In this episode of Prickly and Blooming, Mimi Clark chats with host Jessie Browning about being adopted and meeting her birth mother in Korea. She describes how it felt to connect with her culture and how she's integrating it into her home. She also talks about what it's like for her to live in the U.S. as an Asian American with the increased violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) and after the death of six Asian women and two others in a series of mass shootings on March 16 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Episode Timeline:

• [00:03] Intro
• [03:37] Meet Mimi Clark
• [04:48] How Mimi and Jessie met
• [07:00] What it feels like being Asian now
• [13:39] Realizing when she was different in her family
• [14:37] Going to Korea
• [21:37] Having her son
• [25:12] How she feels about her mom's choice
• [27:44] Open vs closed adoption
• [31:25] Bringing her culture into her home
• [33:24] How has the last year affected her
• [41:34] Jessie's rapid fire questions
• [51:39] Contacting Mimi Clark
• [54:18] Outro

Resources Mentioned:

• Me & Korea
• Are You My Mother? by P. D. Eastman
• Family Secrets podcast
• The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life by Bruce Wilkinson
• Crazy Rich Asians Trilogy

Standout Quotes:

• "But the first time I went back over to Korea was almost like I was home. I had never felt like that before in my life. To walk around in a place where people don't say like, ‘Oh, well she looks different.' It's like no one thinks any different because everyone looks the same." -Mimi Clark [18:04]
• "I can certainly sympathize with what she went through. And I'm not angry about any of it, because I wouldn't be… my life wouldn't be what it is today had she not have so." -Mimi Clark [26:27]
• "Growing up, I never saw anything Korean that I could relate to. It was all white. And so I try to do more things that my kids look like the people who represent them. I think that's important." -Mimi Clark [32:33]

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