Mother of Transracial Adoption

Abstract

Chapter three explores Pearl Buck’s anti-racist propaganda and her sharp criticisms of American hypocrisy. Pearl Buck fiercely opposed racial and religious matching, a philosophy that governed non-relative adoption during the early twentieth century. Matching required adoptive parents to match the potential adoptees in terms of race, physical resemblance, religious background, and intellectual capacity. Pearl Buck was a Presbyterian missionary and a prolific writer who wrote countless articles and essays critical of racial matching. Moreover, she was an avid supporter of global friendship and unity who argued that adoption could foster world friendship. The chapter examines Buck’s prose and explores how she dismantled the resistance to transracial adoption that was prevalent at the time. The chapter also expounds on her primary motivations for promoting transnational and transracial adoption: her advocacy of American political and moral responsibility, her personal connections and motherhood; and her mission of global friendship and unity. If the Holts spoke to an evangelical audience, Buck popularized transnational adoption beyond the Christian niche and across America.