In Their Parents’ Voices: Reflections on Raising Transracial Adoptees

Posted in Books, Family/Parenting, Media Archive, Monographs, Social Work, United States on 2013-03-24 02:09Z by Steven

In Their Parents’ Voices: Reflections on Raising Transracial Adoptees

Columbia University Press
October 2007
240 pages
Cloth ISBN: 978-0-231-14136-9
Paper ISBN: 978-0-231-14137-6

Rita J. Simon, University Professor Emerita
Department of Justice, Law and Society
American University, Washington, D.C.

Rhonda M. Roorda

Rita J. Simon and Rhonda M. Roorda’s In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories shared the experiences of twenty-four black and biracial children who had been adopted into white families in the late 1960s and 70s. The book has since become a standard resource for families and practitioners, and now, in this sequel, we hear from the parents of these remarkable families and learn what it was like for them to raise children across racial and cultural lines.

These candid interviews shed light on the issues these parents encountered, what part race played during thirty plus years of parenting, what they learned about themselves, and whether they would recommend transracial adoption to others. Combining trenchant historical and political data with absorbing firsthand accounts, Simon and Roorda once more bring an academic and human dimension to the literature on transracial adoption.

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In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories

Posted in Books, Media Archive, Monographs, Social Work, United States on 2013-03-24 01:00Z by Steven

In Their Own Voices: Transracial Adoptees Tell Their Stories

Columbia University Press
April 2000
480 pages
Paper ISBN: 978-0-231-11829-3

Rita J. Simon, University Professor Emerita
Department of Justice, Law and Society
American University, Washington, D.C.

Rhonda M. Roorda


 
Nearly forty years after researchers first sought to determine the effects, if any, on children adopted by families whose racial or ethnic background differed from their own, the debate over transracial adoption continues. In this collection of interviews conducted with black and biracial young adults who were adopted by white parents, the authors present the personal stories of two dozen individuals who hail from a wide range of religious, economic, political, and professional backgrounds. How does the experience affect their racial and social identities, their choice of friends and marital partners, and their lifestyles? In addition to interviews, the book includes overviews of both the history and current legal status of transracial adoption.

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