It was the Korean War (1950-53), however, which signaled the beginning of the largest wave of international adoptions to take place worldwide. Since the War, South Korea has expedited the adoptions of over 200,000 Korean children (about 150,000 to the U.S., and 50,000 to Europe, Canada and Australia), and continues to send children overseas today. For three decades, South Korean children constituted the largest number of foreign-born adoptees to enter the U.S. on an annual basis, a status that changed only in 1991, when adoption of foreign children was led by Romania (2,552 children vs. 1,817 Korean children). In 1999, the number of adopted South Korean children (2,008) ranked third after Russia (4,348) and China (4,101) (source: National Adoption Information Clearinghouse). To date, Koreans remain the largest group of adoptees in both the U. S. and Western Europe.
In the 1970s, another war in Vietnam precipitated increased adoptions by American families. "Operation Baby Lift" in 1975, was a series of highly publicized "humanitarian" rescue operations that brought at least 2,000 Vietnamese and mixed-raced children (many fathered by American GIs) to the U.S. for eventual adoption. Approximately 1,300 children were also flown to Canada, Europe and Australia. The hasty evacuation in the final days of the war led to a public debate over whether these actions had been in the best interest of the children and whether the children would have been better served by remaining in Vietnam. Some critics asserted that the "Baby Lift" represented another form of American cultural imperialism. The greatest point of controversy, however, had to do with the circumstances that led to the relinquishment of the "Baby Lift" children and whether these children were technically orphans who qualified for adoption. Lost or inaccurate records were the norm and, in several cases, birth parents or other relatives who later arrived in the U.S. demanded custody of children who had previously been adopted by American families.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Americans began traveling to Central and Latin America to adopt, including Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, also torn by war. Adoptions from Guatemala have risen substantially, and now represent the fourth largest number of foreign adoptions by American families (1,002 in 1999, up from 621 children in 1997).
With the overthrow of Romania's communist regime in December 1989, numerous American and Western European couples went to Romania seeking children to adopt. It was reported that orphanages were full of neglected children abandoned by parents who could not support them. In 1991, a total of 2,552 Romanian children were adopted by American families. However, due to international outrage and criticism over the black-marketing of babies during this period and the adjustment difficulties experienced by adoptees who displayed emotional problems and developmental delays, Romania reduced its number of foreign adoptions. In 1997, the Romanian government reformed the adoption process with the goal of decreasing the long-term institutionalization of its children and better regulating the adoption of children abroad.
Adopting from Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union has become popular since the collapse of the Union, and today, Americans are adopting more children from Russia than any other country in the world. Last year, 4,348 Russian children were brought into American homes (compared to 12 adopted in 1991).
Adoptions from China have also steadily increased since 1992, when China enacted its first adoption law. Now adoptions from China represent the second largest number of annual foreign adoptions in the U.S. To date, approximately 20,000 Chinese children, mostly girls, have been adopted by American families. Next to Korean adoptees, Chinese adoptees represent the largest group of Asian children adopted by American families. (For more information about the unique conditions surrounding adoptions from China, please see the Chinese Adoption Reading List and Resources and Links.)
In the early years of international adoptions, American adoptive parents were not necessarily childless couples. These early adoptive parents often had biological children and were religious and family-oriented. Their primary motives for adopting internationally were humanitarian. Today, the majority of adoptive parents are infertile couples who are motivated by the desire to have a family and offer a home to a needy child. While the majority of adoptive couples are white, there are increasing numbers of Asian American couples and single parents who are adopting from countries like China.
From its inception, the practice of international adoptions has raised many questions and remains controversial today. Are international adoptions in the best interest of the child? Under what kind of duress and economic/social pressures are birth parents when they relinquish a child, and is such a decision really made of free will? Will the child have difficulties adjusting to a new culture, society and language? Will the child experience racial discrimination and cultural/familial identity conflicts when entering adolescence and early adulthood? Should couples from wealthy Western countries "buy" babies from under-developed countries, and what is the global power-dynamics inherent in such a relationship? Could the money spent on international adoptions be spent in developing greater support for children and families in various countries in order to prevent the need for international adoption?
While there are no easy answers, these questions are important to consider as the practice of international adoptions continues to flourish.
Transracial Adoption
A Brief Overview
Between 1968 and 1972, approximately 50,000 black and biracial children were adopted by white adoptive parents. At the time, adoption of black children by white families was thought necessary due to the increasing number of black children in foster care and the seeming lack of black adoptive families. In the early 1970s, transracial adoptions gained in popularity as the number of available white infants declined and the number of prospective adoptive parents continued to grow.
The practice of transracial adoption was severely challenged in 1972. At the national conference of the North American Council on Adoptable Children, the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) issued a formal position opposing transracial adoption, citing concerns that such placements compromised the child's racial and cultural identity, amounting to a form of cultural genocide. The NABSW expressed concern that black children raised in white homes would fail to develop effective coping strategies to deal with racism and discrimination, and would experience subsequent identity conflicts as they grew older. The NABSW also challenged traditional adoption practices and raised questions about institutionalized racism within the adoption profession. They brought forward existing evaluation criteria for prospective adoptive couples that routinely prevented black families from qualifying, and stated that even though prospective black adoptive families did exist, adoption agencies were failing to recruit them and were, in fact, passing them over in favor of white couples.
The response from the adoption field was swift. There was an immediate drop in the number of transracial placements. Policy makers established laws and practice guidelines requiring adoptive parents to be of the same race as the child. Although white parents continued to care for black and biracial children through foster care, many states legally barred them from formally adopting these children.
Transracial adoption has also affected the Native American community, albeit under a different set of circumstances. Before 1978, it is estimated that in certain states, between 25 to 35% of Native American children were taken from their homes, with 90% of these children being placed in white families. Failing to understand traditional Native American culture and child-rearing practices, officials and social workers from public and private agencies claimed that the removal of Native American children from their families was in the "best interest of the child." These children were sometimes taken through fraudulent means, and parents were often misled or relinquished their children under duress. (A similar trend of forced removal occurred among native children in Canada and aboriginal children in Australia. According to recent reports from Sydney, approximately 200,000 Australian aboriginal children were removed from their families and placed with white families for assimilation into mainstream culture.)
The adoption of Native American children by white parents raised similar concerns as those raised by NABSW: Was this practice just another form of cultural genocide? The Indian Child Welfare Act, passed by Congress in 1978, was enacted in response to those concerns. The goal of the Indian Child Welfare Act was to prevent illegal adoptions of Native American children by white parents and to prevent unethical removal of Native American children from their homes. However, as of 1997, Native American children were still being separated from their families, with an estimated 20 to 30% being cared for or adopted by non-Native American families.
The Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994, authored by Senator Howard Metzenbaum, mandated that adoption agencies receiving federal funds cannot deny or delay adoptions based solely on racial difference. This was partly written in response to the growing number of children in foster care, but because the language was subject to interpretation, Congress enacted the Inter-Ethnic Adoption Provisions in 1996, which prohibited federally funded agencies from denying or delaying adoptions solely on the basis of race or national origin. Both laws are designed to decrease the length of time a child has to wait before being adopted and eliminate racial discrimination. These laws have been controversial, however (See "Pact," an essay on the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act and have not diminished the debate surrounding transracial adoption. Many people feel that transracial adoptees are emotionally scarred by their experience; others strongly disagree and suggest that the long-term outcome for transracial adoptees is very positive. Some suggest that the number of children in need of foster care or adoption will always exceed the number of available families within a particular racial group. Others believe that current adoption practices are rife with racial discrimination and other barriers, and that greater efforts should be made to remove them. Still others advocate for more systemic support of families who struggle against economic and social disadvantage in order to keep these families together and decrease the need for foster and adoptive placements. And finally, there are those who think that adoption into a White family is preferable to the impermanence and instability of foster care.
We encourage you to find out more about transracial adoption and to engage in a dialogue about these issues within your community. Check out these resources and links:
Institute for Black Parenting is an organization whose mission is the preservation of black families through foster care and adoption services.
The Association of Transracially Adopted and Fostered People provides information and support for transracially adopted and fostered people, but also of interest to legislators, professionals and adoptive, foster and birth parents. Features stories, perspectives, information and links related to transracial adoption (based in the U.K.).
Voices from the Borderlands is a place where transracial adoptees can submit their stories for publication on this website.
Also-Known-As (a|k|a) is a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing and celebrating the experiences of inter-country and interracial adoptions and establishing a national community of transcultural people (For additional information about Korean adoptee support organizations, please see the Resources section of this website).
National Indian Child Welfare Association (NICWA) serves American Indian tribes throughout the country by helping to strengthen and enhance their capacity to deliver quality child welfare services.
National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) promotes the welfare, survival and liberation of communities of African ancestry. Programs include educational conferences and professional leadership.
Additional links and resources:
National Adoption Information Clearinghouse has statistics and information about transracial adoption and the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act.
(Pact - An Adoption Alliance has informative articles on transracial and international adoption, a reference guide to adoption-related books and a Transracial Adoption Parent Support hotline for adoptive parents.
The North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC) has a Transracial Parenting resource manual and a Transracial Parenting training curriculum for agencies and group leaders to help them talk effectively about issues related to race and culture.
Reader's Guide to Adoption-Related Literature has a great reading list ontransracial adoption.
Copyright © 2000 Deann Borshay Liem & NAATA. This content was originally created in 2000. Visit the original site.
Overview of International Adoption
Overview of International Adoption
In 1999, Americans adopted more than 16,000 children from over 50 countries, including Russia, South Korea, Romania, Guatemala, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Thailand and Peru. A majority of international adoptions in 1998 (64%) were of girls, and nearly half were infants. These adoptions not only cross international borders and bridge culture and language, but are often transracial as well. In spite of these challenges, international adoptions continue to gain in popularity among families in the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.
The practice of adopting children from abroad began just after World War II when large numbers of children were orphaned, abandoned, or separated from their parents as a result of the war in Europe. Americans, eager to provide humanitarian assistance, were moved by the plight of innocent children affected by the devastation of war, and adoptions began in the 1940s.
It was the Korean War (1950-53), however, which signaled the beginning of the largest wave of international adoptions to take place worldwide. Since the War, South Korea has expedited the adoptions of over 200,000 Korean children (about 150,000 to the U.S., and 50,000 to Europe, Canada and Australia), and continues to send children overseas today. For three decades, South Korean children constituted the largest number of foreign-born adoptees to enter the U.S. on an annual basis, a status that changed only in 1991, when adoption of foreign children was led by Romania (2,552 children vs. 1,817 Korean children). In 1999, the number of adopted South Korean children (2,008) ranked third after Russia (4,348) and China (4,101) (source: National Adoption Information Clearinghouse). To date, Koreans remain the largest group of adoptees in both the U. S. and Western Europe.
In the 1970s, another war in Vietnam precipitated increased adoptions by American families. "Operation Baby Lift" in 1975, was a series of highly publicized "humanitarian" rescue operations that brought at least 2,000 Vietnamese and mixed-raced children (many fathered by American GIs) to the U.S. for eventual adoption. Approximately 1,300 children were also flown to Canada, Europe and Australia. The hasty evacuation in the final days of the war led to a public debate over whether these actions had been in the best interest of the children and whether the children would have been better served by remaining in Vietnam. Some critics asserted that the "Baby Lift" represented another form of American cultural imperialism. The greatest point of controversy, however, had to do with the circumstances that led to the relinquishment of the "Baby Lift" children and whether these children were technically orphans who qualified for adoption. Lost or inaccurate records were the norm and, in several cases, birth parents or other relatives who later arrived in the U.S. demanded custody of children who had previously been adopted by American families.
Beginning in the mid-1980s, Americans began traveling to Central and Latin America to adopt, including Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador, also torn by war. Adoptions from Guatemala have risen substantially, and now represent the fourth largest number of foreign adoptions by American families (1,002 in 1999, up from 621 children in 1997).
With the overthrow of Romania's communist regime in December 1989, numerous American and Western European couples went to Romania seeking children to adopt. It was reported that orphanages were full of neglected children abandoned by parents who could not support them. In 1991, a total of 2,552 Romanian children were adopted by American families. However, due to international outrage and criticism over the black-marketing of babies during this period and the adjustment difficulties experienced by adoptees who displayed emotional problems and developmental delays, Romania reduced its number of foreign adoptions. In 1997, the Romanian government reformed the adoption process with the goal of decreasing the long-term institutionalization of its children and better regulating the adoption of children abroad.
Adopting from Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union has become popular since the collapse of the Union, and today, Americans are adopting more children from Russia than any other country in the world. Last year, 4,348 Russian children were brought into American homes (compared to 12 adopted in 1991).
Adoptions from China have also steadily increased since 1992, when China enacted its first adoption law. Now adoptions from China represent the second largest number of annual foreign adoptions in the U.S. To date, approximately 20,000 Chinese children, mostly girls, have been adopted by American families. Next to Korean adoptees, Chinese adoptees represent the largest group of Asian children adopted by American families. (For more information about the unique conditions surrounding adoptions from China, please see the Chinese Adoption Reading List and Resources and Links.)
In the early years of international adoptions, American adoptive parents were not necessarily childless couples. These early adoptive parents often had biological children and were religious and family-oriented. Their primary motives for adopting internationally were humanitarian. Today, the majority of adoptive parents are infertile couples who are motivated by the desire to have a family and offer a home to a needy child. While the majority of adoptive couples are white, there are increasing numbers of Asian American couples and single parents who are adopting from countries like China.
From its inception, the practice of international adoptions has raised many questions and remains controversial today. Are international adoptions in the best interest of the child? Under what kind of duress and economic/social pressures are birth parents when they relinquish a child, and is such a decision really made of free will? Will the child have difficulties adjusting to a new culture, society and language? Will the child experience racial discrimination and cultural/familial identity conflicts when entering adolescence and early adulthood? Should couples from wealthy Western countries "buy" babies from under-developed countries, and what is the global power-dynamics inherent in such a relationship? Could the money spent on international adoptions be spent in developing greater support for children and families in various countries in order to prevent the need for international adoption?
While there are no easy answers, these questions are important to consider as the practice of international adoptions continues to flourish.
Copyright © 2000 Deann Borshay Liem & NAATA. This content was originally created in 2000. Visit the original site.
Timeline of Korean History
We are proud to present a brief interactive journey into the contemporary history of Korea, mapping out the stories and events which contributed to South Korea's adoption policies.
Copyright © 2000 Deann Borshay Liem & NAATA. This content was originally created in 2000. Visit the original site.
Adoptions from South Korea
A HISTORY OF ADOPTIONS FROM SOUTH KOREA
In 1955 Harry Holt, an Oregon farmer, was so moved by the plight of orphans from the Korean War that he and his wife, Bertha, adopted 8 children from South Korea. The arrival of these children to their new home in Oregon received national press coverage, sparking interest among Americans from all over the country who also wanted to adopt Korean children. In partial response, Harry and Bertha Holt created what has become the largest agency in the U.S. specializing in Korean children - Holt International Children's Services which has placed some 60,000 Korean children into American homes.
During the same period, the South Korean government began formalizing overseas adoption through a special agency under the Ministry of Social Affairs. For the first decade, the majority of children sent overseas were mixed-race children of American (and other United Nations) military fathers and Korean women. (Biracial children in Korea were called "dust of the streets," a term that illustrates the pervasive negative attitudes in South Korea toward these children.) Soon the practice of placing Korean babies for adoption became institutionalized and over the course of several decades following the Korean War, South Korea became the largest supplier of children to developed countries in the world. An estimated 200,000 South Korean children have been sent overseas for adoption (about 150,000 to the U.S. and the remaining 50,000 to Canada, Europe, and Australia.) In Europe, Korean children have been adopted by families in such countries as Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Germany, and Luxembourg.
Prior to the Korean War, adoption was not a common practice in Korea. Cultural values emphasized bloodline and if adoptions did take place, they were done within the same family to preserve the family line. However, during the late 1950s and 1960s, with foreign adoptions becoming the primary social policy for orphaned and abandoned children, many distraught parents from poverty-stricken families who could not feed or educate their children abandoned them with hopes of getting them to a Western country. Most of the children adopted during this period were older.
Later, in the 1970s and 1980s, industrialization and urbanization brought changing social mores, including increased divorce rates and teen pregnancies. Unlike the period immediately following the Korean War when most adopted children were orphans or had been abandoned, the majority of the children sent for adoption during the 70s and 80s were infants from out-of-wedlock pregnancies. Arrangements for these adoptions typically began in obstetrical clinics where unwed, pregnant, young women (usually poor and working class) were provided pre-and post-natal care. While women were generally not paid for giving up their babies, they were often housed in unwed mothers' homes until the baby's birth and their medical expenses were covered by the adoption agencies. (There are four main adoption agencies in South Korea, all closely regulated by the government: Holt Children's Services, Eastern Child Welfare Society, Social Welfare Society, and Korea Social Service. The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare establishes annual quotas for the number of children that will be released for adoption by each agency. The total quota for 1999 was approximately 2,000. (Source: U.S. Department of State).
Meanwhile, in the U.S., legalized abortion, access to reliable birth control methods, greater social acceptance of single parenthood, and other socio-economic factors in the 1970s and 1980s dramatically altered the domestic adoption landscape. The availability of "normal" infants (non-disabled and White) began to decline significantly and the demand from prospective adoptive couples far exceeded the supply of available babies. At the same time, controversies over the adoption of Blackchildren by White parents began to increase. The National Association of Black Social Workers issued a formal position (in the 1970s) opposed to transracial adoption, raising concerns about whether such placements compromised the child's racial and cultural identity and claiming that such adoptions amounted to cultural genocide (see Transracial Adoption Overview). These controversies increasingly led childless couples to look abroad. By this time, legal and administrative arrangements of international adoptions from South Korea had become extremely efficient, reliable, and reportedly free from corruption. These factors, combined with the changes in the domestic adoption market, soon made children from South Korea the most popular alternative to healthy, White American infants.
The year 1988 was a turning point in South Korea's adoption history. The Seoul International Olympics attracted the attention of journalists worldwide about many aspects of Korean culture, and much of thisattention focused on Korea's primary export: its babies. Journalists like Bryant Gumbel of NBC commented that Korea's primary export commodity was its babies, and articles like "Babies for Export" (The New York Times) and "Babies for Sale: South Koreans Make Them, Americans Buy Them" (The Progressive), embarrassed the South Korean government. North Korea also criticized South Korea's adoption program, pointing out that selling its children to Western countries was the ultimate form of capitalism. As a result, the South Korean government delayed the scheduled departure of adopted children before and during the Olympics. And the number of Korean children adopted by American families began to decrease, from over 6,200 in 1986 to just over 1,700 in 1993.
Following the Olympics, the government set up a long-term mandate to cease international adoption by 1996. However, finding limited success with in-country adoptions, the government began to reconsider its policy and decided in 1994 to continue international adoptions for biracial and disabled children. With the recent economic collapse in 1997, policies have changed once again and foreign adoptions of healthy Korean children are again on the rise.
While international adoptions have long been associated with wars and destruction, in the case of South Korea, the largest number of children were sent overseas after the country had long recovered from war - the 1980s. The peak was in 1985 when South Korea sent 8,837 children overseas in a single year. Critics of the South Korean adoption program point out that because of the government's reliance on international adoptions, South Korea's social welfare programs for families and orphaned or abandoned children remained under-developed. Lack of support for poor and single-parent families, lack of access to programs like free or affordable childcare, a growing preoccupation with population control, and the continuing dependence on international aid organizations that supported orphanages in South Korea, all contributed to the growth of international adoptions well beyond the crisis of the Korean War period. In addition, cultural attitudes and a pervasive stigma toward orphans, adoption, widows, and single and unwed mothers had a deep impact on relinquishing decisions by birth parents.
Copyright © 2000 Deann Borshay Liem & NAATA. This content was originally created in 2000. Visit the original site.
Chinese Adoption Reading List
ADOPTIONS FROM CHINA Selected Primary Research Sources on Abandonment and Adoption in China
Compiled by Amy Klatzkin, Editor, A PASSAGE TO THE HEART (Yeong & Yeong, 1999)
Greenhalgh, Susan. 1994. "Controlling Births and Bodies in Village China." American Ethnologist 21, no. 1.
Greenhalgh, Susan, and Jiali Li. 1995. "Engendering Reproductive Policy and Practice in Peasant China: For a Feminist Demography of Reproduction." Signs 20, no. 3 (Spring).
Greenhalgh, Susan, Zhu Chuzhu, and Li Nan. 1994. "Restraining Population Growth in Three Chinese Villages, 1988-93." Population and Development Review 20, no. 2 (June).
"Harbin Woman Challenges ChinaÕs Adoption Law." 1996. UPI, Beijing, April 6. Based on an article by the same name in Zhongguo funu bao (China womenÕs news), April 5, 1996.
Hunan Province Civil Affairs Bureau, Social Welfare Section. 1992. "Guanyu dangqian shehui qiying wentide diaocha" (Investigation concerning the current social problem of foundlings). Zhongguo Minzheng (ChinaÕs civil affairs), no. 274 (January).
Johnson, Kay Ann. 1999. "The Revival of Infant Abandonment in China." In A Passage to the Heart: Writings from Families with Children from China, edited by Amy Klatzkin. St. Paul: Yeong & Yeong.
---. 1996. "The Politics of Infant Abandonment in China, with Special Reference to Hunan." Population and Development Review 22, no. 1 (March).
---. 1993. "Chinese Orphanages: Saving ChinaÕs Abandoned Girls. " Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, no. 30 (July).
Johnson, Kay Ann, Huang Banghan, and Wang Liyao. 1998. "Adoption and Abandonment in China." Population and Development Review 24, no. 3 (Sept.).
Li Xiaorong. 1996. "License to Coerce: Violence Against Women, State Responsibility, and Legal Failures in ChinaÕs Family-Planning Program, " Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 8, no. 1.
McGough, James. 1976. Marriage and Adoption in Chinese Society, with Special Reference to Customary Law. Ph.D. thesis, Michigan State University. Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Dissertation Services.
Waltner, Ann. 1990. Getting an Heir: Adoption and the Construction of Kinship in Late Imperial China. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Watson, James. 1975. "Agnates and Outsiders: Adoption in a Chinese Lineage." Man 10, no. 2 (June).
Wolf, Arthur, and Chieh-shan Huang. 1980. Marriage and Adoption in China, 1845Ð1945. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Copyright © 2000 Deann Borshay Liem & NAATA. This content was originally created in 2000. Visit the original site.