New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2012. x, 213 pp. (Tables, figures.) US$22.50, paper. ISBN 978-0-87154-870-2.
Tuan and Shiao’s book is a welcome addition to the literature on racial and ethnic identity development and cultural socialization of transracial international adoptees growing up in white adoptive families in the United States. Their book is based on findings from their extensive life-history interviews of a random sample of 61 Korean-born adopted adults (ages 25 to 51) placed for adoption from 1950 to 1975, and drawn from one adoption agency in the Pacific Northwest. The book examines how these pioneering generations of international adoptees negotiate their racial and ethnic identities and factors within the adoptive family and social environments influential to their ethnic and racial identity exploration (or rejection) from childhood into adulthood. More importantly, this book situates the experiences of Korean transracial adoptees’ ethnic and racial identity development and exploration within the broader Asian-American racial discourse and utilizes their experiences as a means of illuminating current race relations in the United States.
As sociologists, Tuan and Shiao’s book is distinct from prior research on transracial adoption, which has been traditionally dominated by psychology and social work; for a review see R.M. Lee, “The transracial adoption paradox: history, research, and counseling implications of cultural socialization” (The Counseling Psychologist, 31 (6), 2003). Rather than examining the impact of racial and ethnic identity on an adoptee’s adjustment, identity achievement or psychological health, Tuan and Shiao attempt to understand the ways in which Korean adoptees negotiate and respond to the social and political realities of these categories in their lives. The authors assert that Korean adoptees have relative choice concerning their ethnicity in their private lives and decision to engage in ethnic exploration, but have relatively little choice concerning their racial status precisely because race is not private. Like non-adopted Asians, whether Korean adoptees choose to embrace their racial identity or not, they must “negotiate the expectations, judgment and stereotypes that others have of them based on their racial status” (5).
The book does an excellent job of historicizing and situating the rise of Korean overseas adoptions, which developed in the aftermath of the Korean War (1950–1953) and helped to establish policies enabling the growth of international adoption in the latter half of the twentieth century. The authors then focus on findings from their study, which are organized from childhood (through adolescence), early adulthood and later adulthood. In exploring Korean adoptees’ childhood experiences, the authors explore how adoptive parents handled difference (adoption, racial and ethnic) in the family, and how rejection or acknowledgement of differences relate to ethnic identity exploration (or rejection or indifference) in adolescents. The authors then examine how Korean adoptees pursue opportunities for ethnic exploration and conditions that foster exploration in early adulthood and late adulthood. Finally, the authors explore how adoptees choose to ethnically identify and the meaning they infuse to ethnic labels as adults.
Many of their findings support current literature, namely, adoptive parents’ attitudes towards racial and ethnic differences, personal experiences with prejudice, and opportunities in the social environment as factors that contribute to ethnic exploration for Korean transracial adoptees. Their study also makes several novel contributions worth pointing out. First, the authors extend H. David Kirk’s theory of “shared fate” to include how adoptive parents not only cope with adoption differences but also ethnic and racial differences in their families. In his seminal book, Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and Mental Health (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1964), Kirk proposed parents coped with adoptive differences by either denying their situation as different from biological parents (rejection-of-difference) or by acknowledging that difference (acknowledgment-of-difference), which facilitated a sense of “shared fate” within the family.
While the study found the main premise of Kirk’s theory to hold, with about half of respondents reporting their parents employed rejection of adoptive difference and the other acknowledgement of difference, the authors found a subset of families resorted to mixed strategies depending on the dimension of racial and ethnic difference. Some families, for example, openly acknowledged adoptive difference but rejected racial difference and were neutral on ethnic difference. In addition, they found how families achieved a sense of “shared fate” varied. In contradiction to Kirk’s theory, not all families who acknowledged differences fostered a sense of shared fate. Namely, families that acknowledged adoptive differences but rejected racial differences and did not provide support for racial prejudice, as well as families that excessively emphasized differences, did not foster a sense of shared fate. Therefore, parents were disengaged in adoptees’ racial struggles leaving them to cope with prejudice by themselves.
Second, their study adds to the growing body of research on the importance of early adulthood, far more than adolescence, as a period for pursing ethnic exploration for transracial adoptees. Their study found regardless of whether their adoptive families acknowledged difference or achieved a sense of shared fate in childhood, the majority of Korean adoptees availed themselves of opportunities for ethnic exploration in early adulthood, a life stage marked by a higher level of personal independence and exposure to ethnic status. During this period, ethnic exploration was dependent on institutional availability and opportunities, as well as personal freedom to use those resources. College was a particularly critical context that fostered opportunities for ethnic exploration. The authors also found early adulthood ethnic exploration influenced whether ethnic exploration occurred in later adulthood. That is, respondents who explored their ethnicity in early adulthood were more likely to continue exploration in later adulthood.
Finally, their study provides critical insights into the meaning of ethnic labels for transracial adoptees. Several empirical studies have relied on ethnic labels (Korean, American, Korean American, Asian American) as indicators of ethnic pride and identification. In contrast, the authors found that as adults Korean adoptees utilized ethnic labels as a strategy for addressing recurring questions about their background rather than as indicators of national or group allegiances. In sum, despite the study’s reliance on self-report, the thick narratives obtained by Tuan and Shiao provide important insights and directions for future research that will further enrich our understanding of adoption and ethnic and racial identity development, and the processes of cultural socialization that facilitate ethnic exploration across the lifespan.
Hollee McGinnis
Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, USA
pp. 359-361