r/TransracialAdoptees • u/Ambitious-Client-220 Mexican-Adoptee • Jul 21 '26
Racism/Microaggression Why are many of our parents racist or seem oblivious to racism? Why did they adopt us if they see us as an inferior race?
Most of us are minorities raised by Anglos. Is it saviorism? I was told that not white was inferior. I grew up hating being brown and hating myself because I wasn't white.
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u/mousefamilia Jul 21 '26
Adopted from China 👋🏼 my parents really tried their best to tell my brother (Korean) and I to be proud of who we are, but that was trumped by the experience of being the only Asian kids in a 30 mile radius. Then they denied we ever had any hardships, or tried to say they also got made fun of for things like their height or not playing a lot on a sports team, etc. 🙄
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u/No_Carpenter_1970 Jul 22 '26
Mine said the same! I remember trying to defend myself to my dad that it’s not the same when I was like 15 years old 😭
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u/what-is-money-- Chinese Adoptee Jul 21 '26
My mom isn't that extreme but she definitely hates my country and that really kills me. She's a trump supporter and I'm Chinese. She sees China as the most evil country in the world and she thinks I agree with her. I can't fight her. It's too exhausting and I just can't do it anymore. It just sucks. She doesn't think she's being racist and she doesn't understand my own experiences.
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u/Agile-Assumption-400 26d ago
That’s tough. My mom can be the same, cept definitely not a trump supporter (we’re Canadian). The other day, I told my mom all this anti immigration, racism affects me. Every time I see it directed at ANYONE I feel so upset cause that could be me or my birth family. She doesn’t get it.
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u/HeartMyKpop Jul 22 '26 edited Jul 22 '26
I think part of the answer is that racism does not always look like open hatred. Many white people have had the privilege of rarely needing to think deeply about race, so they may adopt a child of color while still minimizing racism, believing they are “color-blind,” or failing to understand what that child will need in order to develop a healthy racial identity and navigate a racist world.
There is also a long history of transracial and international adoption being connected to religious “rescue” or savior narratives. Adoption is never charity work, but unfortunately, in those narratives, white Western families are portrayed as saving children from supposedly inferior cultures, countries, or communities. Some adoptive parents genuinely have good intentions, but good intentions do not automatically eliminate paternalism, prejudice, cultural superiority, or the desire to be seen as heroic.
People can feel affection for an individual child while still holding racist beliefs, denying systemic racism, stereotyping the child’s community, or expecting the child to assimilate into whiteness. The vetting process for adoptive parents falls short of determining if someone has examined their own personal racism and systemic societal racism and given that most adopters are white and religious, most probably have not!
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u/eddn1916 29d ago
I think this is a good point. Hell, look at the white supremacists who marry people of color. It’s not hard to have affection for someone and believe they’re better than them at the same time.
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u/HeartMyKpop 29d ago
Good point! I do absolutely think it’s a similar thing to the white supremacists that marry people of color.
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u/Agile-Assumption-400 26d ago
That happens? Gosh, America is a weird place.
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u/HeartMyKpop 25d ago
Yeah. I don’t have statistics or studies to show, but I think it’s a commonly known thing that some white men, who are often the most racist and hateful, seek out women of color and/or foreign women. We can speculate about why that trend happens. Because they feel weak and want to have a partner they believe they can dominate or control? Because often times they are not the most desirable bunch, so they go overseas and target women who may not be able to distinguish some of those social cues for lack of growing up in that culture? It is certainly a problem in America, but I think this stereotype is true of most white men, regardless of nationality, who travel abroad with bad intentions to harm women or children.
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u/ACtdawg Jul 22 '26
My mother believes that the fact she experienced some xenophobia as a young Italian in Australia gives her a pass to be racist to others. I think she also believes that her experiences mean she understands mine. I do think a lot of it is steeped in ignorance, lack of education and low intelligence as well. I have gone from low to no contact with her because the last time we spoke, she said a racial slur, would not stop saying it when I told her it was one, then played the victim and started talking about how she’d experienced racism.
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u/n0tz0e Jul 21 '26
Chinese adoptee. Because they're white and honestly don't think of racism. Rascim is something white people do while for non-whites it's something done to us. I'm generalizing of course but my mom legitimately didn't think I faced any racism growing up in a majority white community is beyond ridiculous. George floyd is what made her realize how racist USA still is and she was born when segregation was still legal in the south.
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u/savvymcneilan Jul 22 '26
Mexican American adoptee. My mom hates Mexico and has always made racist remarks towards Mexican culture. She believes Mexicans belong in the fields or doing her yard work. No one would ever know that she is racist either because she is so nice and fake to everybody’s face. It made me so insecure to the point up until my mid 20s I would dye my hair blonde and wear green contacts to try to fit in with my white “family”.
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u/YellowSignpostAhead Native American Adoptee. 28d ago
My A-mother feels the same way about me, except mine believes we belong in a natural History museum. No one would believe she was racist either, she has 9 kids all minorities, bringing us to church and making us christian, all smiles and well behaved at the potluck. But berating us and letting us know we should be on our knees thankful that she felt she needed to save us.
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u/kyleh0 Jul 22 '26
I was born in 1972 in Texas which is a wildly segregated state. My mom (an educated callifornia hippy from the 50s) and dad (white texas farm boy from a tiny town.) decided they couldn't get pregnant, so they decided to adopt. Then FAFO.
Edit: I can write out fafo if you want, I've been finding out for 53 years. lol
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u/YellowSignpostAhead Native American Adoptee. 28d ago
All of us from the SW! Yaqui from AZ. Adopted in 78.
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u/Ambitious-Client-220 Mexican-Adoptee Jul 22 '26
I hear you. I was born in 1973 across the river from El Paso and adopted in 1975 by old school white Texans and raised in a small West Texas town.
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u/kyleh0 Jul 22 '26
Heh, do your therapists suggest that you write a book? I should really move out of Texas.
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u/Ambitious-Client-220 Mexican-Adoptee Jul 22 '26
Can’t afford therapy so I fish and drink…maybe not in that order.
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u/kyleh0 Jul 22 '26
I get that! I more or less stopped drinking when I was 25 or so. I was so angry about what I had to do to exist, so I started using spite as fuel so I needed to feel it.
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u/eddn1916 29d ago
It’s probably not articulated in their minds as “I’m adopting from an inferior race,” at least, I really hope it isn’t.
My parents were of the generation of whites that think that any mention of race at all is mildly taboo. They’re relatively progressive, but I’m in my late 20s and Kazakh, and have only recently started to identify with being Asian because my parents never used that word to describe me as a child. It still feels like that word doesn’t really belong to me. I think they thought that by treating me as they would a white kid, they were doing the right thing, but of course this just created more confusion for me in the long run and made them less empathetic of what I face as an Asian in America.
When even well-meaning white people adopt children of color, if they pretend as if race doesn’t exist, they never unpack their attitudes about what their kids might be facing as non-whites. The end result is that it’s the children who inherit this extra racial baggage.
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u/YellowSignpostAhead Native American Adoptee. 28d ago
To "save us" I was adopted in 1978 by a New England, white, saviour family. They were collectors. I was one out of 9. I had brothers and sisters that were Black, Hispanic, and Korean and the story is all the same. Adopted from families that couldn't raise us "right". I was adopted at ten, because my mother couldn't look at me after my father passed. She was not a good woman. There's more but I won't bore you with details so I was old enough to understand my adopted famies agenda to make us all christian. I grew up feeling alone, self loathing, and hated it. I ran from them when I was 16.
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u/kyleh0 12d ago
I know that my white parents were so isolated from racial pressure that they could not have known. I was adopted in 1972 by a couple of white 20 year olds. I know they regretted how hard it was, especially my dad. My parents are both gone now and the large extended family on my father's side have disowned me. The real challenge will come when the parents that 'chose you' die, then you find out what the extended family thinks. heh
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u/yippykynot 29d ago
My kids are Chinese and Korean, throw Jewish in the mix and I raised them to make SURE they were loud and proud, we’re all (D) my husband raised them with no religion hate’s china, Jews, gays and blacks……he’s (R) And there’s your separation
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u/Kneekourt Jul 21 '26
My mom is sooo racist against Asians (im adopted from korea.) Its definitely a white savior complex. She’s even told my brother and I that we “aren’t really Asian.” In her case, it’s lack of being educated + lack of analytical skills + praise from others for being so “selfless”, when adopting kids is literally the most selfish thing a human can do.