The association of post-adoption experiences of discrimination with depressive symptoms was examined in 93 previously institutionalized (PI) youth (84% transracially adopted). Additionally, we explored whether sleep quality statistically moderated this association. Notably, we examined these associations after covarying a measure of autonomic balance (high/low frequency ratio in heart rate variability) affected by early institutional deprivation and a known risk factor for depression. PI youth exhibited more depressive symptoms and experiences of discrimination than 95 comparison youth (non-adopted, NA) raised in their biological families in the United States. In the final regression model, there was a significant interaction between sleep quality and discrimination, such that at higher levels of sleep quality, the association between discrimination and depression symptoms was non-significant. Despite being cross-sectional, the results suggest that the risk of depression in PI youth involves post-adoption experiences that appear unrelated to the impacts of early deprivation on neurobiological processes associated with depression risk. It may be crucial to examine methods of improving sleep quality and socializing PI youth to cope with discrimination as protection against discrimination and microaggressions.

Over 50% of adoptions are transracial, involving primarily White parents and children of color from different ethnic or racial backgrounds. Transracial adoptive (TRA) parents are tasked with providing ethnic–racial socialization processes (ERS) to support TRA adoptees’ ethnic–racial identity development and prepare them to cope with ethnic–racial discrimination. However, unlike nonadoptive families of color, TRA parents lack shared cultural history with adoptees and have limited experience navigating racial discrimination. Knowledge of ERS among TRA families has centered on unidirectional processes between parenting constructs, ERS processes, and children's functioning. However, ERS processes in this population have complexities and nuances that warrant more sensitive and robust conceptualization. This paper proposes a process-oriented dynamic ecological model of the system of ERS, situating transacting processes in and across multiple family levels (parent, adoptee, family) and incorporating developmental and contextual considerations. With its framing of the complexities in ERS among TRA families, the model offers three contributions: a conceptual organization of parenting constructs related to ERS, a more robust understanding of ERS processes that inform how parents provide ERS, and framing of transacting processes within and between parenting constructs, ERS processes, and children's functioning. Implications for research, policy, and practice are discussed.

Two indicators of race relations in the United States are interracial marriage and transracial adoption. We examine the salience of race in the romantic involvements of Korean adoptees, and we argue that mainstream racial discourses influence romantic preferences across variations in personal experience, local demographics, and social distance. Applying a dating-history approach to a probability sample of semistructured interviews with fifty-eight adult Korean adoptees, we demonstrate how racial discourses influence romantic preferences by shaping adoptees' interpretations of their romantic involvements across a range of structural conditions, and we also identify specific conditions that limit their salience. In brief, we introduce a conception of romantic preference that bridges the existing constructs in the qualitative and the quantitative literatures on interracial marriage.