Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference
Culture Keepingis a sensitive and sympathetic, yet intellectually sophisticated examination of the dynamics of ethnic identity among families who have adopted children from China and Russia.  Heather Jacobson shows how American racial dynamics and conceptions of kinship shape the ways in which these interracial families are seen by others and the ways in which adoptive parents work to provide their children with an ethnic identity that reflects their birthplaces.  Theoretically rich and empirically rigorous, this book is a valuable contribution to the fields of sociology and family studies.  It also is a wonderful resource for adoptive parents because it provides a wider view of the cultural practices and child rearing strategies they engage in.--Mary C. Waters, M.E. Zukerman Professor of Sociology, Harvard University