Transracial adoption
Searching for a Birthmother Part IV: You’ve Found the Birthmother, Now What?
If you are among the fortunate adoptive parents who have been able to find your child’s birthmother,* I congratulate you. You have taken a huge step and it was not an easy one. Here are some of the scenarios that can result from a successful search:
1. The birthmother is overjoyed at having been found and wants continued contact.
2. The birthmother was relieved to hear word of the child she placed for adoption but does not want further contact.
3. The birthmother is very poor and wants you to help her financially.
4. The birthmother is married and has children and does not want her new family to know anything about the child she placed for adoption.
Race Matters and How – Transracial Adoption
Following up on Faith and Julia’s recent blogs on race and adoption, I’d like to put in my two quetzals. Like Julia I am an adoptive parent in a transracial adoption. For me it was a “no brainer” to adopt a child of a different race. Racism towards people who are different than me has never been a part of who I am. I was raised in a home with zero tolerance for racism, ethnic jokes and racist remarks.
But the fact that transracial adoption is a no brainer for me does not make it a no brainer for my daughter. Let’s start with a simple fact that young children notice from a very young age: my daughter will never look in the mirror and say that her skin or hair or eyes are the same as mine.. She will never be able to physically identify with me. We are on the opposite ends of the physical spectrum.
As my daughter gets older these differences will be pointed out to her by her friends, classmates and from what we have already experienced in the 3 ½ years since Ella came home to us insensitive and downright ignorant strangers. I will never be able to truly understand her pain, discomfort and g_d forbid fear from discrimination because we are not physically the same. I do not have her beautiful brown skin, black hair and dark brown eyes. I am blonde, fair skinned and blue eyed. Even though I will be infuriated, frustrated and wanting to punish anyone who hurts my daughter, I will not feel the discrimination at the gut level like she does. She will know this as well, and perhaps hold that against me. Time will tell.
- LisaS's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
Being Treated Differently for Adopting a Child of a Different Race

For many years, I would not consider transracial adoption. Before you jump to any conclusions, allow me to elaborate. My entire extended family has been accepting of every child who has ever come through our licensed foster home. We have fostered over 100 children from newborn to 18, of Hispanic, African American, Caucasian, and mixed heritage with a variety of issues and special needs. Therefore, the acceptance of my family did not affect my decision. I have been able to love and care for each of these children. Their race, origins, beliefs, and special needs have not prevented me from loving each of them. However, I noticed repeatedly while shopping with my children that many people treated me differently when one of those children was of a different race.
Should Race Matter in the Adoption Process?
A reader wants to know:
Should race matter in the adoption process?
Whether or not race should matter in the adoption process, the reality is that race is a factor, just as age, gender, religion, and other differences matter in the adoption process. When I was going through the adoption process, I was shocked about how specific I was expected to be in what type of baby or child I was hoping to adopt. I had no idea that I was going to have to say yes or no to multiple health issues in both the baby as well as the birth parents. The process worked both ways – the birth mother was the one choosing which adoptive family would parent her baby, and she could specify the age, race, religion, and other factors that she felt comfortable with.
The race of the child placed for adoption and the adoptive parents does not matter in the sense of one race being “better” than another. What matters is that you have a good match. Any adoptive parents who are racist have no business adopting a child outside of their race, and thank goodness the screening during the adoption process prevents this from happening. No child deserves to be raised by parents who devalue him for any reason, whether it is for race, gender, or any other factor.
Anyone who is considering a transracial adoption needs to go into it with his eyes open. Transracial adoptions come with their own potential issues that are not experienced when people adopt a child of the same race.
- FaithA's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
Our Adopted Daughter’s Chanukah Miracle: Her Birthmother Has Been Found
We have found my adopted daughter’s birthmother in Guatemala. The searcher who took this upon herself has sent us photographs and updated information.
Three years and ten months ago I was getting acquainted with my soon to be adopted daughter in a hotel in Guatemala City. A new friend and fellow adoptive parent asked me if I’d ever want to meet my daughter’s birthmother. At that time, I clearly remember saying “no”; having an “involved” birthmother was not something I wanted.
No sooner had I brought Ella home from Guatemala and I found myself poring over the adoption documents learning whatever I could about the birthparents and trying to fill in the spaces between the lines. I wanted to meet the person who had given birth to this baby who was incredibly adorable and loveable, to share the important milestones with her, and thank her for the ultimate and painful sacrifice she had made. I decided that one day I would search for her even though she had requested no future contact. Perhaps she had changed her mind.
My gut instinct said “go ahead, do it.”
It was the right decision
Other reasons I had a birthmother search done:
1. Listening to adoptees over the last four years convinced me of an adoptee’s need to have as much information about her birthparents as possible, and in some cases the opportunity to meet them as well.
2. Most birthmothers in Guatemala want to know that their child is alive, healthy, and loved. So many rumors about the welfare of adopted children circulate in Guatemala, the worst being that they are adopted for their body organs.
Good Basic Foster Care/Adoption Story
If you are new to the foster care and/or foster adoption world, you might enjoy the article entitled NC empty-nesters decide to adopt, transform family by Robert Kelly-Goss. This is a sweet story about foster parents named Barry and Brenda Norris who adopted a two-year-old foster child named Jasani, who was initially placed in their home when she was only two days old.
Those of us who have been in the adoption world for (seemingly) ever can fail to see the forest for the trees. We hear the accusations about “adopters” wanting to tear apart birth families so they can adopt their babies, and we hear about people getting into fostering children solely as a means to adopt a child. However, there is a whole world out there of people who get into fostering children to help birth families reunite, and, in the case of the Norris family, the adoption just falls into their laps.
According to the article, Barry and Brenda got into fostering because they wanted to help out parents who needed time to “get right whatever it was that brought them to the doorstep of the courts.”
Judge Blocks Completion of Adoption
More news from my friend “P” who is doing everything possible to bring her daughter home from Guatemala has all of us in a state of despair. After the judge ruled that a further search for the birthmother must transpire even though the search had been completed by PGN last year, said judge set the next court date for June 2010.
There is no reason under the sun for setting this date so far ahead as the search and follow up report that must be presented to her usually take around 4-6 weeks. It is obvious that this judge does not want this adoption to go forward and she has complete control. Baby “N” has been in an orphanage for over a year – her first year of life she spent with foster parents. Now it seems that the judge would prefer she spend at least another year in an orphanage or her whole childhood. Even if she rules that the case can proceed to PGN next June, it will be several months until the adoption is completed.
- LisaS's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
Children and Discrimination
I came across this article on Newsweek.com and thought I’d share it with my readers. It is of particular interest to me being a parent with an adopted child of a different race.
A study was done of Caucasian families in Austin, Texas, a liberal minded city as cities go. Most of these parents wanted their children to grow up multicultural and be “color blind.” Well they are already off to a bad start if they think children are color blind – they are not. A study by Phyllis Katz of the University of Colorado found that 6 month old babies will stare significantly longer at photos of faces that are of people of a different race than their parents. And personally several children have walked up to my daughter and mentioned something about her skin color, a perfect “educational” moment in my opinion.
GuestBlog: Suki (Girl #4708) Dispersed and Returned: Part II

Our GuestBlogger Suki has relocated to her native country to measure what she lost, what she gained, and to explore the profound impact adoption has had not only on her, but all other intercountry transracial adoptees and the Korean nation.
Our return, for the 500+ of us who have done so, is perhaps even more important for Korea than it is for us. We adoptees were sacrificed in exchange for a better life: because they couldn’t see that they were already free, that it was only their colonized mind-set that enslaved them, and that they had the power to make change within themselves. They need to see and recognize us so they can move on to the next phase of their personal development.
A particularly well-written assessment of Korea’s desperation to do ANYTHING to get ahead, the later shame of such desperate acts, and the denial of desperation and erasure of those acts, was written as an article entitled, The Korean Adoption Syndrome by Dr. Kim Su Rasmussen, PhD in History of Ideas, Seoul National University:
- GuestBlogger's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
What is Your Black Daughter’s Name?
The setting is a beautiful children’s park on the edge of a pristine lake hugged by mountains. The park is bordered by tents set up for the Sunday morning market. The aromas of fresh bread from a bakery along with waffle cones from the ice cream truck fill the air. A palm reader has a steady business of people lining up beside his tent to find out if just maybe their future includes winning the Canadian lottery (tax free by the way). Beautiful homemade jewelry as well as water colors and photography grace several of the tents. The weather is perfect and the day is gorgeous.
I finish shopping and take my Guatemalan born daughter over to the kid’s park to let off some steam. At the top of a slide a boy about nine years old eyes my daughter, turns to me and asks:
What is your black daughter’s name? “
My first reaction was “wow,” he didn’t call me her grandmother, but then it hit me what he had said and not believing that I had heard him correctly, asked him to repeat himself. He did but didn’t change a word in his inquiry. I told him her name and said no more. Honestly I was speechless.
Even now as I sit and write this blog I am not exactly sure how I should have responded to this child. If I had seen a parent nearby, I might have suggested that they explain to their child that there is no need to identify other children or people by their color; then again maybe I would have said nothing, because it can be really difficult to come up with a response when you are so shocked by the question.



Recent comments
10 hours 26 min ago
13 hours 21 min ago
18 hours 4 min ago
19 hours 55 min ago
3 days 14 hours ago
4 days 3 hours ago
4 days 12 hours ago
4 days 14 hours ago
5 days 11 hours ago
5 days 19 hours ago