Dr. Sabrina Thomas, a 20th-century historian, joined the Department of African American Studies in fall 2025. An affiliate of the Department of Gender & Women’s Studies and Department of History, her first book, Scars of War, explores how the United States repeatedly denied Amerasian children, or children of American fathers and Vietnamese mothers born during the Vietnam war, full recognition, using policy to distance itself from the racial and political legacies of the Vietnam War. She writes: “In the decade after the Vietnam War, the battle for war and memory between the United States and Vietnam occurred over the bodies of Amerasian children.”
Thomas is currently developing a new book that examines two populations of children fathered by Black American soldiers abroad: Black German children after World War II and Black Amerasian children during the Vietnam War. She questions how war reshapes ideas of family, race, identity, and national responsibility. Thomas explains to me that the project has developed from a chapter in her first book, where she wrote about how Black Amerasians were treated differently from those fathered by white American soldiers in Vietnam and U.S. immigration policy.
In the 1950s, she notes, Black families and organizations mobilized to adopt Black German children. “There were Black civil rights organizations who were behind this, the Black sororities that did fundraisers for this, and Black mothers who created clubs,” she said. Many believed the children “should be raised by Black families because they’re Black children.” Thomas suggests this activism was part of a larger effort “to assert a Black identity and to grow Black families”.
In contrast to the efforts of many Black Americans on behalf of Black German children, by the 1970s, responses to Black Amerasian children shifted. Many African Americans framed the children as “not really Black because they were born in Asia”. Thomas connects this shift to the post-civil rights era, when the Black community was “on defense” under the Nixon administration. Concerns about Black poverty and a declining economy fueled debates about Black interracial adoption. Accusations of responsibility for these children were interpreted as an attack on Black soldiers’ morality, despite Black men being responsible for only about 10% of all children fathered by U.S. soldiers.
Thomas’ research is complicated by differences in documentation. “German officials kept amazing records,” she said, but adoption records remain inaccessible. “Documentation is difficult,” she explained, and oral history interviews require deep trust because “adoption and immigration have immense trauma attached to them”.
Thomas’ scholarly lineage has long been connected to UW-Madison’s Department of African American Studies. She shares how she was reading Professor Emerita, Dr. Brenda Gayle Plummer, as a graduate student at Arizona State University. She notes being inspired by Emeritus Professor Craig Werner’s work connecting Black soldiers’ experiences across racial lines through music. Other influences for Thomas in this field are Yara-Colette Lemke Muniz de Faria, Heide Fehrenbach, and Tina Camp. “UW-Madison alum Tiffany Florvil has been critical in her understanding of the Black German experience for her current project,” she notes.
Thomas hopes her current work will highlight the obligations nations have for children produced during war. “It should be another part of the discussion about the human consequences of conflict,” she noted. The issue remains urgent in the 21st-century. Some Black Germans and Black Amerasians still lack citizenship or face deportation, which she calls “a disservice to the soldiers who fought in the Second World War” and “a disservice to the soldiers who fought in Vietnam”.
“My hope for this book would be that it’s good and fair. I want readers to think about what it means to be Black, how we define family, and how politics and specific moments in time shape how we understand who we are,” she shared, “I also hope it encourages policymakers to revisit stalled legislation.”