How Does Adoption Reflect Inequality in America?

Gaby Nelson

How does Adoption Reflect Inequality in America?

It is estimated that around 120000 children are adopted every year , including both domestic and international adoptions. Even though this seems to be a pretty high number, there are still a lot of children waiting for someone to adopt them in the US. However, there are a lot of obstacles in the process, such as inequality that does not allow everyone to adopt these children. These obstacles revolve around race, class, gender and sexuality, and each obstacle is analyzed in this study.

Race: Interracial Adoption and Discrimination

Before WW II, it was very rare for white couples to adopt a child of a different race. However, when the number of minority children waiting to be adopted increased drastically, the Boys and Girls Aid Society in 1944, took an interest in these kids and tried to provide homes for them. These children were mostly from Asian American, Native American, and African American heritage. Those of Asian and Native American heritage were most easily placed outside of their racial group while those African Americans heritage proved more difficult. That lead to the creation of the campaign called "Operation Brown Baby" and its objective was to find adoptive homes for African American children, regardless of the members' of these homes race. The civil rights movement also made interracial adoptions more acceptable and since then interracial adoptions in the United States have increased dramatically; the majority of the couples that adopted these children were mostly childless white families. (There are now about 6,500 cases a year.)

So how many families are now adopting transracially? Statistics and findings reveal that only 8% of all adoptions include parents and children of different races. Among those, 1% of white women adopt black children, 5% of white women adopt children of other races and only 2% of women of other races adopt white children (estimates include foreign-born). Also an estimated 15% of all adoptions of foster children in 1998 were transracial . Speaking of foster care, there are 123000 children in foster care waiting to get adopted or reunited with their biological parents. Among those, 64% are of minority background and 32% are white. Out of the minority group 51% are black, 11% are Hispanic, 1% are American Indian, 1% are Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5% are unknown/unable to determine.

What does this tell us about adoption? It tells us that, regardless of changes done in public policy regarding transracial adoption, and despite the fact that it is now more acceptable than it used to be before, a lot of white childless couples still are hesitant to adopt children from other racial backgrounds. And those who do want to adopt these children and are not white face a lot of difficulties with adoption agencies, because they are considered to be as not ready to raise children that are not theirs, especially African American couples. Even if the majority of children in foster care are of African American heritage, they are still not placed in African American homes for the reason mentioned before. And since African American couples cannot adopt these children, then what about white children? That is out of the question. Even though a legislature named Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEPA) was passed to prohibit any agency or adoptive foster care placements from delaying or denying the placement of a child on the basis of the race, color, or national origin of the adoptive or foster parent, or the child involved, we still see that discrimination is apparent in the adoption system. This discrimination, as a result increases the length of time that children have to wait to be adopted.

However, it is not only whites and those in power who are discriminating against children from other races. Society as a whole still has some insecurities when it comes to interracial adoption and one of them us the appearance discomfort. A lot of evidence shows that extra-family forces, such as societal racism, affect negatively these children's adjustment in the new environment of the adoptive family. Particularly, research suggests a lot of experiences of discrimination generate feelings of appearance discomfort in these children, and sometimes adoptive parents as well. Those who are most likely to encounter such societal discrimination are black and Asian children because they appear phenotypically very different from whites. That's why it is important where white couples, who want to adopt children of other races, live. Those who live predominantly white communities tend to have adoptees that experience more discomfort about their appearance than those who live in integrated settings.