::Transracial & Transcultural Adoption::

What is transracial or transcultural adoption? 

When it comes to transracial and transcultural adoption, we automatically think of Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt's family! It's true. The media really gave them the spotlight on transracial adoption and how Jolie-Pitt truly assimilate every child in the family as one. Beautiful family. Six is a lot. We don't think we will go that far. Unless our first child convinces us to go for more. :)

Ok, back to the point, the formal definition of a transracial/transcultural adoption means placing a child who is of one race or ethnic group with adoptive parents of another race or ethnic group. Once we become a multicultural family, we will value all cultures and teach our child(ren) that every ethnic group has something worthwhile to contribute and that diversity is this country's and our family's strength. We cannot wait to immerse ourselves in Colombian culture to soak in new traditions such as art, music (no, not really...), drama, literature, clothing, and food. We will do anything to help our child(ren) become a stable, healthy, and happy individual with a strong sense of cultural and racial identity. We are not saying this will be a piece of cake; we are certain that we will face some challenges throughout the process. Everyday, we are learning and reading about adopting a child from another race/ethnic group to best prepare ourselves as new parents. We are very eager and excited. Heck, we are already checking into Colombian recipes to get the idea of what they eat!

"Just as we cannot prevent our children from experiencing the loss of their birth family, we cannot prevent them from experiencing the loss of growing up in a same-race family.  What we can do to take care of our children is confront our own blind spots and biases and work to become effective anti-racist allies." --Inside Transracial Adoption, 2nd ed.

We stumbled across this cool website at Rage Against the Minivan about how to talk to kids about race, especially adopted children of different race. We think her blog is follow-worthy! The mother of four birth and adopted children shared some great information about complex concepts related with transracial adoption.

Of course, when we adopt a child(ren) from Colombia, it's most probable the child would be dark skinned-probably Latino/Hispanic, which is the most common race in Colombia. We are completely fine with that as long as we get a child to love. Naturally, we would probably face some "curious (an euphemism for rude) question askers" out there regarding our child. "Is she/he adopted?" "Is he/she yours?" and so on.

Again, another great post to tackle those questions from Rage Against the Minivan: Top Ten Annoying Things People Say To Adoptive Parents That, Even Though They Mean Well, Drive Adoptive Parents Up A Tree.

We could go on about this issue, but we would like to have a second guest blogger to share her transracial adoption story because she experienced it first-handedly. Keep your eyes peeled for her story soon! :)

Much love, 

Brooke & Brian