The New Family Ideal for Korean Black Adoption

Abstract

Many of the African American non-military families that adopted Korean black children did not conform to the gender and race conventions that child welfare officials desired in adoptive families. Often, these families included wives that worked, and would continue to work, outside of their homes even after they adopted a Korean black child. A number of these adoptive families were also interracial couples or they lived in interracial neighborhoods. Adoptive families that included interracial couples and working wives forced some social workers and child welfare officials to reframe these family patterns as ideal for Korean black children. The reforms that some social workers made to increase adoptions of Korean black children by African American and interracial couples also informed their responses to the small number of white families that adopted Korean black children. Agencies affiliated with International Social Service frequently emphasized the international political implications of Korean transnational adoptions because they understood transracial and transnational adoptions to be liberal and antiracist endeavors. However, many of the African American and interracial families that pursued transnational adoptions did not base their adoptions on political motives. Instead, they imagined a kinship with Korean black children because of the racism the encountered in Korea.