Origin Narratives: The Stories We Tell Children About Immigration and International Adoption

201 Pages·2017·1.52 MB·English

by  Macarena García-González

Origin Narratives
The first of its kind, this volume unpacks the cultural construction of
transnational adoption and migration by examining a sample of recent
children’s books that address the subject. Of all European countries,
Spain is the nation where immigration and transnational adoption have
increased most steeply from the early 1990s onward. Origin Narratives:
The Stories We Tell Children About Immigration and International
Adoption sheds light on the way contemporary Spanish society and its
institutions re-define national identity and the framework of cultural,
political, and ethnic values, by looking at how these ideas are being
transmitted to younger generations negotiating a more heterogeneous
environment. This study collates representations of diversity, migration,
and (colonial) otherness in the texts, as well as their reception by the
adult mediators, through reviews, paratexts, and opinions collected
from interviews and participant observation. In this new work, author
Macarena García-González argues that many of the texts at the wider
societal discourse of multiculturalism, which have been warped into a
pedagogical synthesis, underwrite the very racism they seek to combat.
Comparing transnational adoption with discourses about immigration
works as a new approach to the question of multiculturalism and makes
a valuable contribution to an array of disciplines.
Macarena García-González has a Ph.D from the University of Zurich,
Switzerland, and is currently a lecturer at the Catholic University and
Diego Portales University in Santiago de Chile. She has published in
journals such as The Lion and The Unicorn and Children’s Literature
Association Quarterly, and she is co-author of La Era Ochentera TV,
pop y under en dictadura (2015).
Children’s Literature and Culture
Jack Zipes, Founding Series Editor
Philip Nel, Current Series Editor
For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com.
Contemporary British Children’s Literature and Cosmopolitanism
Fiona McCulloch
Prizing Children’s Literature
The Cultural Politics of Children’s Book Awards
Edited by Kenneth B. Kidd and Joseph T. Thomas, Jr.
Canon Constitution and Canon Change in Children’s Literature
Edited by Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer and Anja Müller
Fictions of Integration
American School Desegregation
and the Legacies of Brown v. Board of Education
Naomi Lesley
New Directions in Children’s Gothic
Debatable Lands
Edited by Anna Jackson
More Words About Pictures
Current Research on Picture Books
and Visual/Verbal Texts for Young People
Edited by Perry Nodelman, Naomi Hamer,
and Mavis Reimer
Childhood and Pethood in Literature and Culture
New Perspectives on Childhood Studies and Animal Studies
Edited by Anna Feuerstein and Carmen Nolte-Odhiambo
Origin Narratives
The Stories We Tell Children about Immigration and
International Adoption
Macarena García-González
Origin Narratives
The Stories We Tell Children about
Immigration and International
Adoption
Macarena García-González
First published 2017
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2017 Taylor & Francis
The right of Macarena García-González to be identified as
author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance
with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
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including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
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trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for
identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
CIP data has been applied for.
ISBN: 978-0-415-78548-8 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-22820-4 (ebk)
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Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 The Books We Recommend to Children: Ideologies
and Politics in Reading Promotion 13
2 Framing the Questions: Previous Research,
Theoretical Frameworks, and Case-Study Materials 23
3 I Came by Plane: The Masterplan of International
Adoptions 35
4 They Came from the Desert: Immigration Plots
and Tropes 59
5 The United Colors of the Rainbow: Explaining
Human ‘Races’ and Racism 95
6 Intersected Identities: Nationality, Class, Gender,
and Ableism in the Making of ‘Race’ 113
7 Nation-as-Family: Tropes of Kin and Orphanhood 138
Conclusions 160
Works Cited 171
Index 187
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List of Figures
3.1 The first pages of I Love You Like Crazy Cakes and
En Algún Lugar de China contrast the waiting of the
children with the active preparation of the mothers.
Illustrations by Jane Dyer and Emilio Amade 41
3.2 The mother reads a book that has a similar elongated
format to the book we are reading. Illustration by
Emilio Amade 45
4.1 Alba believes she has encountered The Three Kings
in the street. They may just be three immigrants.
Illustration by María Luisa Torcida 86
5.1 In Madlenka, the story zooms in to focus on the
character who will act as the focalizer. Illustration
by Peter Sís 101
5.2 Madlenka invites us to see the world as she does. The
use of a new font underlines a change to the first-person
voice, a point of view that is emphasized in the visual
narration as well. Illustration by Peter Sís 102
5.3 Each character is presented as an ambassador from a
different culture. Illustration by Peter Sís 104
5.4 Mr. Eduardo is the ambassador for Latin America,
represented as an Andean native yet nevertheless
connected to the Amazonian tropical forest, Mayan and
Aztecan iconographies. Illustration by Peter Sís 105
5.5 Cómo curé a papá de su miedo a los extraños uses
visual narration to contradict the verbal statements
of the racist character. Illustration by Ole Könnecke 107
5.6 Despite a start in which stereotypes were deconstructed
in the visual narration, the novel ends up reproducing a
whole set of them. Illustration by Ole Könnecke 108
6.1 Amira is now integrated: she leads the action and the
local children follow her. Illustration by Mikel Valverde 120
6.2 Physical similarity between the (adoptive) mother and
the child is suggested with the use of the (Chinese) silk
robe and the slanted eyes of both. Illustration by Jane Dyer 128
viii List of Figures
6.3 When they finally meet, the adoptive parents embrace
the child, and they all look alike with slanted eyes.
Illustration by Emilio Amade 129
6.4 The front covers of the collection Llegué de… present
international adoptees as if exotic ambassadors of
ethnic groups. Illustrations by Luci Gutiérrez 131
Acknowledgments
It is untrue that writing is a solitary job. Writing, at least writing this
book, has been the product of a permanent exchange with many people
from all over the world. Some of them are acknowledged in the citations
in the next pages, but the most important are not, so here a note to
acknowledge my gratitude to them.
I should start with Ingrid Tomkowiak and Jens Andermann, the two
generous advisors of my doctoral dissertation at University of Zurich,
who were always there for me, giving invaluable comments and advice.
I am thankful for each of our meetings, their comments and annotated
copies of my draft. Their intellectual gifts are scattered all through this
book, which was firstly written as a doctoral thesis.
Lies Wesseling, the supervisor of my Master’s at the University of
Maastricht was who brought my attention to the narratives of trans-
national adoption and introduced me to a number of the theoretical
insights I use in this work. I’m thankful for working with her and Maaike
Meijer, who was then the director of the Center for Gender and Diversity
of the University of Maastricht, where I also met inspirational colleagues
when I was considering an academic career after many years in cultural
journalism.
During 2013, I made a six months research stay in Barcelona. I’m really
grateful for all the outputs I got for my work and for the wonderful people
I met there: Diana Marre, Beatriz San Román, and the researchers of the
Grupo AFIN a very stimulating group to share this work with and to learn
from; Teun van Dijk, who read and commented my chapter on immigra-
tion and introduced me to the young researchers of the Discourse Analysis
seminar. I am also thankful for the welcoming of Teresa Colomer and
the Grupo Gretel at Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, a leading group
on children’s literature research in Spain. And I’m especially grateful to
the very kind and open team of the now- defunct Centro Internacional del
Libro Infantil y Juvenil of the Fundación Germán Sánchez y Ruiperez
in Salamanca, especially Luis Vásquez and Luis Miguel Cencerrado, for
opening the doors of the institution for my field work.
I am thankful for being a part of ISEK, the Institut für Sozialanthro-
pologie und Empirische Kulturwisssenschaft at the University of Zurich,