The emigration of innocents
Carney, Cynthia J.
THE EMIGRATION OF cynthia j carney INNOCENTS QUESTIONS & CONFLICTS IN ADOPTION Today, the presence of a mixed-race family strolling through the neighborhood shopping...
...These organizations provide a structure in which parents can cope with societal attitudes toward mixed-race families, can preserve their children's heritage, and can help the children deal with their adoptive status and their different color as they grow older...
...Many Central and South American officials express anger that, as put by Vitillo, "the Americans take away one child for themselves and give that child all the opportunities, but forget the many who are left behind and have nothing...
...Adoption is a private business, conducted through attorneys and agencies, and remains virtually unregulated...
...We can't just look at statistics and say they [Central and South American countries] have too many children, so we'll take some...
...The people over there ask, 'Why do you want to take our children away?' Many view it as just another form of American imperialism...
...They blew it," said the official...
...from Central and South America continues to rise...
...Despite the scandals and risks of adopting from abroad, the number of orphan immigrants arriving in the U.S...
...Restrictions on the adopting couple can include age, religion, and marital status...
...Especially today, intercountry adoption is carried out in a crossfire of complex political, economic, social, and cultural forces that affect relations between the United States and Central and South America...
...Forty percent of these waiting children are black...
...The results include a growing number of more restrictive rules and regulations...
...One board member of the Maryland Regional Chapter of LAPA said that the tone of an orphanage director in Colombia changed from evasion to surprised thrill when she realized an adoptive parent was contacting her only to ask if LAPA could donate on a regular basis...
...CYNTHIA J. CARNEY, a free-lance writer in Arlington, Virginia, is a former board member of the Maryland Region Chapter of Latin American Parents Association and has been involved personally in intercountry adoption through Nicaragua and Guatemala...
...Why should we send them our children...
...citizens, especially those who don't fit into the stereotypical role of the young married couple active in a church or synagogue whose wife is willing to stay home with the baby, may resent measures that make it more difficult and more expensive to find the right "source" from which to adopt...
...In 1985, federal investigators uncovered an Arizonabased ring which falsely promised to provide more than forty couples with children from Mexico...
...These attitudes toward the United States are a huge stumbling block for officials who must wrestle with foreign officials daily in the complex search for legally adoptable children...
...On a personal level, however, how can an individual U.S...
...These organizations also investigate the reputability of attorneys, sponsor workshops on adoption options, and work to pass legislation that will streamline the adoption process...
...It is estimated that more than 2 million North American couples are unwilling to wait three to five years to adopt a healthy infant born in the U.S...
...Not only are these countries loath to let go so many children, they are concerned about their children's future in an Ameri80: Commonweal can family whose societal values are so vastly different from their own...
...In the last twenty years, the numbers of orphan immigrants arriving from Central and South America has increased by more than 5,000 percent — from 43 in 1965 to 2,260 in 1985...
...THE EMIGRATION OF cynthia j carney INNOCENTS QUESTIONS & CONFLICTS IN ADOPTION Today, the presence of a mixed-race family strolling through the neighborhood shopping mall may draw curious stares and a few comments, but it's no longer the rarity it once was...
...At any step of the way, the adoptive parents can be informed that the child has suddenly become unavailable, that new expenses have been incurred, or that more paperwork is required...
...Political factors also weigh heavily in the current scene of intercountry adoption...
...Perhaps more and more North Americans, through their experiences of intercountry adoption, will recognize and accept their responsibility to help not just the child who is now part of their own family, but the other needy children who are part of the world's family...
...One orphanage in Colombia accepts applications only from Catholic couples who have been married at least four years, who have never been divorced, whose average age does not exceed thirty-five, and who have completed a Marriage Encounter...
...0 In Colombia, an orphanage's adoption activities were closed temporarily last fall by the courts when a North American couple lodged a complaint against officials...
...Adoption by North American couples is seen by many as yet another wound to the pride of countries that feel themselves exploited economically and politically by the United States...
...In January 1986 they sent a team to South America to gather information from government and orphanage officials (see sidebar, page 80...
...Is there a means of systematizing intercountry adoption which will protect the rights of the child, and at the same time streamline the process while ensuring some security for the adoptive parents...
...Many U.S...
...Some orphanages are requiring new regulations, such as a three-month waiting period after a baby is born to give the birth mother a chance to change her mind and keep her baby...
...No government agency in the United States has sole responsibility or authority for supervising adoptions...
...Another couple, who adopted a child from Nicaragua, regularly visits the orphanage in Managua where their daughter was born to bring medical supplies and needed donations...
...Yet, sincerity of motivation and purity of heart do not make for a successful adoption...
...children are legally free and waiting to be adopted, but may be "less desirable" for adoption because they are older, part of sibling groups, or are disabled...
...They protest that their motivation for adoption is simply to love and care for a child of their own...
...Yet a number of persistent North Americans remain undaunted by the cultural problems and the paperwork, and can sometimes adopt a child from Central or South America in twelve to eighteen months...
...As the number of adoptable, healthy white infants decreases in the United States, thousands of North Americans are opting to welcome a child from another country into their homes — a phenomenon that is straining the delicate mechanisms that have grown helter-skelter to handle intercountry adoption...
...Yet another cultural gap that affects intercountry adoption is the two regions' different views of children...
...Here, in the developed countries, we may look at intercountry adoption as a way to solve overpopulation," says the Reverend Robert J. Vitillo, chief of service for Europe and North America for Caritas International...
...But this complex and burgeoning business of intercountry adoption should not be viewed in the cold, one-dimensional context of a commodity exchange between one country and another...
...One foreign official told an adoption supervisor that he doesn't feel it's necessary for his country to provide children to women who marry late in life, who practice birth control or abortion, and who put career before family...
...sentiment in some of these countries, many Central and South American governments have applied the brakes to intercountry adoption to reexamine their policies and determine how best to prevent 13 February 1987: 79 abuses...
...But it's not as simple as that...
...The exodus of their children to another country is a searing mark upon these nations' souls, a sign that they are incapable of caring for their own children...
...According to Jeff Rosenberg, director of public policy for the committee, another 36,000 U.S...
...82: Commonweal...
...Still, it's not enough for the adopting couple to whisk a 13 February 1987: 81 starving waif away from a country and resume their comfortable lives oblivious to the child's country of origin...
...Here are a few examples: # In the streets of Brasilia in early 1986, citizens marched in protest against North Americans adopting their children...
...children a year, of whom only about 20,000 are healthy infants...
...In underdeveloped countries, children are a source of pride, a key to the future, a treasure to parents who may have nothing else in their lives...
...As a result of North Americans trying to adopt from Central and South America, the dishonest practices that have occurred in a number of countries, and a growing anti-U.S...
...The journey begins with timeconsuming and arduous paperwork which must ultimately be certified by the foreign country, requires an exhaustive home study by a social worker, and usually ends with a trip (lasting from one week to several months) to pick up the child from the country of birth...
...The National Committee for Adoption, a private group funded by individuals and private adoption agencies, estimates about 50,000 adoptions of U.S...
...Members of a task force on intercountry adoption set up by Catholic Charities USA were concerned with unethical behavior affecting adoptions through local chapters...
...In large part as a result of television, the typical North American is perceived as materialistic, practicing abortion and birth control, and without a strong religious heritage...
...The same holds true for most countries in Central and South America...
...Many of these individuals have joined parent support groups, such as LAPA (Latin American Parents Association) and FACE (Families Adopting Children Everywhere...
...The clumsy system of intercountry adoption that once worked for a few is straining under the weight of the increasing numbers of North Americans who want babies...
...Other orphanages and agencies are excluding singles from adoption...
...They are more likely to be in foster care longer because many public agencies will not place black children with white couples...
...While a North American may be anxious to launch into the next stage of his or her life passage — raising a family — the country of origin is struggling to make sure that its children are not being stolen off the streets by unscrupulous attorneys eager to cash in on wealthy North American couples...
...The reasons are clear...
...In December 1986, the Los Angeles Times reported in depth about a "baby scam" involving American citizens who were arranging adoptions through unscrupulous attorneys in El Salvador...
...By the end of the process, many expectant couples have spent between $6,500 and $10,000 — and sometimes up to $20,000...
...Many North American couples have returned from countries in South or Central America with hopes for lasting friendships with officials and orphanage directors who were helpful and warm throughout the adoption process...
...The casual observer may view intercountry adoption — here I will restrict my observations to adoption of Central and South American children — as a productive exchange between one country with too many starving and homeless children and another country with too many barren women...
...On the contrary, the countries of origin are watching in horror as their children slip away by the hundreds...
...Many North Americans believe they are doing their neighbors a "favor" by adopting their homeless children...
...citizen help to better relations in a process that Vitillo describes as "risky and haphazard at best, and corrupt and abusive at worst...
...Many countries view North Americans as wealthy and haughty, and resent the emigration of their children to a country whose people they perceive as culturally, religiously, and morally impoverished...
Vol. 114 • February 1987 • No. 3
