Transracial Families Essay

Henry Ford once said, “ At that point, a child is eligible for adoption and can be placed with a family that can love the child and raise the child.” What this quote says is that a child should be placed with any family that can love it and raise it. If race was not so significant, a higher percentage people would be eligible to adopt, meaning that more kids will be adopted. The happiness of the children should also be of greater importance that the race of the future parents. Despite this, there will always be people who are against transracial adoption. A few of them say that a child with adoptive parents who are of a different race are more likely to suffer an identity crisis. Overall, transracial, or interracial, adoption is better for children in orphanages or the foster care system.

During the time I was born, in the 90’s, stereotypes were taught to children through school, family members, and media. “A stereotype is a mental category based on exaggerated and inaccurate generalizations used to describe all members of a group” (Bennett 91). As a child, I obviously did not realize I was being taught these cruel definitions based to categorize people into which racial group they should belong to. To put it another way, Bennett states, “As psychologists have pointed out, stereotyping is a natural phenomenon in that all humans develop mental categories to help make sense of their environments” (91). Provided that, I stereotyped my interviewee the same exact way numerous people stereotype me. For this reason, to better understand both the interviewee and myself racial identity, I consequently analyzed how we each portrait the world we live in.

For centuries human beings have been on a quest for love. As time has passed, this search has lead to mixing of races and resulted in interracial relationships, both long-term couples and casual dating.

As a biracial woman growing up in the South, I never knew my place in the world. My father is a dark-skinned African American and my mother is a fair-skinned Caucasian, leaving my sister and I to fall somewhere in the middle. In elementary, my unique background caused numerous personal problems. Friends would assume I was adopted. I would frantically defend myself by saying “I am not adopted! My mommy is white and my daddy is black, and there is nothing wrong with me.” My classmates often told me that I was not possible: “black goes with black, and white goes with white.” In time, both races rejected me. I was bullied by the black girls at my school for being “too white” regarding my clothes and my hair. I continued to struggle with this

Family is a basic unit in every society. However, the makeup of a family is more complex to define. There are so many types of families that it is impossible to have one distinct definition in trying to explain how a true family is defined. For example, there are married couples with or without children, single-parent families, and even families headed by gay men or lesbians. These may not have been considered families not too long ago, but now must be recognized because we live in such a diverse society. What I want to focus on is the African-American family, in terms of what they had to go through before, during, and after slavery. As well as, where they are now and where it’s going in the future.

Ethnic identity is the major reason why many African Americans do not approve of interracial adoption. Adopting a child outside of your race is interracial adoption(Godwin 258). The National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) are strongly against interracial adoption. They think that only black people can give the children a positive racial identity. Also that only black parents can help the children develop skills for coping in a racist society. This statement is proven to be wrong in the Grow/Shapiro study in 1974(Bender/Leone 198). The study consisted of 125 white families who all adopted black children. Seventy-seven percent of the adoptions went smoothly without any problems at all. They found that the tests of the transracially adopted children verses those of white adopted children matched very closely (Bender/Leone 200). The tests compared the problems that the white and black children face like racism. The numbers show that the child’s age, not transracial adoption, has the most impact on adjustment and racial identity(Bender/Leone 202). The longer the child is in an orphanage or foster home, the more problems the child will have with an adoptive family. Because the child has no parent, it often becomes confused. The child does not know who to call mom or dad. The children wait two to five years in a foster home or orphanage before being adopted. There are not enough adoptive black

These are the instructions that African American parents should teach their children when dealing with police officers. The first thing that they should teach their children when a police officer pulls them over, make sure that they stop and have their identification with them. The second thing that African American parents should teach their children is to make sure that their being calm and respectful at all times. If they’re doing any of those things, the situation could possibly end up being worse for them and can also be killed by the police officer as well. For parents, providing these instructions to their children can help save their lives and protect them from harm.

The website states that, "Children who are adopted at a younger age are successful at dealing with the insecurities about the adoption. This will help the build a stable, solid foundation with the adoptive family." This same website also states some negatives of interracial adoption. The website state, "If parents adopt trans-racial children from foreign countries, they face the additional burden of immigration, paperwork and travel." The website also states, "trans-racial children grow up without an understanding or connection to their one culture, and that such adoptions are damaging not only to these children but to the child community at

This process is not always so cut and dry. It can happen very quickly or last over a span of time. Transracial adoption can either help this process or can make it harder on a child. These children are being taken out of their culture, the only one they have ever known, and are thrown into something completely different. All these different views, values, and beliefs are pushed upon them.

To the thousands of children in foster care, adoption means being part of a family. Adoption signifies a chance to be loved, wanted, and cared for properly. Every year thousands of children enter the foster care system. In the year 2010 alone, 245,375 children entered foster care, of that number over 61,000 were black. An astounding 30,812 black children were waiting for adoption in 2010 (AFCARS). With so many children needing homes, it would seem their adoption would be open to any and all loving families, yet this is not the necessarily the case. Transracial adoption, which traditionally alludes to black children placed with white families, is riddled with difficulties. While transracial adoption can be a successful solution, many

Transracial adoption is has been a source a controversy for decades. Opponents of transracial adoption worry that the adopted children will struggle with racial identity and that it promotes “cultural genocide”, while those on the opposite spectrum of transracial adoption seem to take a position of being “color-blind” coupled with the idea that “all you need is love.” Transracial adoption is

In both countries theirs an average happiness in there face. Since, both families have obtain there needs in each day. Also, both families have an important thing to accomplished which is have food for the children. Even, this hard word shows how they have to overcome some obstacles to reach there resources. The outcome of the results makes them remain content with what they accomplished. This hard work may not be easy but, the important thing is to work hard to reach the goals and never stop trying harder.

Are there any transracial adoptees that don’t have this identity confusion? What are their methods of avoiding this common transracial adoptee issue?

Recently, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the concept of "transracial" and how it compares to "transgender". Specifically, many are comparing Rachel Dolezal to Caitlyn Jenner, asking why the former is being trashed by media while the latter is praised. While I am white and cishetero, and it may not be my place to make an argument regarding this issue, I have heard many excellent points made my my friends of color and friends who are trans* that I do like to bring up when friends or family are making these comments. / / The first of which is that transracial has existed before Rachel Dolezal - but to describe children in foster and adoptive situations where their family is a different race than they are, and the way they 'act'

This paper was really interesting to write because it is a topic that could affect me some day. Plus,"Fools Rush In" is my favorite movie so I loved the opportunity to analyze it. I liked writing the paper because I think that it's a topic that a lot of people tend to overlook or think unimportant. The truth is that many people rush in to interracial marriages without stopping to think of the effects on their families.