Italian or foreigner? People adopted in the perception of the other than themselves

"How well do you speak Italian, have you been here for a long time?": this is one of the questions that adopted people often hear. This question is often answered by a widespread stereotype in the Italian population about the nationality of adoptees from other countries. In fact, as revealed by a recent research conducted by Italia Adozioni with some Italian universities, including the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, to the question – addressed to a representative sample of the Italian population – whether an adopted person, born in another country, is Italian, more than a quarter of the participants answer negatively, ignoring that for our legal system with international adoption they automatically become citizens and Italians.

Deepening this result, we discover that this stereotype is connected to the vision we have of the adoptive family. Those who believe that the adoptive family is a family in all respects are more likely to consider adopted children as Italians. On the contrary, those who consider the adoptive family a weak and "pale" family form, imagine the ethnic identity of the children from blurred borders, even of national/cultural belonging.

This fact is relevant and makes us understand the role played by the social context in the construction of our identity: others act as a mirror, they send us back an image of ourselves that can favor or hinder the long path of our growth, a particularly difficult path for adopted children and their families who have the task of accompanying them in the construction of their identity as adopted children. Greater complexity emerges when the ethnic background of the adoptee is different from that of the social context in which he or she is inserted.

The perception that the adopted person has of how he or she is perceived by others is relevant in the process of constructing one's ethnic identity (Ferrari et al., 2022). In fact, if his ethnic and cultural belonging is recognized and valued not only by the family, but also by the social context, he will have a strong ethnic identity. On the contrary, if you experience frequent episodes of discrimination, what image will you have of yourself? The risk is to deny ethnic and cultural differences and define a fragile ethnic identity.

Knowing how to look at them as children in their own right of their family is the step that the social community must take to promote their development and authentic integration.

[L. Ferrari, S. Ranieri, E. Canzi, F. Danioni & R.R. Rosnati (2022). The quiet migration of adopted adolescents in Italy: Ethnic identity, reflected minority categorization, and ethnic discrimination. Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community, 50 (3), 257-272]