Adoption in The United States - Trans-racial Adoption

Trans-racial Adoption

The adoption of children of one race by parents of another race, which began officially in the United States in 1948, has always generated controversy. The argument often comes down to opposing views as to who gets to decide what is the "best interest" of children. Critics of transracial adoption question whether White American parents can effectively prepare children of color to deal with racism. Others wonder where the children raised by White parents will find social acceptance as adults. Testimony from many transracially adopted adults who grew up in White families illustrates the "in-between" status many adoptees feel, not belonging to or feeling comfortable in communities of color or among White society. Another source of controversy is the history of the widespread removal of children from families and communities of color, which has been shown by historians to have been a tool to regulate families and oppress communities, dating back to slavery times and during the now-discredited Indian Boarding School movement of the early twentieth century. Given this history of child removal, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) condemned transracial adoptions in 1972 in their historic Position Statement. In that paper, the NABSW equated the removal of African American children from their families of origin—and their placement in White homes—with "cultural genocide."

Pro-transracial adoption advocates argue that there are more white families seeking to adopt than there are minority families; conversely, there are more minority children available for adoption. For example, in 2009, 41% of children available for adoption were African American, 40% were White children, and 15% were Hispanic children. This disparity often results in a lower cost to adopt children from ethnic minorities - usually through special adoption grants rather than fee discrimination. Many critics decry the exchange of money for children, whether as "fees for service" or otherwise, arguing that no children of any race should ever be for sale. Proponents point out practicality in the current systems. This situation is morally difficult because the adoptive families see adoption as a great benefit to trans-racially adopted children, while some minorities see it as an assault on their culture. In 2004, 26 percent of African-American children adopted from foster care were adopted trans-racially. Government agencies have varied over time in their willingness to facilitate trans-racial adoptions. "Since 1994, white prospective parents have filed, and largely won, more than two dozen discrimination lawsuits, according to state and federal court records." There is also a great need to place these children; in 2004 more than 45,000 African-American children were waiting to be adopted from foster care.

Americans have adopted more than 200,000 children from overseas in the past 15 years, half of whom come from Asia. This trend has helped lower the resistance to trans-racial adoptions in the United States, at least for Asian and Hispanic children, although there is still high demand for Caucasian children, who usually come from Eastern Europe.

As the children adopted in the early days of the transracial adoption experiment have reached middle age, a growing chorus of voices from adult transracial adoptees has emerged. Their collective experience can be found in films, scholarly articles, memoirs, blogs, and numerous books on the subject.