For this exercise, I am giving you the printed report for the case of a mixed-race Japanese-African American child adopted by an African American serviceman when the adoptive father was stationed in Japan. The adopting father was not the biological father of the child. This case came after 1953 and so the child was no longer excluded on the basis of Asian heritage. But, because the father was unmarried at the time of the adoption, the child was not eligible to enter the US under the “Orphan” provision of the Refugee Relief Act (the then relevant legislation.) And so, the adopted father needed a private law to bring his adopted son to the United States.

You also have some rather remarkable photographs of father and son from the archival file. What do you see when you see these photos of a mixed-race child (the product of American racism and empire in the Pacific) dressed by his African American father in a pose designed to prove this child would grow up to be a great American citizen? What is going on when the AA father dresses the Japanese- American child as an American-style cowboy (invoking American colonialism and expansion).  My head spins.  What is going on when you read in the report of the Japanese mother who relinquished her child for adoption and who is literally defined out of existence in a legal move that declare her child the natural born child of the adoptive father?