Love and Loss: Transracial Adoption and the Expectation of Gratitude

"To speak honestly about adoption is to hurt someone." Angela Tucker said while trying to articulate her life as a transracial adoptee.

Tucker, a Black woman, was adopted from foster care by white parents and grew up not knowing her biological parents. Being transracially adopted involves layers of rejection, loss, and complexity that go beyond a feel-good narrative; however, she grew up hearing people tell her, "You Should Be Grateful!" This well-intentioned remark mirrors the societal hope for adoption to be a perfect fairy tale ending for children.

In this conversation, Tucker will speak from her personal experience and draw from years of professional work in child welfare to explore the reality that transracial adoption often involves racism, classism, and identity development struggles, alongside love. The conversation will be guided by Larissa MacFarquhar, a staff writer for The New Yorker, who researched the history of adoption and the changing societal views in the essay Living In Adoption's Emotional Aftermath.

This free, public event also includes a film screening of , a documentary about Angela Tucker’s journey to find and reunite with her birth family.

Date: Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Time: 5:30 to 7:45 p.m. PT

Location: ChEM-H / Neuro Research Complex, Rotunda, E241

This event is sponsored by the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society.

Please note that this event is in-person only, and RSVPs are requested to attend. Walk-ins are welcome.

Angela Tucker is a Black transracial adoptee. She is the author of "You Should Be Grateful:" Stories of Race, Identity and Transracial Adoption. Her book was published in April 2023 by Beacon Press. Angela's search for her biological family is featured in the documentary CLOSURE, which premiered on Netflix in 2015. In 2022, Angela founded the non-profit, the Adoptee Mentoring Society, to provide virtual mentorship for adoptees worldwide. With 15 years in child welfare, she has appeared on CNN, The Red Table Talk, The New Yorker, and more, advocating for Adoptees. Angela lives in Seattle with her Emmy award-winning spouse, Bryan Tucker.

Larissa MacFarquhar is the author of Strangers Drowning (Penguin Press, 2015), a book about radical altruism. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998, where she has written articles about adoption, child protection, domestic violence, and dementia, and profiles of Barack Obama, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Hilary Mantel, among other subjects. She is the recipient of a Russell Sage fellowship, a New America / Emerson Collective fellowship, a NYPL Cullman Center fellowship, and Front Page awards, and her work has been selected for several "Best American" collections. She has a yearly teaching appointment at Stanford University.

This event will have a photographer present to document the event. No personal recordings (audio or visual) are allowed. By RSVPing, you consent for your image to be used for Center-related promotions and platforms. If you have any questions or want to opt out, please contact .

If you require disability-related accommodation, please contact as soon as possible or at least 7 business days in advance of the event.

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Event Venue & Nearby Stays

ChEM-H / Neuro research complex, 290 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, United States