Search

The trope of interracial adoption is complex but fairly common in American literature, particularly as it results in the racist and racialized hallmark of displacing and depicting Black women as bad Black mothers--the antithesis of White maternity. This essay posits the trope's genesis at the center of abolitionist writer Harriet Beecher Stowe's extraordinarily influential anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel has been heralded as the most significant literary accomplishment by an American writer, both nationally and internationally, during the nineteenth century. Notwithstanding, Stowe's novel sets in motion the cultural ideology that Whiteness--in the form of adoption by a free, White, Christian mother / savior--is a direct route out of bondage for enslaved Black children. Necessarily and in direct response, Harriet E. Wilson's autobiographical novel, Our Nig, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper's poem, "Moses: A Story of the Nile," bring the complicated anti-Black and White constructions of power, motherhood, consanguinity, and kinship into sharp relief. Taken together, their writings form an episodic and polyscopic perspective on belonging, bondage, freedom, and agency. Most importantly, Wilson's and Harper's texts amplify the historical remainder of and tension between ways of understanding racialized adoption and insist that the literary (human) being that is the Black mother be made legible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The potential of interracial, interreligious, and intercultural mixing—that is, cultural hybridity—was a frequent source of anxiety in the literature of sixteenth-century England. Following the start of the Tudor conquest of Ireland, contemporary writers and makers of Anglo-Irish policy emphasized that Irish culture, especially its language, laws, and customs, was seen as debilitating to English hegemony and demanded eradication. This article examines Tudor attitudes toward colonialization and cultural hybridity in two texts, Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and Edmund Spenser’s A View of the Present State of Ireland (1596), each of which focus on the position of one product of cultural intermarriage, the hybrid child. Through an interrogation of both More’s portrayal of an idealized aftermath of colonial enterprise and Spenser’s genocidal fantasy of English imperialism in Ireland, I argue that cultural hybridity is simultaneously rendered integral and dangerous to the former and inherently destructive to the latter due to the ontological liminality of the hybrid child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the identity development of young children of color growing up in transracial adoptive homes. The authors present the story of a 6-year-old child with a history of severe trauma and how this trauma shaped her understanding of race and identity. After her eighth foster placement, the child's play and talk became increasingly self-deprecating of her black skin color, leading to concerns that the child had begun to equate her movement from her previous foster homes with the fact that she was Black. The article concludes with a discussion of the need for a relationship-focused, strengths-based, ecological systems approach to evaluate ethical issues of racial identity formation within a sequelae of childhood trauma and placement into a multicultural family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of adopting a child can be protracted and difficult. Members of families formed through adoption, especially international or transracial adoption, often find that others treat their family as not fully real or legitimate. I analyze stories told by five adoptive mothers about the remarkable circumstances through which their children joined their families and their attendant sense that larger-than-human forces must have played a role. Critics of international adoption object that such stories depict birth parents as expendable and mask political and economic inequality. I argue that such an interpretation results when the stories are overgeneralized and stretched beyond their meaning-making capacity. When told within and among adoptive families, they valuably stabilize mothers' identities and assure children that they belong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTRODUCTION: Cross-cultural and transracial adoption or fostering is a common experience in adoptive and foster family formation yet few adoptive or foster parents are truly competent to address the cultural needs of children who join their families in this way. Few parents comprehend the full extent of cultural and, or, racial identity knowledge that their newly adopted children bring with them. Parents also struggle to answer the cultural, and, or, racial identity questions that their adopted children ask them. Likewise, human service professionals, when helping families, sometimes struggle to provide culturally competent knowledge and training. METHODS: A review of literature nationally and internationally to ascertain best practice models and strategies to help families and professionals move beyond colour-blind approaches and meet the cultural needs of adopted or fostered children. FINDINGS: There are useful models of cultural and bicultural competency that parents and human service professionals can use to enable improved support for families formed through transracial and cross-cultural adoption and fostering. CONCLUSIONS: A colour-blind approach to cross-cultural or transracial parenting is unlikely to help children view their ethnic background and heritage positively. Rather, a culturally competent approach will help children develop positive racial and cultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examines the effects of a new cultural socialization strategy on the well-being of transracially adopted adolescents and emerging adults. Specifically, we propose a novel strategy focused on the role of adoptive parents’ positive contact with members of their children’s ethnic group of origin, which we labelled “extended intragroup contact.” The hypothesis was that observing ingroup members (adoptive parents, belonging to the family ingroup) engaging in contact with another ingroup (members of children’s original ethnic group) would be associated with adoptees’ meaning in life and, in turn, with well-being. A self-report questionnaire was administered to 120 families, each composed of transracial adoptees (all born in Latin American countries) and their adoptive parents. The results were generally supportive of predictions, showing that knowing of positive interactions between members of two different ingroups (family ingroup and ethnic ingroup) had beneficial effects for the well-being of transracial adoptees. The theoretical and practical implications of findings are discussed, focusing on the importance of investigating extended intragroup contact as a strategy for improving the well-being of disadvantaged group members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A crucial concern regarding the adoption of Indigenous children into "white" families is the separation of the child from her/his Indigenous community and the struggles for the children involved. This paper examines the struggles faced by one Anishinawbe child and his family, the Lees, to come to terms with this dynamic when they adopted him in the early 70s. After the adoption they came to understand themselves as a family that was no longer "white", one that faced unique challenges as well as opportunities. The initial strategy of the parents was to maintain his contact with the Indigenous community and culture. However, it became apparent that they had to find a way to Indigenize themselves as well. This was accomplished with the assistance of the Indigenous community. This story, unfortunately, does not reflect the majority of transracial adoptions. It is a hopeful one but also raises questions for the role of Indigenous communities, adoptive parents and in particular for policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of globalization, intercountry adoption has become a part of American family's lives, among which the majority is interracial adoption, especially, from Asian countries such as Korea and China. While interracial adoptees grow up in Caucasian families and identify with American mainstream culture cognitively, affectively, and functionally, their physical appearance differing from their adoptive parents is the decisive sign to remind the large society to treat them as "Others." This phenomenon has resulted in serious uncertainty and anxiety in the development of those adoptees' cultural identities. As various studies on international adoption tried to find solutions within the adoptive society, this project takes a further step to explore Chinese adoptees' identity formation and cross-cultural adaptation experiences by analyzing their communication with two sets of families (adoptive and birth families) in both adoptive and birth countries (the U.S. and China). The themes and patterns emerging from the ethnographic data, which Dr. Chang accumulated in 15 years through producing documentary films collaboratively with Chinese adoptees, and their adoptive and birth families, demonstrate that those adoptees actively construct their identity through direct contact with both cultures, and that while they enthusiastically learn Chinese language and culture, they have developed and kept important American cultural values internalized since they were young. More importantly, the results also show that cross-cultural adaptation and transformation is not a simple integration of both cultures. Instead, it creates a cultural space within which those adoptees constantly negotiate and construct their cultural identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While much has been written and studied about traditional expatriates – typically senior, Western males in their late 40s or early 50s, with an accompanying female spouse and children – very little is known about non-traditional expatriates and the extent to which their hyper-diversity shapes and impacts on their international assignment experience. In this article, I examine the acculturation experiences of non-traditional expatriates in relation to: (a) the stressors they face when relocating abroad, including the barriers and challenges that arise in deciding whether or not to relocate; (b) how these stressors can be mitigated both by the companies employing them and expatriates themselves; and (c) how their hyper-diversity translates into reality, that is, meaningful outcomes that impact on their international assignment experience. Using case studies of four non-traditional expatriates, including single parent, lesbian, split family, and overseas adoption assignees, I engage in a debate as to whether current theories about acculturation hold true in the case of non-traditional expatriates and where future research on this important topic needs to be directed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article talks about the increasing number of interracial adoptions in the U.S. Topics discussed include almost one-third of adoptions coming from China, single parents and gay people adopting as an alternative way to have a family, and there not being enough literature about adoption for the use of educators.

This paper identifies the safeguarding role of the Hague Convention as being of primary importance, and through a close analysis of the text to Article 22 of the Convention, it seeks to demonstrate that this safeguarding role is compromised significantly by its implicit toleration of the involvement of so-called 'approved (non-accredited) persons' at critical stages in the intercountry adoption process. The discussion is set within a wider context that considers the current practice and prevalence of intercountry adoption. It considers too the extent to which the delegation of a State's powers in respect of intercountry adoption is appropriate, when considered in light of current thinking regarding every State's responsibility to promote family preservation within a child-sensitive system of social protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transracial adoptees (TRAs) are a growing population within higher education. As the population grows, it is important for student affairs practitioners to provide support and space for TRA identified students to connect in their campus communities. The purpose of this paper is to explore important areas of focus for student affairs and higher education pertaining to the TRA community. The points discussed at the end of this paper are important for student affairs and higher education practitioners in the quest to serve multiple student communities on college campuses. My personal story is the lens through which these focus areas will be explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rick Shiomi's Mask Dance marked the beginning of Theater Mu, an Asian-American theater company established in Minneapolis in 1992. Shiomi had been searching for his identity as a dramatist of Asian descent, and as such much valued explorations of Asian-American issues in Minneapolis, a city with a relatively small Asian-American population. Mask Dance commemorates the birth of Theater Mu. Reportedly, Minnesota has more than 1,000 Korean adoptees, and Shiomi portrays their complicated feelings for their white adoptive parents and their own identity crises, employing the form of a traditional Korean mask dance, "Pongsan T'alch'um." These Korean mask plays are colored with down-to-earth aspects, which often satirize the privileged class. Likewise, Shiomi's mask drama, despite its serious topic, contains many satirical features. This paper, consequently, aims to explore how Shiomi portrays the problems of the Korean adoptees by employing this particular comedic style. The use of masks is also quite pioneering in Mask Dance; the play presents Spirit, wearing a mask, as its narrator. Spirit's role is innovative in the sense that it not only "masks" the consciousness of the Korean children, but also "unmasks" their buried feelings. While Shiomi's use of masks is set apart from their use in Greek theater, it follows the same fundamental nature. That is, it follows Peter Hall's extended definition of a mask, which posits that Greek theater, itself, is a "mask" in the way in which it keeps "all fundamental or violent action off stage." By outwardly cloaking and distancing the main characters' agony through the use of masks, Shiomi maintains an objective viewpoint and brings substantiality to this Asian-American performance. This play, consequently, can be marked as a revolutionary step in American theater as it established common ground among Asian-American issues, Korean traditional mask drama, and the classical use of masks on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Potential adoptive parents, especially if it is a transcultural, transracial, or transnational adoption, can expect to be asked, "How are you going to assure that the child's culture and ethnicity will be maintained?" Using excerpts from a larger study of parents participating in three adoption on-line forums over a period of 1-2 years, this paper examines how adoptive parents address the question of cultural and ethnic literacy. Adoptive parents tend to look to adoption agencies, professionals, and each other for guidance on how to engage in cultural socialization. Therefore, these discussions are situated within a discursive analysis of how transcultural adoption is addressed in popular adoption books. Together these examinations illustrate both the changes in constructions of adopted children, specifically, constructions involving race, ethnicity, and culture, as well as the limitations of our post-racial discourse. As exemplars of alternative family structures, transcultural adoptive families advance new ways of understanding diversity in the 21th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the field of cross-cultural education continues to grow, it is important to be aware of whose needs schools are addressing. One of the shifting demographics of our population is the increase in the number of international adoptions. This article examines what schools can do to support multi-racial families -- in particular, those families created through transracial adoption. It is important to note that as schools support the improvement of interracial interaction, they are supporting the preparation of multicultural citizens who are able to participate in an interdependent world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to examine the narrative of transnational/transracial adoption via a case study of The Language of Blood: A Memoir by the Korean American author Jane Jeong Trenka. The first part of the paper tries to contextualize Korean adoption narrative with various socio-historical documents and first-person narratives so that the possibility and limitation of the problematic "remapping of kinship" through the act of adoption can be explored. The second part presents a close reading of The Language of Blood to investigate the bodily imagination and representation of the memoirist and the re-configuration of relational networks within the context of adoption narrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the issue of transracial adoption and racial passing in the U.S. Accordingly, the paper presents the case of Malone versus Civil Service Commission and DeWees versus Stevenson. It states that both cases demonstrate the inherent difficulties of rigid racial categorization. These cases also raise the questions about the legal parameters of racial identity based solely on biological qualifications. It also present a potential situations where transracial adoption and racial passing intersect. With these issues, the paper expands on traditional discussions of passing by offering a theory of racial identity divorced from biological considerations.

The article highlights a study on some of the mothering issues revealed through conversations with White parents of Asian children. It states that some mothers who adopted transracially are learning about the benefits of being White as they are taken to place typically hard to access before becoming a multiracial family. It says that the participants in the study also defines how their children were living in between White and Chinese communities.

Transracial adoption, has been met with controversy in both South Africa and abroad. Although this article does not report research on transracial adoption, it draws on the insights of research on nine Indian-White biracial young adults to explore implications for the transracial adoption debate. Findings from this study indicate parallels between transracial adoptees and biracial individuals and that influences on racial identity are broader than the family and challenge the misconception that unless White foster parents are ‘carefully trained’, they cannot provide Black children with the necessary skills for coping in a racist society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A study of Korean adoptive parents and findings from "The Gathering of the First Generation of Adult Korean Adoptees" were analyzed to explore the role of food in constructing their multiple identities and connection to their birth heritage. Both parents and adoptees seemed to view food and other consumable cultural markers with some degree of ambivalence. Families largely encountered ethnic foods outside of the context of the home, in public settings such as restaurants and cultural events, for the purpose of exposing the adoptees to their birth culture. Adoptees' lack of cultural knowledge, which others presume them to possess, arguably positions them as observers, rather than participants, in Asian America. This article examines how adoptees' consumption of kimchee and moon cakes are both more and less important than adoptive parents understand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper self-reflectively explores from a sociological perspective various issues experienced by an infant adopted into a family of a different race. These experiences cover childhood, adolescence and the search for identity, young adulthood, and a birth-mother reunion. This paper informs adoptive parents of various issues that may impact their adopted child and become a lifelong challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author shares a personal narrative of her efforts to establish an adult intercountry adoptee organization in New York City. These efforts coalesced with a national movement of adult intercountry adopted Koreans culminating in the Gathering of the First Generation of Adult Korean Adoptees, held in Washington, D.C. in 1999, and the Second Gathering in Oslo, Norway in 2001. The contribution of adult Korean adoptees to the field of intercountry and transracial adoption is discussed, with suggestions for how adult adopted persons can be utilized to enhance adoption prac [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents an overview of the adoption case `In re Roderick U.' involving a Caucasian couple's plan to adopt an African-American baby. Law requiring placement of child with parents from same racial background; Substance abuse by child's natural parents.

African American children are victimized by poverty, discrimination, and even adoption policies which keep them in foster care and in institutions. Transracial adoption, one avenue to alleviate the problem, is burdened with controversy that need to be resolved. This article explores the opinions of African American college students on transracial adoption. It was found that transracial adoption was preferred to foster care or institutionalization, and that children need a permanent home regardless of the adoptive parent's race. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the history of prejudice research in social psychology, there has been a long and arduous search for an unobtrusive methodology for assessing interracial and interethnic prejudice. One of the first reported unobtrusive measures was the bogus pipeline technique (Jones & Sigall, 1971). Jones and Sigall's measure was unequivocal in its ability to covertly assess prejudice. However, because of the great monetary cost and precision that the technique requires, others have attempted to devise more appropriate measures. Rio (1972) devised a technique that was based on the methods of early group conformity researchers. The present study reports a replication of Rio's study using a more modern sample. It was found that an ethnic bias could not be statistically demonstrated using this method. Implications for the validity of the methodology and directions for future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]