Hi adoptee community – I’ve been approached now by several people working on a federal project developing a training curriculum for foster and adoptive families. Please comment to the email provided below or you can leave comments here and I will send them on to the organization.
In particular, they want to know how to address families who foster or adopt children who are culturally and racially different from them.
Are there terms that you recommend we include? Are there terms you advise we avoid?
Examples include:
- Cross-racial / cross-cultural
- Interracial / intercultural
- Multiracial / multicultural
- Transracial / transcultural
Is there another term you prefer or recommend?
Would you recommend we just describe these families as culturally and/or racially diverse?
In particular, we’d like to hear from adoptees for whom this was their experience growing up.
Your feedback is appreciated. Please send your thoughts/suggestions to me at RHanlon@adoptioncouncil.org
Harlow's Monkey 
Support for transracial adoptive parents specifically of international adoptees, counseling resources for all adoptive parents, resources for other transracial adoptive parents and connections with adult transracial adoptees. My friend has asked me numerous questions about transracial adoption in the event that she ends up transracially adopting. She said how helpful it is to speak to someone who has experienced what her child may experience.
Hi, thanks for responding. Are you a transracial adoptee? Do you have feedback about what terms to use (posted in the blog post)? I agree all of what you wrote in your comment is needed. Thanks for your comment.
I am a transracial adoptee and transracial adoptive parent. Honestly I haven’t though much about the “terms” used.
I am an adoptee, from Vietnam, adopted by Caucasians. I do not like the word “racially” at all. I believe the word “cultural” sounds less derogatory and more professional.
Thanks for your feedback Saskia, I will pass that on!