‘We’re not projects’: Transracial adoptees insist on being seen

She got good grades. She flourished as a cheerleader, and those girls became her core group of friends.

Having been adopted into a loving, New England home, April Dinwoodie seemed fine – her life had been set straight. 

On the inside, she didn’t have the words to express what it felt like to be a transracial adoptee in a solidly white home and community – to be OK yet not OK.

“My experience, while on the outside looks just totally fine, like ‘What’s the problem, April?,’ ... it was hard,” says Ms. Dinwoodie, an educator and facilitator on adoption, identity, and race. “And a lot of people just don’t buy that. They don’t believe that.” 

Transracial adoption is often understood in dichotomous terms – a fairy tale or nightmare, an act of grace or, in one of the most extreme takes, a form of genocide. Those dueling views emerged this fall during the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett after she introduced her seven children, including two Black children adopted from Haiti.

But to the backdrop of the larger reckoning on race that has boiled for years in the U.S. before spilling onto the streets this summer, adult adoptees like Ms. Dinwoodie are pushing back against stubborn myths and misconceptions – and demanding that adoptive parents engage more purposefully

Lopsided statisticsAdult adoptees speak upWhen love isn’t enoughChallenging parents to be advocates