An interracial or transracial adoption is present when the racial or ethnic background of the parent differs from the child's. In fiction as in Real Life, this can lead to discrimination, identity issues and cultural clashes.
A common issue arising from this kind of adoption is the obviousness of the adoption itself, as the child does not look related to their parents, which may lead to others not recognizing them "as a real family" and makes an Adoption Diss very easy to use as a bullying tactic. This becomes even more obvious if the family lives in a racially homogeneous part of town or the child has siblings actually related and looking similar to the parents. On the flip side, the use of the most common kind of Adoption Angst in those kinds of adoption narratives is very rare, as the adoptive children usually know quite well that they are adopted (unless Played for Laughs in a Oblivious Adoption scenario). Another source of drama might be the Child of Two Worlds not fitting in, being torn between two cultures, having identity issues or not being seen as either part of their adoptive culture or as a "proper" example of their race or ethnicity (see also The Whitest Black Guy and Heritage Disconnect). This scenario can also lead to Gene Hunting, where the kid seeks to connect to their biological parents and their true origins.
Parents who are aware of potential issues arising from an interracial adoption may do extensive research into their child's original culture, customs or language, connect them to still-living biological relatives or use tutors or language schools. In other cases, the parents-to-be may not be conscious (or worse, willfully ignorant) of the racial discrimination and cultural tension their child-to-be could face which can lead to trouble down the road in the narrative.
As for the races of parents and child, white parents with a Black or Asian child used to be the most common depiction in media, often drawing from real life easy international adoptions from China and/or less well-off countries. White Man's Burden can also come into play in the case of a well-off white family adopting an underprivileged child of color and giving them "a better life".
An Interspecies Adoption may be used as an allegory for interracial or intercultural adoption. An interracially adopted child may be, but does not have to be, Happily Adopted. Where an interracial family unit is formed through remarriage or moving in together, see also Blended Family Drama. This trope may be used as ammo during an Adoption Conflict if the child's biological parents are a different race than the adoptive parents.
Examples
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Comic Books
- Superman Smashes the Klan: Set in 1946, this version of Superman initially denies his alien heritage due to a childhood accident, often imagining his birth parents as green-skinned stereotypical aliens. As such, he lets the public believe he is simply an extraordinary human because he limits his powers to that of super strength, speed, jumps, and hearing. The Kents accept him for who he is, as Martha is the one who insists he wear the El family crest on his uniform, but their fears of him getting persecuted led them to suppress his alien identity rather than embrace it, preventing him from reaching his full potential. Roberta Lee (herself struggling with being a Chinese-American immigrant in a white neighborhood) after realizing his jumps are more like floating, points out that limiting his powers to seem "normal" could lead to others getting hurt, which is exactly what happens when he doesn't use his x-ray vision to spot a bomb. Eventually, he publicly comes out with his alien heritage as Superman, but not before having a heart-to-heart with the Kents.
Fan Works
- Absolute Trust: Downplayed with Alec, who's from another world and ends up in the Southern Water Tribe. He spends two months learning and living there before Katara and Sokka offer to adopt him, him being an orphan, and he accepts. There's never any question through the story of them being anything but family, even with the reveal two months after that that he's a firebender.
- The Dogfather: A South Asian Harry Potter is Happily Adopted in infancy to the McIntyres, a white couple who take care to provide him with links to his culture of origin. This element of their relationship soon becomes overshadowed by the Internal Reveal that they're Muggle Foster Parents to the Boy Who Lived.
- Completely averted in The Dragon and the Butterfly. Hiccup, a teenager from Scandinavia, is made an honorary member of the Colombian Madrigal family later made official when he marries Mirabel. He fully embraces Colombian culture, as the only part of Berk that he actually liked was the dragons (which he technically still has, as Toothless is in the Encanto with him). It's later mentioned that Hiccup wants to forget about Berk and his old culture, as he is the exact opposite of the ideal Berkian. Once he makes up with his old village and lets Stoick back into his life, though, he begins to embrace both his Colombian and Berkian cultures (although he clearly favors the Encanto over Berk).
Film — Live-Action
- After Yang takes place in a surveillance state where "technosapiens" are common. An interracial couple (Jake is white, Kyra is black) has adopted a Chinese girl named Mika, and to help ground her in her native culture, they have also brought a "Chinese" technosapien named Yang to teach her the language and customs into the family. The plot is triggered when Yang begins malfunctioning, and Jake, not wanting to upset his daughter, goes on a quest to repair him.
- The Blind Side: Gentle Giant Black teen Michael is adopted by the white, wealthy and religious Tuohy family. In the beginning, Michael and others have doubts about the family's interest in him, thinking they are exploiting him for his football abilities. Other rich white people in the family's circle are also critical of the adoption, seeing him as a threat to the teenage Tuohy daughter he's going to live with. A Black drug dealer (team mate in the book the film is based on) accuses Michael of selling out "to white people" and makes sexual comments about the Tuohy women, implying they're not his real family.
- Blue Bayou: Antonio was adopted from Korea as a toddler by a white American family who never bothered to file citizenship for him and gave him up soon after the adoption. After being violently harassed by the white ex of his girlfriend, Antonio is threatened with deportation. The film was based around many true stories of international adoptees who share Antonio's fate and their stories are shown as the film ends.
- Cass is based on the biography of real-life Cass Pennant, a notorious former football hooligan. Black Jamaican Cass was adopted as a baby by the white Pennant family and grows up in the 50s and 60s in an all-white neighbourhood in London. He has to endure racist bullying by other children and finds an outlet in the violence of hooliganism, finally feeling respected.
- Instant Family: Pete and Ellie Wagner adopt three Latino children because the eldest sister impressed them, and they didn't want her younger siblings Lita and Juan to be without her. Ellie is skeptical at first, assuming they wanted to be the good white couple who adopted children of color out of pity. There is a slight language barrier. Although the trio is bilingual, Pete struggles to use Spanish with Lita and Juan, which seems to work better when disciplining them.
- Mixed Company, a 1974 film starring Barbara Harris, is about the Morrison family who run an adoption agency. Having found out they can't have more biological children, Mrs Morrison wants to adopt Black Freddie. Prejudiced Mr Morrison, against this interracial adoption, relents, and the family soon experiences racist backlash in their community. To spite them, Mrs Morrison adopts two more non-white children — the Vietnamese war orphan Quan and the Hopi Joe. The film follows the family's initial troubles and Mr Morrison's journey to loving his new children.
- The Ride: Very Loosely Based on a True Story of the life of BMX rider John Buultjens, this film tells the story of John, who grows up in a white supremacist abusive family and then is fostered by the Buultjens family, an interracial couple (the dad Eldridge is portrayed by Ludacris). While not getting along with his new family and especially being ashamed of having a Black adoptive father at first, the new family grows close slowly after Eldridge buys John a BMX bike and helps foster his new hobby.
- Return To Seoul: Freddie was born in South Korea before being adopted by a white French family. While her adoptive family is fine, it's clear that this situation has caused some existentialism in Freddie, who seeks her biological family and is a Fish out of Water in South Korea.
Literature
- InCryptid: Sally Henderson is a Korean girl adopted by a white couple as a baby. She resents them for not helping her connect to her heritage, and says they were the kind of people who think that adopting an Asian child means they can't be racist.
- In Little Fires Everywhere, a major plot point is a custody battle between Bebe, who is Chinese, and the white Mccullough family over her infant daughter May Ling, and this trope is brought up. The Mcculloughs win the custody battle, but it is rendered moot when Bebe takes the baby and returns to China. They end up adopting another Chinese baby.
- Wuthering Heights makes this trope Older Than Radio. The byronic Heathcliff starts out as an Ambiguously Brown foundling—described as a "gypsy," but largely as a convenient shorthand for his dark skin, as we never find out his actual ethnicity. Even after adopting him, the white English Earnshaw family treats him as a mere servant, and his outcast status drives him down the path of vindictive villainy as he grows up.
- You Only Live Once David Bravo: The protagonist David does not look like his adopted parents, a Japanese woman and a dark-skinned Mexican-Brazilian man, which often leads to weird looks and unwanted attention on family outings. The novel starts when David has to give a presentation in front of his new class about his cultural heritage, where he is asked insensitive and probing questions about his "true" origins and culture. He himself is also unsure about his own identity and place in society, simply stating that he is "David Bravo" when asked (his biological parents are lighter-skinned Latinx). The author, Mark Oshiro, is also a transracial adoptee with a similar background and has often discussed this trope on their blogs.
Live-Action TV
- The Brady Bunch: In the episode "Kelly's Kids", a white couple with whom the Bradys are friends adopts a white boy. When the boy says he misses his two best friends from the children's home, the couple goes to meet the other two boys — one of whom is African-American and the other being Asian. After some hesitancy, the couple quickly adopts them. A next-door neighbor, the aptly-named Mrs. Payne complains about the decision, three boys causing a ruckus, especially "the minorities". It is implied that her husband swings enough weight in town to make things rough for the new family.
- In Castle Rock, Henry Deaver struggles with being adopted, because he is black and his parents are white, leaving him as the only black guy in Castle Rock, highlighting him as the other. While he loves his mom, Ruth, he hated his abusive adoptive father, Matthew, and killed him when he threatened Ruth.
- The Chair (2021): Korean-American Ji-yoon Kim has a young adopted Mexican daughter nicknamed Ju Ju, who is increasingly distressed because she can tell she isn't biologically related to the Kims.
- Technically inverted on The City (1995), when the African-American Angie and Jesse tried to adopt a white girl (the races are usually reversed in these scenarios), with even Jesse himself expressing doubts. Ultimately, it doesn't go through.
- Modern Family: Lily Tucker-Pritchett was a Vietnamese child adopted by a white American gay couple as a two-year-old. In "The Future Dunphys", at five years old, Mitchell and Cameron discover that Lily thinks she's gay because her fathers are gay. They inform her that gay is not a heritage and that she is actually Vietnamese. When the family tries to introduce her to her native culture via a restaurant, Lily resists and causes trouble because, Mitchell realizes, she doesn't want to feel different from her dads. They assure her that by making a scene in a restaurant she does take after them, heritage or not.
- Sex and the City: Charlotte and her husband Trey are both white New Yorkers. Charlotte struggles to get pregnant and she begins researching other options. She puts her and Trey's names down to adopt a baby girl from China. She even tries to learn Mandarin for "her" (= the hypothetical baby's) sake. Charlotte says it's good they're both dark-haired so people won't notice immediately she's adopted and that they'll look fairly alike. Trey's insufferable mother Bunny is appalled they'd consider adopting a child of different ethnicity.
Bunny: MacDougal is one of the oldest Highland clans in existence. We have a very proud lineage, one I hope you and Trey will be able to perpetuate. Now, I know some things can't be helped, but I must tell you right now: I don't enjoy Mandarin food, and I don't enjoy a Mandarin child. The MacDougal name will be carried on by sons of your own . Not daughters of the South Pacific.
- A Season 6 storyline on Sisters had youngest sister Charlie becoming a foster mom to the son of a late patient of hers. Her colleague criticizes her for trying to play White Savior, telling her that she'll never be able to understand his experiences. She later runs into this problem when she wants to adopt him for good, as there's an African-American couple looking to do the same.
- In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Cardassians", Rugal is a Cardassian war orphan being raised by a Bajoran family who have strong sentiments against the Cardassians. Rugal therefore is culturally Bajoran, preferring their food, customs and religion and hates himself for his Cardassian heritage. When his biological Cardassian father shows up to claim him back, a hearing takes place to decide where to place the boy. The episode has a Bittersweet Ending — Rugal is returned to Cardassia in the hope of reconnecting with his heritage, but he is forcibly taken away from his Bajoran family, who despite the Cardassian-hate were always loving and kind to him.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation: Worf, a Klingon, was adopted and raised by the Rozhenko family, humans with Russian ethnicity. The Rozhenkos wanted Worf to have a loving family, but they didn't want him to be ignorant of his Klingon heritage, either, so they tried to accommodate him by learning to make traditional Klingon dishes like Rhokeg Blood Pie. It's often noted that Worf is more serious and stern than most other Klingons, and this comes from a combination of him having actually studied the texts and history and taking them seriously, as well as an unfortunate incident in his past where he accidentally killed a young man during a sporting event, because his Klingon physiology meant he was far too strong to be careless around human beings. When he starts meeting other Klingons as an adult, he experiences some culture clash as the idealized version of Klingon culture he formed in his mind does not reflect reality.
- This Is Us: Randall is the third child of the Pearson family, adopted by parents Jack and Pearson after their third triplet was stillborn. It is obvious he is adopted, as while the rest of the Pearsons are white, Randall is Black. Throughout the seasons, there are many storylines that touch on adoption issues, Randall meeting his biological father and his adoptive family trying to foster his relationship with the Black community. While his upbringing was generally loving and supportive, a season five episode touches on the then recent cases of police brutality against Black men (directly mentioning George Floyd) and Randall has a discussion with his white sister about his adoptive family not preparing him well enough for those kinds of social justice issues facing people like him.
- Watchmen (2019): Cal and Angela are a black couple who have adopted her Dead Partner's three children (all white). Although they strive to be Good Parents, one character reacts with derision when she refers to them as "her" kids.
- Downplayed in Webster: This sitcom, along with Diff'rent Strokes, was one of a few 1980s series about wise-cracking precocious Black children being adopted by an affluent white family. Webster, the son of a football player who died in a car accident, was adopted by the Papadopoulos couple, who were family friends. The series rarely touched on the race difference except in season two when Webster's uncle Phillip appears and tries to adopt Webster, taking issue with him living with a white family.
