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In the last fifty years, transnational adoption--specifically, the
adoption of Asian children--has exploded in popularity as an
alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance
of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to
the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish.
In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known
historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United
States. Beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S.
military in Asia, she reveals how mixed-race children born of
Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and U.S. servicemen
comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children. Based on
extensive archival research, Global Families moves beyond
one-dimensional portrayals of Asian international adoption as
either a progressive form of U.S. multiculturalism or as an
exploitative form of cultural and economic imperialism. Rather,
Choy acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon, illuminating
both its radical possibilities of a world united across national,
cultural, and racial divides through family formation and its
strong potential for reinforcing the very racial and cultural
hierarchies it sought to challenge. Catherine Ceniza Choy is
Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley. She is the author of the award-winning book Empire of
Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History.
In western countries, including the United States, foreign-trained
nurses constitute a crucial labor supply. Far and away the largest
number of these nurses come from the Philippines. Why is it that a
developing nation with a comparatively greater need for trained
medical professionals sends so many of its nurses to work in
wealthier countries? Catherine Ceniza Choy engages this question
through an examination of the unique relationship between the
professionalization of nursing and the twentieth-century migration
of Filipinos to the United States. The first book-length study of
the history of Filipino nurses in the United States, "Empire of
Care" brings to the fore the complicated connections among nursing,
American colonialism, and the racialization of Filipinos."
"Choy conducted extensive interviews with Filipino nurses in New
York City and spoke with leading Filipino nurses across the United
States. She combines their perspectives with various
others--including those of Philippine and American government and
health officials--to demonstrate how the desire of Filipino nurses
to migrate abroad cannot be reduced to economic logic, but must
instead be understood as a fundamentally transnational process. She
argues that the origins of Filipino nurse migrations do not lie in
the Philippines' independence in 1946 or the relaxation of U.S.
immigration rules in 1965, but rather in the creation of an
Americanized hospital training system during the period of
early-twentieth-century colonial rule. Choy challenges celebratory
narratives regarding professional migrants' mobility by analyzing
the scapegoating of Filipino nurses during difficult political
times, the absence of professional solidarity between Filipino and
American nurses, and the exploitation of foreign-trained nurses
through temporary work visas. She shows how the culture of American
imperialism persists today, continuing to shape the reception of
Filipino nurses in the United States.
In the last fifty years, transnational adoption--specifically, the
adoption of Asian children--has exploded in popularity as an
alternative path to family making. Despite the cultural acceptance
of this practice, surprisingly little attention has been paid to
the factors that allowed Asian international adoption to flourish.
In Global Families, Catherine Ceniza Choy unearths the little-known
historical origins of Asian international adoption in the United
States. Beginning with the post-World War II presence of the U.S.
military in Asia, she reveals how mixed-race children born of
Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese women and U.S. servicemen
comprised one of the earliest groups of adoptive children. Based on
extensive archival research, Global Families moves beyond
one-dimensional portrayals of Asian international adoption as
either a progressive form of U.S. multiculturalism or as an
exploitative form of cultural and economic imperialism. Rather,
Choy acknowledges the complexity of the phenomenon, illuminating
both its radical possibilities of a world united across national,
cultural, and racial divides through family formation and its
strong potential for reinforcing the very racial and cultural
hierarchies it sought to challenge. Catherine Ceniza Choy is
Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley. She is the author of the award-winning book Empire of
Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History.
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