Transracial Adoption By Nora Long Summary

Nora Long author of “Transracial Adoption” defines transracial adoption as: “the practice if placing infants and children into families who are of a different race than child’s birth family” (1/3). After World War II transracial began to be practiced placing children (Vietnamese, Korean and European) from war torn countries with white families in the United States. The focus was on placing a child(ren) with loving parents. In later years it was discovered that just as many ethnic minority children (African American, Native American and Hispanic) in the United States were without homes. Domestic adoption agencies began placing these children with white families also.
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
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