So many years later, I can only vaguely recall three of the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers whose case histories and correspondence I transcribed. And I can also only vaguely recall the contents of the dictaphone tapes I transcribed each day in a general way.
But what I do recall less vaguely is a fourth Travelers Aid-ISS social worker, whose case histories and correspondence I also transcribed, whom I did come to know a little better outside of the office workplace, during the time I worked at Travelers Aid-ISS in the mid-1970s.
The post-1965 escalation of U.S. military intervention in Vietnam had, by the mid-1970s, produced large numbers of orphaned Vietnamese children in South Vietnam. And, by the 1970s, some of these orphaned children of the cities in South Vietnam, that were still then-controlled by the U.S. government-armed and funded Thieu regime, were being housed in South Vietnamese orphanages affiliated in some way with some U.S.-based religious or missionary organizations, that had been involved in "humanitarian relief projects" in South Vietnam; at the same time hundreds of thousands of U.S. military troops had been waging war in rural South Vietnam against South Vietnamese National Liberation Front [NLF] guerrillas, and the South Vietnamese civilians who had supported the NLF, for many years.
In addition, besides housing some of the South Vietnamese children whose parents had been killed by either the U.S. military or the troops of the U.S. government's puppet regime in South Vietnam during the many years of war, the South Vietnam orphanages were also housing some of the babies given birth to by the South Vietnamese women whom some of the U.S. GIs sent to South Vietnam had knocked-up while stationed or on leave in South Vietnamese cities like Saigon. Before these U.S. GIs were either killed or wounded in battle returned back home to the USA.
Because some of these babies were half-white, some of the culturally-straight, usually conventional middle-class or upper middle-class, U.S. white couples who wanted to become adoptive parents, but preferred to adopt a half-white infant or child, rather than an African-American infant or child born in the USA, were the adoptive parents to whom Travelers Aid-ISS provided some of these half-white orphaned or abandoned Vietnamese infants or children.
Apparently, by mid-1970s the number of U.S. white couples in the USA wishing to only adopt a white infant or white child then exceeded the supply of orphaned or abandoned U.S.-born white infants or white children then available for adoption.
Hence, the half-white/half-Asian orphaned or abandoned Vietnamese infants or children being housed in some of the South Vietnam city orphanages, who were then being placed by Travelers Aid-ISS with white U.S. adoptive parents apparently were used to provide one way of responding to the shortage of available U.S.-born white infants or white children then existing for white couples in the USA who weren't willing to consider adopting an orphaned or abandoned African-American infant or child.
Transcribing and typing up the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers' case reports or social histories, I couldn't help noticing that, during the 1970s at least, the culturally-straight, usually middle-class or upper-middle class U.S. white couples who adopted South Vietnamese orphaned or abandoned children and infants usually all then changed the first names of the children they adopted from their Vietnamese language-sounding original names into more common English/U.S. language-sounding first names; whether or not the child they were adopting was born of two South Vietnamese parents or of a South Vietnamese woman who some white U.S. GI had knocked-up while on leave, before returning to the States.
By the time the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers were taping the social histories and case histories of the prospective adoptive parents, which I transcribed and typed up, the couples who were not considered culturally-straight enough or economically secure enough to be then seen as appropriate adoptive parents seemed to have been already rejected or screened out by social workers of other agencies. Because I can't recall ever typing up a case history or social history related to an adoptive parents couple and the child that was being adopted in which any of the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers expressed any negative concerns about whether or not the adoptive parents couple would make good parents for the child they were adopting.
If the South Vietnamese child or infant being adopted had some physical disability or developmental problems, the Travelers Aid-ISS social worker would make reference to the disability in that particular child's case history. But the content of case histories and social histories that the Travelers Aid-ISS tapes which I transcribed mostly consisted of a final summary of all the facts which demonstrated in a detailed, conclusive way how the best interests of the particular South Vietnamese orphan or abandoned infant or child were, indeed, being served by moving forward with the adoptive process.
In addition, the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers also seemed to be involved in doing at least one follow-up visit to the homes of the U.S. adoptive couples with whom they had placed a South Vietnamese child or infant; in order to confirm that the adoption had worked out well. Since I also vaguely recall transcribing tapes in which the Travelers Aid-ISS social workers briefly summarized how well the adoption had worked out, as evidenced by what they had observed in their follow-up visits.
No comments:
Post a Comment