Questions Of Race Transracial Adoptions Cause Controversy In Some Families, Concerned Organizations

(From For the Record, Saturday, February 10, 1996:) John Yoder holds a doctorate in African History and teaches African courses at Whitworth College. What he teaches was described wrong in an article in the Jan. 30 IN Life section.

When Rusty and Nancy Nelson decided to adopt an African-American son 16 years ago, they thought they could give him everything he needed.

Until last Christmas, when Nate ran away from home.

“He’s trying to figure out who he is and where he fits in,” Nancy Nelson says. “He’s trying to find his own identity.”

To have that connection, to know what it’s like to be black, that’s the one thing his parents couldn’t give, Nate Nelson says.

“It’s different because your parents don’t see what you’re going through,” says Nate, who is now living with a friend in Spokane. “Comments are always coming at you like, ‘Why are your parents white?’ People always give you looks.”

The Nelsons’ story of a family divided - in part, because of racial tensions and misunderstanding - is at the core of a growing national debate surrounding transracial adoption.

The debate has intensified over the past decade, splitting adoptees, adoptive parents, social workers and recently lawmakers.

Last fall, Congress passed a bill that would increase transracial adoptions and emphasizes recruitment of more ethnic foster and adoptive families.

As required by the law, Washington and Idaho state public child welfare agencies must make proposals for recruitment plans, which they expect to complete by the end of February.

Whatever a child’s race, opponents of transracial adoption argue Caucasian parents don’t know how to raise children of color to cope with a racist society, and that the children are being cut off from their ethnic identity. They say the kids are better off waiting to be placed in a culturally relevant home rather than with white parents.

But supporters of the practice say a transracial home is better than none at all.

Janet and John Yoder believe transracial adoptions can work. They adopted two biracial children in the 1970s at the height of the controversy surrounding transracial adoption, when the National Association of Black Social Workers blasted the practice as “cultural genocide.”

But the Yoders say commitment to cultural awareness has helped keep their family intact.

Living in Africa for a few years and being surrounded by African and African American friends has kept the family connected to their roots, Janet Yoder says. What’s more, John Yoder teaches African American studies at Whitworth College while Janet serves as director of the English Language Program and International Services.

The Yoders’ daughter, Rebecca, 23, who is half African American and half Caucasian, says her Caucasian parents have raised her as well as any parents could.

“My parents always told us we were adopted and we are special,” Rebecca Yoder says. “They were always open about everything.”

As an adoptee, developing a sense of identity has more to do with being in a good family than with race, Rebecca Yoder says.

Bob and Chris Clark adopted their Korean son, David, eight years ago. The Clarks say 15-year-old David, who was abandoned by his biological parents at age 5, is better off in a Caucasian family than in a Korean orphanage.

“Children belong in families,” Chris Clark says. “It would be ideal if he were in a Korean family, but there was not one available.”

The Clarks know they can’t give David his racial identity, but they say they’re trying to expose him to as much of the culture as they can. They send David to Korean youth camps, attend cultural events and maintain many contacts in the local Korean community.

Despite the efforts of Caucasian parents to give their adopted children a good life, opponents of transracial adoption say love and a good home is not enough.

Over the past 25 years, members of the National Association of Black Social Workers have fiercely defended their position that black children become “Oreos” in white homes.

Local same-race adoption advocates say they are concerned about the numbers of children who will grow up confused about who they are if they grow up in transracial homes.

Rafaela Ortiz, a member of the Multicultural Children’s Advocacy Committee, a Spokane group that reviews and makes recommendations on adoptions and placements, says too often parents who want to adopt don’t affirm and support the child’s ethnicity.

“I think a lot of people want to believe that race is not an issue, that we have evolved in society to a point where we can look past that,” Ortiz says. “But the reality is that’s not true.”

Others fear the potential for the children to turn against their own race.

“When these kids grow older, that’s when they start to speak out,” says Valerie Marshall, chairwoman of the committee. “They feel like I am not the same color of the people around me, so therefore something is wrong with me, something is wrong with my race.”

Committee members say it’s not that white parents can’t raise black kids, but rather that parents of color have the life experience and skills to help the children cope with a racist world.

These are experiences that the Nelsons say they didn’t have to pass on to their children.

Rusty Nelson remembers walking into toy stores and watching the clerks scorn his kids rather than Caucasian children who played with the toys. He says his children have always been under a microscope, watched with much suspicion wherever they went.

The Nelsons tried several things to expose their children to African-American culture. They gave them African-American books, had family discussions about racial issues, and even moved twice so their kids could attend schools with more diversity.

Although the Nelsons say a confused sense of identity is partly what made Nate leave, most children question their identity once they reach adolescence regardless of the race factor, says Diana Cote-Smith, a local social worker for Washington’s Families for Kids, a statewide child welfare agency.

Cote-Smith says she has seen many failed transracial adoptions in the past 12 years she has worked in the field. She says raising an adopted family is difficult enough, and adding the race factor only complicates matters.

But instead of debating who can or can’t raise children of color, Cote-Smith says more emphasis needs to be placed on finding and recruiting ethnic foster parents and families.

The focus on the recruitment of adoptive families has pushed the issue of transracial adoption into the political arena.

Last October, Congress passed the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act, a law intended to increase adoption by preventing federally funded adoption agencies from holding up an adoption on the basis of race or national origin.

The law, which comes at a time when a record 460,000 children nationwide are in foster care, also emphasizes more recruitment of foster and adoptive parents.

Proponents of transracial adoption say research and statistics on the issue support the need for such legislation.

Washington, D.C., researcher Rita Simon, who conducted a 20-year study of 206 transracial homes, says children of color who grow up in white homes have a healthy self-esteem and are well-adjusted with both the white world and their own ethnic communities.

In 1990, about the time Simon completed her study, census data showed that of the 20,000 legally free children nationally who were waiting to be adopted, 44 percent were white and about 44 percent were black. But 67 percent of the families waiting to adopt were white.

In Eastern Washington, 162 children are legally free; 120 are white and 19 are black. “Legally free” means the birth parents’ rights have been terminated, making the children the most readily available for adoption.

Although black and white children enter the system at the same rate, African-American children sometimes wait twice as long as Caucasian children to be placed in a home, according to the National Council for Adoption.

In 1990, 68 percent of Caucasian children in Eastern Washington were placed into foster care, compared with 7 percent of black children.

Part of the problem, social workers say, is that there just are not enough ethnic families out there and not enough willing to adopt.

Nationally, 11.7 percent of the population is black. In Spokane County, blacks make up 1.4 percent of the population.

There also are cultural barriers that get in the way of ethnic families coming forward to adopt. The concept of going through an agency to get a child is foreign to some communities, Ortiz says.

For instance, in American Indian communities, children are adopted by relatives or other tribal members rather than by outside families. And in many Asian communities, people take care of their own, Ortiz says.

Meanwhile, as the vexing debate drags on, the children are waiting, says Janice Neilson, executive director of Seattle-based World Association for Children and Parents, one of the largest adoption agencies in the country.

“I think that those in the debate all care about children, but those very children who are being debated are growing up day after day, and a lot of them are growing up without a family,” Neilson says.

And some think the dispute has lost its focus entirely.

Carolyn Gowdy says the real issue may have more to do with parenting and family values rather than race.

Gowdy says she’s raising a family of the ‘90s as a single white parent whose adopted son is half African American and half Caucasian.

Gowdy knows she can never fully relate to 8-year-old Sayther.

“It’s really painful when your kid is hurt by something that’s just a lack of understanding but is at their core,” Gowdy said. “His brown skin is at his core.”

But Gowdy also believes she’s doing the best she can, and that’s all that can be asked of any parent.

“A family can be made up in a variety of different ways,” Gowdy says. “It’s people who are committed to each other, who know what it means to be loved, valued, heard and appreciated.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color Photos

MEMO: For information on becoming a foster or adoptive parent, contact Valerie Marshall at 624-6205 or John Guenther at 456-3972.