Adoption Law Prof Blog

Book: To Save the Children of Korea

To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption, by Arissa H. Oh, published by Stanford University Press, explores how Korea was "the place where organized, systematic international adoption was born." The book is crucial to understanding both the history of international adoption and how international adoption operates today. The following blurb from the SUP website explains it well:

Arissa Oh's fascinating and gracefully written transnational study provides the contextualization and theorization of international adoption that has been missing from the literature. Through the lens of Korean adoption, Oh shows us how domestic politics and desires are intertwined with geopolitical relationships and aims, expanding our understanding of Cold War liberalism and even Cold War era postcolonial modernization."

—Naoko Shibusawa, Brown University

Book: Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption

There's an interesting book out by E. Wayne Carp, author of Family Matters: Secrecy and Disclosure in the History of Adoption and Adoption Politics: Bastard Nation and Ballot Initiative 58.

Titled Jean Paton and the Struggle to Reform American Adoption, the book continues his focus on reform movements to allow access to original birth certificates and other adoption records by adoptees and birth parents.

The University of Michigan Press describes the book as follows:

Jean Paton (1908–2002) fought tirelessly to reform American adoption and to overcome prejudice against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Paton wrote widely and passionately about the adoption experience, corresponded with policymakers as well as individual adoptees, promoted the psychological well-being of adoptees, and facilitated reunions between adoptees and their birth parents. This masterful biography brings to light the accomplishments of this neglected civil-rights pioneer, who paved the way for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. Her unflagging efforts over five decades helped reverse harmful policies, practices, and laws concerning adoption and closed records, struggles that continue to this day.

An excellent review can be found at the American Historical Review.

 

Jean Paton (1908–2002) fought tirelessly to reform American adoption and to overcome prejudice against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Paton wrote widely and passionately about the adoption experience, corresponded with policymakers as well as individual adoptees, promoted the psychological well-being of adoptees, and facilitated reunions between adoptees and their birth parents. This masterful biography brings to light the accomplishments of this neglected civil-rights pioneer, who paved the way for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. Her unflagging efforts over five decades helped reverse harmful policies, practices, and laws concerning adoption and closed records, struggles that continue to this day. - See more at: https://www.press.umich.edu/6580892/jean_paton_and_the_struggle_to_reform_american_adoption#sthash.ibZlbdAQ.dpuf

Jean Paton (1908–2002) fought tirelessly to reform American adoption and to overcome prejudice against adult adoptees and women who give birth out of wedlock. Paton wrote widely and passionately about the adoption experience, corresponded with policymakers as well as individual adoptees, promoted the psychological well-being of adoptees, and facilitated reunions between adoptees and their birth parents. This masterful biography brings to light the accomplishments of this neglected civil-rights pioneer, who paved the way for the explosive emergence of the adoption reform movement in the 1970s. Her unflagging efforts over five decades helped reverse harmful policies, practices, and laws concerning adoption and closed records, struggles that continue to this day. - See more at: https://www.press.umich.edu/6580892/jean_paton_and_the_struggle_to_reform_american_adoption#sthash.ibZlbdAQ.dpuf