African Americans played pivotal roles in the adoptions of Korean black children in the first two decades following the Korean War. Beginning with the efforts of black soldiers who devised short-term and long-term strategies to aid Korean children displaced or orphaned by the war, African Americans developed a race-conscious approach to their rescue of Korean black children. However, the families that adopted and the families that attempted to adopt Korean black children faced challenges because racial inequality influenced both US and transnational adoption policies. The child welfare profess ... More

African Americans played pivotal roles in the adoptions of Korean black children in the first two decades following the Korean War. Beginning with the efforts of black soldiers who devised short-term and long-term strategies to aid Korean children displaced or orphaned by the war, African Americans developed a race-conscious approach to their rescue of Korean black children. However, the families that adopted and the families that attempted to adopt Korean black children faced challenges because racial inequality influenced both US and transnational adoption policies. The child welfare professionals, nonprofessionals, and adoptive families that endeavored to transform adoption policies and practices to increase African Americans’ adoptions had inconsistent results. Some were able to transform standards that had upheld rigid ideas about adoptive couples’ performance of the gender roles associated with the nuclear family. Some demonstrated the benefits of interracial families and interracial communities for mixed-race Korean children. Both Cold War anxieties and civil rights ideals made many of these changes possible. Paradoxically, the rhetoric and ideals of Cold War civil rights also facilitated the expansion of transracial and transnational adoptions involving white couples and nonwhite children in the United States and abroad.