The dramatic story of how an American housewife discovered that the Guatemalan child she was about to adopt had been stolen from her birth mother. Over the last decade, nearly 200,000 children have been adopted into the United States, 25,000 of whom came from Guatemala. Finding Fernanda, a dramatic true storyRead More →
The Politics of Reproduction: Adoption, Abortion and Surrogacy in the Age of Neoliberalism uniquely brings together three sites of reproduction and reproductive politics to demonstrate their entanglement in creating or restricting options for family-making. The original essays in this collection—which draw from a wide range of disciplinary and theoretical perspectives—are attentive to neoliberalism’s reshapingRead More →
This book investigates the experiences of South Koreans adopted into Western families and the complexity of what it means to ‘feel identity’ beyond what is written in official adoption files. Korean Adoptees and Transnational Adoption is based on ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea and interviews with adult Korean adoptees fromRead More →
Since the Korean War began, Western families have adopted more than 200,000 Korean children. Two thirds of these adoptees found homes in the United States. The majority joined white families and in the process forged a new kind of transnational and transracial kinship. Kimberly D. McKee examines the growth ofRead More →
The first of its kind, this volume unpacks the cultural construction of transnational adoption and migration by examining a sample of recent children’s books that address the subject. Of all European countries, Spain is the nation where immigration and transnational adoption have increased most steeply from the early 1990s onward. OriginRead More →
In this thoughtful book, sociologist Katarina Wegar offers a new perspective on adoption and the search debate, placing them within a social context. She argues that Americans who are embroiled in adoption controversies have failed to understand how much the debate, adoption research, and the experience of adoption itself areRead More →
Prior to World War II, international adoption was virtually unknown, but in the twenty-first century, it has become a common practice, touching almost every American. How did the adoption of foreign children by U.S. families become an essential part of American culture in such a short period of time? RachelRead More →
This sequel to The Colour of Difference examines the path of identity formation, openness within the adoptive family, and the long-term impact on intercountry adoptees. It highlights how open discussion and dialogue within an adoptive family — along with strong encouragement and facilitation to connect with culture — may assist an adoptee toRead More →
Adoptions that cross the lines of culture, race, and nation are a major consequence of conflicts around the globe, yet their histories and representations have rarely been considered. Life Lines: Writing Transcultural Adoption is the first critical study to explore narratives of transcultural adoption from contemporary Britain, Ireland, and America: fictions, films,Read More →
MAY 2014. The Irish public woke to the horrific discovery of a mass grave containing the remains of almost 800 babies in the “Angels’ Plot’ of Tuam’s Mother and Baby Home. What followed would rock the last vestiges of Catholic Ireland, enrage an increasingly secularised nation, and lead to aRead More →
Why do so many African Americans have such a special attachment to whupping children? Studies show that nearly 80 percent of black parents see spanking, popping, pinching, and beating as reasonable, effective ways to teach respect and to protect black children from the streets, incarceration, encounters with racism, or worse.Read More →
An expose of unethical and coercive adoption industry practices during a short period in American history known as the Baby Scoop Era (Post WWII – 1972). By sharing the actual printed words of social caseworkers, maternity home personnel, lawyers, judges, medical and mental health practitioners, the methods used to ensureRead More →
This unique one-volume reference guide provides positive and empowering biographical sketches of 100 famous and well-known adoptees throughout time, serving to counter the many negative stereotypes that exist that exist about people who were adopted, fostered, or lived in orphanages. This work looks at the lives of people who, despiteRead More →
The story, first told by Barbara Raymond in a magazine article that inspired a 60 Minutes feature, was shocking. Georgia Tann, nationally lauded for arranging adoptions out of her children’s home in Memphis, Tennessee, was actually a baby seller who terrorized poor, often unwed mothers by stealing their children andRead More →
Have you ever wondered how it might feel to have been adopted in Australia during the pre-1980s era in which vulnerable young mothers were coerced into relinquishing their babies? How it might feel to have grown up, become a social worker and worked with vulnerable children and families? This bookRead More →
The first Korean adoptees were powerful symbols of American superiority in the Cold War; as Korean adoption continued, adoptees’ visibility as Asians faded as they became a geopolitical success story—all-American children in loving white families. In Invisible Asians, Kim Park Nelson analyzes the processes by which Korean American adoptees’ haveRead More →
Adoption is a hot topic–played out in the news and on TV talk shows, in advice columns and tell-all tales–but for the 25 million Americans who are members of the adoption triad of adoptees, adoptive parents, and birth parents, the true story of adoption has not been told until now.Read More →
In the last fifty years, transnational adoption—specifically, the adoption of Asian children—has exploded in popularity as an alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish. In Global Families, Catherine CenizaRead More →
Strangers and Kin is the history of adoption, a quintessentially American institution in its buoyant optimism, generous spirit, and confidence in social engineering. An adoptive mother herself, Barbara Melosh tells the story of how married couples without children sought to care for and nurture other people’s children as their own.Read More →
While many proponents of transracial adoption claim that American society is increasingly becoming “color-blind,” a growing body of research reveals that for transracial adoptees of all backgrounds, racial identity does matter. Rhonda M. Roorda elaborates significantly on that finding, specifically studying the effects of the adoption of black and biracialRead More →