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IJSSP
28,11/12

Transnational adoption:
reflections of the
diaper diaspora

440

On reconfiguring race in the USA

Received 3 September 2007

Revised 3 September 2007
Accepted 14 September 2007

Pamela Anne Quiroz

Department of Policy Studies and Sociology, University of Illinois-Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois, USA
Abstract
Purpose Popularly viewed as a humanitarian issue that transcends not only geopolitical
boundaries of nationality but also sociopolitical borders of race, the ways in which transnational
adoption reflects the racialization of children are often ignored. Because adoption is not a random
process of family building but rather a purposive endeavor that involves the multiple dynamics of
race, class, gender, sexual orientation and disability, it is important to recognize how trends in
transnational adoption intersect with shifting racial structure. This paper aims to examine visas
issued to orphans entering the USA from 1990-2005, international programs offered by US adoption
agencies, and juxtaposes these with policies governing adoption in sending countries to illustrate
how transnational adoption mirrors these emerging racial categories.
Design/methodology/approach Using the tripartite racial framework argued to characterize the
shifting US racial structure, the author located adoptions in the top 20 sending countries to the USA
for the past 16 years within this framework to assess how patterns of transnational adoption reflect
the shifting US racial structure. To try to assess the extent to which adoptive parent demand
intersects with agency programs and the policies of other countries, the author also performed a
content analysis of an online adoption directory with 236 private adoption agencies (120 of which
maintained (international adoption programs) and US Department of State data on adoption policies
of the top 20 sending countries.
Findings Transnational adoption patterns for the past 16 years lend support to the argument of a
shifting racial structure and mirror the tripartite system described by Bonilla-Silva. For the past 16
years the majority of adoptions have been either from the White or Honorary White categories
whereas 20 per cent of adoptions have been from the Collective Black category. While policies of
sending countries no doubt factor into which programs are offered by US private agencies,
Department of State information suggests that the restrictiveness of countries adoption policies
cannot by itself explain which countries are in the top 20. A significant part of this reciprocal process
must include a focus on demand to explain who gets adopted. Data on transnational patterns of
adoption illustrate all too clearly which children are preferred, aligning with the emerging Latin
American-like racial hierarchy in the USA.
Originality/value To the authors knowledge, this application has not been attempted nor has
anyone considered adoption (domestic or transnational) as another social indicator of intimacy (albeit
for a relatively small segment of the population).
Keywords Children (kinship), Consumers, Family, Interpersonal relations, Human rights, Race,
United States of America
Paper type Research paper

International Journal of Sociology

and Social Policy
Vol. 28 No. 11/12, 2008
pp. 440-457
# Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0144-333X
DOI 10.1108/01443330810915170

Neoliberal adoption policies in the USA have resulted in supporting color-blind

adoption practice with the argument that transracial and transnational adoptions
provide partial solutions to poverty and racism; therefore, curtailing these adoptions
would only worsen deprivation for individual children (Bartholet, 1991, 1999; Kennedy,
2003; Mahoney, 1991)[1]. Popularly viewed as a humanitarian issue that transcends not
only geopolitical boundaries of nationality but also sociopolitical borders of race, the

ways in which transnational adoption reflects the racialization of children are often
ignored. Although the diaper diaspora serves a relatively small fraction of the worlds
needy children, this type of migration has grown substantially in the USA tripling in
numbers in the past 20 years. Because adoption is not a random process of family
building but rather a purposive endeavor that involves the multiple dynamics of race,
class, gender, sexual orientation and disability, it is important to recognize how trends
in transnational adoption intersect with our shifting racial structure. This paper
examines visas issued to orphans entering the USA from 1990 to 2005, international
programs offered by US adoption agencies, and juxtaposes these with policies
governing adoption in different countries to illustrate how transnational adoption
mirrors these emerging racial categories.
Reconfiguring race in the USA
According to Bonilla-Silva (2003), shifting definitions of race and new racial categories
situated within changing politics and demographics are resulting in the
LatinAmericanization of the US with the US moving from a two-tiered racial
hierarchy (White/non-White) to one that mirrors the more complicated racial
landscapes of Latin America. Bonilla-Silva and Embrick (2006) outline several features
of the racial hierarchy such as shifting demography and darkening of the USA, colorblind racism and global racialization; and the end of race-based social policies. The
new categories of this tripartite system include White, Honorary White and
Collective Black, where whites remain at the top of the structure and an intermediary
group of honorary whites serve as buffer between whites and collective blacks at the
bottom of the hierarchy. Each category includes several groups: Whites (e.g. new
whites such as Russians, assimilated light-skinned Latinos, assimilated Native
Americans and some native Asians); Honorary Whites (e.g. light-skinned Latinos,
Korean-Americans, Middle Eastern Americans, Chinese-Americans); and Collective
Black (e.g. Blacks, dark-skinned Latinos, Hmong and New West Indian and African
immigrants). However, access to the white or honorary white categories is limited by
those in power and honorary white status is subject to change. Rather than eroding in
significance racial identities have simply shifted in the new racial hierarchy as
colorism is now a factor in placement (ranking of groups based upon phenotype and
cultural characteristics) (see also Hunter, 2005; Herring, 2004).
These racial categories are necessarily broad and subject to change, and thus
complicate providing empirical support for the thesis. However, several indicators
serve as starting point for examining the argument of a changing racial structure: gaps
in income, education, poverty, and occupational standing between members of groups;
rates of residential segregation from whites for different racial/ethnic groups; attitudes
of whites toward different groups; and higher levels of identification with whites by
racial/ethnic groups.
Preliminary findings do point to lower levels of residential segregation from whites
for many AsianAmericans and Latinos; lower levels of racial animosity by whites
toward AsianAmericans and Latinos relative to blacks; and higher levels of
identification with whites by honorary whites (Bonilla-Silva and Glover, 2004;
Emerson et al., 2001; Bonilla-Silva and Embrick, 2006; Taylor, 1998; Wilson, 1996;
Lewis, 2004; Lee and Bean, 2003). Another significant indicator of changing racial
patterns in the US is the degree of social interaction between groups such as
friendships, neighborhood relationships and marriage. Higher intermarriage rates
between whites and some AsianAmerican and Latino ethnic groups (relative to

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blacks), and racial assimilation of children also suggest some support for the thesis of
an emerging tripartite system (Qian, 2002; Waters, 1997).
Transracial and transnational adoption (where children from different cultural or
racial/ethnic groups are absorbed into typically white families) provide yet another
indicator of social intimacy not previously examined. Private domestic adoption
suggests a pattern where babies are categorized and valued based, at least in part, on
their racial/ethnic heritage. Explicit policies of private adoption agencies (as laid out in
public Web sites) offer an example of how racial distinctions are perpetuated and the
color line protected as children are commodified by a market that values some more
than others (for example, see www.sunnyridge.org, www.adoptionaccess.com and
www.agapenashville.org). Two and three-tiered adoption programs have pricing
schemes and guidelines that either upgrade or downgrade biracial children depending
upon their heritage or racial/ethnic mix (Quiroz, 2007). Interestingly, not all children of
color are sorted into Minority programs with the vast majority of minority and
biracial adoption programs reserved for any group mixed with African American
descent (see also www.americanadoptions.com and www.adoptionadvantage.com).
Other mixed-race children (e.g. AsianAmerican and white or Latino and white) are not
categorized as biracial and when separated from traditional or Caucasian programs
can occupy a middle category. In this way, private domestic adoption illustrates a rare
(in terms of its explicitness) way in which these shifting definitions of race described
by Bonilla-Silva (2003) are rather plainly laid out.
Situated within the new global reality, where the market is the solution to all social
problems and free trade now includes human trade in the form of transnational labor,
mail-order brides, sex workers and child commerce, transnational adoption can be
understood in much the same way as private domestic adoption.
Growth of the diaper diaspora
Comprising less than 5 per cent of the migrating population to the USA, transnational
adoptees have not been a significant factor in national population growth (Tarmann,
2007). However, attendant to privatization and precipitating demographic and cultural
factors, US participation in transnational adoptions has grown from 6,472 in 1992 to
22,728 in 2005[2]. British demographer and adoption expert Selman (2002) describes
participation of nation-states as shifting and points out that poverty is not the only or
even primary indicator of sending countries participation, nor is high birth rate[3].
Selman includes other factors such as cultural proscriptions against unwed
motherhood, preferences for male children, and institutionalized practices or inertia,
where once having begun this activity, countries find it difficult to stop. Others, such as
law professor Smolin (2006) suggest that participation involves substantive
contributions to the economies of some countries through legitimate and illegal means.
Growth in transnational adoption has been accompanied by growth in private
agencies as the US remains the largest adopter of foreign children and relies primarily
on private adoption and independent adoption sources to engage in this activity
(Masson, 2001)[4]. Given the added complexities of international adoption (paperwork,
unknown health and background factors and costs), several researchers have
attempted to understand the increase in this activity on the part of adoptive parents.
A variety of factors are involved in decisions to adopt including delayed childbirth,
infertility, and the desire of single persons and same sex couples to build families.
Cultural and demographic changes also exacerbated a decline in white infants placed
for adoption such as legalization of abortion, increased availability and use of

contraceptives, and the increased acceptance of single and/or teen parenting (Abma
et al., 1997; Chandra et al., 1999; Solinger, 2001). Some argue that the configuration of
these factors and the resulting imbalance between supply and demand are
manifested in increased adoption costs and adoptive couples looking outside of the
USA for newborns (Freundlich, 2000).
Another explanation has framed transnational adoption practices as altruistic
attempts to absorb children who are/were victims of war, famine and/or disease with
an assumption that when circumstances changed and needs diminished, so too would
rates of transnational adoption (Simon and Alstein, 1977). A more critical argument
associates transnational adoption with prevailing, though often unstated, prejudices of
US and European couples resistant to open adoption. In this argument national
citizenship and the Western philosophy of personal identity, proprietorship, and
property conflicts with the philosophy of shared parenting in open adoption.
The idea that children must belong wholly, or even essentially, to one (and only one) set of
individuals/parents is just the sort of fiction that many adoption services, public or
commerical promote those, in particular that advocate planary adoption in which children
are de-socialized, given a clean slate by administratively erasing all-pre-adoption history
(Fonseca, 2003).

Here, interest in transnational adoption coincides with policies of the clean-break

model, where all ties to biological family are severed. Families who prefer this model
are therefore assumed to be choosing transnational adoption rather than succumb to
greater legal restraints of domestic adoption. Each of these explanations offers insights
into the activity of adoptive parents, however, to understand parent selection among
sending countries, we must look at the intersections of globalization, racism and
adoption.
Globalization, racism and transnational adoption
The history of US adoption is rife with racial conflicts. For the first half of the twentieth
century social workers and adoptive parents relied on the use of geneticists and
medical doctors for assistance in identifying mixed race offspring to avoid taking the
wrong children (www.uoregon.edu/~adoption/topics). Linda Gordons (1999) account
of Irish children forcibly removed from their adoptive Mexican parents by vigilantes in
Arizona also illustrates the negative attitudes toward race-mixing that dominated the
USA until the latter part of the twentieth century.
Similarly, patterns of transnational adoption can be seen as aligning with what
Winant (2004) calls the re-racialization of the world. Past and present racism are two
variables effecting the current status of children within and between nations.
Neoliberal ideology and policy construct identities of foreign children as abandoned,
unwanted, and freely placed, and shift responsibility for these children to individual
efforts (see Ortiz and Briggs, 2003). The emphasis on privatization, deregulation, and
deemphasizing of social welfare and personal rights, allows (and some would argue,
encourages) the commodification and commercialization of not only goods and
services, but also human life. Transnational adoption has become part of this new
global reality. Until very recently, significant delay in US adoption of the Hague
Convention-Treaty has allowed private and international adoption to remain relatively
unregulated. Additionally, the USA has often pressured governments that place
moratoriums on international adoptions, focusing on the rights of US adoptive families
rather than the welfare of a countrys children.

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Transnational adoption articulates with existing racialized structures and

discursive constructions of children from other countries promote responses from
adoptive parents that help shape the market prospects of these children. In this context,
adoptive status intersects with racial/ethnic and national status to generate what Weiss
(2006) calls racialized symbolic capital, effecting overall life chances of those who
possess it, such as light skin. Children in the transnational adoption market are framed
as salvageable and remediable.
This makes their children (of intercountry adoption) the innocent of the innocent a bare
canvas upon which American-ness can be reproduced, an image not just of (adoptive) parents,
but of the supremely modern. In the case of children from the former socialist bloc, the
narrative of rescue adds an appealing layer of heroism: not only are these children innocent of
the political choices of the former leaders of their nations, but their successful upbringing also
confirms the US victory in the Cold War (Ortiz and Briggs, 2003, p. 42).

Transnational adoption then becomes a global humanitarian effort. Class privilege is

ignored even as asymmetric economic relations situate children within the
international order of countries sending and receiving them (Lieberthal, 2001). Race is
also made irrelevant in what is really a racialized global market system with western
nations having incorporated immigrant labor (typically dark foreigners) and child
commerce as permanent features of their racial structures. Thus, struggles involving
transnational adoption between the USA and other nations contain all of the elements
reflective of other geopolitical struggles within and between countries: race, class,
nativity and identity.
Resistance of nation-states to intercountry adoption in the face of collapsing or
transitioning market economies (e.g. Brazil, Russia) signals ongoing tensions between
globalization processes, nationalism and race. From receiving countries standpoint
resistance to transnational adoption represents nothing less than a perverse lack of
caring for children. From the perspective of several sending countries, however,
nationalist adoption movements and resistance to adoption by foreigners is a point of
national honor and represents protection of citizens from human rights abuses (e.g.
child laundering and exploitation of families) (see Smolin, 2006; Briggs, 2006).
Policy processes and social constructions observed by Ortiz and Briggs (2003) focus
on poverty as the defining feature of adoption discourse. However, their narrative of
white families turning from domestic to transnational adoption fails to establish the
nexus between processes of racialization and the specific countries to which US
citizens turn[5].
Transnational adoption and LatinAmericanization (1990-2005)
Information from the Evan B. Donaldson Institute indicates the increase in number of
transracial families is predominantly a result of US couples adopting children from
Asia and Latin America rather than adopting racial minority children in the USA,
since 85 per cent of transracial adoptions by US adoptive parents are also transnational
adoptions (Evan B. Donaldson Institute, 2003). There is little doubt that transnational
adoptions are part of a global enterprise, reflecting preferences of the adoptive
population. These preferences are a combination of individual or personal tastes,
historical and current relations with a particular country, views of children from
sending countries and the marketing of programs by private agencies.
At the same time that agency programs may be limited by the policies of countries,
the ways in which providers help shape the paths of adoptive parents (for whom this is

often uncharted and emotional terrain) are typically ignored or described as simply
meeting a need. Consequently, the interactive nature of policies and practices both
abroad and within the USA is often unexamined or oversimplified.
To try to assess the extent to which adoptive parent demand intersects with
agency programs and the policies of other countries, I examined the DMOZ adoption
directory and State Department data on adoption policies of the top 20 sending
countries along with five countries that would be located in Bonilla-Silvas Collective
Black category. The DMOZ, otherwise known as the Open directory, is advertised as
the largest comprehensive human-edited directory on the Web, While a potential flaw
with this directory is the injection of political or personal biases by volunteer editors in
directing users to particular subjects or links, adoption agencies were not considered a
high risk topic for such bias. The 2007, DMOZs adoption directory lists 236 adoption
agencies, 120 of which maintain not only domestic programs but also international
adoption programs. A search of each agency website with International programs
examined which countries were targeted by agencies with Table I providing the
number of programs across agencies for the top 20 sending countries. Top twenty
refers to modal countries occurring in this category over the past 16 years (1990-2005).
These include: China, Russia, Guatemala, Korea, Colombia, Vietnam, Romania,
Phillipines, Cambodia, Ukraine, India, Mexico, Bulgaria, Thailand, Poland, Brazil,
Ethiopia, Kazahstan, Paraguay and Haiti. The largest number of international
adoption programs in the DMOZ were for China and Guatemala, followed by Russia,
the Ukraine and Kazahstan. The fewest number of programs were for Paraguay,
Mexico, Romania and Poland. Differences between number of available international
programs for countries and numbers of adoptions from these countries, along with the
difference between number of programs for the top five countries relative to the other
15 countries, raises an important question about whether adoptive parent demand
Target country

Transnational
adoption

445

Number of programs

China
Guatemala
Russia
Ukraine
Kazakhstan
Vietnam
Colombia
India
Ethiopia
Korea
Haiti
Philippines
Bulgaria
Brazil
Cambodia
Thailand
Poland
Romania
Mexico
Paraguay
Note: *n 120 private adoption agencies with international adoption programs

87
82
76
62
50
24
20
20
19
18
13
10
7
7
6
4
4
3
2
0

Table I.
DMOZ: international
adoption programs

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drives availability of programs or to what extent available programs (and agency

influence) drive participation by adoptive parents. Agencies are unlikely to create or
support programs for countries they view as unable to draw sufficient interest. At the
same time, the typical trajectory of couples/persons to adoption may leave them open
to suggestion regarding programs.
The policies of sending countries undoubtedly also interact with adoption agency
influence and personal preferences. The US Department of State regularly provides
and updates information for citizens considering international Adoption. Information
for each country includes the authority that governs the adoption process, restrictions
of the sending country such as eligibility requirements, residency requirements,
estimated length of time to adopt, costs and other helpful types of information[6]. I
compared policies of countries in the top 20 along with five other countries that fall into
Bonilla-Silvas Collective Black category (Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and
Tobago, Liberia and Nigeria) in order to determine if the number of international infant
adoption programs offered by agencies could be linked to the degree of restrictiveness
of a countrys adoption policies. An outline of estimates provided by the Department of
State with respect to restrictions of sending countries is provided in Appendix 1.
A look at the guidelines shows variation in the restrictiveness of sending countries.
In addition to the primary adoptive criteria listed in Appendix 1, most countries have
other requirements. For example, China, the most popular sending country to the USA,
has several other specifications for adopting couples that include the total minimum
assets of a couple, the maximum years apart in age of a couple, number of children
allowed already in the home, minimal education requirements of the couple, allowable
number of divorces, and physical and mental health limitations (no loss of hearing,
blindness in either eye, severe facial deformity, major organ transplant, etc). Colombia,
which does not allow private adoptions, has uncertain time frames of residency and
completion that are highly dependent upon a number of variables and include the
gender of the desired child as well as the age of the adoptive parents. While these
formal guidelines do not speak to the informal realities governing adoption in
particular countries or the complexities of the legal systems of each country, they do
provide at least some measures by which to compare the relative ease of adoption for
US couples.
Available information regarding the formal adoption process for these 25 countries
portrays adoption requirements as varying with some popular sending countries
having equally (or more) restrictive policies than countries with less demand from US
adoptive clients. For example, India and Bulgaria (countries which have been located in
the top 20 for the past 16 years) have relatively few restrictions, whereas China has a
number of explicit criteria and Polands formal and informal practices are very
complicated. Another top 20 country, Haitis policy regarding marriage and age are
more restrictive than Jamaicas or Japans (not in the top 20). A comparison between the
five Collective Black sending countries with countries in the top 20 for the past 16
years, suggests that, in general, adoption is no more costly, and restrictions are not
substantially different for these countries. Indeed, when the added costs of travel are
taken into account it is difficult to understand why some sending countries in the top
20 and five collective black countries are not in greater demand by US adoptive
parents. An additional question emerges with respect to adoption agencies, what
factors account for the relationships that evolve between US private agencies and
particular countries but not others and how do they change (e.g. the increasing interest
in Liberia)?

Using numbers of visas issued annually to orphans by the US Department of State,

Table II places adoptions from the top 20 sending countries to the US into the tripartite
scheme of Bonilla-Silva (for a detailed listing of countries in each category see
Appendix 2). Some might argue that since 9 of the 20 countries fall into Bonilla-Silvas
Collective Black category, transnational adoptions support the blurring of racial and
ethnic boundaries and expand the reality of a color-blind world. A more nuanced
examination of intercountry adoption information, however, provides a picture
resembling Bonilla-Silvas emerging tripartite racial typology and reveals how
transnational adoptions mirror the reconfiguring of race in the USA.
Table II shows that in the past 16 years the majority of adoptions have been from
either the White or the Honorary White category, whereas approximately 20 per cent of
adoptions have been from the Collective Black category. Given that the top five sending
countries account for the vast majority of all adoptions it is important to acknowledge
that Russia accounts for a third of adoptions in the White category, China and Korea
account for two-thirds of adoptions in the Honorary White category, and Guatemala
accounts for 40-50 per cent of adoptions in the Collective Black category.
Adoptions in the White category grew over the past 16 years (with the exception of
1992) and represent roughly one-third of adoptions between 1996 and 2004. The
relatively steady increase in adoptions from Russia, and several new republics
formerly part of the Soviet Union (Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Latvia, Kazakhstan)
began in 1991, and coincide with the collapse of the Soviet Union, also in 1991[7].
Chinese and Korean adoptions account for the largest number of adoptions within
the Honorary White category. The numbers of adoptions in this category increased
throughout the years (with the exception of 2005), largely because of the increase in
adoptions from China.
One could point to the numbers of Guatemalan adoptions (comparatively smaller
but significant) as undermining the argument of patterns of transnational adoption
reflecting a shifting racial hierarchy. A response to this involves the appropriateness of
placing Guatemalans into the Collective Black category. Are children from Guatemala
able to become honorary whites or already seen as honorary whites by adoptive
parents? Another possibility is that because adoption requirements in Guatemala are
some of the most liberal among sending countries, Guatemalan adoptions may
represent a niche market for specific groups of adoptive parents who would have
difficulty adopting elsewhere (i.e. older couples, single and gay adoptive parents).
Unfortunately, limitations of data on adoptive parents prevent adequately addressing
this issue.
An interesting feature of the Collective Black category is what Bonilla-Silva calls
dark-skinned Latinos, the group within this category from which the largest number
of transnational adoptions occurred. In addition to Guatemala, Latin American

Transnational
adoption

447

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
White (%) 3
Honorary
white (%) 49
Collective
black (%) 48

37

11

20

29

27

32

38

36

39

39

41

38

37

36

25

32

46

40

41

49

51

46

46

45

43

39

42

45

43

45

37

42

40

24

24

17

16

18

16

19

20

20

18

20

30

Table II.
Transnational adoption
and US tripartite racial
system 1990-2005: top 20
sending countries

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countries sending children in this period include: Peru, Brazil, Costa Rica, Honduras, El
Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, Paraguay and Bolivia.
The rise in international adoption from Latin America that began in the late 1980s
and continued into this period has been linked to US foreign policy. Briggs (2006,
p. 615) argues that as anti-communist intervention increased in both Latin America
and Asia following the collapse of the Soviet Union, policies that promoted
globalization included transnational adoption and reflected a renewed sense of
American responsibility for those outside its borders and an easing of the movement of
money and (some) people. Hence, it is possible that through adoption, members of
these groups are able to achieve mobility, perhaps from Collective Black to Honorary
White if not White.
There have been shifts in participation of Latin American countries as several have
implemented new and stricter laws and others have placed temporary moratoriums on
adoption. Throughout this time frame, Guatemala has remained the largest sending
Latin American country.
Why have a quarter of all US international adoptions come from China and rates of
adoption from the Ukraine and Russia increased so rapidly with 50,000 of 139,000
transnational adoptees emerging from one of these two countries in the past ten years?
Possible explanations include the policies of these countries regarding transnational
adoption. Another possible explanation is that the Ukraine and Russia represent
opportunities for white couples to acquire blue ribbon babies (healthy white infants).
With respect to the large number of Asian adoptions, it is speculated that the social
distance between Asians and whites has diminished so that Asians are either viewed
as next in line to become white or at least some Asians (according to Bonilla-Silva)
have already become white. Given the fact that a quarter of all US international
adoptions come from China, it is easy to speculate about the significance of Chinese
adoptions and how they mirror the shifting configuration of race in the USA. Indeed, if
the White category were to include Chinese adoptions, approximately two-thirds of all
adoptions would have occurred in the White category.
Discussion
Do transnational adoptions promote transnational identities? Do they blur racial/ethnic
boundaries or do they simply absorb and create honorary members of the dominant
group in receiving countries? Psychologist Lee (2003) describes how racial/ethnic
adoptees, particularly white racial and ethnically European children, can change their
class position and move from members of a dominated group to being socialized as
members of the dominant culture. This process can also occur, though with more
variation, with members of other racial ethnic groups. Results are mixed regarding
racialization and research suggests that racial identification changes with age,
however, there is support for the argument that transnational adoption is effective in
creating honorary members of the dominant society, as transnational adoptees are
highly acculturated to the dominant culture. There is also evidence that suggests as
adoptees age greater awareness of prejudice and discrimination results in ambivalence
regarding race (Freundlich and Lieberthal, 2000; DeBerry et al., 1996). In a world
increasingly dominated by an ideology that denies not only the significance but the
very existence of racial awareness (we are all now supposedly color-blind), it should not
be surprising that less attention has been given to how transracial and transnational
adoptees cope with racialized experiences.

Changes in adoption discourse have resulted in promoting multiculturalism and

most popular adoption literature contains some reference to issues of diversity. Some
researchers even suggest adoptive families are now more likely to be involved in
assisting children to achieve a bicultural orientation (Volkman, 2005). It is equally
plausible, however, that the added dimension of geography constructs culture as less
threatening since biological families are often thousands of miles away and adoptive
parents are unlikely to be located either physically or socially within the subcultures of
adoptees. Cultural socialization activities such as culture camp and roots trips may
occur intermittently and may alleviate dissonance on the part of adoptive parents or be
regarded as exotic (by others) a status symbol of humanitarianism and political
correctness. Transnational adoption has the potential to challenge racialized power
structures only when these adoptions are transracial and when children are not
socialized into becoming honorary members of the adopting group.
Conclusion
Just as US domestic adoption reflects a shifting but racialized structure transnational
adoption suggests geopolitical alignments between countries, acting as another
conduit through which neoliberal social policy justifies the racialization of human
beings in the new global reality. Policies of sending countries no doubt factor into
which programs are offered by US private agencies. However, Department of State
information suggests that the restrictiveness of countries adoption policies cannot by
itself explain which countries are in the top 20. A significant part of this reciprocal
process must include a focus on demand to explain who gets adopted. If demand
does indeed motivate not only adoptive couples but also private adoption agencies
regarding which programs to offer and which countries to aggressively pursue
relationships, then we are all too clear as to which children are preferred.
The supply of the worlds needy children and other countries willingness to engage
in adoption demonstrates the power of the USA in forming and maintaining such
relations with sending countries. Why does Mexico, a country proximal in geography,
with historic and cultural overlap, and open to private adoption have very few
adoptions by US citizens, particularly with the history and current pattern of
transnational adoption from Latin American countries? Only a handful of US private
agencies offer programs in Mexico. One of the agencies in the DMOZ directory
discourages persons who call by describing the difficulties, not in adopting children
from Mexico (albeit the Mexican court process is described as slow and traditional),
but rather in bringing children into the USA.
Thirteen agencies in the DMOZ directory provide Haitian programs and the
requirements are no more problematic than for several other countries (and the costs
substantially less than several popular sending countries). Why then are there
comparatively few Haitian adoptions?
In the year 2000, almost 20,000 children were adopted by US citizens from other
countries (US State Department, 2003). At the same time, nearly 125,000 US children,
mostly AfricanAmerican and biracial, remained in need of adoptive homes. Added to
this, African American infants are now entering the transnational adoption market as a
number of US adoption agency web sites advertise to Canadian and European couples
to place African American and biracial infants with some agencies citing lack of
demand as driving this phenomenon (ABC World News, 2005; NAIC, 2003; Quiroz,
2007).

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450

Social, racial and political identities clash and new identities are constructed.
However, these new identities remain embedded within resistant racial hierarchies
shaping individual and group identities. Both transgressive and deviant, attempts to
cross racial, national and political borders via transnational adoption challenge
existing structures of power yet reflect and reconfigure them as well. To be clear, it is
not the argument of this paper that transnational adoption drives US foreign policy but
rather that it fits within the larger social policies that drive economic world domination
by the USA. Nor are the intentions of adoptive couples at issue, but rather the outcomes
for children. Individual children are rescued but rescue is associated with their
racialized position in the USA (and increasingly the worldwide racial structure) at the
cost not only of children with darker skin, but children in general, as lack of support for
state interventions in remediating poverty and disrupting families is sanctioned in
favor of entitling market mechanisms and the countries these markets serve.
Transnational adoption, whether by design or default, has become part of the
reconfiguring of race and the global hegemonic project.
Notes
1. The Multi-Ethnic and InterEthnic Placement Acts passed in the late 1990s, and critical
to participants in private and independent adoption, make considerations of race illegal
and therefore satisfy the demands of the adopting population (the majority of whom are
white). These laws, and the ideology that undergirds them shifts adoption from a
utilitarian function to familial entitlement.
2. Various explanations for the increase in transnational adoption include fewer US born
children available for adoption, lower fertility rates, increased contraception and the
available of legalized abortion.
3. Countries such as South Korea, China and Thailand continue to send children even
though birth levels are below replacement level.
4. In testimony before the House Committee on International Relations, Cindy Friedmutter,
Executive Director of the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, estimated that US
adoptive parents spent close to $200 million in 2001 for international adoption services.
Selman (2001) suggests that the number of intercountry adoptions is higher than many
estimates and that it is now at its highest level world-wide, with these numbers
projected to increase in the near future. This projection contradicts a prior claim by
Alstein and Simon (1991) who argued that the phenomenon of non-white children from
poor nations being transferred to wealthy white nations was on the decline and would
continue to decline.
5. These processes also interact with age of transnational adoptees in different countries to
account for interest of adoptive parents. Delays in placement have altered significantly
between countries and as nationalistic movements designed to stem intercountry
adoption have affected these processes.
6. Although a country may have no residency requirements does not mean that travel is
not necessary. For example, Russia requires two visits by the adoptive couple (the length
of time of each visit is undetermined).
7. Decline in adoptions in the White category for 2005 and 2006 are likely attributable to
temporary moratoriums placed by the Russian Federation and Ukraine (two sending
countries of the largest number of white children) on transnational adoptions to the
USA (www.travel.state.gov/, accessed 05/08/2007).

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(Appendix 1 follows over page.)

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Department of Social
Development and Welfare
Public Adoptive Guardian
Center

Thailand

Poland

Bulgaria

Currently banned
State System for the Full
Development of the Family
Ministry of Justice

Central Adoption Resource

Agency
Intercountry Adoption
Board
Ministry of Social Affairs
State Dept for Adoptions

Romania
Mexico

Cambodia
Ukraine

Philippines

India

Vietnam

Columbia

Guatemala
Korea

Russia

China Center for Adoption

Affairs
Ministry of Education and
Science
Solicitor Generals Office
Ministry of Health and
Social Welfare
Colombian Family Welfare
Institute
Dept of International
Adoptions

China

Table AI.

Adoption authority

M, S
A 25 years
M, S
A 45 years
M, S
A 25 years
M, S

3 bimonthly
visits
None

Up to 3
months
None

None
None

None

1+ years

Up to 1 year

Months to years

3-8 months varies by state

4-6 months
3-12+ months

Varies

23 months

None
None

18-30 months

1-4 years

6-12 months

10-12 months

Time frame

None
None

None

M, S A 25 years
M, S
M (3 years+)
1 parent A <45 years
M (3 years)
A 25 years
S, M
A 20 years older than
child
M (A composite 90)
S (A 45)
S, M
A 27 years old
M (A 25-55)
M
A 21 years
Parents age <45 years

None

Residency
requirements

M (2 years)

Parent eligibility for

adoption

(continued)

$1-2,000*

$900 (Euros)*

$250*

$100*
No fees
($2-20,000 US)

Vary widely

$3,500*

$12-20,000

$17-45,000
$9-10,000

$20-30,000

6,000*

Costs

454

Country

IJSSP
28,11/12
Appendix 1

Adoption authority

Varies by state M, S
A= 21 years older than
child

Determined
by state

3-4 weeks
30-60 days in
country
Two visits to
country or
4 months
residency
**

None
M 5 years
A= 30-60 years
M, S
A 25 years
M, S (women)

60 days
None

M, S
A 35 M, S

6-24 months

None

A few months to a year

Fees are illegal

Fees are illegal

No fees

4-7 months

6 months to 1 year

Less than $10.00

$5,000-8,000

$18-25,000*
$3,000

$135*

Varies by state*

Costs

None
9-10 months

2 months to 1 year

3 months to 1 year

Time frame

15-30 days

Residency
requirements

M, S
A=21 years.
M (5 years)

Parent eligibility for

adoption

Notes: *Not included in this estimate are U.S. adoption agency fees; M Married couples, S Single, A Age. (not provided by Department of
State or explicitly stated as uncertain) **Information regarding intercountry adoption was found on the U.S. State Departments website, http://
www.travel.state.gov/family/adoption/country 08/23/2007

Trinidad and
Tobago
Nigeria

State Judiciary
Commission of Adoption
Ethiopia
Children of Youth Affairs
Office
Kazakhstan
Ministry of Education
Haiti
Haitian courts
Five Collective Black countries
Liberia
G
Dominican
G
Republic
Jamaica*
G

Brazil

Country

Transnational
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455

Table AI.

IJSSP
28,11/12

Appendix 2. Transnational adoption and the tripartite system 1990-2005

White
Russia
Romania
Poland

456

Ukraine
Bulgaria
Lithuania
Latvia
Georgia
Hungary
Moldavia
Belarus
Kazakhstan
Honorary White
China
Korea
India
Taiwan
Japan
Thailand
Mexico
Collective Black
Philippines
Cambodia
Vietnam
Haiti
Ethiopia
Nigeria
Liberia
Dark-skinned Latinos:
.

Guatemala

Brazil

Colombia

Honduras

Peru

Paraguay

El Salvador

Bolivia

Chile

Ecuador

Costa Rica and Dominican Republic

Corresponding author
Pamela Anne Quiroz can be contacted at: paquiroz@uic.edu

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