Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 116. We're the Nelsons. I'm Shaun.
And I'm Lanette. Today we're excited to have our final National Adoption Month episode for 2024.
We are doing our fourth installment of our Adoptee-led book club and today we're talking
about a book led by Adoptee Anna Lehnardt and she is a transracial adoptee and she'll be helping us
discuss the book Selling Transracial Adoption Families, Markets, and the Color Line written
by Elizabeth Raleigh. This book was published in 2018 and the author Elizabeth Raleigh is an
assistant professor of sociology at Carleton College in Northfield Minnesota. We're so grateful for
Anna sharing her point of view and her experience with us in this episode. This book is also a
really interesting read. It's a little bit more of like an academic read right where the author
Wynne interviewed a bunch of different social workers and agencies and talked about how they
were approaching transracial adoption in the United States and so I think it's a really important
book. I think it's really helpful and valuable but I would not say that you need to read this
book before you listen to this episode because it's not the kind of book that's going to have
spoilers. Whether or not you've read the book we hope that you listen to this episode and we hope
it's educational for you and if you have different thoughts and perspectives we would love to hear
from you too. So you can always reach out to us and we love hearing from adoptees and birth
parents especially on our podcast and so if you would like to talk to us for a future episode
please feel free to do so. Okay we'll jump to our conversation with Anna.
We are here on the podcast with Anna Lienart. Anna thank you so much for being here with us.
Of course I'm so grateful to be here thank you. Yeah to start off can you tell us a bit about you?
Yes um my name is Anna like you said I'm currently an undergraduate at Brigham Young University.
I'm studying family studies human development. I minored in Mandarin Chinese. I'm a transracial
adoptee from China. I was adopted when I was two and that's about it. Awesome and then today we're
going to be talking about a book called Selling Transracial Adoption Families Markets and the
color line written by Elizabeth Raleigh and you're going to help us kind of dissect this book. So
to start off how did you feel about this book? I thought it was so interesting. I really appreciated
all of the issues that she brought up and that she was so conscious of helping adoptive parents
and others know and helping social workers know that she's not passing judgment that this is just
a trend that she's seen and she wasn't trying to be harsh towards anyone so I thought it was a very
informative but kind book. That's awesome. All right and so this book talks about a lot of really
heavy but important things. So first let's talk about cultural identity. What challenges do
transracial adoptees face regarding their cultural identity? That is a great question. This is something
that I struggle with probably every single day. Really I think transracial adoptees don't have a
great basis of knowing who they are especially when they're adopted when they're children.
They're taken from their one culture placed in another and are often not given resources to deal
with both cultures and so for me I had a lot of experiences growing up where I didn't know am I
American Chinese or am I Chinese American? What does that mean? What would that look like? Both
versions and today I've come to the point where I pick some days I want to be more Chinese and I
like doing listening to Chinese music or cooking Chinese food or being with my Chinese friends and
other days I don't want anything to do with it and I'm tired of being well maybe not tired of being
but it's difficult to be perceived as Chinese and I just choose to not focus on that side of me. So
it's definitely a battle knowing where you fit in and where you personally feel comfortable.
That's so interesting. It sounds like a hard balance to strike. So how does the author suggest
that these challenges can be addressed? I think this author really focuses on preparation. She
talks a lot about how social workers have a job to help parents understand and manage these
relationships. Specifically she thinks that when they are learning when they're first adopting they
go through training courses but that these training courses need to be buffered. They need to have more
time than the one or two or ten required hours to really understand what race means what it means
for their family that they are becoming a transracial family. How does this book address
societal views on race and adoption? This like I said earlier this book really just tries to not
judge anyone. I think it's really easy in our society today to focus on the negative aspects
of race or the negative culture that we have towards race and I think she does a good job of
saying it's there but it's something that we need to work on but it's not everyone's fault.
And so specifically she says that there are a lot of different views. She takes the view of a lot of
social workers. She goes and talks to them sees what they understand about race and she says that
a lot of social workers notice problems with race or that parents potential adoptive parents
make racial comments but that they have to balance having people who are willing to adopt children
and having people who are very aware of race and what that means. And so yeah.
Yeah that's tricky. Yeah any thoughts on how these perceptions impact adoptees?
I think it's huge. One thing in particular she talks about is that children of different races
are seen differently. For example white children are the most wanted in the United States,
are the most maybe valued in terms of selling transracial adoption. They're the most valued
children and then come Hispanic and Asian children who are seen as not white entirely
but are like honorary whites and then black children they're split into two categories.
One is black like a mixed race black and white children versus black children and black children
and then they split them even further being black children in the United States versus black children
internationally. And because there's so many different views of who is considered white,
who is not considered white, what mixed race does, that impacts how children see themselves.
It impacts what value they think they have and parents pay different amounts for depending on
the race of the child and that can impact you growing up right? Was I a child that was worth
more? Am I someone who you got like a discount on if we're talking about this language? Yeah yeah
the practice of race-based pricing at adoption agencies is such a concerning thing and not all
agencies practice that but a lot do. And that's one thing we always talk to our listeners about
being really careful. We recommend not working with any agencies who practice race-based pricing
because it's highly unethical and how is your child going to feel if they find out that you
adopted them through these unethical means and with an agency that practices these kinds of things.
Yeah all right so what role do adoption agencies play in transracial adoption? They I like to think
are the gatekeepers. They're the middle ground. They can say who can adopt and who can adopt.
This book also focuses a lot on social workers balancing taking care of children and child
welfare while also balancing parents want to adopt children. And I think that's a very that's a very
difficult line and it for me that feels like a very case-by-case situation. But this book
talks about the history of adoption started as really wanting to find a place for children
but now it is how can we find children for parents. So this change in perspective impacts how
adoption works in the United States today. They are really catering to parents.
That's such an important thing to point out because when agencies are focused on finding
children for parents instead of just focusing on the children and what these children need
then it changes right. It becomes an economic exchange and it changes how we see children
being adopted. It changes how we see their birth families and it might change how people go about
finding children to adopt and it can lead to really unethical practices. Like we've talked with a woman
before who her mother took her to an orphanage in a different country where it's very commonplace
to take kids to orphanages as like a sort of foster care like respite care. And she was going
to come back in a couple weeks. She came back and her child had been adopted by a family in the United States.
And was gone and she had never consented to it. She came back and it was years later when they were
able to reunify that this daughter found out that her mother didn't ever approve of this adoption in
the first place. Yeah so when we lose focus on what's best for the child and focusing on child needs
it can get really hairy and that's when we're in trouble I think. I agree. I also feel like those
in adoption agencies have to balance the price right. Like do they pay. They have to stay in
business to be able to help more children but what is the limit right. What is the limit of
being able to stay in business. And Elizabeth Raleigh mentions that a lot of these social workers say
in theory we would love it if our adoption agency closed. That would be the end goal right. If we
don't need adoption agencies anymore. But despite their like beliefs and hopes for this happening
they have to keep their business working. They have to have a job. They have to help more children.
And so it's a very it's a tightrope. Yeah it's really challenging. So do you think adoption
agencies are doing enough to prepare families for the unique challenges they might face with
transracial adoption. I'm gonna be honest I have not even been to an agency. I haven't visited one.
I haven't talked to people. So my knowledge is probably very limited. It's based a lot in this
book. So my little caveat. But from what I know I feel like they are doing what they can the best
they know how. But there is a lot of improvement that needs to happen. While I was reading through
this book I felt like a lot of social workers understood that there was a gap in what they
were doing to help families understand race. I think especially in terms of race a lot of social
workers aren't aware. In one part of the book they say that many of these social workers get on the
job training on for how to have conversations about race. Which is something very difficult to
bring up. And so I think there's not enough training in that area for social workers. If
they're getting on the job training I don't think that's good enough training. And they also like
we said before are balancing the market versus child welfare. And so they are more likely to,
according to this book in general, right? They're more likely to downplay race and more likely to
downplay any disabilities or problems that these children might have in order to sell,
quote, you know, sell more children. And so I think they're doing a lot of good things but I think
there's a lot more that could be done to have it more equitable, to have it more ethical, and to
have them just be more aware and more trained in how to have these conversations. Yeah that's so
well said. I think that's so important and it's so hard because it's going to take a lot to get
there. I agree. It's so important. So how did the authors discuss the intersection of race and adoption?
They talk about how there's a lot of stereotypes happening with race. And like we mentioned,
right, there's different prices for different children and they talk about maybe it's not
inherent but there is some sense with people of, oh, like I don't want to adopt a child from this
area or I don't want to adopt a child who is black from the United States because of any,
because of previous racial bias, but they're super willing to adopt a child who is black,
who is from an international country like Ethiopia. They also talk about race in terms of who is
considered white, who is considered not white, what that means for the family. And so children are
growing up with not knowing what their racial standing is. For example, my parents are very
young. For example, my parents didn't have any training from social workers about being a trans
racial family and what it means to adopt an Asian child. And so I grew up not knowing how to balance
and how to talk about race and how to talk about any experiences that I had. And it was really
painful. I went through a lot of painful experiences. Another thing that's not talked
about but relates to race and adoption is that children in different countries, children who
are trans racially adopted are given subsidies from the government if they are a child of a
different race. And so I think that continues the idea, right, that there is a division,
there is something happening with the way that we view children of different races and that that's
a problem. And it's not okay to look at a child differently because of the way they look and to
discriminate who they want to pick to be their child. Yeah. So this is such an important
conversation. I feel like it's really challenging, right? Because there are so many factors that go
into families trying to decide what they're able to handle. There's like extended family members
who might be racist. And how do you feel like people can address this in a way where they're
focusing on the child and what's going to be best for the child? That is a really good question.
And I think it requires a lot of listening and a lot of time and a lot of patience and a lot of
humility. I think as has been mentioned, it is a difficult topic. It's a heavy topic. But one,
keeping in check your biases, understanding why am I adopting, why am I maybe not adopting children
of this race? What would be the issues, right? I think there is some sense of wanting to protect
your child from not having adverse experiences, right? You know it would be difficult to raise a
black child in a completely white neighborhood. But knowing how can we change that environment?
How can we help our neighbors improve? How can we help our family improve? In social science,
there's intersectionality theorists, right? Who talk about how both areas have to change when
someone's... Because we have so many different intersections in our own lives, for example,
me being Asian and in a white community and being a woman, there's a lot of intersections.
But that changes every environment that I'm in. And so knowing how can this community change if
we bring a trans-racial child into this environment? Also, how can they change it? How can they make
the world better? So I think one, understanding your own bias. Two, understanding what this could
mean for the child. And then three, knowing that they're very resilient, that everyone is resilient
and that the only way, I think, not the only way, but a great way to change conversations is to
include more diversity in the places that we're at. I love that. Thank you so much. All right. So
what are some of the emotional or psychological impacts highlighted in this book for both adoptees
and their families? One really large impact is that children are not having the needs met who
are transracially adopted. They are growing up in neighborhoods and in communities and with families
where people are racist, where there's microaggressions, and they're not taught with
how to manage and to deal with these feelings. Parents are unprepared for these conversations
and it's painful. It's very painful and I think it's scarring and it leads to a lot of resentment.
Additionally, I think their families, they don't realize what's going on. And so they,
like parents and siblings can live in a little bit of a bliss. And that's also additionally painful
for adoptees because they feel like they're alone in their experiences and they can't tell anyone
and no one in their family would understand. It's so hard. So how do you think awareness
of these challenges can lead to better support systems? I think awareness of these impacts can
help children and adults, transversal adults, get the resources that they need. Specifically,
I would love to see more therapists, family therapists, and individual therapists that are
focused on adoption, that are focused on ambiguous loss, that are focused on race, dealing with race,
dealing with identity, and really just learning more about what adoptees experience is huge.
And even in the social science research, there's not very much about adoption, especially not a
lot about transracial adoptions. And even more for me, there's not very much about Asian
transracial adoptees. And right now, currently, the adoption research is focusing on adults and
how their outcomes, what their outcomes are. And I think there's a lot we don't know about their
mental health or physical health, about what has happened living in an environment that is completely
out of what you maybe would have originally been raised in. Yeah. So which personal stories or
anecdotes from this book resonated with you the most? I really think it was important that in this
book that they, I feel like Elizabeth Raleigh did a really great job of focusing on the experiences
of social workers. Like she said in the beginning of her book, this is a not very listened to group
of people, their experiences, they have to balance a lot. So specifically, I think her stories of
talking to these social workers was impactful for me. I especially was shocked by some of the
stories talking about when they were vetting candidates to adopt adoptive families, that they
that they push aside maybe any racist comments or any fears that these families had, and still
allowed them to adopt because they needed to have adoptions to continue their business model.
That really shocked me because I would assume that social workers have to really balance, right? What
is best for the child? What is best for this family? But they just put it aside. And not to say
that I wouldn't do the same thing if I was in their situation. I have no idea what that is like.
But I do think that was drawing for me to think that there was maybe less backbone in these
situations and less moral. I don't know the right word for that. Less integrity and yeah.
Less integrity in these situations. My parents are incredible and they've been very supportive
in my adoption and my socialization to my community. But I can't imagine being with a parent
that who is outright racist and has a lot of microaggressions and to grow up in that
environment and know that they could have been barred from being my parents.
So wild. Well, and I feel like even today there's so many adoptive parents who struggle not
understanding how being colorblind can be a real challenge and how that's not really a thing.
And how trying to be colorblind can harm children, transracial adoptees.
Yeah. Yes. I think I've even had my parents say to me and they're, like I said, they're very
wonderful. I've had my parents say, oh, we just see you as our daughter. We don't see you as Asian.
We don't see you as Chinese or any of these things. We just see you as our daughter,
which is, yes, that's great. But also that's a huge part of me. That is a part of me that
everyone sees no matter where I go, if I want it or not. I am seen as Asian and I am seen as Chinese.
And to hear that from a parent figure is pretty painful. It's like a denial of part of who you are.
And I just feel like not being able to confront that and having social workers,
not being able to realize how harmful that is later in life is is bad. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, and it's again, just failing to recognize what children need and what adoptees need.
Yeah. Yeah. All right. So how does Elizabeth Rowley critique the current adoption system?
I think our main critique is that it is a market. It is not something really focused on welfare.
It's not focused on helping families per se. It is very much a market system. And the people in
the middle, the social workers who have to balance everything, they get caught up in the market talk
and in the market criteria as well. I think that was for me, her main point is that it is really a
selling of children because there's different market prices. There's different, yeah, because
there's different market prices for children. And that is not okay. It should not be a market. It
should not be. There should not be different prices in my opinion. Yeah. Agreed. Based on
the discussion in this book, what do you envision for the future of transracial adoption?
I envision a lot of support. I think community is so important for people to feel like they belong,
to feel like they have a place for someone to listen to them, someone to be there for them.
And I would love to see more integrity in social workers, more integrity in adoptive parents,
and in the adoption agencies themselves, right? Like having conversations in situations where race
isn't on the back burner, but it's on its front and center. And if parents aren't able, don't think
that they're able to have those conversations, then they shouldn't be adopting children who are
transracial. It's not about your wants and needs as much as you think it is. Okay, that's a little
too harsh. Okay. But it's true. I agree. I don't think it's too harsh. Okay. So it isn't about
parents' wants and needs. That is important and it is difficult to not be able to have children and
have infertility, but essentially you are taking someone and shaping and impacting every aspect of
their life without their permission and without their consent. And so there should be a lot more,
I think, for transracial adoptees, education, community support. But I do believe that people
of different races, for example, my parents, Caucasian parents, they can very happily and
very successfully raise a child who is of a different race. But I think it's important in
how we do that. Yeah. Yeah. Doing it in an informed and child-centric way. I love that.
How do the themes in selling transracial adoption relate to the broader societal issues of race and
belonging? And can you draw parallels with current events or movements? My professor at Brigham
Mellon University who studies adoption always says that adoption is the best way to understand
what is actually going on in the world and how people are fit or unfit and how children are fit
or unfit. And I think it is a really great window to understanding our racial biases in general as
a nation. For me, having the understanding that Asian children and Hispanic children are honorary
whites, that there's a difference between Black children and international Black children and
mixed children and the pricing among them defines for me what we see today in society.
That sometimes Asians are held on a pedestal and sometimes they aren't. And sometimes Black people
are, if they're from international countries, are held on a pedestal. And if they're from here,
they're not. And I think that's a huge issue that we are seeing people for the color of their skin
rather than really getting to know them as people. But also it's important to know that they have
different experiences because of the way they look. And there's a lot of ignoring going on.
I think there's a lot of ignoring and there's a lot of justification for how people treat others.
And so while I think in this book, they talk about selling children, I think in our own society,
we have things that are similar. And instead of selling, it happens with who can get jobs and who
can't get jobs and who can work somewhere and who can't and who is more trustworthy in an academic
setting versus who is not trustworthy. Even on the streets, right? We see these stereotypes play out
in our current society. So what were your biggest takeaways from this book? My biggest takeaway from
this book is that it, adoption, okay, my biggest takeaway from the book is that adoption is
complicated and that we need to be paying attention a lot more to the nuance that adoption
brings, especially for transracial adoptees. I really am grateful that she brought to light
that these issues and that it is a marketplace and that it is not great in the way that parents are
trained and are educated, but that there is something that we can do about it. I think for me,
being a young, you know, undergraduate, being aware of these issues helps me feel hope that I can make
a difference and that I can make the academic world and the actual world better because I
understand that there's something going wrong and that we want something to be better.
I love that so much. Anna, thank you so much for being here and for teaching us and talking about
this book. It's a really impactful book. Who would you recommend this book to most? Thank you so much
for having me on here. I'm really so grateful to share my thoughts and to really understand her
perspective more. If I was to share this book with someone, I think, one, social workers, two,
parents, and for me as an adoptee, it was very informative but also a little bit sad. So
sparingly for adoptees. It's fantastic. Well, thank you so much for being here and we'll talk
to you on the podcast again soon. Yay, can't wait. Thanks. Bye. Thank you.
Thanks so much to Anna for her willingness to meet with us and share her perspective.
There are so many aspects to consider when adopting and even when interacting with others
in adoption relationships. And for transracial adoptees, there are so many complexities. So I
just am really grateful for any opportunity I have to hear from adoptees, especially transracial
adoptees, to help me understand their experience. Absolutely. Me too. And I also feel like this
discussion is a really great way to start dialogue about some of these challenges in adoption
management, right? Like how adoption agencies are run, how adoption laws and policies are operating
right now, what is working well, what needs to change. I think there's a lot of room for improvement
and I think that this was a great discussion to start that dialogue and start thinking about what
we can be advocating for, what might need to change. Yeah, and I know that that invitation
may sound like huge, like what can I do? And I think, especially for adoptive parents, it
really falls on us to hold agencies accountable for ethical practices, making sure that if you
don't feel right about something, saying something and don't work with an agency that's going to be
operating in ways that are unethical because you want to have that clear conscience, right?
When you talk to your child one day about their adoption and they want to know the logistics
about the agency or like they have questions about how their birth family was treated, you want to
have a clear conscience that you've been working with an ethical and reputable agency. And so yeah,
I think, I mean, it's kind of icky, right? Because it's, this whole conversation is about how adoption
is kind of this economical, economic exchange. And that's kind of yucky, right? Like no one wants
to think about a child or a person being marketed or sold. But the way that agencies do operate
right now, it sometimes feels like that. And we want to make sure that we're advocating for child
centered practices and policies, that we're making sure that birth families are being taken care of
and ethically treated, that they're truly presented with all of their options and that they're
supported in whatever they decide. And so, yeah, just a challenge, I think, from this episode and
a call to action is for us to try to look inside ourselves and see what we're doing, that we need
to change or improve, like what we're supporting. Is it ethical? Do we feel like we have a clear
conscience about it? Or is there something we can change and improve? Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you
again to Anna for being willing to be with us today. And thank you for listening. We're so
grateful for you and wish you a happy Thanksgiving if you're listening to this when it drops.
And the United States at least. Yeah. And we'll be back in your newsfeed soon.
Thank you.