Adoption in a Color-Blind Society - (Perspectives on a Multiracial America) by Pamela Anne Quiroz (Paperback)

About the Book

Adoption in a Color-blind Society illustrates how the political economy of private domestic adoption intersects with the political economy of racism to generate quite different demands for infants and children of different races and how the private adoption arena responds to t...

Book Synopsis

Adoption in a Color-blind Society illustrates how the political economy of private domestic adoption intersects with the political economy of racism to generate quite different demands for infants and children of different races and how the private adoption arena responds to these demands. This book argues that rather than moving towards a color-blind democracy, we instead live in a context where race continues to matter substantially, particularly in arenas 'closest to home.'

Review Quotes

A decade after federal legislation made it illegal to discriminate against white parents in adoption, why is it so hard to find white parents that will adopt children of color? Adoption in a Colorblind Society asks this and other hard questions about complex issues regarding race and adoptive placement, probing the very nature of parenthood, racism, public policy, and the future of family in American society. Quiroz provides a well informed look at transnational and transracial adoption in the United States, locating questions of adoption in the midst of the contested legacies of civil rights movements, race, and struggles over who should have children.

Anyone who thinks that America has transcended its racist past need only look seriously at the world of adoption. In chat rooms, in marketing practices, in foster care and in private placements, race matters profoundly. Quiroz takes us into the world of adoption and makes this sad truth clear. This is important reading not only for those who care about adoption, but for all who want to understand the ongoing significance of race in America.

I found Adoption in a Color-Blind Society an informative and useful study. I also ended up agreeing with the author that private adoptions are not color-blind.

Quiroz has illuminated the disturbing undertows that menace the current international and interracial adoption waves. She has trained her gaze on the meanings of race being made by the private adoptions of infants and young children who generate differing demands. Drawing upon online directories, websites, and chatrooms, this powerful book provides a necessary and challenging focus on the point of convergence where the adoption industry intersects with the political economy of racism.

Quiroz's book is part of a significant but still under-recognized body of work that takes adoption as its starting place in order to explore perspectives on a multicultural society (the title of the series in which this book is published)... Her book should definitely be read by policymakers and practitioners in the adoption field, but more than this, taken up by broader audiences interested in the shifting terrain of race talk in the United States.

Recommended.

About the Author

Pamela Anne Quiroz is associate professor of Policy Studies and Sociology at the University of Illinois-Chicago. She is also a research fellow at the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.