Jennifer Jin Brower has been a board member of NAPAWF Seattle Chapter since 2001. She moved out to Seattle six years ago to get her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Washington. She currently runs a community garden through InterIm that mainly serves elderly, low-income, Asian gardeners and does tenant outreach in InterIm’s affordable housing units.

I am an adoptee. My parents adopted me from Seoul, Korea in 1981. I grew up in the mostly white suburbs of Michigan and had little exposure to the Asian community or opportunity to connect with my Korean identity. Being Asian in a conservative Midwestern town meant teasing, stares, comments, and racism. I learned to assimilate as my parent's were told to teach the adoptive child from the adoption agency. "Don't make them feel different, treat them like your other children, and be color blind."

Things changed after my first trip to Korea in 2000 and then when I moved to Seattle and joined the API Women and Family Safety Center (APIWFSC) and NAPAWF. I learned about the history of the community, the struggle for economic and social justice, and became an active member of local grassroots groups.

These experiences fueled my desire to learn more about my personal history and about global systems and politics that resulted in the phenomena of Korean adoptions. Additionally, I learned that some adoptees who returned to Korea had found their birth families. I had thought this was impossible but hearing their stories made me realize it could be a reality. Therefore, in Fall of 2006, I packed my bags for a four month trip to Korea. I stayed in Kimhae, Korea where I studied Korean language and culture.

I never expected to experience so many different things while I was there. Not only did I learn more about myself and what it meant to be Korean. I also learned that I will always be an outsider in a land where everyone looks like me. There are adoptees that have been living there for many years and speak the language fluently and blend in well and yet are still not seen as citizens but as perpetual foreigners.

I also learned that international adoption began because many U.S. soldiers impregnated hundreds of Korean women during the Korean War and left these "Amerasian" children behind orphaned, homeless, and impoverished. Since then Korea has sent the most amount of children overseas with over 250,000 going to the United States. Now, even though Korea's economy is thriving, it is still the 4th highest country to send children overseas. The government has tried to stop adoption but the U.S. and adoption agencies do not allow this to happen. There is also a large number of Korean women adoptees. The value of a girl is much less and this bodes well in a patriarchal, Confucius society of Korea.

The perspectives and experiences of adult adoptees are not widely publicized or written about. Other adoptees I have met and I have experienced a lack of understanding and ignorance about our lives and situations from both Americans and Koreans. We are a group that is not fully understood and we seem to not fully fit in anywhere.

Unfortunately, I was not able to connect with my birth family during my trip to recent Korea. However, the trip was a beginning of a journey of self discovery and education, which will continue as I go back to Seoul, Korea this summer for a large international adoptee conference sponsored by IKAA (International Korean Adoptee Associations http://ikaa.info/en/). I realize now that I am back in the U.S. that Seattle is a good place for me. I can continue my activism and work within the vibrant Asian American community. My experiences growing up in Michigan and visiting Korea fuel my passion for social justice.

Resources:

Adoptee run organization to assist adoptees in Korea with birth searches, etc.
Adoptee Solidarity of Korea for more facts about Korean adoption
Asian Adult Adoptees Group in Seattle
New documentary to come out soon about birth mothers

6 Comments

May 16, 2007 2:23 PM

[0+]  MsUTLaw said:

First of all Jasper WHAT are you talking about?

Secondly, Jennifer I grew up in Michigan and I was curious where the town was. If you feel uncomfortable sharing on here send me an email kmstock at gmail dot com

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May 16, 2007 3:05 PM

[0+]  Gwen said:

Hi Jennifer. This is a great piece, thanks for sharing and for including additional resources.

I wanted to also point folks to an essay that appears in the Scholar & Feminist online edition that Jessica & I just edited, titled "A Flickering Motherhood: Korean Birthmothers' Internet Community," by Hosu Kim:

http://www.barnard.edu/sfonline/blogs/kim_01.htm

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May 16, 2007 7:50 PM

[0+]  Shells said:

Thanks for posting this. I think that your story really resonated with me as a first generation Indian American woman who doesn't feel like she belongs in India or in the US.

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May 17, 2007 12:48 AM

[0+]  caratronic said:

"The government has tried to stop adoption but the U.S. and adoption agencies do not allow this to happen."
Please forgive my naivete, but how can and why does the U.S. keep Korea from stopping adoption of its children? Is it because adoption is a profitable industry? What interest does the U.S. as a government have in continuing these adoptions?
Thanks for sharing your story, Jennifer.

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May 18, 2007 1:46 PM

[0+]  jennjin1 said:

Hi, Thanks for your comments.
To Ms UT Law - The city in MI is GR.
To answer caratronic- Sorry if that was confusing, the U.S. is not stopping Korea from adoptions. Korea should stop b/c they are the 11th strongest economic power in the world and should adopt within. The U.S. is the biggest "buyer" of Korean children since the beginning of transnational adoption. The U.S. adopts children overseas for so many reason. A good anthology addressing some of these issues is "Outsiders Within." The adoption agencies make so much money from adoption and with this money they lobby to keep adopting from Korea, etc. It is all very complex and multilayered.

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May 18, 2007 8:59 PM

[0+]  Mina said:

"The U.S. adopts children overseas for so many reason."

...and in both senses of the "adopts children overseas" term too:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1027/p11s01-lifp.html

"...At the same time the US is 'importing' increasing numbers of adoptive children from Russia, China, and Guatemala, it is 'exporting' black babies to be adopted in other countries...

"...The exact numbers are not available, but interviews with adoption agencies and families in Canada, Germany, France, and the Netherlands indicate that the US also sends babies to those four countries as well as Belgium and England..."

"A good anthology addressing some of these issues is 'Outsiders Within.' The adoption agencies make so much money from adoption and with this money they lobby to keep adopting from Korea, etc. It is all very complex and multilayered."

Yeah, it seems *very* complex and multilayered. Thanks for the book recommendation too!

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