The United States is one of the major baby-receiving countries in the world. Relatively little research has focused on why there is such a high demand for intercountry adoption. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with adoptive parents, the authors explored the reasons why Americans prefer to adopt foreign-born children instead of adopting minority children domestically. Other than infertility reasons, concerns about domestic adoption, and the uneven domestic supply and demand of “desirable” children, the authors’ findings suggested that there was a perception that American children available for adoption presented difficult problems whereas foreign children presented interesting challenges. The “problems” inherent in children from American foster care were confounded with race differences. Studying adoption motivations will not only help us better understand the domestic adoption situation, especially why so many Black children are left behind in foster care, it may also reveal important insights into current race relations and distances between groups in the United States.
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