Los Angeles holds adoption ceremonies for more than 130 children this year. They’ve left with a new family and a new future, but at what cost? We decided to ask a few of them.
In a single month, on average, one child in L.A. is adopted. It’s been happening for decades, but in the last few years, our city has been home to a growing number of adoptions. The number of adoptees in L.A. has tripled since 2008, according to records from the USC/Los Angeles County Office of Education. With more than 130 children adopted from L.A. this year, we’re seeing the rise of what’s called “transracial adoption.” That’s when a child with a parent, who is a different race, is adopted.
That’s also when we see, on average, an adoptor of color, who is black or an Asian parent, adopt a child of a different race, which is about 63% of L.A. adoptees. That’s an increase from 25% in the years immediately after 2008 — when we began counting kids whose fathers were Asian or African-American.
We asked four of them about their experiences adopting from and moving to L.A. Now that so many babies are coming with mom and dad in different races, do you feel you have to fight for your kids to be adopted by people they were meant to be with?
Kenny, an Asian-American dad: That’s not necessarily a thing. I feel like the system is really good. I don’t see a lot of children being adopted who are not that great match for parents. You look at the parents and say, How can you raise kids that aren’t good matches? But that’s okay, that’s fine. I definitely made a lot of improvements to my relationship with adopted babies. If anything, I think I was a little lucky because I had a little bit more time after getting married and having kids. I think it’s a little bit more challenging for adopters to make choices in the future, and you have to think about, “Am I going to try to be a