This kind of shit makes me livid. My ex is a Korean adoptie to a middle class family from the NE U.S. She was originally adopted to a Chinese family at the age of 7. So she went from from speaking fluent Korean to mostly fluent Chinese at home and English at school. Her family was not very integrated so her primary language was Chinese.

When her adoptive mother died after only one and a half years, she was placed in foster care as her adoptive father was no longer willing or able to take care of her.

She finally ended up being adopted by s family who had two other adopted Korean children. Her new mother and father were upper middle class and her mother was a very experienced ESL teacher who mostly dealt with Hispanic students.

Her mother somehow got the idea that she was incapable of learning and focused all her energy on their middle son. Her parents even went so far as to withhold money left them by her grand parents for her continued education.

When I met her she had a very difficult relationship with them and never wanted to admit to the favoritism showed to the first son. When the opportunity arose for me to travel to the west coast for work she came along and her parents effectively disowned her.

After a while, she fell into a depression and in order get her out of it friends suggested she attend community college. She struggled greatly with grammar and reading comprehension which only made her other studies harder. She made amazing progress and received a "full ride" to one of the top state schools for her bachelors degree in psychology. She graduated with a very high GPA and her current employer will be paying for her graduate program in the next year.

TL;DR My ex, a Korean adoptee to the US, completed a bachelors in psychology from a prestigious university, even after her adoptive mother (an ESL teacher) claimed she was incapable of learning.