The baby, whose birth name is Jilai, was given her American name, Kristin, by Karen Swisher’s son, MSU senior Jordan Swisher.

“I really wanted him to feel like this was a family decision, not just my decision — which it was initially,” she said.

The Swisher family currently are members of the Lansing chapter of Families with Children from China, or FCC, organization dedicated to supporting families with adopted children from China.

On Saturday, along with the MSU Family Resource Center, the FCC hosted documentarian Changfu Chang at The People’s Church of East Lansing, who screened his award-winning documentary, “Daughter’s Return.”

Chang also discussed the challenges of raising Chinese children in an American society.

“In the United States alone, there are 80,000 kids who are adopted,” Chang said. “What happens is that these children don’t have information about their birth families and their birth parents. As they come of age, as they grow up, they wonder about that information.”

“Daughter’s Return” shows the experiences of two adopted Chinese girls who go to China to meet their birth parents. One girl is from the Netherlands, the other is from the U.S.

According to Chang, going back to China is an identity formation issue for many adopted Chinese children.

“These things can have a big impact on the character temperament or identity of the individual,” Chang said. “So in the videos, lots of that information is about birth families. (The children) wonder what kind of people they will be, and what kind of people they can be.”

Several families attended the event. Karen said that as a parent, knowing the right way to handle certain situations with her daughter can be difficult. However, Chang was very reassuring to the parents.

“He strongly recommended that kids have a chance to go back to their birth country so that they don’t forget their heritage,” she said.

However, locating the child’s birth parents can be a difficult ordeal for these families.

Continued from print:

“He recommended that everyone doesn’t try to locate the birth parent,” she said. “It may be very painful for the birth parent and child.”

Lansing parent Jo Marie Ziegler adopted her daughter, Zoe Xinlin Ziegler, in 2004. She said that the FCC has been a great help for her and her daughter.

“It allows the children to interact with other girls and boys who were adopted from China,” she said.

Although her daughter’s American name is Zoe, she often goes by Xinlin, the name the orphanage gave her.

“To her, it’s just another name, not her middle name,” she said. “She’s very proud of her Chinese heritage.”