International Adoptee Identity and Community: Emerging Lessons Learned from Adoptee Experts

Abstract

With tens of thousands of international adoptees placed in the United States since the 1950s, several critiques of the current structure of international adoption have begun to emerge. These critiques highlight the challenges many adoptees face around issues of identity and community. Their stories have also given us insight into oppressions that have prevented their voices from being heard in a more significant way. Community-based participatory research over 7 years of postadoption service work has given the author valuable insights into the current state of international adoption, the challenges faced by adoptees, and what can be done to improve conditions for current and future adoptees. This conceptual article synthesizes the opinions of adoptees into an analysis of the challenges they face and offers possible solutions to move forward. The concepts in this article can be used as groundwork for further discussion around the needs of the adoptee and how they can be addressed by the adoption industry. Specifically, the article calls for the emergence of adoptee identity and community as a valid response to the oppression experienced by many international adoptees.

Keywords:

• ADOPTION
• INTERNATIONAL ADOPTION
• COMMUNITY