Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780814717226)

In the last fifty years, transnational adoption--specifically, the adoption of Asian children--has exploded in popularity as an alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish. In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United States. Beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S. military in Asia, she reveals how mixed-race children born of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and U.S. servicemen comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children.

Based on extensive archival research, Global Families moves beyond one-dimensional portrayals of Asian international adoption as either a progressive form of U.S. multiculturalism or as an exploitative form of cultural and economic imperialism. Rather, Choy acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon, illuminating both its radical possibilities of a world united across national, cultural, and racial divides through family formation and its strong potential for reinforcing the very racial and cultural hierarchies it sought to challenge.

Author: Catherine Ceniza Choy
ISBN-10: 0814717225
ISBN-13: 9780814717226
Publisher: New York University Press
Language: English
Published: 10/11/2013
Pages: 244
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d

Review Citation(s):
Voice of Youth Advocates 02/01/2014
Choice 03/01/2014