ABSTRACT
This chapter critiques the notion that the adopted child experienced a smooth and joyful transition upon arrival in the United States by featuring less well-known stories. These stories are archived by the ISS-USA, but most of them were not distributed to the general public. They reveal breakdowns in adoptive family placements and the need for family replacements; the stress created by the financial costs of international adoption; and one family’s story about the mundane, but also highly emotional, challenges of adopting a Chinese child in the early 1960s. The outcomes of these adoptions are unknown, but the available archival records suggest that they would become successful placements. The significance of these stories is not simply their portrayal of rough spots in global family making; when read together, they present a more nuanced and honest portrayal of the emotional work undertaken by American families who adopted Asian children.
