Mother of Transracial Adoption: Pearl Buck's Special Needs Adoption and American Self-criticism

Abstract

In 1949, Pearl Sydenstricker Buck founded Welcome House, the first transracial and transnational adoption agency in the country, marking the beginning of the transnational adoption of mixed-race ‘Amerasian’ children. Contrary to the prevailing understanding that her humanitarian advocacy was a political act that promoted American global hegemony during the Cold War period, this article argues that her humanitarian work was motivated primarily by three forces: (1) her sense of American political and moral responsibility, (2) her desire for personal connection and motherhood, and (3) her mission of global friendship and unity. Buck actively fought racism in America, advocating the adoption of mixed-race Asian children and children with disabilities. Unlike evangelical agencies that catered to a conservative Christian audience, Pearl Buck normalised the notion of transracial adoption across America through her potent prose. This study examines her work in the context of the rise of Protestant liberalism, accentuating her role as the pioneer of the transracial and transnational adoption of Amerasian children and demonstrating that her ideology was congruent with her lifetime motto of human solidarity and anti-racism.