“The Leavers” is a novel about racial identity, immigration and lost souls. One of the main characters, Deming, was a Chinese immigrant and was put into foster care after spending nearly ten years with his original family, leading to his eventual adoption by a white dominant couple named Peter and Kay Wilkinson who directly changed his name to Daniel and then transferred to New York city. This series of things makes Deming hard to fit in his new majority, white group, and feel lost about his mixed identity and makes me curious about the process and development of adoption system especially trans-racial adoption system in the United States.
Interracial adoption grew at a rapid rate from 1999 to 2005 where reached its peak year at 585 adoptions to the United States and from 1999 to 2011, there has been 233 thousand adoptions from other countries into the United States. According to the recent statistics, of the total adoptions, nearly 40 percent of children were under the age of one year and more than half were female. Overall, kids from China were the most common group to be adopted by Americans.
Research also showed two major development in the trans-racial adoption family. The first one is adolescent adjustment and appearance discomfit, which means that extra-family forces including social racism could negatively affect adjustment process and discrimination experiences generated appearance discomfort especially for black and Asian families who are unmistakably different from the white. Another one is that trans-racial adoptees typically have confronted with huge challenges of understanding the differences between their own view of identity and how “others” perceived and modeled them. A recent research showed that the age of adoption and the style of parenting acculturation can indirectly influence the way of constructing their identities. However, the interesting result is that black children can build strong racial identities when adopted by a white family.
In order to help adopted children better adjust new families and environment and then recognize their own identity, the United States Department of State offered multiple sources for the parents such as adoption guides, common FAQs and visa information. They also were required to receive education concerning being aware of social stigmas and how to develop a critical consciousness about such things to help their children fit in the new group.
Below are two real stories in interracial adoption families:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Nuo3b5kr80
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9alW-EWJrS0
Reference:
https://www.americanadoptions.com/adoption/transracial_adoption
I enjoyed this post it made me think about something I never had to think about before, thank you !
Great post. The videos where a great addition to the text.
Wow, as much as this post saddens me, I was happy I got to learn about this topic further in detail. I think that it is crazy how many children are put up for adoption, and the effects that follow them for the rest of their lives after this process. However, I like that you included information about the ways in which these children are trying to be helped by the United States Department of State. I also think the addition of the videos were a good touch to engaging your viewers.
Good post. I really like how you included the videos. They were really interesting. I think your post was very well written and insightful.
I enjoyed reading your post- thank you for including the videos and statistics!
Hi, great post! I liked how you included the two real stories. It gave me a better idea of what actually happens.
Great background. I always felt it would be tough socially and with identity issues when a family of another race adopts someone. Don’t get me wrong, I think it is great that families are doing so but there is a lot of learning and understanding to be done on both sides. I do think activities like this can create a more diverse and loving world though if done in the right way and with the right heart. I would say majority of adopted children already feel like an outcast due to the adoption process and adding them into a family of another race can only add to the psychological and emotional impact. It doesn’t mean they do not have love for each other, it would just be a hard adjustment. I think at the end of the day though it is great for both sides in majority of cases.
This was a very informational post, especially in relation to One of the major themes of the book. I am curious to know if there are any studies about the effectiveness of the information provided to families adopting across races. I feel that there is typically a disconnect between what is on paper and actual experience in many scenarios, and I would think that this could very easily be the case here as well. Although I understand that the government is trying to be helpful, it seems that there are much more beneficial actions that could be taken.
This is so helpful for me. I have understood the book pretty well so far, but it is always good to get background on something like this, especially when adoption isn’t a personally relatable topic for me. This helped me a lot to get more insight into Deming’s experience, and to have more knowledge about the adoption system in our country as a whole, so thanks!
Loved to read about the background! It help me gain a better understanding of adoption and how it was viewed.
Great presentation, but the facts you talk about saddens me a lot. I have seen a lot of cases of interracial adoption between Asian and American, and white families mostly adopt children from orphanages. It’s good for those children to have a family again. But it’s also important to make sure that they are treated well in a new environment.
Good information on the trans-racial adoptions! I really like your clarification with data.