Transracial adoption

Interracial adoption (also referred to as transracial adoption) refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption (also referred to as transracial adoption) refers to the act of placing a child of one racial or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another racial or ethnic group. Interracial adoption is not inherently the same as transcultural or international adoption. However, in some circumstances an adoption may be interracial, international, and transcultural at the same time (or some combination of two of those). Based on the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) in the U.S., the fiscal year of 1998 showed that approximately 64% of children waiting in foster care were of non-Caucasian background; 32% were white. Out of all foster children waiting for adoption 51% are black, 11% are Hispanic, 1% are American Indian, 1% are Asian/Pacific Islander, and 5% are unknown/unable to determine. Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) in the U.S. show that adoption of an unrelated child was most common among childless white women and those with higher levels of income and education. The most recent estimate of interracial adoption was performed in 1987 by the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and it found that 1% of white women adopt black children, 5% of white women adopt children of other races, and 2% of women of other races adopt white children (estimates include foreign-born). The US Census 2000 found that 'White (and no other race), not Hispanic children made up the majority of all categories of children of householders under 18: about 58 percent of adopted children, 64 percent of biological children' and 'Of the 1.7 million households with adopted children, about 308,000 (18 percent) contained members of different races.' Between 2008 and 2009, approximately 2,700 white children were adopted compared to only 410 mixed-race children and only 90 black children in the UK. Approximately 1 in 10 children in care is black and 1 in 9 children in care comes from a racially mixed background. Black, mixed-race and Asian children typically wait to be adopted on average three years longer than white children. Children of mixed ethnicities are more likely than other children to be placed for adoption. The Children Act 1989 and Adoption and Children Act 2002 state that in England and Wales an adoption agency must give due consideration to a child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background; this requirement was repealed for England in the Children and Families Act 2014. Adoption placement of children of mixed ethnicities is difficult because it is influenced by values, ideology and anti-oppressive practices that need to be considered within the practice. Mixed ethnicity children are subject to racism and complete inclusion of both parts of their heritage. Mixed children will struggle with discrimination from both parts of their ethnicity, desiring solidarity from both parts of their ethnic backgrounds. Interracial adoption grew significantly from 1999 to 2005 where it reached its peak year at 585 adoptions to the United States. Following 2005, interracial adoption into the US declined with 288 adoptions in the year 2011. From 1999 to 2011, there has been 233,934 adoptions into the United States from other countries across the globe. Of the total adoptions, 39.4% (92,202 children) were under the age of 12 months. Also, 63% (146,516 children) were female. Overall, children from China were the most common to be adopted. 66,630 were from China and Russia was the second largest country with 45,112 children. Before World War II it was very rare for white couples to adopt a child of a different race and every effort was made in order to match a child with the skin color and religion of the adoptive family. Then in 1944 the Boys and Girls Aid Society took an interest in the increasing number of minority children waiting to be adopted which focused on children from Asian American, Native American, and African American heritage. Children of Asian and Native American heritage were most easily placed outside of their racial group while those of African Americans heritage proved more difficult. The campaign was called 'Operation Brown Baby' and its objective was to find adoptive homes even if from a different race, the first candidate in this operation, Noah Turner, was a Chinese baby adopted into a Caucasian family in 1947. Then during the civil rights movement, interracial adoptions in the United States increased dramatically and the numbers more than tripled from 733 cases in 1968 to 2,574 cases in 1971. (There are now about 6,500 cases a year.) It was then that the National Association of Black Social Workers condemned interracial adoption citing that adoptees were at risk for developing a poor racial identity due to lack of contact with role models of the same race. In the 1990s the placement of black children into non-black homes virtually came to a complete stop. Families formed across racial, national, and biological boundaries represent a growing demographic, adding to the pervasive, historical diversity of family forms in the United States (Coontz, 2008). Since 1990, the number of U.S. adoptions of foreign-born orphans has increased in unprecedented numbers, rising from 7,093 children to 12,753 in 2009—an 80% increase: China ranked as the top sending country, and Vietnam ranked as the seventh highest (U.S. Department of State, 2009). Whereas diversification in the family form is not a new phenomenon, it often appears so, given that family communication scholarship on nontraditional families is a relatively recent development. In 1994 the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA) was passed. It prohibits an agency that receives Federal assistance and is involved in foster care and adoptive placements from delaying or denying the placement of a child based on race, color, or national origin of the child or adoptive/foster parent. Then, in 1996 it was amended with the Interethnic Adoption Provisions, also known as the Interethnic Placement Act. These provisions forbid agencies from delaying or denying the placement of a child solely on the basis of race and national origin. The purpose of these revisions was to strengthen compliance and enforcement of the procedures, remove any misleading language, and demand that discrimination would not be tolerated.