How can transracial adoptees reconcile their identities?
The Stream discusses the challenge of embracing a child’s heritage within a transracial family.
On Tuesday, August 4 at 19:30 GMT:
While once rare in the US, parents adopting children of a different race to their own is now common.
Some 73 percent of non-white children who are adopted are done so by white parents. Overall, more than 40 percent of adoptions in the US are transracial, a significant increase from 28 percent in 2004.
A number of adults who were adopted by parents of a different race have come forward to say they faced isolation and identity crises growing up, with the impact proving life-lasting. Other transracial adoptees report no major issues.
In the UK, the question has proven controversial with a debate centred on whether white parents can raise non-white children with a strong sense of ethnic identity and whether they are equipped to prepare them for racism they may face as adults.
British MPs in 2014 repealed a requirement that adoption agencies give “due consideration” to a child’s race when matching them with parents. The change was made partly because it was leading to non-white children waiting longer for adoption. Despite the change, the debate continues in the UK.
In this episode of The Stream, we meet a panel of experts to learn more about this complex issue and ask how the challenge of identity can be reconciled with the need to find children loving homes.
On this episode of The Stream, we speak with:
Angela Tucker, @theadoptedlife
Subject of ‘Closure’
theadoptedlife.com
Keia Jones-Baldwin
Founder, Raising Cultures
facebook.com/raisingcultures
Nicole Chung, @nicolesjchung
Author, ‘All You Can Ever Know’
nicolechung.net
Read more:
The reality of raising a kid of a different race – Time
Stories of transracial adoptees must be heard, even uncomfortable ones – The Guardian