The Myth of Rescue: International Adoption, Empire, and U.S. Social Work

Background and Purpose:
Mainstream histories of U.S. social work frames adoption as a benevolent, humanitarian project, often centered on reformers like Jane Addams and Jessie Taft. However, these narratives leave out the broader political and global contexts in which international adoption developed. This paper challenges that framing by examining U.S. intercountry adoption, in Korea and Vietnam, as a practice shaped by war, imperialism, and colonialism. Using critical adoption studies, this article asks: How has international adoption functioned as a tool of U.S. empire, and what role have social workers and adoption agencies played in making that system possible? The goal is to rethink social work history by centering adoptee experiences, birth families, and the structural conditions that produced child displacement.

Methods:
This study employs critical historical analysis. Drawing on a combination of archival materials including oral histories, and historical documents, and existing scholarship on intercountry adoption and social work. Key cases include Korean War–era adoption, the rise of Holt International, and Operation Babylift during the Vietnam War. Sources were selected based on their relevance to U.S. adoption practices and social work involvement. This paper analyzes texts and historical evidence to identify patterns across historical events. Guided by critical theory and critical adoption studies, the analysis focuses on recurring themes such as “rescue” narratives, racialized and religious justifications, legal loopholes, and evidence of family separation. The goal is to describe events, and to interpret how these practices were shaped by larger systems of power, including colonialism and U.S. militarism.

Results:
The findings show that international adoption often functioned as a “technology of empire,” moving children from the Global South to the United States in the wake of war and displacement. In both Korea and Vietnam, adoption expanded alongside U.S. military presence, suggesting that it was a response to conditions created by U.S. intervention rather than simply to orphanhood. Evidence also shows that many children labeled as “orphans” had living families, pointing to how orphanhood was constructed to justify removal. At the same time, dominant narratives framed these adoptions as acts of rescue, masking the role of U.S. violence in producing family separation. Social workers and agencies were not neutral actors; they enabled these systems through policy loopholes, weak oversight, and decision-making that prioritized adoptive parents. Racial and religious ideologies—including white saviorism and the focus on mixed-race children—further shaped adoption practices.

Conclusions and Implications:
This paper argues that international adoption should be understood as part of a broader history of U.S. imperialism rather than as a purely humanitarian effort. Rethinking this history requires acknowledging the role of social work in sustaining systems that separated families and moved children across unequal global lines. For social work practice, this means prioritizing family preservation, strengthening accountability, and taking adoptee and birth family perspectives seriously. For policy, it highlights the need for stronger protections in intercountry adoption. More broadly, this paper contributes to critical social work history by challenging dominant narratives and calling for a more honest and historically grounded understanding of adoption.