Estimar un conjunto de indicadores relacionados con los resultados previstos del Título justificando dicha estimación a partir del perfil de

The West has a long tradition of uprooting non-whites and transporting them involuntarily to their own countries and for their own purposes. Hundreds of thousands of non-whites, especially Africans, were transported to satisfy the need for manpower.

Nowadays hundreds of thousands of non-whites, especially East Asians, are transported to the West to satisfy the needs of infertile white middle-class couples.

The message of intercountry adoption is ideology is clearly that life in the West is

29 Adoption.com provides a brief explanation of the term and its importance to the adoption industry and community which is useful here. “The Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 (P.L. 105-89) has focused more attention on finding homes for children with special needs and making sure they receive the post-adoption services they need.

Congress enacted the law to ensure that children in foster care, who cannot be reunited with their birth parents, are freed for adoption and placed with permanent families as quickly as possible. For many people the term "special needs" means a child who receives or needs special education or who has a disability of some sort. In adoption, the term is defined differently and may include the factors listed below. Guidelines for classifying a child as "special needs" vary by State. Children with special needs range in age from infants to 18 years. In general, children with special needs are those who: Have physical or health problems, Are older, Are members of ethnic or racial minorities, Have a history of abuse or neglect, Have emotional problems, Have siblings and need to be adopted as a group, Test positive for HIV, Have documented conditions that may lead to future problems, Were prenatally exposed to drugs or alcohol.”

the best, and that the West has the right to adopt children from non-Western countries in the name of paternalistic humanis and materialistic superiority, something which reminds [one] of the pro-slavery arguments from the 19^th century;

by leaving war-stricken and impoverished West-Africa the slaves were considered given a better life in the New World.

- Tobias Hubinette, co-found of Transracial Abductees website, Korean adoptee to Sweden and lecturer in Korean Studies at Stockholm University. Author of Comforting an Orphaned Nation.

From its inception, gender was a significant factor in U.S. policy. However early migration was overwhelmingly gendered male in the form of the “coolie” trade that landed at Angel Island in San Francisco to labor in industry and the railroads during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Given overt racism at that time, the immigration of women was tightly controlled as a means of curtailing “permanent” settlement of Chinese migrants in the United States. While large waves of males migrated to the United States, few were able to obtain citizenship which was primarily reserved for White immigrants. As late as the 1850s – U.S. policy only acknowledged two

“races” based on skin color – White and Black – leaving others as “aliens ineligible for citizenship.”³⁰ Largely in response to the rapid increase in Chinese labor migration, U.S.

President Chester Alan Arthur’s administration ushered in the Exclusion Era, widely accepted as the years 1882-1943 (Lee 2003; Hsu 2000; Chan 1991). Begun with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), U.S. immigration policy during this period excluded all Chinese laborers and required extensive proof of class and status. Although the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed in 1943, Chinese immigration to the United States was not significantly altered until

30 This phrase was taken from the California Land Law of 1913 which prohibited Chinese (and others ) ineligible for citizenship from buying land or leasing it for more than three years. This and other similar state laws were an extension of the 1790 Naturalization Act which allowed only "free white persons" to become U.S. citizens. Chinese were not included in the 1870 Naturalization Law which granted citizenship to Africans and those of African descent.

passage of the 1965 Immigration Act which in essence eliminated prior quotas and exclusion based on ethnicity and/or “race.”

While broader U.S. attitudes about race and immigration have certainly changed from the days of the People v. Hall (1854) decision by the California Supreme Court in which a murder conviction of a White man was overturned because the conviction had been based on the testimony of a Chinese witness, nevertheless, significant restrictions remain and immigration policy remains highly charged. In 1997 I was teaching in China. At that time, I worked with two Chinese students who had spent a significant amount of money to apply to elite U.S. universities. They had invested enormous energy in their studies and had very successful undergraduate experiences in China.

They were accepted to Ivy League schools and offered a good financial-aid package. They only needed to interview with the U.S. consulate in Shenyang. Despite their qualifications, they were turned down for a U.S. visa without explanation and forced to defer their graduate studies in the United States indefinitely. U.S. immigration offices, now under the Department of Homeland Security, are very clear about their priorities. Upon entering the offices in Beijing, one is greeted by photographs of large numbers of Chinese being taken off boats and arrested after attempting to enter the United States illegally. This is in sharp contrast to images that previously appeared on the U.S. government website for adoption regulations which featured a smiling Chinese baby with a caption stating, “Another satisfied client!”³¹ The immigration officer that I spoke with explained that they are a law enforcement agency and see themselves as such with one – adoption. With

31 This image of a smiling adoptee is no longer available online. As part of the post 9/11 move to reorganize the former Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), these regulations now fall under the Department of Homeland Security. Their imagery is arguably more egalitarian, however, the philosophy of facilitation of adoption (as opposed to other forms of immigration) remains intact.

regard to adoption, the agency is considered to be a facilitator – in all other capacities, including applications for spousal visas, they adopt a law enforcement agenda.

From both the position of U.S. immigration offices and the desires of Chinese students, workers, and fiancées, transnational movement is clearly seen as advantageous. Although adoptees are too young to express their desires or voice consent, their privileged immigration is ingrained in the process itself as they receive automatic citizenship upon landing in the United States. Feminist geographer, Doreen Massey’s concept of power geometry is useful in this regard because it explains how the “identity of a place does not derive from some internalized history [but rather] from the specificity of its interactions with ‘the outside’” (Massey 1994:169). Given that in China, transnational adoption is accepted as one important way for abandoned children to find parents and improve their material quality of life, then transnational adoption is quite literally a “powerful” opportunity. However, adopted children do not fit readily into the categories Massey uses to describe those who are able to take advantage of transnational movement. Massey argues that,

“different social groups, and different individuals, are placed in very distinct ways in relation to these [transnational] flows and interconnections. [... A]t the end of the spectra are… the jet-setters, the ones sending and receiving the faxes and the e-mail, holding the international conference calls, the ones distributing the films, controlling the news, organizing the investments and the international currency transactions. These are the groups who are really in a sense in charge of time-space compression, who can really use it and turn it to advantage, whose power and influence it very definitely increases” (Massey, 1994: 149).

At the other end of the spectra are refugees, undocumented migrant workers, and others who are moving but are not in charge of the process. Adoptees hold an interesting place in this framework. Clearly they are not a part of the wealthy elite, however, through adoption, they are tied to people with more control over movement and greater possibilities of flexible

accumulation. This dramatic shift in their lives is institutionalized through the change in citizenship.

The long, complicated and overtly discriminatory history of Chinese-U.S. immigration and the experiences of other Chinese migrants such as the students (as mentioned above), and foreign brides (Constable 2003) is in sharp contrast to the immigration experienced by young adoptees – as many as ninety-eight percent of whom are female. But, these diverse immigration policies are related in that they continue to reflect the broader social ideals and transnational flows that are most beneficial to the imperatives of the white middle-class and elite in U.S.

society.