Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America by Catherine Ceniza Choy (review)

The myths and misunderstandings surrounding transnational adoption are many and multilayered, and Catherine Ceniza Choy’s Global Families exposes and debunks a host of them. For those who regard Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s global family as a new invention, Choy documents how movie star Jane Russell adopted internationally and became an avid advocate for WAIF (the World Adoption International Fund) in the 1950s and how acclaimed dancer Josephine Baker’s twelve children of diverse nationalities were depicted around the same time as an exotic “rainbow tribe.” With regard to the belief that the overseas placement of Amerasian children was the natural outcome of their rejection by their birth families and home countries, Choy traces the long and complicated campaigns and policies necessary to construct them as needy orphans who would live better lives across the world. Global Families shows that the high rates of international adoption, especially from Asia, were not inevitable outcomes of war and poverty but were orchestrated through a complex and shifting web of social actors and agencies.

Global Families brings a transnational, historical, and intersectional analysis into the field of childhood studies while extending Asian American studies critiques of empire and war as the context for international adoption. The book masterfully explores the particularities of individual national contexts while demonstrating their similarities and interconnections. Choy’s main argument asserts that race “is fundamental to understanding . . . early Asian international adoption history as well as the lived experiences of Asian American adoptees.” While this may seem obvious to many scholars, the recognition of the centrality of race is nonetheless often lacking in romanticized discourses of children, childhood, and adoption within a supposedly multicultural, color-blind, post-racial society. Choy counters this narrative through rigorous examination of archives, popular media representations, documentaries, and most importantly, the voices of adoptees in asserting their own identities.

The first chapter, “Race and Rescue in Early Asian International Adoption,” focuses on the emergence of adoption as the humanitarian “rescue” of war orphans from backwards, poverty-stricken nations. While the construction of this narrative has been addressed in other studies regarding the wars in Korea and Vietnam, Choy also looks at the lesser studied contexts of Japan and the Philippines, showing how US military occupation in those countries also produced mixed race children of US GIs and necessitated public relations campaigns to deal with them. Rather than admitting responsibility for children abandoned by their fathers, the United States constructed these children as abandoned by their mothers and countries and needing rescue by a more benevolent, civilized nation. While not dismissing prejudices in the home countries, Choy points out how prejudice in the United States, such as anti-miscegenation laws, which dissuaded servicemen from marrying foreign brides and claiming their mixed-race children, resulted in the displacement of these children.

Similarly, chapter 2 examines the often overlooked case of Hong Kong in the history of international adoption, countering the belief that adoption of Chinese children began with China’s one-child policy. Instead, Choy reveals a different policy basis for international adoption of Chinese children beginning in the 1950s, grounded in Cold War diplomacy regarding the wave of refugees to Hong Kong fleeing the communist takeover of mainland China. While initially agencies sought placement for these children with Chinese American families, increasingly, white families became interested in adopting them. Here, Choy traces the beginnings of many contemporary debates about transnational adoption, particularly the appropriateness of placement in transracial families.

Chapter 3 examines “The Labor of International Adoption,” documenting the coordinated efforts of charismatic individuals with various social welfare and international service agencies, in particular, the International Social Service, USA Branch (ISS-USA). Drawing upon the University of Minnesota’s Social Welfare History Archives, Choy uncovers rich primary sources documenting debates and decisions which shaped international adoption policies. This is one of the most original contributions of the study—the ways in which it gives voice and...