Neoliberal Multiculturalism and The (White) Adoptive Family: The Fallacy of the Multicultural Household

By Chris Santizo-Malafronti

Recently I participated in an icebreaker where we went around the room attempting to fill out a bingo board with different experiences that people had had in the space. The goal is to get signatures of someone who “was sent to the principal’s office,” “can recite a poem,” “is double jointed,” “grew up in a multicultural household…”

“I’m just going to put you down for this.”

“Hey, I’ve been looking for you, can you sign this one for me?”

“You grew up in a multicultural household, didn’t you?”

Well, now that you mention it … uh, erh, in the speed of the moment I thought I did, but wait, I grew up in a monocultural household just like you? 

In their rush to win the game my White colleagues took it upon themselves to fill me in for this multicultural bingo square. They were confusing the fact that my family was composed of two different races, when, in reality, there were not two cultures. I was only six months old when I was adopted, what did I know about Guatemalan culture?

So, no, me being a transracial adoptee (TRIA) raised by White people did not make my family multicultural.

In the nineties, and beyond, for many couples, adopting a child internationally of a different race was a practice implemented by upper/middle class White families in an attempt to live out their take on a multiculturalism. A fantasy where love conquers all. It remains a potent motivating factor for adoptive parents (alongside White saviorism).

These White couples have a misplaced investment in the creation of the mixed-race family, formed through transracial international adoption, believing, incorrectly, that it would easily bring us that much closer to a post-racial society where we can celebrate difference.

In reality, most adoptive parents lack the resources, tools, access, and understanding of their child’s culture to do it justice when exposing them to their country of origin. This is reflected in White family’s superficial integration of their adoptee’s cultural difference in their family, perhaps making a dish for multicultural day at school, or their (often poor) attempts at incorporating cultural traditions in their daily lives.

Here, like with my colleagues playing the icebreaker, is the slippage, a fallacy–TRIAs are in fact not multicultural, they have lost their culture. Or at best, have a whitewashed version of their culture, and have been acculturated, socialized into whatever culture and cultural expression their White parents gave them. Be that second generation Italian-American, Southern, rural, urban, etc. but generally, some version of good ol’, down homey, Whiteness (which is to say almost devoid of culture itself).

To say that transracial adoptees grew up in a multicultural household obscures the loss of culture that TRIAs have gone through, the years of not belonging they have lived growing up, and the dissonance they will go through in their attempts to re-culturate in an authentic way. It also makes international transracial adoption something to celebrate in itself, the vanguard of a future to come where Whiteness, in its benevolence, loves children of color with no regard for their difference. But at what cost? At who’s expense? (The TRIAs).

* * *

At the end of the day, what’s most unsettling to me, is that this fallacy lives on. This game of human bingo happened in 2021 and my White, left-leaning friends were coming up to me asking me to put my signature down that I was from a multicultural household. In my heart of hearts, I want them to do better. In my heart of hearts, I know they want to too. And in that heart of hearts, I also know these are exactly some of the well-meaning, socially liberal, financially privileged, White people who would consider adopting transracially and internationally in the future. Until we identify and uproot this fallacy, we will continue to erase the real experiences of TRIAs and promote international adoption as a harmless, beautiful, and benign option for family formation. 

About the Author

Chris Santizo-Malafronti (they/them/elle) is a Maya K'iche' enby currently living in their ancestral lands Iximulew (Guatemala), reconnecting with their culture, language, and people. You can find them being the bridge between worlds, organizing for the liberation of those worlds, or reading a good (speculative fiction) book, dreaming about the possibilities of the worlds to come.