It is way, way, way too early for me to be writing with any interest about the presidential election, so understand that my link to this post by Gateway Pundit is not because I think the information there is strongly relevant to who's-gonna-be-a-better-president.
I just think it's interesting that, after all this time and media attention, and especially after the increased attention that Senator Obama's candidacy has brought on the subject of racially blended families, that this is the first time I have ever heard that Senator McCain and his wife have one daughter whom they adopted from Bangladesh in 1991.
According to the U.S. Department of State, last year Americans adopted more than 20,000 children from other countries; roughly four-fifths of those, from non-European countries. Although the number has dropped recently, apparently driven by policies in China and Russia, the number has been around 20,000, plus or minus a few thousand, for the last several years. That's a big increase from 1991; when the McCain family took in Bridget McCain, she was one of about 8,500 foreign children adopted by Americans. There are roughly four million babies born in the U. S. per year, by the way.
Mixed-race families -- whether made that way by ordinary marriage and childbearing, or by adoption -- are growing in number, and they are going to be of growing importance in our national struggle to make sense of race. I think it's interesting that I'd never until now heard of Senator and Mrs. McCain's adopted daughter. You'd think that it'd have made an interesting two-candidate story when paired with the well-publicized narrative of Senator Obama's parents and grandparents, but I've never seen any story that mentioned both candidates' blended families.
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