-I. Adoption and the African American Community
Gloria King, M.S., Black Adoption Placement and Research Center, Oakland, CA

-II. Adoption and the Latino Community
Maria Quintanilla, L.C.S.W., Latino Family Institute, West Covina, CA

-III. Adoption and the Native American Community
Judge William A. Thorne, Jr., J.D., Third District Court, Salt Lake City, UT, National Indian Justice Center

I. Adoption and the African American Community
Gloria King, M.S., Black Adoption Placement and Research Center, Oakland, CA

Ethnicity, race and culture shape much of who we are.

A framework which deals with two aspects of race, culture and national origin

1) The legislative impact of the Multiethnic Placement Act (MEPA)

2) Perception: how we see and view the world - "world view"

1) MEPA:

- "addresses one of the most misunderstood concepts known to man: it calls up what we feel about race and the values we feel about children and families. Although the spirit of the law is born out of an anti-discrimination prohibition, it raises a moral question for us all - How do we leave race out of the equation that is so steeped in racism?"

- addresses what was an issue for infant adoption, but not for foster care and special needs adoptions.

- remains silent on culture.

- allows practitioners to do targeted recruitment, but provides no enforcement or penalties if they do not.

- calls for an ethical responsibility to do what is right for the disproportionate number of children who are "counting on (practitioners) to do the right thing."

- calls on service providers to have a good understanding of what is prohibited and what is allowed. More emphasis should be placed on what is allowed. Targeted recruitment is included in this category.

2) World View

- A world view is born out of experiences of the way people live in the world. It is based on personal perception, values, and assessments. Ethnic, racial and cultural identities act as filters so that while we are all looking at the same world, we may be seeing it very differently. Given this understanding of "world view," the goals for practitioners are to:

- not pathologize, but acknowledge, understand and celebrate differences and the unique and creative ways we have of living and being in the world together.

- be advocates of challenging the status quo. Otherwise, practitioners may inadvertently act as a vehicle for the making of a discriminatory decision.

- understand different world views, particularly those of the children and families who are being served.

What are the key considerations related to race, culture and adoption planning? The job of the practitioner is to inform and educate families and at the same time, allow families to teach them about the types of support they require to successfully raise their children. Families want practitioners to embrace all of who they are and to acknowledge and celebrate their history, legacy and spirituality. Race is not the issue, but racism is because it separates and devalues.

The Black Adoption Placement and Research Center
The Center provides an ideal model because it:

- uses a multi-level approach in recruitment, including a grassroots effort, community outreach, and a strength-based, child-specific marketing of children.

- works in the families' communities because the families need to see practitioners in order to build trusting relationships.

- includes immediate follow-up with clients.

- is not just an agency, but a community of services which include continuing education, social events, culture camp and on-site therapy for children.

- utilizes formal check-ins with families to assess and evaluate services at every stage.

- uses an empowerment model and works in partnership with families by considering them as equal partners and respecting the experience and information they have to share.

How do these considerations impact adoption as opposed to other permanency alternatives?

While the population of children served has changed, practice has not. The system was designed after WW II for families that are very different from the families and children served today. Does this system work for a population of children who were not even considered at the time of implementation? The African American child experiences life as "a cultural journey." Practitioners must understand the importance of African American culture in children's lives and consider their world views. It is not surprising that African American families want to avoid a system that has traditionally devalued and interacted with them from a position of missionary racism.

More targeted recruitment is needed and criteria governing who is eligible or qualified to adopt should be reconsidered. Is it the case that people who are not African American should not adopt African American children? The answer may be yes if prospective adoptive parents believe any of the following because they may be unable to prepare the child for life in American society:

- Love conquers all/Love is enough.

- Adopting an African American child is an opportunity for adopters to be better than other people of their own race.

- Color-blindness does not negate a part of who the child is.

- Infants do not have a culture.

- Racism doesn't exist.

- Adopting a child transracially is a way of saving him/her.

Adopting transracially requires the adoptive parents to be:

- open to experiencing and understanding the child's world view.

- willing to feel uncomfortable.

- willing to admit that they don't have all the answers.

- willing to believe, accept and validate children's feelings.

Systemic change requires being willing to:

- speak out even when it is not popular and take risks.

- work in partnership with others who value culture in placement decisions.

- expand approaches to front-end services provided to accommodate the existing population of children.

- evaluate the instruments used to determine the eligibility for family's readiness to foster or adopt. This does not negate safety or healthy, functioning families, but requires a look at the instruments from a cultural perspective.

Vignette

"That's not your mom," Jamie teased Meg on the way home from school. "Why are you black when your mom and dad are white? Later that night, Meg's father soothed her as he tucked her into bed. "It's nice to be different, honey. People are all different. Tell him you're adopted. If everyone was exactly the same, how would we tell who was who? Besides, you are half white - just like me and mommy. Tell Jamie to zip his tongue. Now off to sleep, Princess. I love you." Reassured, Meg giggled and drifted off to sleep. Jamie was stupid. Her parents weren't white. Not even. Flesh-colored band-aids blended right into their skin. And she wasn't black. Meg hated the color black. Her black crayon was lost anyway.

Barbara and Tim, Meg's parents wanted their daughter to be happy. When Meg was happy, they felt successful as parents. Meg was so pretty anyway. Her features were so fine. She wasn't going to have any problems with race - not while they were around. They were raising Meg the same as they would had she been born to them.

Are these parents right in what they've instructed Meg to do?

What are the subtle messages?

Did they listen to Meg's narrative?

When she grows up, will she be prepared?

What are the key challenges for the future? Adoption professionals must:

- act on a commitment of including and not negating the importance of valuing all of who children and families are.

- not be afraid to obtain more training or gain more experience.

examine their own world views and improve cultural competence. - follow and talk about codes of ethics.

- move from cultural destructiveness and color blindness to holding culture in high esteem.

II. Adoption and the Latino Community
Maria Quintanilla, L.C.S.W., Latino Family Institute, West Covina, CA

Do people in the Latino community want to adopt? Given the response that the Latino Family Institute received after being featured on Cristina, a popular Spanish-speaking talk show, the answer is yes. The Institute, the only private agency in California specializing in Latino adoptions, received over 400 phone calls in one day, and 3,000 calls over a one-month period (including from Puerto Rico and Mexico) from people who were interested in adopting.

Latinos have a long history of adoptions. Like many other communities of color, there is a tradition of informal adoptions which include children being raised by aunts and uncles.

Recruitment of Latino Families

To be successful, agencies need to be able to identify with the communities they want to target. If a sense of connection is not felt with the agency, prospective adopters will not come forward.

Bureaucracy deters people from applying to adopt, particularly because of experiences prospective adopters have had in their own countries. They believe that if they are ineligible to adopt in their own countries, they are certainly not going to meet the criteria in the U.S.

Motherhood and virility are highly valued in the Latino community, and infertile couples are ashamed to come forward to adopt because doing so would be an admission of infertility. Practitioners need to address this issue and assist couples in viewing their infertility in a different way.

Practitioners should see the Latino community as a viable resource.

Identified Barriers

- There is a lack of Spanish speaking staff and forms in Spanish.
- For many in the community, infertility is linked with religion. Many feel that their inability to have children is God's punishment.

- There are misconceptions about children with special needs, especially by those who are not acculturated.

- It is difficult to process families in a timely manner.

- Agencies sometimes view individuals who do not speak perfect English as inappropriate candidates for adoption.

- Agencies sometimes hold the view that Latino children need to be "upgraded" out of their communities by being placed with non-Latino families.

Other Challenges

As in other communities, the first priority in the Latino community should not be adoption placement, but family reunification. Research supports this. Do laws facilitate realistic family reunification, or is it becoming easier for children to be cut off from their families of origin? Laws make it extremely difficult for families to prove that they are able to raise their children by demanding that they overcome such problems as substance abuse, unemployment and poverty in very short periods of time. Are people being noncompliant when they cannot make significant changes in their lives in three months time or are these laws unrealistic?

In order for transracial adoptions to be successful, Latino agencies need to support families in a way in which they will feel comfortable asking for help. This is particularly important for children who may be placed in families where their only contact with non-white people may be through the families' gardeners, maids or nannies. Active support of service providers may help to avoid or alleviate these types of mixed and confusing messages sent to children.

In order to support Latino families:

- agencies need to work more with kin.

- agencies must focus on the needs of the child.

- connections to the child's community must be honored and maintained. For example in cases where children are reunified with their families, foster parents often serve as co-parents.

- agencies need to work with families throughout their lives.

- agencies need to gain an understanding of Latino perspectives, gain a sensitivity toward language and cultural differences and then utilize this knowledge in recruiting Latino families.

- post-placement adoption services, substance abuse information and services, and mental health services are needed to help families keep children in stable, loving and nurturing environments.

III. Adoption and the Native American Community
Judge William A. Thorne, Jr., J.D., Third District Court, Salt Lake City, UT, National Indian Justice Center

A comic strip caption reads: "Come to think of it, how did ëdo-gooder' get to become a derogatory term?" In terms of adoptions, this cartoon is reflective of what Indian communities think of people outside of their communities.

Everyone wants what's best for the children. The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) makes federal law requirements different for Indian children than others. Why should these children be treated differently?

Early learning impacts how we see the world, even in simple and objective terms. In cases where it is being decided whether or not a family is appropriate for a child, or "good parenting" and "good enough parenting" are being defined, subjective values are utilized. If early learning can impact what is done with objective things, imagine how magnified that is when subjective values are used. The values that social workers use in evaluating families, in large part, are based on knowledge gained while growing up, through education and through experience. This, however, is not always the case for the families who are being evaluated.

Statistics and other findings from the American Indian Policy Review Commission A study published by the U.S. Congress in 1977 examined fourteen areas dealing with the federal government and Indian tribes. One of the areas studied was families. The study included comparative rates for Indian and non-Indian children (per capita) on foster care entry and adoption and found the following for Indian children:

Arizona

420% more often adopted

270% more often in foster care

Washington

1900% more often adopted

Almost 1000% more often in foster care

California

840% more often adopted

270% more often in foster care

Montana

480% more often adopted

Almost 1300% more often in foster care

Michigan

370% more often adopted

710% more often in foster care

Utah

340% more often adopted

1500% more often in foster care

Minnesota

390% more often adopted

1650% more often in foster care

North Dakota

280% more often adopted

Over 2000% more often in foster care

There are many problems on reservations, including alcoholism, poverty and unemployment, but they are not severe enough to warrant removing children from their homes at the rates illustrated above. The removal of so many children from their families can instead be attributed to the attempts made by people outside of Indian communities to do the right thing (the do-gooders from the previously mentioned cartoon). The "outsider's" view of what is right, however, involves applying his/her own world view to people who have a different world view. As a result, Indian children are out-of-home more often than is necessary, and this is what is responsible for Indian communities' negative attitudes toward Western adoption.

Adoption and its Effects on Indian Children and Families

Traditional adoption in Indian communities is not a question of open versus closed as is the case in Western adoption and in some tribes, creating "legal orphans" by terminating parental rights is not an option. In Indian communities, families agree to raise children with the understanding that the child will have access to the biological family. Instead of the child being cut away from the biological family, the new family is "grafted on" so that the child has the opportunity to draw what he/she needs, whenever it is needed, from both families. In research performed by Dr. Rohl and colleagues at University of New Mexico, Indian children raised in non-Indian homes were found to identify with the aggressor. Using a modified thematic apperception test (a test in which a story is told several times, with one facet of the story being changed each time), children were told a story in which the lead character was identified as Indian, or was not identified at all. Researchers found that when these children (as young as four years old) were told the version of the story in which the main character was Indian, the children described the character as bad, ugly, dumb or dishonest. When the race of the character was not identified, children identified that same character as good, honest, beautiful and smart. Dr. Rohl's conclusion was that children as young as four were already being profoundly affected by the absence of positive images of what it means to be Indian today. While suicide rates are higher in the inner-cities, they are almost twice as high from the inner-cities to reservations, and even higher among Indian teens raised in non-Indian homes. This is attributed to the fact that during adolescence, Indian youths begin to identify with the negative image of what it means to be Indian. "What are we doing to kids if we are not giving them the chance to grow up in a context of who they are, where they come from, and have a connection? In the storm of adolescence, who knows where that child is going to be able to reach out to and find what he/she needs? Why do we cut some of those people off from the child?"

In Indian communities, there are no secrets. Who you are depends on who you are related to. Upon meeting someone, the ritual is to find out who you know in common and who you are related to. Once this connection is found, you know how to deal with each other and how you can deal with the world. When Indian children are cut off from their connections, "the risk of suicide is the tip of the iceberg." These problems can be ameliorated by giving children a rich sense of who they are, a sense of being part of a culture, and a feeling that they are part of something bigger than themselves. In transcultural adoptions, this can be accomplished by the adoptive parents' willingness to love the child enough to sacrifice their own feelings and give the child what he/she needs. This includes bringing the child back to the reservation for ceremonial events and allowing the child's biological family to visit.

Indian adoption has, in many ways, been years ahead of Western adoption. Open adoptions have always been common practice in Indian communities and ICWA, enacted twenty years ago, states that children are entitled to non-specific information so that they may become enrolled members of their tribes. Additionally, the Indian child holds the right to decide who will participate in his/her life. While Western adoption views members of the triad as those who are relevant parties to adoption, Indian communities view not only these parties, but the tribe (which has legal, moral and ethical rights in the child's life), extended families, and anyone else the child is connected to as relevant to the child's well-being.

In determining what is best for children, each child must be looked at individually with his or her needs considered in the context of who he/she is, where he/she is growing up, and what community he/she will go back into as a teenager, adult or even a grandparent.

Summary
Sydney Duncan

African American, Latino and Native American children collectively represent the communities from which the majority of children in the child welfare system come. It is important that the system reflect and respect the values of these communities and consider each child individually when making decisions about the future. In the United States, how can we deny the importance of race, culture, and national origin?