Sadie couldn't wait to welcome in the Lunar New Year. She helped her parents decorate their home with red and gold banners for luck, picked out a red embroidered outfit to wear to school and made sure to tidy her blue-walled room to sweep out evil spirits.
It is the Year of the Ox, the first time that zodiac sign has appeared since the year she was born, thousands of miles away in China's Hunan province. She spent the first few months of her life in an orphanage before she was adopted by an American couple. She was 16 months old.
She's now Sadie Larson, a spunky, long-haired 11-year-old Lake Arrowhead girl who has no memories of her homeland but has slowly reconnected with its rich traditions and customs with the help of her adoptive parents, Steve and Linda.
"I like celebrating because I feel closer to my culture," she said. "And I like eating egg rolls and wontons."
For the Larsons and thousands of U.S. families who have adopted children from Asia, the Lunar New Year is a moment to help their children reconnect with their homeland and for parents to discover a culture that would otherwise be foreign to them. Lunar New Year, which occurs today, is regarded as the most important cultural holiday among Chinese, Vietnamese and some Koreans.
And although the traditions the Larsons have adopted may stray a bit from the age-old customs of Sadie's ancestors, their embrace of both cultures in their everyday lives has made their daughter feel proud of her heritage.
Sadie and her 9-year-old adoptive sister, Sophie, who was born in Vietnam, have pored over books and magazines about the traditions from their homelands. During a snow day a few years ago, they made scrapbooks about the ways to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
"I wrote about loud firecrackers," Sadie said. "That they're used to scare away evils."
Sophie nodded knowingly: "I just read about that!"
The Larsons say they celebrate Lunar New Year with as much gusto as Christmas. Linda, who grew up in Minnesota and knew little about Asian culture until she moved to Southern California, wants to make sure that her daughters know what it means to be Chinese and Vietnamese.
Steve and Linda have traveled with the children to Vietnam and China and make regular trips to Orange County's Little Saigon and Los Angeles' Chinatown. Sadie and Sophie belong to a play group of children who were adopted from China and Vietnam. In March, the family went to the village where Sophie was born so she could meet her birth mother.
