Transracial Adoption

What is transracial adoption?

The term transracial adoption refers to the integration of racially different parents and children within a family unit.

Over the past few decades, the prevalence of transracial families has significantly increased, and along with them, polarized viewpoints on the benefits and costs of integrating families - usually White parents with non-White children.

What do the statistics look like?

In just over 10 years, the number of foreign born children adopted into the U.S. has doubled - from just below 10,000 (1989) to approximately 20,000 (2002). The majority of babies are adopted from North America, Asia, South America and Oceania, while the majority of children over 5 years of age are coming from Africa, Oceania and South America. (Source: Conceive Magazine, Fall 2005 Issue; Child Welfare League of America)

An Ever-Evolving History

Source: Pineforge Press

• In 1972, the National Association of Black Social Workers announced that it was opposed to adoptions that placed Black children into White families. Their position still stands today. Transracial adoptions, they argue, are harmful to Black heritage.
  
  
• By 1987, 35 states had established policies against cross-racial adoption.
  
  
• In 1994, the Howard M. Metzenbaum Multiethnic Placement Act of 1994 (MEPA) was passed, prohibiting an agency or entity receiving Federal assistance for adoptive or foster care placements from delaying or denying the placement of a child on the basis of the race, color, or national origin.
  
  
• In 1996, Congress further amended MEPA, forbidding all agencies from denying or delaying placement of a child for adoption solely on the basis of race or national origin.