Kit Myers

Kit Myers serves as Associate Professor in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California Merced, where their scholarship interrogates the intersections of adoption, race, and colonial power structures. Their work centers transnational adoption systems as sites of racial governance and kinship disruption.

Myers' research establishes critical adoption studies as a vital framework for understanding how state-sanctioned family formation reinforces racial hierarchies through what they term the "violence of love"—exposing how seemingly benevolent adoption practices perpetuate settler colonial logics. Their scholarship spans

• Transnational Korean adoption histories
• Indigenous child removal systems
• Adoptee-led resistance movements
• Critical pedagogy for adoption literacy
• Media representations of transracial families

with particular attention to how Hmong, Indigenous, and Asian adoptee communities navigate state violence through kinship reclamation.

Analysis of Myers' 15 most recent publications reveals a methodological commitment to decolonial approaches that prioritize adoptee voices while dismantling the neoliberal myth of "colorblind" adoption. Their work consistently demonstrates how adoption discourse functions as a racial project that naturalizes white supremacy through familial metaphors, with increasing focus on digital media's role in contemporary adoption politics since 2020.

Though no formal advising records appear in public profiles, Myers' conceptual contributions—including the foundational critique of "positive adoption language"—have reshaped scholarly and activist approaches to adoption justice. Their scholarship remains essential reading for understanding how intimate family formations serve as frontline sites of racial governance.