Well I think after reading this thread for a long time, I finally have a coherent thought or 2 to add.
Firstly, as an ethnic Chinese woman...I have to laugh to myself at how caught up people can get on the matter of teaching of culture, history, and customs to a child of another race. There seems to be a school of thought that you need to either make a diligent effort to do that if you adopt another race or some may be uncomfortable adopting another race because they're not sure they can do that. Not that it's not a good thing to teach these things but it doesn't really matter and here's why I think that: We are American. I was raised by my ethnic Chinese mom and I speak Mandarin and have heard all her 1 million stories about China. Beyond that, my knowledge of Chinese culture is not too much more than anybody else. Lol I'm American. I'm like any other American woman. My husband and I intend to adopt from China and trust me we're not going overboard on the cultural education when our child gets here. We intend to teach Mandarin, maybe a trip or 2 to China but that's about all. To that end, it has nothing to do with us why we're not open to another race such as African-American for example. Personally we would have no problem with that and would not feel the heritage differences needed to be over-compensated because we are still talking about an American raised child. American is how we would raise any child. The reason we do not feel we could handle it, is society pure and simple. Because in my opinion, love does not conquer all. You still have to go outside and deal with everyone. Now if the world is insulting sometime to a caucasian couple with an African-American child, I think it would be triple for a Chinese couple with the same. That is just assuming this is an alternate universe where we would get chosen by an African-American Mom in the first place. So that's another problem why we don't just say "open to any race" and pursue domestic...we would be waiting forever.
Of course I think it's always ok to be selective about race for your own reasons...but I also want to say don't feel discouraged from adopting another ethnicity if you think it would be hard to teach about their heritage. You'll do fine.
