Transracial adoptions in media

I adopted DD15 as a single woman, from China 14 years ago. I was in my early thirties, not married and fine with that. However I wanted a child, didn't feel the need to have a biological child, and at the time thought I wouldn't be picked over a couple in domestic adoptions, didn't think about adopting from foster care, and maybe I thought *at the time* it was a good thing that there would be no bio parents trying to find my daughter at any point in the future. I did take classes and do a lot of reading about her culture, and have tried to incorporate her culture as much as possible into our lives - we live in a very diverse city, are connected with others from her culture, and has attended Chinese Immersion school since Kindergarten. This was really important to me.

That being said, I was still naive about a lot of things, and there are a lot of other people who were really naive, not understanding how important culture is, and having people who look like you around you, and as role models. And if these things aren't discussed, parents might assume all is fine and it's not, and many adult adoptees will tell you just how it is, and for some it is very, very hard. Right before the pandemic I went to a round table discussion of transracial adult adoptees, and it was heartbreaking - even though these people were amazing, and very, very strong. I think adoptive parents - current and prospective need to listen to/read/hear the voice of adult adoptees as it can really shape how you support your child in a productive way.

The China adoption "boom" was created by China's now defunct One Child policy and the cultural favoring of boys. While there are still adoptions from China, it is small compared to what was going on when I adopted my daughter or even five years before that. There are other reasons both positive, but also negative that created opportunities for adoption from other countries. The fact is that many good intentioned people adopted thinking they were doing the right thing giving these kids, mostly girls, a home but what we did was aid in the process of the "industry." We don't know a lot about my daughter's origins, but what I do now know is what we were told was false - made up, and heaven forbid, she could have been removed from her parents by "Family Planning officials" enforcing the one child policy, stolen, trafficked, or any number of horrifying scenarios. If you'd like to know more about this situation "One Child Nation" video on Amazon is a good explanation, also from the adoptees perspective "Somewhere Inbetween" is very good, or search "China adoption" on Amazon for any one of many books on the subject.

Where I am at is I have my most amazing daughter in my life, I am so fortunate, however wouldn't it have been better if she could have been raised by her biological parents? The fact that she likely will never know them, questions how she came to an orphanage, will never have answers will haunt her (and me) for the rest of our lives. If I could have ANYTHING, I would love for her to know her bio family, I would take it over any amount of money. And we've done searches and registered in DNA databases and who knows if it will ever happen.

And though she is a caring sweet daughter and friend, she is hardened to discussing culture, and her bio family most times. Being 15 I have to follow her lead in letting her decide when to talk about it. Sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't, but the pain is there. For the people that know her, they might think - well this girls got it all together, she is smart, confident, etc, but she is private and won't share her pain with anyone else except me. So all might appear well from appearances, but I've been reading enough and hearing enough to believe sadly, that many, many transracial adoptees struggle.

This whole situation, and other events recently (living in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul) leads me to really question what we as privileged white (oops corrected from typo) people, most well intentioned, but still - try to do to support others. Wouldn't it be better to strengthen resources for family systems so children can live/thrive with their bio parents, better prepared to care for them? Having been raised with no ethnic culture, I really missed how important this is - especially for people of color!

I have tossed around the idea of a foster adoption of an older child (but younger than her) for the past several years. May not happen but I haven't shut the door. I have thought long and hard about a bi-racial child or child of another race. And while I'm mentally open to it, I wonder could I do enough to support a child of another culture and help them feel connected to their community and who they are. I do not want to fail a child who has already been failed.

So yes, while adoption in general is a good thing, and of course not all trans-racial adoptees are suffering, I feel like yes, many, many, - too many - feel the pain as an adult, that maybe could have been lessened or been prevented by focusing on many systemic issues. There are no easy answers.

😳it’s like this thread summoned a blast from my past. Dated an Asian dude with tons of identity issues** and guess who just reached out 😒 Facebook groups aren’t safe guys. This one is about investing so yeah not a place you’d expect to encounter an ex.



** I was too young to tell the difference between admiration and fetishization and this guy was my lesson. He was woke way before it was a thing and I honestly found it annoying. K-pop faze was rough for me. Hell maybe I was the one with identity issues 😝 When I met his mom I commented on how he inhaled leftover food off my plate and she goes “they starved him in the orphanage because he couldn’t use chopsticks” very matter of fact and he didn’t even respond. I think she then said something like “webbed fingers but perfect for us”. To be fair he seems to have a good relationship with his parents and the only trauma he shared was teachers assuming he had Down Syndrome and kids laughing.

“I have tossed around the idea of a foster adoption of an older child (but younger than her) for the past several years. May not happen but I haven't shut the door. I have thought long and hard about a bi-racial child or child of another race. And while I'm mentally open to it, I wonder could I do enough to support a child of another culture and help them feel connected to their community and who they are. I do not want to fail a child who has already been failed.”


Julie W


I think the fact that you’ve given it careful thought means you’d rock at another transracial adoption.

Not tonight.

In most international adoptions the children are given up at birth or shortly there after. The children don't know anything but orphanages. All the children I know who were adopted from China were infants and came from orphanages. Of the dozen or so children I know that were adopted from China only 3 families were actually allowed to see the orphanages where the children were. And as I said the one family that had pictures the photos made me physically ill. To think any child could grow up and thrive and not have lasting psychological damage from the conditions is unlikely in my opinion. I can't even imagine what the situation was like in the orphanages were people are not allowed to go. Those ones are likely the ones were the children had the flat skulls from being in the cribs and bound down.

Domestic adoption is a completely different situation then foreign adoption. And foreign adoptions vary wildly from country to country.

Please read more closely. Olan stated an opinion and her lived experience. She made no sweeping generalizations.

The question before the one you asked should be do those kids all need to be in foster in the first place? The history of child welfare in this country is just as rife with institutional racism and inherent bias as the rest of our societal structure.

I recently read Rebecca Carroll's book and found it very interesting on many levels.  Also right now I'm reading an excellent fictional book entitled, The Vanishing Half about a pair of twins who separate as young adults and one goes on to "pass" as white.  It's a great book and raises many interesting things to ponder.  (I believe Barak Obama listed it as a favorite of his.)  We have a lot of biracial (Asian, African, Native American) couples and kids in my extended family (some adopted), so these topics are of particular interest to me. 

I think any family who adopts a child of another race has an absolute obligation to expose them to literature, culture and role models from their birth culture, minimally through their formative years. It's hard enough to wonder why your parents would give you up to another parent without also feeling like an outsider to the culture in which you are being raised, and it is certainly more than being able to braid your child's hair. 

Another book with a related theme I recently read is Pachinko, about a Korean child raised as an expat in Japan during the 20th century. All three are very worthwhile reads, if anyone is interested.   

Wow. Is *this* the statement you really want to make about this topic? When I read what you wrote, I feel like you are trying to shut down any relevant conversation. 

as·ser·tion
/əˈsərSH(ə)n/

noun
a confident and forceful statement of fact or belief

2peasrefugees.boards.net/thread/110444/black-people?page=2
pilcas & peano both read the same history books and have the same penchant for not coming back and saying “Whoops I was wrong” not even sorry I was wrong. And Pilcas made her statement after peano and I have already danced around the historical inaccuracies she tried to pass off as truth. Why enter a conversation with nothing useful to add?


Neither of the peas who misread what I wrote this particular time have come back to this thread to acknowledge that they made an error. This isn’t the first time at 2 peas where something I’ve typed has been misconstrued and I’ve had to defend what I did not say. It’s also not the first time that the point I was trying to make was completely ignored/called inaccurate. It’s frustrating and upsetting. I’m a Black woman talking about issues that should change for Black people. If you don’t think what I have to share is important or needs to be said then please at the very least just LEAVE ME ALONE.

One thing about being a Black woman is you are rarely shown any grace but are expected to have much to give.


pilcas can keep saying I behave a certain way (too) because we all know there won’t be a time where someone will say hmm well show us. And by show us I mean do it in the same way Olan can neatly pull together quotes threads and/or interactions. If you can not it’s your baseless opinion. Sweeping even 😏Baseless maybe isn’t the word because I know what’s at the root of needmysanity peano and pilcas commentary. It wasn’t that they disagreed with what I said because it’s none of them even gave what I said the attention it deserved. It’s just that they don’t like me.


Naturally I want to call out my mistreatment but I’m noticing no matter how many receipts I have, threads I link/bump, quotes I pull from threads the SAME peas are back again with the same antics. An elder told me once “You getting mad at the sun for rising”. So I’m going to work on that.

This is an interesting article I read about placement of children with various cultural background to families matching their heritage. 

foster-care-newsletter.com/cultural-diversity-in-foster-care/#

"Many child welfare agencies try to place children in foster homes of the same race or religion whenever possible, but this is difficult when there are few foster families of the same race or religion in the community.

Southern California Public Radio Station 89.3 reported that, as of January 2014, there were no Korean-speaking foster homes in Los Angeles, and few Asian foster homes as a whole, even though there are approximately 800 Asian children currently in foster care in the city. The report cited reasons for the shortage as misconceptions about foster parent requirements and the fear of impacting one’s immigration status.

Some religions are underrepresented as foster families. To counteract this, Orthodox Jews and Muslims are sometimes called upon personally by their communities to take in children from foster care who are living with Christian or non-religious foster parents. There are many websites, including ohelfamily.org, muslimfamilyservices.org and muslimfosterandfamilyservices.org, dedicated to this effort."

My understanding is that very few states have requirements for foster families to expose children to cultural resources. That is something that needs attention.  

In addition, we need a concerted effort to call upon a variety of cultural communities to foster children.

Ha! Yea. I see that doesn’t make sense, and apologize. It was late at night and I am on vacation. I suppose “child of another race,” would be the more correct term. I actually don’t know nor do I pay much attention to adoption terminology. She is my daughter. And a teenager. We talk way more about periods and boys right now than adoption. 😂

Olan, I learned a lot from this thread. Thank you for that.

I knew that transracial adoptions and foster care placements can be problematic, but have understood that white families outnumber families of color in the foster care system. I thought that it was better for children to be part of a family of whatever color than to be continually shuffled through the system.

And that may be true. But what I've learned from reading here is that the problem begins long before placement. The first problem is that children of color are more likely to be removed from their homes than white children. And also - children are removed from their families due to neglect/poverty, but then money is given to their foster families to house them. That money would be better spent in lifting these children out of poverty in their own homes, with their own families.

Typed out it seems pretty basic but I had never put these thoughts together before. Thank you for educating me.