Gail Steinberg - Inside Transracial Adoption: Strength-Based, Culture-Sensitizing Parenting Strategies for Inter-Country or Domestic Adoptive Families That Dont Match

Inside Transracial
Adoption

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Inside Transracial
Adoption

Strength-based, Culture-sensitizing Parenting
Strategies for Inter-country or Domestic
Adoptive Families That Dont Match

SECOND EDITION

Beth Hall and Gail Steinberg

Jessica Kingsley Publishers
London and Philadelphia

First published in 2000 by Perspectives Press, Indianapolis, USA

This second edition published in 2013

by Jessica Kingsley Publishers

73 Collier Street

London N1 9BE, UK

and

400 Market Street, Suite 400

Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA

www.jkp.com

Copyright Beth Hall and Gail Steinberg 2000, 2013

Front cover image source: iStockphoto. The cover image is for
illustrative purposes only, and any person featuring is a model.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication) without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 610 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owners written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher.

Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Steinberg, Gail, 1942

Inside transracial adoption : strength-based, culture-sensitizing parenting strategies for inter-country or domestic adoptive families that dont match / Beth Hall and Gail Steinberg. -- Second edition.

pages cm

Revised edition of: Inside transracial adoption / Gail Steinberg and Beth Hall, published in 2000.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-84905-905-3

1. Interracial adoption--United States. 2. Intercountry adoption-United States. 3. Adopted children--United States--Psychology. 4. Racially mixed children--United States--Psychology. 5. Whites-Race identity--United States. I. Hall, Beth, 1954- II. Title.

HV875.64.S74 2013

362.73408900973--dc23

2013014337

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 84905 905 3

eISBN 978 0 85700 651 6

To our children: Sofia Arroyo, James
Hall-Gallagher, Liza Simpson, Seth Steinberg,
Jeremy Steinberg, and Shira Gale, in gratitude
for the greatest giftbeing your mothers.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Together we founded Pact, An Adoption Alliance, to serve adopted children of color and their families. This book is an extension of that mission, providing families, educators, and adoption professionals with the information they need to support transracially adopted children. On behalf of the children, and all who love and care for them, we offer our deepest appreciation to those who have contributed to this effort. Each contribution represents an essential link in the chain that helped us bring this work to you. There is no beginning and no end; in the circle of support, everyone came first.

Together, we would like to thank:

Our families, for loving us even when we were busy, and for taking seriously their responsibility to teach us new lessons every day. Were it not for their amazing patience, good humor, support, and absolute commitment, we could not be who we are or do what we do.

The hundreds of transracial adoptive parents who, in Pacts workshops, support groups, and one-on-one counseling sessions, have shared their challenges and joys with us. Their honesty, courage, commitment, and wisdom have helped shape this book.

All the amazing adult adoptees and birth parents who have demonstrated patience, courage, strength, and resilience in teaching us what the experience of transracial adoption is like from their perspective.

All the staff, board members, and volunteers who have been part of Pact throughout the years, for their dedication, clarity, insight, ideas, and thoughtful suggestions.

For her sensitive editing of this revised edition, Michele Rabkin.

For her help editing the first edition, Rebecca Weller.

Special thanks to our editor, first publisher, and friend, Patricia Irwin Johnston, a lamplighter who has inspired and enhanced our work.

Gail would also like to thank:

Beth Hall, my co-author and partner, for a wonderful collaboration. I love your vision and the passion you bring to it. Knowing you, too, are working in the middle of the night makes everything more possible. With your willingness to give 100 percent of yourself you keep Pact moving forward.

My late husband, Mel Steinberg; my grandchildren, Leah, Kai, Jorden, Alexandra, Even, and Jacob; my son and daughters through marriage Kelvin, Patty, and Shannon; my familythe Zaleskis, the Ralskes, the Jacksons, and my parentsthank you for sharing your wisdom and joy as adoption drew us closer.

Beth would like to thank:

Gail Steinberg, for the tireless drive with which you moved this project forward. Your non-stop effort made this book possible, as you shouldered far more than your share of the work. In the early years, you were always the engine behind my motivation to found and sustain Pact.

Ted Gallagher, my husband; Barbara Hall, my sister; our parents Margaret and John, and my extended families, the Gallaghers, the Harbaughs, and the McNarys, for introducing me to life and love without boundaries of blood or genetics.

Ana, Rudi, Margaret, and Leonard, and the rest of my childrens birth families, you made a huge sacrifice and lived with great angst because of decisions that made me a motherthere are no words to express my awe and inspiration.

Thank you.

PART 1

Unpacking the
Challenges of
Transracial
Adoption

Introduction: the Iyou bridge

We were part of a group of parents-to-be who had never met one another before, all adopting for the first time. We sat on hard green chairs in a waiting room, exchanging nervous laughter and attempting chitchat in the smoky room we had been cautioned not to leave.