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country's stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed-from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China's so-called abandoned children have increasingly become "stolen" children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally-but illegally-adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages. The image of the "unwanted daughter" remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China's Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one's child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China's birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.
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ISBN:
9780226352657
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Grouping Information
Grouped Work ID | ce472a07-65bd-d9c6-1a13-5876e5638a65 |
---|---|
Grouping Title | chinas hidden children abandonment adoption and the human costs of the one child policy |
Grouping Author | kay ann johnson |
Grouping Category | book |
Grouping Language | English (eng) |
Last Grouping Update | 2024-01-26 15:04:47PM |
Last Indexed | 2024-05-17 23:03:49PM |
Solr Fields
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author
Johnson, Kay Ann
author2-role
hoopla digital
author_display
Johnson, Kay Ann
display_description
In the thirty-five years since China instituted its One-Child Policy, 120,000 children-mostly girls-have left China through international adoption, including 85,000 to the United States. It's generally assumed that this diaspora is the result of China's approach to population control, but there is also the underlying belief that the majority of adoptees are daughters because the One-Child Policy often collides with the traditional preference for a son. While there is some truth to this, it does not tell the full story-a story with deep personal resonance to Kay Ann Johnson, a China scholar and mother to an adopted Chinese daughter. Johnson spent years talking with the Chinese parents driven to relinquish their daughters during the brutal birth-planning campaigns of the 1990s and early 2000s, and, with China's Hidden Children, she paints a startlingly different picture. The decision to give up a daughter, she shows, is not a facile one, but one almost always fraught with grief and dictated by fear. Were it not for the constant threat of punishment for breaching the country's stringent birth-planning policies, most Chinese parents would have raised their daughters despite the cultural preference for sons. With clear understanding and compassion for the families, Johnson describes their desperate efforts to conceal the birth of second or third daughters from the authorities. As the Chinese government cracked down on those caught concealing an out-of-plan child, strategies for surrendering children changed-from arranging adoptions or sending them to live with rural family to secret placement at carefully chosen doorsteps and, finally, abandonment in public places. In the twenty-first century, China's so-called abandoned children have increasingly become "stolen" children, as declining fertility rates have left the dwindling number of children available for adoption more vulnerable to child trafficking. In addition, government seizures of locally-but illegally-adopted children and children hidden within their birth families mean that even legal adopters have unknowingly adopted children taken from parents and sent to orphanages. The image of the "unwanted daughter" remains commonplace in Western conceptions of China. With China's Hidden Children, Johnson reveals the complex web of love, secrecy, and pain woven in the coerced decision to give one's child up for adoption and the profound negative impact China's birth-planning campaigns have on Chinese families.
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eBook
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eBook
id
ce472a07-65bd-d9c6-1a13-5876e5638a65
isbn
9780226352657
last_indexed
2024-05-18T05:03:49.225Z
lexile_score
-1
literary_form
Non Fiction
literary_form_full
Non Fiction
local_time_since_added_eh
Year
primary_isbn
9780226352657
publishDate
2016
publisher
The University of Chicago Press
recordtype
grouped_work
subject_facet
Adoption
Asians
China
Electronic books
Asians
China
Electronic books
title_display
China's Hidden Children : Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy
title_full
China's Hidden Children : Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy [electronic resource] / Kay Ann Johnson
title_short
China's Hidden Children
title_sub
Abandonment, Adoption, and the Human Costs of the One-Child Policy
topic_facet
Adoption
Asians
Electronic books
Asians
Electronic books
Solr Details Tables
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record_details
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hoopla:MWT15652483 | eBook | eBook | English | The University of Chicago Press | 2016 | 1 online resource (233 pages) |
scoping_details_eh
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