Prejudice can't silence mom's outspoken love

The Valley Breeze & Observer, May 11, 2006

Cynthia Robinshaw is a New England Conservatory trained singer whose voice has been used to its best advantage at times in the defense of her children.

Not shy by nature, Cynthia admits, she does not run from the spotlight and maybe that's why the thought of adopting two children who would obviously not look like they were her biological children never daunted her.

Her first venture into the supermarket with her Korean-born infant daughter Alexandra in 1993 left few illusions for her.

"I was in the peaches," Cynthia vividly recalled. An older woman approached and rudely asked, "Where's she from?"

"I said something like Scituate, or Rhode Island," Cynthia recalls.

The woman persisted demanding an answer to her question and shouting at Cynthia.

A total stranger approached and began a conversation with Cynthia about her life and other children and in essence forced the conversation to take another direction.

After the older woman walked away, Cynthia asked the stranger, "Do I know you?" and she said no, but she had to interrupt what she saw as an awful situation.

Welcome to the show of life for Cynthia and her husband Richard Macchia and adopted children Alexandra and Nathaniel Macchia.

For the local couple, having a child of their own and a family was a top priority, one that even led Cynthia to almost put her life in jeopardy to undergo a fertility procedure.

The support of her husband who suggested they adopt after they had gone through a draining and risky time of seeking their own biological children put them into a new paperwork frenzy.

China was providing a number of infants to American couples quickly and easily, Cynthia said. They spent countless dollars on translations of American paperwork into Chinese and were ready and approved for a Chinese infant in 1992.

Unfortunately, that ease caught the attention of the New York Times. Just as Cynthia and Richard finalized the approval process, a Times Sunday Magazine article painted China as selling baby girls.

That publicity caused the country to close its adoption program completely, Cynthia recalled.

Wide Horizons, the adoption agency they worked with, found they fit the criteria for adoption of Korean children, however, and they successfully turned to that country for Alexandra and later Nathaniel.

Both Alexandra and Nathaniel's referrals, which carried pictures of them as infants, were received near Mother's Day, Cynthia said, making them both special Mother's Day presents.

Many changes have occurred in the adoption process in the 13 years since the local couple's adoption saga began.

In 1993, the process involved waiting by the phone for a call telling you to show up at Logan Airport for a pick-up, they recalled. The call, eagerly awaited, could come in the middle of the night. The package being delivered was your new infant.

Today's adoption process involves parents having an initial meeting and then a second meeting where they actually receive custody of their children in their native country.

"All we knew was her hair was black," Cynthia said of Alexandra. Her eye color was listed as "closed."

The nightmare of the process with Nathaniel involved even further strain when he became entangled in a change of presidential leadership from George H.W. Bush to Bill Clinton. Paperwork that had been approved under the Bush administration was being returned as unacceptable.

"We had his picture on the refrigerator," Cynthia said. But Nathaniel's paperwork mess lasted through "two to three months of diplomatic chaos," said Richard.

The picture came down from the refrigerator. Finally months later, he became part of the family through what they consider the strenuous efforts of Wide Horizons.

Richard, who comes from a large Italian family, said his extended family included two uncles who had fought in the Korean War. The whole family supported his decision to adopt and lovingly accepted his children.

Not everyone in the community felt the same, Richard said, recalling how Alexandra came home from school one day informing him she had been called "a gook."

"That's a 50's word," he said. "That came from their parents," not the children in the school yard, he said.

Alexandra and Nathaniel say they have learned to deal with their appearance which is not much like any of their other Scituate schoolmates.

Cynthia and Richard asked them if they wanted to move to another community where there would be more minority children like them and they said no.

"These kids see themselves as white," Cynthia said. They see themselves through her eyes when they do, she admits.

"Eventually, you forget," she said, that there are any differences. "They look like your kids to you."

Nathaniel says he would like to cook his mom a nice breakfast for Mother's Day. "I feel like she's my real mom," he said.

Richard sees how his strong out-spoken wife has both purpose and satisfaction of her maternal instincts from motherhood though they have come along with the stress of breaking some conventional norms.

Cynthia, who teaches voice lessons to Scituate and Ponaganset High School students, said she, as a performer, maybe best understands.

"You have to be willing to be on display," she said, using her voice to fight for their children. "We want acceptance. These are our kids."

Top