The Panda Club in the Year of the Golden Pig
Ashland, for all its emphasis on multiculturalism, is often considered, by its citizens and others, to be a very "white" community. But every town contains hidden diversity. In the case of ours, The Panda Club, a group for parents who have adopted children from Asia, has recently been reconstituted by Ashland business-owner, and father, Craig Mesco. That such a group exists is not surprising. That the group has between 30 and 40 families, often with more than one adopted child, is.
"At first the group was for parents who had adopted from China," said the group's president, Craig Mesco. "But we've opened it up. We have parents whose kids are Korean and from Vietnam and even had kids from India."
Although the group first started a decade ago, said Mesco, it had begun to die out as the first generation of adoptive parents watched their children grow up and move out. But last year the organizers of Jacksonville's Chinese New Year Parade called to ask the Panda Club to participate. That was the spark that led Craig to relaunch the group, which now has more members than it did in the beginning.
Craig has a biological daughter, 15-year-old Olivia, and two daughters he adopted from China, one four and the other 3.
"When I adopted Gemma, I went over to China alone," he said. Gemma he adopted from China's southern Hunan Province. It was the height of the SARS epidemic. The second time he went over, to pick up Ruby in Jiang Xi province, he took Olivia with him. "She has been great with her sisters."
Another member of the Club, Avara Yaron, is a handbag and jewelry designer who runs her business Neshama, with her husband Asher, outside of Jacksonville. When we spoke, her little daughter Sofia, also originally from Hunan, was clopping around in plastic shoes and a tiara.
"I just knew my daughter was in China," said Avara. "We were talking to an acquaintance we knew who had adopted from China, telling us about her child and I had such a strong knowingness about where our child was." Avara "tried to be practical," and looked into adopting elsewhere, but kept coming back to China.
Intuition is not the only reason Panda Club members have chosen to adopt from China instead of the United States. Craig's first attempt at adoption resulted in the biological mother deciding suddenly, on the day of the child's birth, to give it to another person. There was no real legal recourse to remedy the situation. Avara knew a prospective adopter to whom the same thing had happened. Twice.
China is a popular destination for adopting parents due to the unfortunate surfeit of unwanted children. China's "One Child" policy, that limits the number of children couples can have, which itself is due to overpopulation, is one reason. But the other is the low esteem in which female children are held.
"There are whole orphanages full of baby girls," said Avara. To find a male child without a cleft palate or other physical challenge is unusual indeed.
There are several Oregon adoption agencies that are prominent in the international adoption sphere. They include Eugene-based Holt International, which Mesco used for one of his adoptions, and the McMinnville-based PLAN.
The Panda Club has existed to fulfill many needs. It has been a social club and a network of support. In its remade state, one of the goals is to keep the adopted children aware of the culture of their original homelands. In addition to a quarterly get-together Craig plans to create a web-based group for constant interaction. Although the group will consider future public events, possibly the Ashland Independence Day parade, most of their focus is "internal." The group reflects the needs of its members and the time they are living through. Who knows what the next generation of the Panda Club will look like?
