Adapted™ Podcast: Recent Episodes
Kaomi Goetz
This is a podcast about Korean-American adoptees who return or repatriate to Korea to live and work in the country they were born in and separated from via international adoption. Funded by the US Fulbright program, the show seeks to educate the adoptive community, Korean people and the world at large about the experiences of these selected adult adoptees.
I sit down with Alicia Soon Hershey, 41, a Korean transnational adoptee now living in Barcelona. Soon Hershey was the very first adoptee interviewed on the podcast back in 2016 and our conversation book-ends the podcast in the 165th episode (!). We get a chance to hear how she has evolved in the past eight years and her outlook for life now that she is a mother herself.
Korean-American cultural anthropologist Eleana Kim talks about her research that went into the seminal imprint "Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging," Duke University Press, 2010.
Geoffrey Winder (born Jong Ke-Bin) (he/him), 42, of Oakland, CA, shares some of his story as a queer Black Korean transnational and transracial adopted man and about his activism in queer advocacy, adoptee community, and leadership spaces.
Mirae Kate-hers Rhee, 48, is a transnational, transcultural artist and adopted Korean who uses her socio-political artwork and performance to investigate concepts like identity and belonging.
Korean mixed-race adoptee Sarah Harris, 54, of Los Angeles, shares her story of visiting Korea and finding the place where she felt truly rooted.
Korean adoptee Delight Roberts, 52, talks about marrying into a Korean-American family and the challenges and benefits that provided her. Some were surprising – like table eating etiquette – but all of Roberts’ experiences from childhood bullying to having future in-laws who didn’t approve of her because she is adopted, have strengthened Roberts’ resolve to live the life of her choice.
Wyatt Tuell, 45, is a Korean-American adoptee who was raised outside Omaha, Nebraska with a Korean immigrant adoptive mother and a white American adoptive father who was much older than his mother. Growing up in the 80s, Wyatt often felt different from his white school peers around him and was sometimes teased for being Korean. At home, his family was very close and loving, which he credits today for the choices he's made in life.
Kit Myers, 42, is a transracial Hong Kong adoptee and assistant professor in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Merced. In this interview, we talk about Myers' search for his birth mother and feelings he's had of having a 'ghostly' or ambiguous kinship with someone he doesn't know. We also talk about his upcoming imprint, " Violence of Love, Race, Adoption and Family in the United States."
I continue the conversation with Nik Nadeau, 36, a Korean adoptee who is in reunion with his Korean birth mother. He is a secret, unable to meet his half-siblings who are also in their 30s, or be acknowledged by his mother, publicly. His relationship with his mother is qualified by language barriers, time and mutual grief, and love. We start off this episode with Nadeau recalling the experience of when he first introduced his then-girlfriend, a bilingual Korean-American, to his Korean mother.
Nik Nadeau, 36, met his Korean birth mother 14 years ago. In this episode, he talks about his creative writing process and about how he's unlocked feelings about the reunion and his own identity as a transnational adopted person.
Leader Yukyeong Kim and her group of neighbors and friends in Korea have been quietly and determinedly helping adoptees search for their biological family since 2018. I sit down with Kim to find out more about how the group got started and how their willingness to make a simple phone call has often times had surprising results.
Dr. JaeHee Chung-Sherman, DSW, LCSW, has centered her practice and research on decolonizing adoption and mental health for transracial and international adoptees. A transracial, transnational adoptee herself, Chung-Sherman, 47, has been among the first co-hort of TRIA therapists to do this work. She talks about narcissistic colonial adopt systems, and why she ultimately has decided to move on from private practice.
Mia Quade Kristensen, 46, and Jannie Jung Westermann, 45, are on the board of the 34-year old Danish Korean adoptee organization, Korea Klubben. They will share about their own search and reunion stories, including one of them being in reunion with her Korean family for more than two decades. The women will also share about their community in Denmark and what is needed for the future. Besides the US and Korea, Denmark is the third most-downloaded country for the podcast.
Audio is available on Friday, March 15, 2024.
I talk with Dr. JaeRan Kim and PhD student Grace Newton about the Adoptee Consciousness Model - a framework for understanding adoptee awareness of the impact of adoption. Together with Dr. Susan Branco (not featured), the model is now being discussed and critiqued in academic and adoptee communities. Kim, 55, and Newton, 29, also talk about their earlier years when helming their own anonymous blogs about adoptee identity, 'righteous anger' and the impact of adoption.
Dr. JaeRan Kim:
Harlow's Monkey https://harlows-monkey.com/2022/06/23/coming-to-consciousness/ Journal link https://www.ibpj.org/issues/articles/Susan%20F.%20Branco,%20JaeRan%20Kim,%20Grace%20Newton,%20Stephanie%20Kripa%20Cooper-Lewter,%20Paula%20O'Loughlin%20-%20....pdf https://harlows-monkey.com/ Instagram @harlows_monkey LinkedIn jaerankimphd Grace Newton: Instagram: @redthreadbroken Facebook: Red Thread Broken Twitter or X: @gracepinghua Website: www.redthreadbroken.com
Thomas Haessly, 40, has felt like an outsider ever since he can remember. Adopted from Korea by a Danish mother and American father to Racine, Wisconsin, Haessly recalls feeling like an imposter within his family, of not quite fitting in, and again as an adult at Korean grocery stores and parenting his own children. Haessly’s sister, Mia, also an adopted Korean, is featured on Season 7, Episode 8 of this podcast. This interview is the first for the podcast where adopted siblings who grew up together open up about their lived experiences, and illustrate their differences.
Rachel Forbes, LCSW, is a Korean-American adoptee with a psychotherapy practice in Connecticut where she specializes in transracial adoption and trauma-informed care. She is also an educator who speaks about trauma, attachment and healing within the adoption constellation. Forbes, 34, talks about the 4Fs regarding emotion disregulation and provides some good resources too.
**CW: child sexual assault/ incest/ adoptive parent abuse
Marissa Lichwick, 46, is a Korean adoptee and filmmaker, playwright and actor. She is using her past pain and trauma surrounding her family separation, abuse in the orphanage and in her father and stepmother's home and the haunting loss of a half-sister she's never met in her art, to process the events of her life and to encourage healing and community with others.
Sara Docan-Morgan, PhD, 44, is a Korean adoptee and communications professor in Wisconsin. She's also the youngest child in her Korean biological family, with whom she reunited with many years ago. Her research has focussed on experiences of Korean adoptees and their families, and this month she is out with a new book, "In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family" (Temple University Press).
Mia Haessly, 44, is a working mother and adopted Korean-American who has reunited with her Korean biological father. And while introducing her family to him and seeing her children connect with Korea in a way she never had has been meaningful, the reunion has presented new challenges. Besides the language and cultural barriers, there is the physical distance between Wisconsin (USA) and Korea. And Haessly's adoptive parents have at times struggled with accepting that her Korean father is back in the picture, especially her Danish mother.
Helen Noh, PhD., is retiring next year after four decades working in child welfare in Korea, first as an adoption social worker to now a professor of social work, training generations of students to make an imprint on improving the lives of children and families. Noh, 64, has become a leading academic voice in Korea on changing policies regarding adoption in Korea. She talks with Adapted Podcast about her career, some observations working at Holt Korea, the problem with proxy adoptions as well as results of a study she and others conducted for the Korean Human Rights Commission, which found that a third of respondents adopted overseas were abused in their adoptive homes.
Robert Holloway, 34, and Menzeba Hasati, 40, are siblings who are adult children of a Black Korean adoptee. Their mother is a first-wave adoptee, whose mother was Korean and father an American G.I. She was adopted to Alaska in the 1960s by a Black couple. Her children forged their own identities; one in spite of their mother's strong influence towards Korean culture, and the other, embraced it. Now as adults, Robert and Menzeba talk about the intergenerational trauma in their family, and how separation, abandonment, longing and love all embody their lives and experience with adoption.
Korean adoptee Matthew Rodriguez, 43, is trying to make sense of his adoption story. For years, it's been clouded by stories told to him and those he told himself, even if they weren't accurate. It was a means to survive. But Rodriguez, whose adoptive parents are white and Mexican American, has his own memories. And now in his 40s, he's learning how to feel comfortable being himself and with the truth.
Korean adoptee Jenna Antoniewicz, 40, has been on a whirlwind over the past 24 months since beginning to reckon her adoption history and adoptee identity. While a mayor of a town in Pennsylvania, she found herself speaking for Asian America during the coronavirus pandemic about anti-Asian hate. But it triggered an imposter syndrome for Antoniewicz, who hadn't previously reflected much on her adoption from Korea or what it meant to be Korean-American. Fast forward two years, and this wife and mother of two is now living on Jeju-do, off of mainland Korea, not far from her biological father, making sense of her experience by connecting to others and blending her past with her future.
Hollee McGinnis, 51, is a Korean adoptee and founder of Also Known As, one of the longest continuously running international adoptee community organization and based in the New York Tri-State area. In this episode, she discusses her new project, Mapping the Life Course of Adoption, and provides some insights from some of the preliminary findings.
Lee Herrick, 52, is a poet, author, educator and adoptee. He was adopted from South Korea to the San Francisco Bay area in 1971. Herrick discusses how he uses his lens as an adoptee to observe and write verse about life. He also reads from his 2019 acclaimed collection of poems, “Scar and Flower.”
Dr. Kimberly McKee, 39, currently a visiting Fulbright scholar at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea, is a critical adoption studies researcher. This November, her latest book, "Adoption Fantasies: Fetishization of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to Womanhood" (The Ohio State University Press) will come out. We'll talk about her latest monograph as well as her 2019 book, "Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States."
Imagine a story told to you from childhood, that your biological mother died and your biological father decided to relinquish you? And the people who adopted you rehomed you to another couple, where you found abuse and neglect? Randy Walker, 48, has lived such a life and re-examines his trauma and discusses how negative family experiences can shape one’s future relationships.
Sara Jones isn't sure whether she's 48 or 49. That's because the circumstances surrounding her relinquishment are still a bit unclear. What she does know for certain, is that her father never wanted her to be separated from her family or be adopted overseas. But his worst fears happened anyway, and against most all odds she was able to find her way back. Now, she's using her voice to help other Korean adoptees whom the system disenfranchised and left vulnerable.
Eric Poole, 55, continues his conversation in this second-part of a two-part interview. In this episode, we follow his adoption to the U.S. and adjustment in New Hope, Minnesota, where as a Black Korean boy, he felt like he traded one outsider life for another.
CW: N word
Eric Poole, 55, is a transracially adopted Black Korean who has come a long way from his early days as a mixed-race Korean child in a US military camptown in Korea. He's now a father to three kids, husband, and one of the few Black pilots in the commercial flight industry. But his success story is built on the complicated foundation of being orphaned, outcast, alone and othered. He also shares his experiences being at the Holt orphanage, including being sexually abused by other kids and being groomed for a new life in the US. (Part 1 of 2 part interview).
Karen Lechelt, 50, is a mother, wife and a returned East coaster after two decades in the San Francisco Bay area and a few years in Amsterdam in between. Their childhood in New Jersey was marked with feeling not quite fitting wherever she was, and having to always adapt themself. Because of the loss of their first family, Karen says there's always been a feeling of not being anchored. That changed with the birth of their daughter.
Megan Nyberg, 37, was adopted as an infant from South Korea to parents in Minnesota. But ever since her premature birth, she has struggled with medical conditions that have been constant reminders of the mystery surrounding her origins. Now a licensed therapist, Nyberg gives other grace and more recently, has started to give it to herself too.
Queer Korean adoptee Midnite Townsend, 38, is many things. A large part of her/their past has been as a performer; first training to enter the world of musical theater to realizing her/their real desires were better applied to the art of burlesque and drag king performance. Midnite's throughline has been a quest for authenticity - and the test of whether loved ones around her/them would see her.
Theme music: Jae Jin
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions
Korean-born French adoptee Laure Badufle's story and search for idenity is now the subject of a new Sony Pictures film, "Return to Seoul." In December of 2021, Badufle, then 37, shared some of that story, including meeting her birth parents in her 20s. The film is now opening to more international audiences this month and is already winning accolades. This is a re-broadcast.
Michael Jessup of Mountain View, California is a father, coach and adopted Korean. But it's only been in the last six years that the 46-year old has explored his feelings about his adoption and faced his pain about being abandoned and given up by presumably his first family at 13 months of age. He opens up about his life, how tennis has carried him through the years, and shares a touching letter to his eomma.
Reunion with biological parents can be complicated for adoptees. Relinquishment or losing a child or parent, language, and culture can be traumatic and represent lifelong grief. But whose story is it? Aneyah Elmore, 56, is a Black and Korean adoptee who is balancing the need to tell her own story and the desire of her biological mother not to.
CW****Child killings, racial genocide, suicide, emotional abuse of a child
Lisa Woolrim Sjöblom, 45, is a Swedish Korean who was adopted at a young age from Korea and grew up in Sweden. The illustrator, comic book artist and adoptee and first families activist shares some deep personal insights about motherhood, attachment and the trauma and grief that is brought up with these life events.
Samantha Kim Lyons, 41, grew up with racial mirrors unlike many other transrcial adoptees. Her late father was white; her mom is a third-generation Japanese-American. Her childhood was spent in Hawai'i and later southern California. But like other Korean adoptees, Lyons finds herself searching for deeper connection to Korea and to her adoptee identity later in life, for the first time.
Edward Pokropski, 39, of New York, NY is an adopted Korean-American who has a new one-man show out unpacking that experience. He talks about why not all audiences are comfortable laughing at jokes about adoption and how he approaches the topic while staying true to himself.
This is the second-half of a recent conversation with Peter Møller of the Danish Korean Rights Group.
The discussion takes place on Dec. 11, 2022 (KST), just days after the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission
decided to start an investigation on Korean adoption by examining an initial 34 cases of the more than 300 submissions.
We also discuss privacy in regards to the Special Adoption Law and threats made by Holt to Møller and other adoptees if they don't
abandon this complaint.
I sit down and talk again to Peter Møller, one of the co-founders of Danish Korean Rights Group, which has succeeded in convincing a truth commission in Korea to open an investigation into Korean adoption. The group has submitted more than 300 cases representing adopted Koreans in a number of countries, alleging false paperwork and switched identities among other human rights violations.
Zhen E Rammelsberg, 50, was adopted from Korea by a white couple in Iowa in the US. She grew up without mirrors or anyone that looked like her.
It would be more than four decades later that she would finally return to her native country. But instead of being able to neatly complete her puzzle she realized
the missing piece - herself - no longer fit.
Allen Majors, 63, is a Korean-American adoptee who has decided to retire in Korea -- more than 60 years after being sent away for adoption to the US.
One could think of it as a kind of reclamation of identity but Majors chooses to not place too much emphasis and burdens on the past. Instead, he looks for 'spontaneous delightful moments' in the everday as he looks forward to embarking on the second half of his life where it all started.
Christy Zaragoza, 30, regularly spreads joy in the adoptee community as a board member of the Association of Korean Adoptees in San Francisco. She reveals that the reason she is so interested in making others happy around her comes from a dark place. This is the first time Christy has shared her story publicly like this.
Danish attorney and Korean adoptee Peter Møller is the next guest in the podcast. He and his group, Danish Korean Rights Group, are submitting cases to Korea's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The aim is to encourage the body to investigate Korean intercountry adoption practices during the authoritarian regime fo illegality and criminality on the part of adoption agencies and government agents, as well as for violations of international human rights. We spoke to him on Oct 15, 2022 during his month-long work in Korea, ahead of an important appearance before the National Assembly on Friday, Oct. 21 (KST).
At last month's AKASF's Bay to LAannual event in Koreatown, there was a booth dedicated to letting adoptees share part of their story on their own. We didn't know what to expect or whether anyone would share. This next episode is a compilation of all the submissions. It's a different way of documenting these histories -- almost like an audio diary. Thanks to all the adoptees who participated.
Season Six kicks off with a live audience interview with Nick Greene of Association of Korean Adoptees – San Francisco. The Bay-area Korean adoptee group held its annual “Bay To LA” event September 16-17, 2022. More than 70 adoptees from CA, OR, TX, AZ, MN, IL, WA and MI attended. Greene, 40, is relative new to adoptee community spaces and he talks about his role as a leader for one group and what motivates him to get involved.
Season Six kicks off with a live audience interview with Nick Greene of Association of Korean Adoptees – San Francisco. The Bay-area Korean adoptee group held its annual “Bay To LA” event September 16-17, 2022. More than 70 adoptees from CA, OR, TX, AZ, MN, IL, WA and MI attended. Greene, 40, is relative new to adoptee community spaces and he talks about his role as a leader for one group and what motivates him to get involved.
American writer, poet and educator Sun Yung Shin, 48, of Minneapolis, MN closes out Season 5 by talking about her latest imprint, "The Wet Hex," and its themes of abandonment, survival, evolution and ecosystems.
Jenny Town, 46, is a Korean adoptee who was one of the first waves to go back to Korea after their adoptions. Now, a foreign policy expert specializing in North Korea, Town recalls her time in Korea as an university student, dating, and what she learned about herself while she was there.
Korean adoptees Kim Stoker and kim thompson left Korea about five years ago. This time it was their decision. Stoker spent most of her adult life there, and thompson, nearly a decade. They talk with podcast host Kaomi Lee, who also moved back to the States from Korea five years ago, about the tradeoffs, adjusting back to US life, and the belief that in the case of Korea, you can always go home.
Korean adoptee Corissa Saint Laurent, 48, struggled with alcohol addiction as a young person after she felt abandoned by her adoptive mother. Just before she became a mother herself, she found her Korean mother, miraculously living not far from where she had been adopted to in New England. Reuniting with her eomma has closed a circle of pain for her.
Bjarte Aarland, 45, says he's always had pride in being Korean. Even if standing out for being different in western Norway wasn't valued in wider society. Aarland talks about the complexity for many Korean adoptees in Norway, a country descendant from Vikings. And of being asked the ultimate question by his biological family: Was his adoption worth it?
What if you only discovered you were adopted in your 30s? Kristen Choi, 33, or 최우경, learned the truth about being adopted from Korea only a year ago, and is still unpacking what this new information means. Choi has learned she once had a different name, Choi Bo-mi, and is figuring out how to embrace a new identity as an adopted person, as well as exploring the adoptee community for the first time.
Jakob Sandersen, 54, is at a crossroads. A Danish pharmacist with a family living outside Copenhagen, he might otherwise be content. But the pull of Korea, his native country, has long been present. With his education and knowledge, he has opportunities to relocate and work in Korea. But something holds him back.
Kimberley Lee, 38, says she's always felt very Aussie growing up in suburban Sydney, Australia. Her Korean roots seemed as faraway as the country itself. But in recent years, she's realized the importance of connecting that past to her present.
For so many Korean adoptees, little if any information is ever known about one's biological family, either because of empty case files or redaction of information because of Korean privacy laws that protect the relinquishing family. But what if one had a quasi-open adoption, where your adoptive father had met your biological mother and together they had arranged the adoption? That is the life story of Han Yong Wunrow, 27, who shares more about the unusual adoption story, and even more unusual that his white adoptive parents made Korean culture and interest in the Korean diaspora so central to their own lives.
Ray Trom, 46, survived trauma that no child should have to experience, first after his parents died leaving him with abusive relatives, to being relinquished to an orphanage with a brother he barely knew, learning to fend for himself from hunger and abuse from other children. At age 12, he was adopted to MInnesota and thrown into an American school knowing little English. Through it all, Trom found his path in life and has felt gratitude and loss, and credits both for who he is today.
Mixed-race Korean adoptee JoYi Rhyss, 51, shares her story of grief and forgiveness. Her pain starts in Korea, where she lived with her Korean other until age nine, but always aware she might be sent away because her dark skin meant she didn't belong. Her journey took her to one of the whitest areas of the U.S., in a rural Minnesota town with Norwegian heritage where she grew up feeling othered and also not belonging. Rhyss's journey of self-hatred and not belonging took her down a path of discovering how to embrace her Blackness and learning how to accept herself.
Justin Snyder, 35, is a dreamer and a seeker. He was adopted from Korea by parents in West Virginia and grew up in a small town only to now have traveled the world in search of meaning, spirituality and innovative thinking. Snyder embarked on his own adoptee journey in 2016 when he traveled back to Korea to attend The Gathering and learn more about his origins.
Tara Tenhoff, 47, is a Korean adoptee living in Minneapolis, Minn. She came to the US by way of a private adoption and had always been told a story that didn't seem quite real until she went back to Korea a few years ago and met her birth family. Tara describes her feelings finding them initially and walks us through all the emotions of reunion and after.
Tobias Hübinette, 50, is an adopted Korean and academic scholar of critical adoption, race and Korean studies, respectively. His work has focused on looking at international adoption from Korea to the West from all angles, not just from the perspective of receiving countries or adoptive families. He has also been an activist and critic of Korea's commodification of its children -- an acknowledgment that is only now starting to permeate mainstream adoptee, political, historical and adoption industry circles.
Mai Young Øvilsen, 39, is a Danish Korean composer and lead singer of the band Meejah, whose alt-shoegaze sounds are punctuated by her lyrics about adoption, transnational identity and homeland. This is the last episode of 2021.
French Korean adoptee Laure Badufle, 37, shares her story of growing up in the French countryside to meeting her birth parents in Korea in her 20s. Trying to make sense of the reunion and how her parents reacted to her re-emergence and the resulting chaos she felt inside, set Laure on a quest for answers and to find peace within herself. This work is something she's now focused on helping other adoptees be able to find their peace too.
Peter Savasta [he/him], 46, has been around adoptee spaces for more than two decades. Raised in Queens in an Italian-American family, he found mirrors when he went to a diverse high school in Bronx, NY, and again when he found other gay Asian-Americans. In adoptee spaces he was an early mentor and source of support. Today, he continues to contribute by sharing his story with the podcast.
Kimura Byol, also known as Natalie Lemoine, [ze pronoun] talks about how ze adoption and upbringing in Belgium helped shaped ze politics and activism related to international transracial adoption. Particularly Kimura is passionate about improving access for adoptees to their birth records and identities. Part of that activism began when Kimura faced her own falsified and inaccurate adoption records.
Korean adoptee Adam Crapser, 46, sits down with the podcast to share his thoughts post-deportation, the controversy surrounding Blue Bayou and filmmaker Justin Chon, adoptee citizenship and media exploitation of deported adoptees. You'll hear directly from Adam about the events that have unfolded over the past five years and what ethical filmmaking around adoptees should look like.
This year has been a whirlwind. I was contacted by someone who would later be confirmed to be my paternal half-sister. Lisa Beck, adopted to Denmark as an infant nine years before my own adoption to the US, and I met in Denmark this past summer for the first time. For me, it was the first time to meet an immediate biological family member and we sat down a few weeks after that meeting to discuss how we felt through the process.
Former Goa'l Secretary General Richard Kim talks to Kaomi Lee of Adapted Podcast about the pros and cons of the F4 visa vs. dual citizenship for Korean adoptees. Information heard here is subject to change. Consult an immigration attorney or the Korean immigration office for final word.
Susan Gaeta, originally named Lee Hyung ho at birth in her native Korea, 48, was adopted to the US as an infant. Today, she lives in Massachusetts and is a wife, mom and Lutheran minister. She's also bisexual and has a rare health condition. Hear how she's been able to find connection with others in various communities, and why as an adoptee, it's so important to her.
In 2016, Maree Kinder, now 33, originally named Chang Ma Ree, quit her job in London and moved with her husband, Steve, to Seoul, to live for six months to search for her Korean mother. But disappointment and grief with her search had her turning to Korean beauty products as a way to numb the pain and connect to Korean culture. Now, her business, Beauty and Seoul, a Korean skincare retailer based in the UK, is celebrating its fourth year of success. Kinder shares her insights on Korea, her identity and what else she's learned along the way.
Jessye Hale, 23, was adopted from Korea as a child and grew up in Wisconsin. Today, she finds herself back in her native country working as a cancer researcher. She also found her biological parents and has been learning how to navigate these new relationships.
Allie De Lacy, 25, was adopted from China to the UK at the age of two. Now married to a woman and living in Edinburgh, DeLacy talks about her experiences growing up in near racial isolation and the racism she has experienced and still does today, even more so in the past year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. Listen as De Lacy shares how by researching her past, she discovered she knew even less than she had thought.
Robert (Calabretta) Lee, 35, was adopted from South Korea to an abusive home in the U.S. He survived a difficult childhood, first in Michigan and later in central New York, by moving out at age 16 and found hope from key friendships along the way and exposure to a nearby Korean church community in Ithaca, NY. His story takes some surprising turns, including at one point being told by Holt Korea his file contained nothing to reuniting with his family and discovering the shocking revelation that he had been trafficked.
Korean-American adoptee Jacquelyn Wells, 33, born Choi Yena, shares some of her story in a wide-ranging interview about being a musician, jewelry designer and now taking on leadership roles in the Korean adoptee community. Listen to this up-close look at her life where she also talks about reuniting with her Korean family and her reflections about it.
TW: Suicide
Korean adoptee Darcy Mitttelstaedt, 49, has overcome so much. And yet her faith and her work helping others have given her so much hope. She was raised in a farming community in Nebraska amidst abuse and dysfunction. Despite the emotional scars, Mittelstaedt has found her calling in life and has learned to form her own family and find some peace.
Korean adoptee Sun Mee Martin, 39, was adopted from South Korea at the age of 3 1/2 years to Bavaria, Germany. She grew up constantly being questioned about why she was there and felt othered by others who would ask where she was from. "I think a more interesting question is, 'where are you going?', Martin says on the episode. After living in New York City and two trips back to Korea, Martin is now in Berlin and shares where she is going.
Danish filmmaker and Korean adoptee Sun Hee Engelstoft, 38, born 신순희 sits down with Adapted Podcast to talk about the making of her profound documentary film, "Forget Me Not," which focuses on the lives of several Korean teenagers who are faced with a difficult decision of whether to keep their babies or give them up for adoption.
Timothy Vanderburg, 30, is an Australian Korean adoptee living in Sydney. Growing up, he became involved with a local Korean adoptee camp and continued to have an interest in Korea throughout his life. And though he's had many opportunities to connect with his native land and its people, those experiences have taught him important lessons about identity.
Korean adoptee SunAh Marie Laybourn, 38, was adopted to the state of Tennessee in the US at the age of four months from Korea. After her adoptive mother died when SunAh was young and navigating environments where she was different from the white or Black students at her schools, she buried her feelings as a way to cope. Now an educator, motivational speaker and coach and podcaster, the high achiever has had much professional success. Lately, Laybourn has focused on a personal identity transformation that has culminated in changing her name to reflect her Korean roots.
Korean adoptee Jonas Gürrich, 34, was adopted at three months old to Norway. The story he's been told about his relinquishment by his Korean mother is a familiar one - a young woman unable to take care of him - and has chosen to embrace the positives in his life. Recently, he's been exploring DNA as a way to search for biological relatives, though not without some trepidation.
Remember the days when you were 21 and trying to figure out life? Add being a Korean transracial adoptee in Copenhagen dealing with racism borne in a global pandemic, meeting your biological family on your first trip back to Korea and trying decode the emojis sent from your Korean aunt? Meet Rasmus, and his thoughts about it all at time in his life when the future outstretched before him.
Korean-American adoptee Tara Footner, 44, survived rehoming and abusive adoptive and foster homes as a child. Those early experiences led her to turn inward to write and reflect. Today, Footner has most recently channeled her creative energy into a new online platform called The Universal Asian.
*Child abuse including sexual abuse, rehoming; explicit language
Leah Nichols, 34, is a Korean-American woman who has been reclaiming her Asian identity after its erasure because of her intercountry adoption from Korea by white Americans, and subsequent environment growing up. She cares deeply about racial and reproductive justice and works to advance resources for other Asian adoptees. Nichols is also reunited with her biological family in Korea. Listen as she talks about some of the surprising aspects of reunion, including realizations about the affect on her American family.
James Straker, 51, was adopted to the US from Korea at age five. He doesn't remember much during the time of his adoption. It's taken him decades to unpack all the trauma from his adoption and dysfunctional adoptive family upbringing, including a suicide attempt, monastery training, moving back to Korea and marrying a Korean woman and having a family of his own. Today, he's done a lot of healing, but knows there is much more ahead.
Jenny Dargren, 46, is a Korean adoptee in Sweden. She opens up about her struggles with bulimia and how she finally understood the disorder to be linked to low self-esteem from her abandonment and adoption. She hid from her Korean roots for many years until traveling back to Korea for the first time in her 40s.
Heather Schultz, 36, was adopted from Korea at four months old by a couple in Long Island, New York. At a young age, Heather lost her mother to a terminal disease and had to survive the rest of her childhood adjusting to a stepmother and stepsisters, who moved into the home she shared with her father. Seeking refuge for her grief, she found support and love from her paternal grandmother. After learning to love and accept herself, she began facing her deep grief and loss and past troubled family relationships. Today, she is an educator, public speaker and healer, who helps others to survive and move past pain and trauma. She has held leadership positions within the adoptee community, including as a board member of Also Known As NYC.
Thomas Juncker, 21, was adopted to Denmark from Korea as an infant and grew up always having a keen interest in his birth country. In 2019, he decided to move to Korea during a gap year in his education. There he was able to explore his Korean roots, make new friends and ponder his life and how adoption shaped it. This interview took place earlier this year, just days after his return to Denmark after nine months working in Seoul.
First Lieutenant Benjamin White, 26, is a Korean adoptee commissioned in the US Army and stationed back in his birth country of Korea. He's also gay. Listen to his story as he talks about navigating all of these identities as a military officer and as en ethnic Korean, trying to build ties with other Koreans in a country where society does not easily embrace everything about him.
Chinese adoptee Grace Newton, 26, shares her story of coming of age and learning about international adoption as a social, political and industrial practice. An only child, Newton shared a close relationship with her parents, but delving into the history of transnational and transracial adoption created some challenging discussions. Her curiosity and desire to uncover truths have taken her back to China several times, each time imparting new perspectives. Newton has regularly shared some of this sharp and critical commentary with readers of her adoption blog, and as a leader within the adoptee community.
Korean adoptee and Canadian Jenny Heijun Wills, 39, talks about her 2019 acclaimed memoir, Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. It's about her relationships with her first family after being reunited in a form of a letter to an older biological half-sister, separated by time, language, boundaries, child removal and international closed adoption. and parental failings. The book also bravely addresses inter-adoptee harm, ways marginalized communities protect and hide sexual assault amongst their own kin, and the fears that come with breaking that code.
Daniel Jeremiah Persson, 27, was adopted from Korea at age two to white parents in Sweden and grew up in the countryside where he faced bullies and racism. It wasn't until he left to attend dance school in London when he found his voice to express himself through words and movement. When he went to Korea to explore his ethnic roots, Persson both found joy and disappointment. Utlimately, discovering his own connections to Korea helped him look at his Swedish life with fresh eyes.
American Rachel Rostad, 26, is a Korean adoptee who reunited with her biological family only to find that her eomma was suffering from a chronic illness that only added more questions than answered any. But while she would come to feel a sense of belonging with her Korean family, her belonging in Korea was another matter.
Shaun Seo, 33, is an Australian Korean adoptee whose childhood was marked with multiple tragedies. Living with his family as expats in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, he also was thrown into the politics of poverty and privilege at a young age. But a family rupture changed Seo's life yet again and sent him back to the Australian countryside and its racially white homogeneity. Seo recently attended the IKAA Gathering in 2019 and found community with other adoptees, especially others from Australia. This is his story.
Korean adoptee Kara Bos talked with Adapted Podcast in a zoom event on June 27, 2020 about her ordeal trying to find her find her biological mother and having to resort to pursuing a court case in order to get official acknowledgement of her relationship to her biological father. The groundbreaking paternity case may pave the way for other adoptees to find their parents.
Kaomi Goetz, 49, was adopted from Korea to the United States at the age of six months old. She grew up in rural Minnesota and was sexually abused by her adoptive father as a young girl. After producing more than 60 episodes of this podcast, Goetz has decided to share her story of how being an incest survivor has affected her and why freeing adoptee voices to frame their own adoption narrative has become so important to her.
This is the final episode of Season 3.
Jae Hyun Shim, 38, was adopted from Korea and grew up the youngest and only daughter and adopted child in their Minnesota family. But there were plenty of other adoptees in Shim's life from an early age and their parents took unusual steps to secure access to Korean-ness for Shim. That close relationship with their parents helped Shim to develop into the person they are. And meeting their biological family has also given Shim a perspective about the meaning of family.
This week, we'll hear from Daniel Kang Yoon Nørregaard, 33, adopted from Korea to Denmark at three months old, he talks about growing up in a predominately racially white environment, leaving his adoptive country to study design and eventually settling down in London. Though his career has been his focus, lately he's realized there are parts of himself that he's been disconnected from. And through his life experiences to date, he's been able to learn and explore his roots in a way that is meaningful for him right now.
Growing up in the English countryside in a middle class family and attending private schools and later a boarding school, already would have set Saschia Ryder, 48, apart from many others with less-privileged backgrounds in the U.K. But she was also adopted from Korea --and like many transracially-adopted Koreans -- grew up in predominately white environments where she began to feel increasingly uncomfortable and invalidated through the years. Ryder talks about how she's been able to do some healing and come to terms with her own story, and the revelations that have followed.
Kurt RuKim [he/him], 34, was adopted from Korea and raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His identity has evolved over time, from living in predominately white spaces to embracing his authentic self as an Asian male and claiming his own body, being a dancer and racial equity activist and ally for others. RuKim also shares some of his experiences and observances being part of an interracial couple (Asian man and black woman), and resisting stereotypes and assumptions.
Sooki Jalali, 56, was adopted from Korea at the age of 12 or 14. She's not sure, and her paperwork gave her a different name and birth date, making her at least several years younger. Jun Sukja would take on a new name and identity in the U.S., but her new life often didn't seem like an escape from her old one in the orphanage. As a first wave internationally adopted Korean, she grew up in a small town in the Midwest where no one had seen a family like hers before. Ultimately, she learned to rely on herself and her own determination and self-care to help her find the path she is on today.
Cameron Lee Small, 39, originally named He Seong Lee, was adopted from Korea at the age of two by white parents and grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. But he was never interested in knowing more about his native country or exploring his own feelings about being transracially adopted. But that changed in his 20s. Today, Small is a licensed therapist who specializes in helping transracially adopted adults and children, their parents and families, to grow in their journey and to acknowledge the complexities inherent in transracial and transnational adoption.
Korean adoptee Wayne Kangas, 34, grew up in a small town in remote and rural northern Minnesota. He spent his childhood trying to fit in -- by excelling in sports and trying not to draw too much attention to himself academically. Kangas got a chance to experience Korea right before graduating from college more than 10 years ago and how he found a family there that helped root him to his native country. But it was to northern MInnesota and his Finnish-American family where Kangas would return and raise a family of his own.
Jon F. Gee Schill, 33, has been helping to build and sustain the Korean adoptee and Asian-American communities in the Twin Cities for several years. But it might surprise you to learn a little more about his back story, growing up in Oregon and Idaho, and his feelings towards Korea and his adoptee identity.
Navigating multiple identities like being queer and a Korean adoptee has been interesting, says Shawyn Lee, 41. "We're quick to throw people in boxes," says the Duluth, Minn., resident. But the labels aren't always accurate and don't allow people full visibility. In this episode, Lee talks about the complexity of identity, relationships, owning up to your truths and why adoptee voices matter.
Emma Wexler, 22, is a Vietnamese adoptee who grew up influenced by the experiences and writings of Korean adoptees, who dominate many transracial adoptee-focused spaces. This college senior has had to do a lot thinking about identity and race, intercountry adoption and privilege, religion, socio-economics, race and child displacement. Wexler explains that she's always felt her family was different from others and has learned how to navigate stigma and judgment to form an identity that is all her own. Wexler has learned and taken inspiration from Korean adoptees but now also wants to make a case for strengthening inclusion within the overall adoptee community.
Korean-American adoptee Mila Konomos, 44, has spent a lifetime pondering the meaning of family, first as an adopted child to white American parents stationed on military bases in places such as Japan and the Philippines, later meeting her biological Korean parents to becoming a mother to bi-racial children in the U.S. But neither her adoption nor reunion with bio family has brought her a sense of wholeness. Now a performance artist, social and racial justice rights activist, partner and mother, this episode explores how Konomos' life experiences has shaped who she is today.
Son of a Korean haenyo, the storied female free divers, and a single mother, adoptee Ben Coz, 30, also plunges depths in adoption activism in Korea. You'll hear how his politics are inextricably linked to his personal life, and how early trauma and loss has influenced his call to action.
What do you do when you become an adopted parent's caregiver and there might be unresolved issues related to your childhood and adoption? Sarah MeeRan Cave, 33, shares some of her story of caring for an aging parent, her relationship with music and teachers along the way, and how it has all ultimately help her to find the path to her own healing.
Sharon Jung, 37, is on a redemptive journey. Adopted from Korea at the age of four, Jung, along with her twin sister, would learn devastating details about the separation from their first family and what the adoption agency did to make that happen. It led them down a path to the wrong family. Jung also experienced abuse and mistreatment in her adoptive family, which spiraled into despair and drug abuse. But through it all, Jung's story is about finding how to love even when you feel unworthy of it, and of how her twin never gave up on her.
Taneka Hye Wol Jennings, 34, works towards social justice and immigrant rights as the deputy director of Hana Center in Chicago, Ill. She also uses that passion to advocate for the Korean adoptee community through organizations like KAtCH in Chicago and others. Listen as Jennings steps out of her comfort zone to share some of her reflections as an adoptee, daughter and partner.
This week marks the release of "All You Can Ever Know" by Nicole Chung on paperback. Chung, 38, sat down for an interview earlier this year during the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network conference, where she gave the keynote. Her book, published by Catapult, is a memoir of her life growing up as a Korean transracial adoptee and how she navigated coming to terms with her own identity while struggling to make sense of how the outside world wanted her to feel.
LA-based filmmaker and Korean adoptee Jon Maxwell had once struggled to put a lens to his own adoption story in a way that felt satisfying. But he found that by helping to tell the stories of other adoptees, his own came more into frame. Listen as he shares his own story about adoption, career and fatherhood.
What do you do when your adoption agency stonewalls and lies to you? Greg Monroe, 27, didn't give up his search and after many trips to Korea and hard conversations, he was able to reunite with his birth family. But the reunion didn't come with rough parts, for himself and for all those he cares about. He shares what it's like to slowly become a stranger's son.
Korean adoptee and self-described "southern belle" Cindy Wilson, 43, shares a fascinating story of her life growing up in the Deep South, adopted transracially by African-Americans and navigating identity, belonging and being true to herself.
Julie Yackley's path to motherhood was not a common one. But then again, this 33-year old Korean adoptee has faced many challenges that perhaps might uniquely qualify her for her current role as a mother of two children -- one she shares a biological connection with, and the other, a transracial adoptee one. A blogger and author, Yackley shares her very personal story on the podcast about how her feelings of abandonment and grief of losing two mothers has shaped how she approaches being a mother herself.
Mayda Miller, 34, is a Korean adoptee and fronts her namesake rock band in the Twin Cities. From Incheon, South Korea, Miller was adopted to Minnesota spent a lot of her youth competing in sports and classical piano competitions but later found her true calling to create funk and blues influenced-influenced rock music. Miller's story includes meeting her Korean biological parents and living with complicated emotions about them and Korea as a result.
Korean adoptee Annie Malecek, 24, learned as an adult she was conceived from rape. Violence also played a role at a pivotal moment for the Chicago resident when she first realized that having white parents and being raised in a privileged environment would not shield her from racism, prejudice and of being a target for aggression. To find where she fit in America, Malecek had to travel back to Korea, to see and feel and think in the land where it had all begun. Along the way, she found answers, and a peace.
The notion of family is a complicated one for Korean adoptee Jimmy Byrne. The 35-year old Chicagoan shares his story of profound loss and reunion -- and how each continues to shape his life and relationships. Byrne also talks about coming to terms with all aspects of his identity as a gay Asian male, a musician, a transracial adoptee, and as a Korean-American. Through it all, Byrne's humanity and quiet strength shines through.
Elliot Mark, 23, is a Korean adoptee who is also Jewish. He grew up in Skokie, Illinois, the grandson of Russian Jewish immigrants and credits his close-knit family with helping him forge a strong identity. Mark also embraces his Korean origins and has recently joined a local group for Korean adoptees to help build his community. Mark shares how he has learned to embrace his whole identity with pride and support.
Korean adoptee Milton Washington, 48, has learned how to live between two worlds ever since he was adopted at the age of eight by an African-American military family. Washington, or Pak Milton-ah, spent his early years under the shadow of rejection by Korean society because of his mixed-blood heritage and outcaste because of his mother's profession and association with black U.S. soldiers. After being adopted into a loving and somewhat unusual family, and raised in the American midwest, he realized he still had demons to overcome. As a black Korean, Washington also had to make sense of his identity in the U.S., and has come to understand and embrace both sides of his history.
Korean adoptee Dan Sieling, 30, is on a journey. He shares his story drawing from both great insight and deep vulnerability -- but all necessary in order to reclaim his identity and relationship to his native country and to reconcile the pain from the loss of his biological family and feelings of abandonment. The New Jersey resident also speaks about confronting some uncomfortable truths about adoption and how it has helped him in his own healing.
Korean adoptee Teri Thomas is a fighter. Adopted from Goyang to the U.S., Thomas survived sexual abuse by her adoptive father soon after arriving at the age of six. Her experiences in a dysfunctional and abusive adoptive home affected how she has felt about her adoption agency Holt Korea, and about the policy of intercountry and transracial adoption. Thomas has cerebral palsy, and while it does limit some of her physical mobility, it doesn't affect her spirit. The 48-year old returned to Korea in 2017 to work on an initiative to fight stigma and improve the opportunities for Korean children with disabilities.
Note: This story contains themes of child sexual abuse, incest, clergy abuse and physical violence.
Rachel Kim Tschida, 39, is a Korean adoptee who grew up in Minnesota, ambivalent about her own Asian identity for most of that time. However, she talks about learning to authentically embrace herself after traveling to Asia on business trips for a major American company. Those trips - especially ones back to Korea - helped spark an interest in her own adoption history, and in turn, advocacy for other adoptees as president of the Korean American Coalition of Washington.
John Park*, 34, is a kinship Korean adoptee. Park is an alias because he does not have legal status in the U.S., despite being brought to the U.S. from Korea as a young child and later adopted by Americans. Adoptee rights advocates estimate there are at least 35,000 foreign-born adopted people in the U.S. who, like Park, never received U.S. citizenship. Efforts to fix an immigration loophole in adoption in 2001 did not address individuals adopted outside the law's restrictions on age and approved arrival visas. Advocates are hoping to change that with a new bill this year, though passage has so far proved politically challenging. Ultimately, Park's adoption story is about survival and circumstance, pain and redemption. And hope.
Note: This episode contains themes of child sex abuse and violence.
Greg Norrish, 32, is about to launch a new venture in South Korea with everything he's learned after more than a decade in kitchens in the U.S., and about fourteen months in his native country. The experience of planting himself amidst an exploding foreign food scene in Seoul has also given him a chance to learn more about himself, reflect on his adoption from Korea and understand more about his native country -- including confronting uncomfortable attitudes on gender and violence, which has exposed a darker side of Korean modern society.
HyoSung Bidol-Lee, 50, is on a quest for healing. Bidol-Lee survived unspeakable tragedy before being adopted to the United States with his twin sister at the age of six years. Raised in the Midwest, he thrived academically and athletically, meeting many conventional benchmarks of academic and career success. But true happiness and peace eluded him. He went back to Korea this year to reflect about his life and to seek answers.
Warning: This episode includes topics of suicide and homicide.
Hojung Audenaerde, 45, has navigated identity and displacement her whole life, starting from her intercountry adoption from Korea to Flemish Belgian parents in Italy at the age of two. The family then relocated to the U.S. where she grew up around Americans, but never became one. Later, she went to India to study a specific practice of yoga which she later taught in Europe. But someone happened in 2012; she met her Korean father, which started her down a path of discovery about her own feelings about separation, Korea and of learning to walk alone.
Sanne Mogensen, 32, is a Korean adoptee in Denmark. She is a leader in her country's Korean adoptee community, and talks about what that has meant to her, what it was like growing up in Denmark, racism, and about her own search for identity. And, being Danish, she sets the record straight about hygge.
Eric Sharp, 38, is a Korean-American actor and playwright. He was adopted from South Korea at age two. Raised in Des Moines, Sharp talks about finding his professional footing in the Twin Cities within a strong Asian-American acting community, on how being a transracial adoptee influences his politics on casting and auditions; he also shares an evocative account of reuniting with his Korean biological family and what he's learned about himself and them over time.
Michael Thielmann, 41, is a Korean adoptee who lives in Toronto, Canada. He grew up in Minnesota in a family where his mother, grandparent and siblings were all adopted. It wasn't until meeting his Korean-Canadian wife that he really understand what being part of a Korean family was like. And as he and his wife made the decision to try to adopt themselves, it also opened a door to his own grief.
Kate Powers, 35, is a Korean adoptee who now has been reunited with her Korean biological family for 12 years. Adopted as an infant by a couple in Missouri, Kate talks about navigating her relationship with her Korean family after decades of being apart, and about coming to the decision to make peace with her adoption and of the past.
Korean adoptee and New York City-based actor Brian McCormick talks about playing the lead in "A Korean Drama Addict's Guide to Losing Your Virginity," a play by Hmong-American playwright May Lee-Yang, that recently had a sold-out run in the Twin Cities. Now in his 30s, McCormick's story includes a circuitous route to acting despite a path in front him all along, how being a transracial adoptee influences how he approaches roles and casting calls, and his take on the current movement towards more Asian-American representation in Hollywood. There's late-night run-ins with Prince and he reveals how he and his high school friends first learned about dating and women.
Joy Alessi, 52, is a Korean adoptee who never received her U.S. citizenship via her adoption. A resident of Houston, Texas, Alessi is now working with the Adoptee Rights Campaign to advocate for citizenship for intercountry adoptees amidst a tough political climate. She also details her adoption story, which exposes an old loophole in U.S. immigration law, and the resiliency she's developed to keep moving forward.
Kim Thompson, 42, is an adopted Korean who spent eight years living in Korea in her 30s. She talks about that experience including covering topics like white privilege, Western privilege, navigating her queer identity in Korea, tattoos, and on her post-reunion relationship with her biological mother. Raised in South Florida, Thompson also reflects returning to the United States and making sense of the transition to life in Minneapolis, and what lasting effect Korea has had on her.
Matt Fetzer, 43, a Korean-American adoptee, ate Korean food for the first time less than one year ago. To understand why four decades went by before he tasted the cuisine from his native country is to understand the impact of transracial, transnational adoption and how disassociated adoptees can come to feel towards their biological origins. Listen as Fetzer takes you along his journey on his first trip back to Korea since his adoption and on what he's discovering about himself and what ultimately may be his future.
Robin Anderson, 45, is a Korean-American adoptee who has been living in Korea for the past three years. He talks about his decision to return and of his path to landing a teaching position at arguably one of the most prestigious universities there, Seoul National University. Anderson is also frank about discussions he's had with his parents about his decision to make Seoul home, for more or less the rest of his life. He also talks about what he'd like his students and Koreans, in general, to know about adoptees.
Michael Mullen, 48, president of Also Known As (AKA), a New York City-based transnational adoption group, raises a thoughtful take on his identity as a Korean-American adoptee; that being an ethnic Korean, an American and an adoptee are three separate identifiers that are equally important. Mullen recalls moving to Korea after watching the '88 Summer Olympics and how that and a second relocation to Korea and the years after helped him realize that just focusing on reclaiming his Korean heritage to compensate for not being raised in a Korean family wasn't fully who he is. Mullen is also a father of two and discusses about what passing on his adoption experience to his kids looks like.
Author and Korean-American adoptee Julayne Lee talks about her new collection of poems, "Not My White Savior," and of the importance of maintaining an authentic voice. Now in her 40s, she now lives in California and is active within the vibrant literary scene. Lee also discusses her thoughts on identity and of how she hopes the work will impact the larger adoptee community.
From Not My White Savior, by Julayne Lee, Copyright 2018. With the permission of the publisher, Rare Bird Lit.
Morgan Pearson, 27, is a Korean adoptee who grew up in the Twin Cities suburbs and talks candidly about her struggles with race and identity, alienation, sexual abuse and addiction, and mental health. Part of her personal exploration involves participating in a short-term study program in Korea, during her first trip back to her native Korea. A budding comic and podcaster, Pearson talks about how she is finally able to look towards a healthy future after shedding many of her demons.
Alex Hamel 31, is about to move back to her native country, Korea, for the third time. A Korean adoptee, she talks critically and honestly about her adoption experience and describes the evolution of her own identity and relationship with Korea.
Soon-young Oh, 39, has returned to her native Korea, twice to live. Each return trip taught this transnational adoptee something new about herself. Her second time moving back to Korea was in 2016, with a husband and a three-year old child in tow. Oh compares the two experiences and on what it means to be a parent to a biological child, and what she wanted to give to her son.
For Anna Merrick Luster, keeping her Korean siblings together at all costs was a promise she kept to her biological parents before they died. But as you'll hear, that meant enduring painful years of sexual abuse by her adoptive father and possible emotional and psychological abuse from her adoptive mother. In this podcast series, we've heard some painful and complicated stories about Korean transnational and transracial adoption. This one is no different. Luster shines a light on an international adoption industry that often has blamed adoptees for the abusive families it has placed Korean children into, rather than acknowledge its own negligence and inaction to protect the very children being placed under a guise of child welfare. It also is an example of abuse that can take place behind closed doors in adoptive families in small towns as well as cities - and where local child protection services, schools and local officials have also failed to act. But despite everything, Luster's story is about resilience and survival and of how her memories of Korea gave her hope, even after being sent thousands of miles away.
Brian Nieken, 32, has known who is biological Korean father is for half his lifetime - they first reunited in Korea when he was only 16. Nieken says as the years went by, important questions remained unanswered. He talks about that disappointment and of coming to terms with tough details about his relinquishment.
Korean adoptee Matt Blesse, 31, is an American who moved back to Korea six years ago. A poet who now spends a great deal of time in kitchens in Seoul, the Californian chef-in-training got cerebral and talked with us about his ideas on adoptee identity and authenticity. We caught up with him on the island of Jeju.
This episode, we'll hear from Adam Kohlhaas. He talks about finding and meeting his biological parents while living in Korea, and how the reunion wasn't really as he imagined it be.
Thank you for listening to ADAPTED. Originally funded by a Fulbright grant (2016-7, Adapted will continue on in some form yet to be determined.
Music credits:
Alexander Paschka: theme music.
Jahzzar: “Friends,” “Silver,” and “Solitude.”
Kai Engel: “Oecumene Sleeps.”
Lion’s Club clip: Sangshow via YouTube.
Logo: Rusty Detty.
Special thanks: Brad Linder.
Robert Ogburn, 57, is a Korean-American adoptee who has returned to the country he was born in -- as a diplomat. Raised an only child, Ogburn's story includes an unexpected adoption twist and insights on how Korea and its perception about adoptees has changed over the years. And like so many other adoptees, Ogburn talks about a quest to know more about his past, and of the all-too common realities of an elusive paper trail.
Austin Johnson, 28, is a Korean-American adoptee and Seoul resident. He's been living here with his wife, Janetta, for the past two years. They came to Korea together and it's ironically, Janetta, who actually been his bridge to Korea: cooking authentic Korean food and being an anchor when life back in his native country got tough.
Not every adoption story is the same. Some adoptees struggle within their adoptive families out of neglect, of not feeling loved or a sense of belonging. Adoptees who return to Korea to live often face other issues too: of confronting their relinquishment and grief over biological parents. Korean-American adoptee Laura Wachs, 28, shares her story, and of how poetry has given her the strength to now help others who are also trying to make sense of their own meaning of family.
Rachel Smith, 23, lives in Cheongju, Korea. She's spent the last two years teaching English on the Fulbright program. Smith talks to us about growing up in Kentucky, what got her interested in coming back to Korea, searching for her Korean mother and how all of this has helped her firmly grasp who she is at such a young age.
Richard Peterson, 31, moved to Korea from New York City nearly nine years ago. A history buff, he immersed himself in Korean history and language in college. But while he reflects on his move back to the country of his birth, he's focused on the present with his wife Emily and their future.
Julien Brulé, 31, is a Korean adoptee from France. Last year, he quit his job and his life in the French countryside to come to Korea to meet his biological mother. Then he took the unusual step to move in with her, despite a language and cultural gulf. For more than half a year, he's been learning more about her and himself as they attempt to write a new story together. He shares his story in French [with English introduction].
Julien Brulé, 31, is a Korean adoptee from France. Last year, he quit his job and his life in the French countryside to come to Korea to meet his biological mother. Then he took the unusual step to move in with her, despite a language and cultural gulf. For more than half a year, he's been learning more about her and himself as they attempt to write a new story together. He shares his story in French [with English translation].
Korean adoptee Leo Chung, 44, was raised in The Netherlands but now makes his origin country his home. Chung talks about his experience in the Dutch military and of developing an interest in Korea from an early age, especially its martial arts. That, and a reunion with his birth family at the age of 20, motivated him to make repeated trips back over his life. But while his reunion with this biological family has far from a storybook ending, Chung has come to embrace his Korean identity on his own terms, including becoming a dual citizen.
Cara Kim Mooney, 23, is a Korean-American adoptee who grew up in upstate New York. She was adopted from Korea at the age of six months, and returned to her country of birth two years ago as an English Teaching Assistant on the Fulbright Program. Mooney wanted to come back to Korea to get in touch with her roots, after a childhood filled with memories of international travel and family support. As an adult, she's grown to love Korea, and accept it too.
Julianna Gonska, 24, returned to South Korea a few months ago to take part in a Korean government scholarship program for foreign students. But while Gonska, an American citizen who hasn't lived in Korea since she was five months old, qualifies for the program as a foreigner, being a Korean adoptee on the program has created complications. Despite being a legal citizen of the U.S., she lacks a naturalization document. As you'll hear, that piece of paper currently threatens everything she's worked so hard to achieve so far.
Korean-American Jonathan DeBlois, 34, opens up about his life after returning to South Korea to live for the past 12 years. Through that experience, DeBlois has gleaned a lot of insight from Korean work culture and society in general, and about his identity as an adopted Korean. Living between two worlds, DeBlois ultimately finds where he fits in, and it isn't a place.
Jonathan Park Oyen, 52, is a retired US Army soldier who now works for the federal government in a similar position he held while in the military. He returned to Korea while in the military, got married to a Korean woman he met while here and has since lived in Korea for about 17 years, on and off, since his adoption as a four-year old boy. Oyen talks about his feelings about his adoption, about military life and of being found by his Korean mother. He also shares what it's been like as a father and how his relationships with his own parents influence his own parenting style.
Korean adoptee activist Kim Stoker,44, sits down to talk with us about moving back to Korea and staying for nearly two decades. She'll also share her thoughts on identity and of how she has forged one for herself here in Korea that resists the pressure of assimilation and acknowledges the many complex experiences that make up an adopted person's life. Stoker was also one of the early members of ASK, or Adoptee Solidarity Korea, one of the first Korea-based advocacy groups by and for adoptees.
Multiracial Korean adoptee Kim Craig, 49, talks to us about her adoption experience, which included childhood abuse. Despite being adopted at the age of five to the United States, she was never given citizenship. As a legal permanent resident, she was able to go about her life like any American, except for a few exceptions. Three years ago, her life drastically changed when she lost her that identification card while on a return visit to Korea for the first time since her adoption. She talks about having to survive in a country where she doesn't speak the language or fit in anymore. Her story is an example of the insecurities and struggle many adoptees without citizenship face, and how easily their lives can drastically change.