My seven-year old daughter is adopted from Kazakhstan. She came to this country when she was five and a half not knowing any English. She lived in an orphanage her entire life and knew none of the comforts most children experience when they are babies and toddlers. She was a scared, abused little girl who suddenly found herself in America with a strange family, attending a real school for the first time in her life. She was the target of some of the cruelest and meanest comments I have ever heard come out of the mouths of five and six year old kids.

She is beautiful but had trouble with her balance and her gait. Her large motor skills were not fully formed yet. Her hair was chopped off and growing back unevenly. She had black and blue marks all over her from the beatings she took and from falling down frequently. She had over twenty warts all over her hands. Obviously, her English was non-existent. She stuck out like a sore thumb on the first day of Kindergarten. She was terrified and hadn