Another Voice

ELIAS LEFFERMAN

Clinical psychologist, director of Out-patient Services, Vista del Mar Child and Family Services

In Los Angeles, it used to be that if you didn’t have a Latino surname, you could not adopt a Latino child. Everybody used to oppose transracial adoption. I took a lot of heat as a proponent of it. It really began only in the last few years because of the Multiethnic Placement Act passed by Congress in 1994.

The law says you cannot deny or delay the placement of a child based on the race, color or national origin of the adopting family. But if you go to local social workers, you’ll see they’re still finding reasons not to place transracially.

There are issues to be dealt with: the impact of living in a mixed-race family, the community they will live in, their church or temple. What will the neighbors say, parents, aunts and uncles? Can you accept the ethnic jokes? Someone will say “you’ll have a built-in gardener.” You must educate or maybe choose new friends. Your child will ask questions: “Mommy, why are my eyes this way and not the same as yours?” Issues will come when they reach adolescence and dating age.

Some research says trans-racially adopted children have a greater sense of pan-humanism--they are citizens of the world.

Children have a right to permanence. Records show as these kids get older they say “what I wanted most was a family.” We shouldn’t act like we know better; let’s get them the family that they want. Every child deserves a family.

If there aren’t enough same-race homes for every child, what are the homes that are available and how do we best prepare parents for the child that will enter that home? It sounds fine unless you’re of a minority race with children being placed, and it may not be as culturally sensitive as you wish. The goal is not just to place a child with any family. But if a child is Asian or Latino or African American or Caucasian, they should not be denied placement with a family because you want some purity of cultural identity.

We place about 80 children from China a year, and our families make a commitment that their kids all know where they’ve come from. They may make a trip back to China. Our families videotape their whole experience so they can show it to their kids when they get older and want to know.