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.