I’m a transracial adoptee living in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I had the misfortune of being raised in one of the whitest communities in the state, thus breaking any stereotypes of New Jersey being a dirty, citified (i.e., diverse) armpit of the country.
Here you’ll find gritty realities about transracial adoption, mixed with actual, legit, for-realsies scholarly research to help validate all you angry adoptees out there. For those of you who lean more lovingly toward the adoption experience, I hope you’ll find some takeaways to help broaden your perspectives and contribute to a meaningful discussion.
My goal is to widen the discussion about adoption into a more relatable one by framing it with racial studies. I’m currently at work on an autoethnography, detailing my experiences and bolstering it with that aforementioned for-realsies academic research (you know, the kind that goes beyond a Google search).
About my credentials: Not much, besides being adopted into a white family and race-unfriendly county (just wait until you read about the Confederate flag incident). I have a Master’s degree in Library and Information Science, which I’m utilizing in full force to cull research and make recommendations.
Professionally, I have a background in digital marketing with a focus on Google Analytics.
Personally, I just want to make a change in how race in this country is perceived.
I am a contributor to Intercountry Adoptee Voices.
a critical discourse. 
I am an African-American woman who very recently adopted an African-Jamaican teenage boy. Adoption officials consider our union transracial. He actually looks very much like me. People always comment on the serendipity of it, and it’s not just one of those “all Black people look alike” things. Even he and I think we look alike.
I said that to say we are more transcultural than transracial in the truest sense. Nevertheless the adoption is classified as transracial and I find myself in forums like this one as a result. I also find myself wondering what transracial adoptees feel about transracial adoptions that don’t involve white people. It seems odd (for lack of a better designation) that our family is classified as transacial but ALL of the “Transracial Family” forums are devoted to whiteness.
My son’s losses and traumas (there have been many) and grief are sometimes unimaginable. And, I want to find meaningful ways to validate him (and us) and all the ish that comes with adoption; BUT all my discussion-seeking efforts lead to whiteness. That’s not us, and to be honest I think I am somehow offended that transracial adoption has been relegated to white people raising children of color. Any advice?
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