By Joyce Nishioka
(AsianWeek, April 22 1999)
VICKY YEE AND JUSTINE
Vicky Yee knew she was ready to start a family three years ago. She had a stable career and financial security as a high-powered career as a manager at Sun Microsystems — but she was 40. Two weeks after doctors verified that her chances of pregnancy were slim, Yee had an appointment with ACCEPT.
“It’s not a leap to go to adoption if your desire is to have children,” she said.
However, her 82-year-old mother, born in China, was not initially supportive, she said. In Chinese culture, she explained, “your mother’s blood is sacred. ... If you adopt, you don’t know whose blood is in your child.
“There were class issues. ... [My mother’s] biggest concern was, ‘How do you know it will be pretty,’ meaning light-skinned.”
Yee herself had grown up in a traditional Chinese family in Boise, Idaho, where her father was an herbalist. He died when she was 17. After graduating from college, she spent a year in China, then moved to San Francisco, where she developed programs for a southeast Asian community center.
Yee’s career took her to the Department of Labor’s Affirmative Action Office, Apple, Oracle and finally Sun — which meant that she had little time to have children in her 30s. Plus, “the biggest barrier for not having children was that I wasn’t married.”
As she neared 40, though, Yee said she became more confident that marriage didn’t have to precede motherhood.
Friends and family have been supportive of her decision to adopt. For regular daycare, Yee brings Justine to a Chinese American couple, who are teaching the child to speak Chinese.
Now, Yee’s mother is becoming attached to the little girl. “I have to give my mother credit. She has really turned around,” Yee said. “Now she tells me, ‘I don’t know why, but I love Justine even more than my own children.”
MAY MASUNAGA, SCOTT ALDEN AND AKEMI
When May Masunaga and her husband, Scott Alden, adopted baby Akemi from China, acquaintances praised them for their philanthropy, saying “What a nice thing to do.”
That may have been true, but the couple are straightforward in saying, that they weren’t “trying to do a nice thing” when they adopted. Said Alden, “We did it for ourselves.”
Alden, who has Danish roots, and Masunaga, a second-generation Japanese American, said they will raise Akemi “first and foremost” as an American. “She has to learn and understand that she has roots somewhere else, but that she is an American,” her mother said.
The couple spent eight days in China with 11 other prospective adoptive couples, and a guide gave them a tour of Zhangjian, the city where their daughter was born, so they could tell her about it later.
Alden recalls that locals would “mill around them. ‘They wanted to know if the baby was Chinese, and if we were from the United States.” He recalls a Chinese saying from their guide: The baby didn’t find the right womb, but it found the right parents.
Said Masunaga: “I hope we can live up to that.”
LISA LEUNG AND KEN CHU
Lisa Leung and Ken Chu first became a couple some 20 years ago, when both were in the seventh grade at San Francisco’s Roosevelt Junior High. Though they dated others in high school, they got back together as college students, and five years ago, they married.
Since then, both have lived the 24/7 life—Chu as an executive at Oracle and Leung as a manager for a consulting group—which at 60 hours a week is a more relaxed pace than the 80 hours she had put in as a leader for a high-tech startup. “I think we’re at a point in our careers where we’re wondering if it’s worth it to work so many long hours,” Chu said. “I’ve been thinking there’s more to life than just working hard.”
Although he has always wanted children, Leung never thought she would make a good mom—until she got her dog, K.C., four years ago.
“K.C. made me realize I wouldn’t be such a bad mother,” Leung said. “He’s completely my baby. Right now my attention is focused on him, and Ken doesn’t get much attention.”
A few months ago, they got on the waiting list for a Chinese baby, to whom the couple, both fourth-generation Chinese Americans, hope to pass down traditions.
“We’re so distant now; we’re not familiar with our own culture,” Chu said. “It’s a shame, but we’re not sure what we can do about it because it would have to start with us.”
They believe a child may be found within six to eight months—too long to wait, complains Chu. “You know it’s going to happen, and it’s just a matter of waiting,” he said.
But Leung is using the time to mentally prepare for motherhood. As she explained, “I think of it like a pregnancy.”
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