Commentaries and Reflections Journal of Healthcare, Science and the Humanities Volume II No. 2, 2012 135 Adoption: Identity Formation and the Transformation of the American Family Clementine Fujimura, PhD Professor, Department of Languages and Cultures United States Naval Academy 589 McNair Road Annapolis, MD 21402 Tel.: (410) 293-6364 Email: cfujimur@usna.edu Author Note This article utilizes material from a collection of interviews for a project on the impact of adoption. The project and these materials were reviewed, recommended, and finally approved by the USNA Institutional Review Board and the USNA Institutional Official (USNA.2009.0027).The views and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official position or policy of the United States Naval Academy, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government. Abstract Based on research on adoptions and evolving American definitions of the family, this study explores changes in cultural concepts and new forms of social identity. The research surveys scholarly findings and presents narratives of adoptive parents to offer relevant perspectives on the changing concept of “family”. This article discusses community and societal responses to adoption and the extent to which parents and children in modern U.S. American families feel marginalized or accepted as equals to more “traditional” families. Questions of identity and parenting, what it means to be a parent and feelings of connectedness are discussed. The paper takes an anthropological approach by translating the perspectives of adoptive families as collected through participant-observation research and interviews, using narrative analysis, thereby lending these families a voice in a world that is otherwise influenced more by mass media and stereotypes rather than personal experiences, interpretations and interactions. Finally, the paper proposes ways in which healthcare professionals can better manage their adopted patients given the insight that the author has provided. Keywords: Adoption, definition of family, culture, narrative, anthropology, social identity formation, healthcare.