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Support groups have sprung up, through which parents exchange ideas and share information. One group, called Families with Children from ffice:smarttags" />China, counts more than 3,000 families as members and has chapters throughout the country, including one covering the south bay and Peninsula.
支持团体如雨后春笋般地涌现,使父母有机会交换意见、分享信息。有个名为“和中国孩子在一起的家庭”的团体，成员数量超过三千个家庭，该组织已遍布全国各地,其中包括硅谷南部与半岛地区。
In Palo Alto, the nonprofit Parents'' Place, run by Jewish Family and Children''s Services, hosts a weekly playgroup for adopted children as a way for their parents to connect.
As a result of services like these, adoptive mothers and fathers have become advocates for a new philosophy of cultural celebration, in spite of their own monochromatic upbringings. Hamilton, who recalled her childhood as a world where everyone was white and lived in their own enclaves based on minute differences, is a firm believer that racial identity matters.
Race, she said, is fundamental to who you are. (For a parent) to deny that is to undermine the relationship in some way.
在Palo Alto，一个由犹太家庭和儿童服务部门管理的非盈利场所每周举办游戏活动，这项活动的开展为领养子女家长提供了联络手段。
由于这项服务，养父母亲们倡导了一种文化庆祝的新理念，尽管他们自己的成长过程被限止在单色人种群体里。汉密尔顿回顾自己的童年世界时说，“在那个世界里找不到异族儿童。白种儿童生活在自己的土地上，彼此间几乎不存在差异”。从这位女士的话不难看出，她是位种族身份问题的支持者。
了解自己的民族，她说“是正确认识自身的基础。对养父母来说，否认这点，从某方面看就好比破坏与社会的联系”。
Similarly, Amanda and Amy Shantz''s mother, Jo Simon, grew up on a dairy farm in West Virginia -- a vastly different world from the multicultural Bay Area.
She espouses the advice that a social worker once gave: Recognize racial differences, rather than sweeping them under the rug, and create a home environment that values the culture from which her children were born.
同样的，乔·西蒙—阿曼达和艾米·山兹的母亲是位成长在西弗吉尼亚奶牛场的女性，西弗吉尼亚是个不带多元文化特色的地方，和硅谷截然不同。她支持一位社会工作者的意见，应该承认种族间存在差异，而不是一昧地抹煞差异。应该创造一个重视孩子祖国文化的家庭环境。
With tambourines jangling and wood sticks plonking, second graders at the International School of the Peninsula practiced their music lesson on a recent Thursday morning. It sounded much like any elementary school in Palo Alto, save for one difference: When the students sang, and their teacher gave directions, it was all in Mandarin Chinese.
The International School, where Amanda, Amy and a handful of other Chinese adopted children are enrolled, runs a Chinese immersion program that teaches prekindergarteners through eighth-graders the Mandarin dialect and Chinese culture and arts, along with standard elementary and middle-school curriculum.
“铃鼓铛铛，木棒咚咚”。最近，一个周四的上午，半岛上国际学校的两年级学生在上音乐课。这样的景象在Palo Alto的任何一所小学都能看到。然而，有一点是与众不同的，同学开始唱歌时，他们的老师竟用中国的普通话念着口令。这所阿曼达,艾米所在的国际学校还招收了其他少数被收养的中国儿童。学校实施中国特色的教育计划, ,除了为幼儿前期教育者提供涉及中国方言和中华艺术文化的八种级别的培训，它还设有标准的中小学课程。
Established in 1996, the Chinese program is Silicon Valley''s oldest Mandarin immersion program and complements the school''s French immersion program, which began in 1979.
The youngest students learn in an environment where Mandarin is spoken 80 percent of the time, and English 20 percent. In elementary school, kids speak and listen to Mandarin half the time. By middle school, the Mandarin percentage drops to 30, as other subjects fill of the curriculum.
该校建于1996年，中国式的教育方案是硅谷最古老的中国特色教育方案。它配合了学校内始于1979年的法国特色教育计划。
新学生的学习环境中，百分之八十的时间被要求用普通话交流，百分之二十的时间可用英语。在小学里，学生得花半小时的时间听说普通话。中学课程增设了新科目，因而普通话的学习比例下降了。
Simon has been pleased with her girls'' progress, noting that they easily switch between English and Mandarin depending on the person to whom they''re talking.
The girls call Chinese one of their favorites activities at school. Amy modestly said of her own Chinese proficiency: It''s not bad, but not perfect.
Parents say learning the Chinese language gives their children tools to discover their identity.
西蒙很高兴看见女儿的学习有进步，他告诉我们，与女儿谈话时，他们能依据谈话涉及到的不同人轻易地在英语和国语间转换。
女孩们称学习中文是在学校里最爱作的事。说到中文的流利程度时，艾米谦虚地说，“它还不坏，但也不能算很完美”。
父母们表示，学会中文，就好比让孩子掌握了“发现自身特性”的工具。
There''s some thoughts you can (only) express in Chinese, Hamilton said. She''s sending her adopted daughters to an immersion school in Mountain View to help them to feel who they are and give them the language to express who they are.
Simon believes the immersion program is equipping her girls to understand not just their heritage, but their identity as adopted children too.
It''s been a good decision on lots of levels, she said. They''ll have what they need as they grow up to deal with the fact they''ve been adopted into a different culture and different nation.
“的确存在一些只能用中文表达的思想方式”，汉密尔顿说。她女儿正被送往山区的特色学校，以帮助找到“真实的我”，学会表达“真实自我”的语言。
西蒙相信，这种特色教育计划不仅有助于女儿更好地了解祖国的传统，而且有助于孩子看清自己的养子女身份。
“用特色教育解决国际间儿童的收养问题不矢为一个好主意”,她说。长大后,他们将拥有应付独特生活现状的能力。孩子们会逐渐意识到，他们生活的国家、所处的文化氛围不属于他们，自己是从别国收养的孩子。
Enrolling their children in immersion schools is not the extent of adoptive parents'' efforts to cultivate connections to China -- not by a long shot.
Enterprising parents have also started bilingual playgroups, led by Chinese preschool teachers. They''ve taken family vacations to China, brought Mandarin-speaking babysitters into their lives and bought foreign-language books, tapes and videos to play at home.
让孩子就读于特色学校绝不能说明养父母子已经尽力把孩子与中国联系起来了，仅这样做是达不到目的的。
有胆量的父母已在中国学前教育者的指导下，教孩子玩起了双语游戏。他们带孩子去中国度假，把能说普通话的婴儿照料者带入家中，还为他们购买了外语书籍、磁带和能在家中播放的录相器。
Jo Simon and Jon Shantz even gave their girls Chinese names: Amy''s -- Shen Ren An -- means peaceful, while Amanda''s -- Shen Ren Yi -- means benevolence.
The Chinese adopters are somewhat different than the people who adopted even 15 years ago, said Nancy Ng, of FAIR. They''re more culturally aware as a group. They have greater resources. ... There are a lot of opportunities.
乔·西蒙和乔恩·山兹甚至还为他们的女儿起了中文名字。艾米叫沈仁安，意喻和平，阿曼达名为沈仁义，意为讲道义，仁慈，乐于行善。
“现今的中国儿童收养者，与十五年前相比，存在着些许不同”，Ng说。即“他们是更具文化意识的一群人。他们有更多的资源，许多机会正等着他们呢”。
Parents have also learned what works and what doesn''t through trial and error. When Amy was 4, Simon accompanied her to weekly Chinese school, which met Friday night and Saturday. It''s the type of education Chinese immigrant families have been sending their children to for years.
家长也是通过经验与失败的教训才明白什么是可行的。艾米四岁时，西蒙陪她参加每周五晚及周六开班的中文学校。学校用的是种适于中国移民的教育体系，已经有许多家庭把孩子送入该校。
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