Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption

Given Madonna's recent decision to adopt a child from Malawi, newsand entertainment are abuzz with what you've observed yourself-in yourown family, or the family next door, or passing the neighborhoodplayground-there's a boom in transracial adoption. Mostcoverage focuses on the struggles of good white parents wishing toadopt "unfortunate" children of color. Some touches on the irony ofBlack babies in the United States being exported to Canada and Europebecause of their "unwanted" status here. Some even addresses thetrafficking of children (of course, it would-that's sensational). Butfew look at

o why babies are available for adoption in the first place
o what happens when they grow up and
o how we come up with solutions that are humane and just

Healthy white infants have become hard to locate andexpensive to adopt. So people from around the world turn to interracialand intercountry adoption, often, like Madonna, with the idea thatwhile growing their families, they're saving children from destitution.But as Outsiders Withinreveals, while transracial adoptionis a practice traditionally considered benevolent, it often exacts aheavy emotional, cultural, and even economic toll.

Through compelling essays, fiction, poetry, and art, the contributors to this landmark publication carefully explore this most intimate aspect of globalization. Finally, in the unmediated voices of the adults who have matured within it, we find a rarely-considered view of adoption, an institution that pulls apart old families and identities and grafts new ones.

Moving beyond personal narrative, these transracially adopted writers from around the world tackle difficult questions about how to survive the racist and ethnocentric worlds they inhabit, what connects the countries relinquishing their children to the countries importing them, why poor families of color have their children removed rather than supported-about who, ultimately, they are. In their inquiry, they unseat conventional understandings of adoption politics, ultimately reframing the controversy as a debate that encompasses human rights, peace, and reproductive justice.

"In 30 personal essays, research-based studies, poems and accompanying artwork, transracial adoptees 'challenge the privileging of rational, 'expert' knowledge that excludes so many adoptee voices.' Conceived by the editors as 'corrective action,' the collection offers an eye-opening perspective on both the 'the power differences between white people and people of color, the rich and the poor, the more or less empowered in adoption circles' and the sense of loss and limbo that individual adoptees may feel while 'living in the borderlands of racial, national, and cultural identities.' This provocative, disturbing collection reveals the sociological links between African-American children placed in foster care and El Salvador's 'nio desaparecidos (disappeared children), between Christian missions and 'the adoption industry,' between a transracial adoptee born in Vietnam and raised in Australia and one born in Korea and raised in the U.S. 'We must work,' the editors urge, 'to create and sustain a world in which low-income women of color do not have to send away their children so that the family that remains can survive.' Anyone contemplating transracial adoption will find provocative ideas, even as they may quarrel with generalizations that don't fit their own lives." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

You must have seen one-they're everywhere. Photo blow-ups ofHollywood star Angelina Jolie and Zahara, the child she adopted fromEthiopia, both beaming. "Saved by a Mother's Love"-it's People'scover story. Zahara, we're told, is thriving. Nothing is said of thegrandmother who tried to keep her, broken ties, loss. Adoption is awin-win. Right?

Healthy white infants have become hard to locate and expensive toadopt. So people from around the world turn to interracial andintercountry adoption, often, like Jolie, with the idea that whilegrowing their families, they're saving children from destitution. Butas Outsiders Withinreveals, while transracial adoption is apractice traditionally considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavyemotional, cultural, and even economic toll.

Through compelling essays, fiction, poetry, and art, thecontributors to this landmark publication carefully explore this mostintimate aspect of globalization. Finally, in the unmediated voices ofthe adults who have matured within it, we find a rarely-considered viewof adoption, an institution that pulls apart old families andidentities and grafts new ones.

Moving beyond personal narrative, these transracially adoptedwriters from around the world tackle difficult questions about how tosurvive the racist and ethnocentric worlds they inhabit, what connectsthe countries relinquishing their children to the countries importingthem, why poor families of color have their children removed ratherthan supported-about who, ultimately, they are. In their inquiry, theyunseat conventional understandings of adoption politics, ultimatelyreframing the controversy as a debate that encompasses human rights,peace, and reproductive justice.

As this text reveals, while transracial adoption is a practice traditionally considered benevolent, it often exacts a heavy emotional, cultural, and even economic toll. Through compelling essays, fiction, poetry, and art, the contributors to this landmark publication carefully explore this most intimate aspect of globalization.

Jane Jeong Trenka, born in Seoul, Korea, was adopted into a white family in rural Minnesota in 1972. She was reunited with her birth family in 1995. Her book, The Language of Blood, received the Minnesota Book Award for Autobiography/Memoir and was a Barnes &Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection. Trenka has received many literary fellowships and commendations.