It was a study in Nature in 1995 supposedly demonstrating this correlation. In googling it for citation it appears additional studies have been done since then that cannot replicate this correlation.
This is probably irrelevant to the discussion, but this past week’s Extreme Makeover Home Edition featured the Hassal Family. Michelle, Paul?, Alex, and Sam. Michelle and Paul are the parents, and both are white, grew up in KY. Alex is a six year old African American girl, and Sam is a three year old boy from China. As part of the “this family is so incredibly worthy of the honor we are about to do them” time at the begining of the show, some comment was made about the difficulties of such a varied family. Michelle said that there is one place they all match. The four of them all turned their hands palm up to show that no matter one’s skin tone elsewhere, the palms of people’s hands are all peachy.
This idea was then used for a photograph in the master bedroom, and a plaster tile in the floor, and Sam’s room was decorated with images from the Golden Gate Bridge, to the Statue of Liberty, to Europe, Africa, and China. Then small children with their arms stretched out were traced around, and the wood cutouts were arranged around the room like wainscoting. Emphasizing that this family will give Sam a chance to explore all the world has to offer. They don’t want him to forget his China heritage, even as he grows up in small town U.S.A.
My sister has one of those “United Nations Relief” looking families in its third generation. Red headed white kids, blond white kids, Afro-American kids, Afro-Asian kids, and all the first generation’s spouses, who only account for some of the diversity. They live in the heart of the south, where everyone expects prejudice to be the norm.
By the way, all these people are blood relatives. (Well, not the spouses, it ain’t that type of deep south family!) Add in my other sisters and brother, and my families, and we have members from every racial group except South Seas Islands. Don’t know how we missed them.
Yes, the world makes comments, now and then. But the racists of the world will find a reason to hate you, even if you are from their exact racial stock. It’s not about having a good reason. I know lots of ignorant racists who will hate you for being a “not one of us”, no matter what your skin color is. Bigotry is fear, and ignorance, and bigots love their hatreds even more than they love their families.
Having no one is not better than having a loving family that looks different than you do. The opinions of bigots are unimportant, and children in such families learn that sooner than others. That is not a bad thing, even though it can, like any of life’s lessons, be a sad thing.
Tris
“You can go wrong by being too skeptical as easily as by being too trusting.” ~ Robert A. Heinlein ~
I got The Glare from some redneck in a small town this weekend. He looked at me, looked at my two kids*, and then looked at me again. And scowled.
Thank you, Tris, for allowing me to regain a certain perspective about that.
Regards,
Shodan
Oy yoi yoi.
The GGGparent who is Native American vs. Black:
Part A: Heard an interesting bit on Public Radio a few months back over the numbers of people trying to get to take on registered tribal identities. Some interesting issues involved. Some varied motivations involved. Doubt a link still exists even if it ever did though.
Part B: Many many “White” Americans have some recent African roots and most “Black” Americans have some recent European roots. The reality is that sociologically we have usually functioned according to the “one drop” rule and that the former is more common than the latter: part Black is usually culturally identified both by self and by others as Black.
Interracial Adoption. There is now a large cohort of girls adopted from China by non-Asians who are coming into young adulthood. To some extent they create a sisterhood of sorts. These are girls who as a rule have been presented with opportunities to learn about their culture of biologic origin in a positive light. Those of us who parent these children have learned from the Korean adoption boom of a generation ago to not ignore the fact that others will identify them as “Asian” whether we think of them that way or not. They do need to be prepared for that and for the consequent occassional prejudgements based on appearence that will occur. They deal with it in a multitude of ways. But “forever alienated”? Nope, does not happen. Interestingly enough in my community an Asian girl is more likely to have adoptive parents than to have biologic ones, which sometimes makes for a different set of prejudgements. My biggest gripe as an adoptive father are the well meaning people who presume to say what “a wonderful person” I must be to do this and “how lucky she is.” Gag me. We (my wife, my other kids, and I) are much more lucky to have her in our lives. Parenting is always a selfish choice and parenting in this way no less so. As parents my wife and I are particularly lucky, we’ve had the luxury of seeing what cards our genomes would deal out (who fortunately look less like me and more like my wife) and I get to play a hand dealt from another deck as well. She is wonderful and she knows it.
I still cry reading that thread.
To answer the OP. There have been studies. A really good one out of Sweden which did discover that interracially adopted children, Korean in this case, DID have more problems, most frightening, slightly higher but statistically significant suicide rates, than non-interracially adopted Swedes. They also tended to stay single at higher rates. However, Sweden is a very white place, so I wouldn’t feel comfortable extrapolating that study to adoptees in the U.S., which is far more multi-cultural and multi-racial.
Adoptees see psychologists at higher rates (sorry, no cites, this is all information I’ve picked up over the years - the Swedish study has disappeared from the internet - or is hidden from my Google-fu), but there is debate if this is because they have more problems, or because adoptive parents already used a social services function when they adopted which makes them more comfortable and/or anticipate problems because they have adopted kids so take kids in when non-adoptive parents say “they’ll grow out of it.”
If you do a book seach, you’ll find books written that address this. Frances Koh wrote one - its about 20 years out of date - that talks about this. I have books of poetry and prose by Korean adoptees. They feel strongly enough to write, but most are pretty content.
Importantly, we’ve learned a lot over time. When international adoption first started happening, we placed a lot of kids in homes with “well meaning, good Christians” who wanted to “save the heathen babies.” That doesn’t work. We now place them with people who want children, not heaven points - and that seems to work better (surprisingly, people who freely admit they are being selfish in their desire to adopt do much better as parents who see it as a charity move). We also used to advise parents to treat them “just like you would your own child” and completely ignore their race or cultural heritage. They may look Korean (Hispanic, Ethiopian…), but - by God - when the Schulz’s adopted them, they became German-American kids. That doesn’t work either. We now suggest that the whole family adds the culture of the adopted child - the Schulz’s - all of them - are now a Korean-German-Americans. That seems to be working better. We used to have this nice “race doesn’t matter” attitude. Now we address it up front and prepare our kids for a racism we can only begin to understand. We used to say “don’t change your life.” We now say “look at your neighborhood and school. Try to find an environment to raise your kids that shows racial diversity.”
There are challenges. There are certainly unhappy adoptees, some vocally unhappy that lobby for international adoption to be stopped - although having raised two kids - one bio - I’m convinced that there is a great deal of inborn temperment in who is happy and who isn’t. And some unhappy adoptees would likely be unhappy had they remainded in their birthfamily. And there are simply bad placements. Sometimes the family isn’t the right spot for the kid - an introverted, clumsy, academic kid in a family of extroverted athletic sports fans may feel out of place. And some adopted parents, just like some bio parents - turn out to be plain old evil and abusive.
Yeah, things are quite different in the SF Bay Area. I have so many friends who are mixed race it’s hard to keep track. In Silicon Valley there aren’t a lot of African Americans, but there are lots and lots of Asians and Hispanics, and the intermarriage rate is very high. I suspect we’re way ahead of the curve on this relative to many parts of the country. It’s just no big deal since it’s an everyday occurance.
Traditionally, the Cherokee were a matrilineal society. Children born to a white father and a Cherokee mother were considered (by the Cherokee) to be Cherokee and a member of the mother’s clan. That also helps explain why Cherokee women were more likely to marry white men than vice versa. Theda Perdue of the University of North Carolina has written some interesting stuff on this.
In the tribe, I am called “Dances with Vulvas”.
Yes indeed, and I’m happy to report that in my daughter’s high school people seldom seemed to even consider race. Dating seemed totally color blind with the slight exception of some religious groups and some immigrant parents who wanted their kids to only be involved with people just like them - which is pretty common for most immigrant parents, regardless of race or national origin.
That, and the total absence of homophobia among the kids, is very encouraging. I feel that my generation has ingrained biases, though we know they’re wrong. The next generation doesn’t seem to have even them - at least not around here.
Oh, and if it makes anyone happy, I hereby declare I have 0% Cherokee or any other Native American blood.
Unless some Cherokees served as technical advisors to Cossacks, that is. 
I’m one-seventh Navaho.
My Indian name is “LongWindedTalker”.