It’s another insomniac night/morning, but even though it’s 5:40 a.m. I just had to share this wonderful comment as its own post.
First off, let me apologize for commenting on this with something very off topic from your post. I found this blog some months back and have been reading regularly since then.
I am the half korean child of a KAD. My mother was adopted in 1958 at two years old to a white family in the midwest. Her experience, from what I have been told and/or understand was largely positive. I can’t be sure as this is something that my mother and her adopted korean sister are both reluctant to talk about, unless it is to express their gratitude for “being saved from a terrible life”.
As I get older, I find myself wanting to connect to the korean side of me more and more. My looks are a mix of korean, white and native american and it is very obvious that I am of some asian extraction, so I am constantly questioned by others as to my ethnicity. There has always been a wanting on my part, wanting to know the culture, the food, the people. This wanting has always been discouraged by my mother. Not out of self loathing, I think, more from knowing that I would not be fully accepted by culturally korean people.
So many times I have wanted to ask her about what she remembers, or how she feels about being adopted. My questions are alway shut down rather quickly, with her insisting that she was saved from a fate worse than death and that she never thinks about korea or her birth mother at all.
How can that be true? How can it be true if I wonder about her birth mother all the time?
I guess I’m wondering A: If her stance is indeed an honest and truthful one. If perhaps, as my mother has implied I’m just “too sensitive” about the adoption issue and her past and that it is normal and possible to be very content with your adoption and never wonder about your birth culture or family. Or do you think, in your experience talking with adoptees, that she is in denial about her feelings?
I wish I knew a way of getting her to open up to me about her feelings on korea and adoption, but she really seems to have a stone wall up.
I know that it is really none of my business and that I shouldn’t pry, but I was very taken aback when recently I mentioned that I was thinking of adoption myself. She was extremely adamant that I did not adopt but would not elaborate on why she felt so strongly that I shouldn’t.
If anyone reading this has any advice for me, I would greatly appreciate it. Even if it is to tell me to mind my own business and that my mother’s adoption is none of my stinking business.
I guess I am just confused on how I should feel (which is, non-surprisingly, also how I feel about my race). What is or is not okay.
Hope this makes sense and sorry for hijacking your post.
thank you so much for sharing with us all. Your blog has provided many insights that I had never thought about before and I think it has helped me to better understand my mother.
Why is this comment so wonderful?
Because it’s the reason I’m here. It’s the reason this blog exists. It’s the reason my daughter convinced me not to shut it down and go private last year. It also validates me (and so many other adoptees) and the experiences I’ve had.
There are so many stories rising to the surface right now about adoption, and with it a huge political divide. We read about happy adoptees who work for adoption agencies and adoptees that adopt and adoptees that go on motherland tours and visit orphanages. We read unhappy or angry sentiments from adoptees that question adoption industry practices, adoptive parent motives, and social justice. And lately we read about happy adoptees who also question the efficacy of adoption in terms of social justice. But what we don’t read about much is what isn’t said.
I guess I’m wondering A: If her stance is indeed an honest and truthful one. If perhaps, as my mother has implied I’m just “too sensitive” about the adoption issue and her past and that it is normal and possible to be very content with your adoption and never wonder about your birth culture or family.
I can’t speak on behalf of others and can only speak for my own experiences, though I’ll wager they were/are similar to most adoptees. I never (rarely ever – only when someone else irritatingly brought it up) thought about adoption, my birth culture or my birth family. I think adoptees can be content with their adoption, but I also don’t think it is normal to put that out of your mind so completely, especially when you are getting pesky reminders from society that you are different on a regular basis. (And believe me, if your mom grew up in the midwest, that was her life) So I put it out of my mind; suppressed it to the point it only manifested itself in a tiny, tiny thread of hostility of unknown origins.
So that’s actually pretty incredible for us to contribute to our own erasure and to consider that normal. But you have to remember that our normal lives are never really normal. Growing up, we are put in the position where we must support and defend our presence. We must constantly explain ourselves. The only family we have either blotted out our past in the assimilation process or traumatized us by focusing on our “special”ness.
Wondering is a dangerous thing to do. Wondering can hurt your adoptive parent’s feelings. Wondering might turn to longing: longings that are futile and impossible to satisfy. Wondering can undermine all the adjustments you are forced to make in order to fit in. Wondering is that sewn together sack of potatoes. It’s that little thread you pick on the chain stitch seam of your life that with one tug unravels everything. And who wants to unravel, your contents on the floor, strewn all about?
There’s also reason, which we use like a hammer to pound down any popping nails. I was less than 3 years old. 3 year-olds don’t know anything. How could they? I have no memories. If it was significant, there would be memories. If it mattered, there would be memories. If my mother mattered, I would remember her. If my identity was nature, then I would not have adjusted so well, so it must be all nurture. Oh my god, am I really going to become my adoptive parents? I hold out hope I am a little bit nature – but wait, why would I want to be something that gave me up? The best I can hope for is to be my well-meaning but flawed adoptive parents. That’s a sobering thought. But there’s also no choice. I have no choices. Blah blah blah. Hammer hammer hammer. Adoption turns us into pragmatic people.
The suppression of talking about adoption was a conscious act, because it brought about internal conflict. The suppression of interest in my birth culture was also a conscious act, because it contributed to my orientalization, and I was keenly aware of being valued by everyone around me for being exotic, and I wanted to mitigate and control that; not add to it. The suppression of wondering about my biological family was not conscious. It was more like when your mind goes blank and you struggle, but there’s nothing you can do but change the subject.
…that it is normal and possible to be very content with your adoption and never wonder about your birth culture or family.
We must also remember that transnational transracial adoption is a huge factor here. Say you have good relations with your adoptive parents, there is still a lot about adoption not worth recognizing. There’s still a big bad world out there that isn’t as accepting as your adoptive parents. Almost all of us adult transracial adoptees have told our tales of being taunted, bullied, teased, ostracized, eroticized and stalked. And people consistently discount it. Kids are just mean. People are just ignorant. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Etc., etc. But bullshit on those attitudes. It’s fucking traumatic. Race may not technically exist, but we have felt the sting of racism. A lot of times just the word adoption brings up a PTSD response in me. A biofeedback machine, hooked up with sensors to my muscles, would show a huge spike in tension at the mention of that word. Attach it to any adoptee and you will get the same result but at various levels. Our transracial experience in America has not been smooth. And we were the guinea pigs…
Some adoptees have said that they never thought about adoption until they had children, and that the act of birth made them think about abandonment for the first time. I don’t think this had any conscious effect on me at all. I do know I didn’t want to be a parent at the time, and that I threw myself into the job despite being depressed about it. And I turned out to be a great mom. And it was interesting to see how my children grew to be part me, part their father, and part environment. So that made me wonder a bit, as they grew. But it was extremely annoying whenever my children asked me about my history. I dismissed it with little explanation as well, in all the same ways as your mother. I now consider myself the queen of denial…
Or do you think, in your experience talking with adoptees, that she is in denial about her feelings?
It is the very nature of denial that, upon confrontation, it will not be acknowledged. And it is also the nature of denial to feel one is being honest and truthful and to fully believe in your own honesty. I’m not sure I really like calling it denial, since that kind of connotes a conscious and willful act of refusal. I think it’s deeper than that. It’s instinctual, because it’s based on self preservation.
I wish I knew a way of getting her to open up to me about her feelings on korea and adoption, but she really seems to have a stone wall up.
Again, a lot of this is not intentional, right? You’re talking about something erected for survival: it is a whole mode of being that is a part of the adoptee’s coping mechanism. It is no small thing to ask people to stop using what has served and protected them. It’s dangerous and life threatening. The adoptee has to want to open up. The adoptee has to come to a point where these coping mechanisms no longer seem viable. For me, that had to be initiated by a major crisis.
And I never thought of personal relations as major issues to have crises over. My coping mechanisms allowed me to shape-shift to some degree, to be whoever anyone wanted me to be. It wasn’t until people abandoned me, one right after another, due in no small part to that stone wall you speak of, that I went into crisis and almost checked out.
In therapy I was always asked about what I was feeling at this moment or that. And again, I would always draw a blank. We have had to kill so many negative feelings being exported, you just can’t imagine. Since we can’t really kill the feelings we do the next best thing, and take away their name and throw them into the same drawer. And we try to lock them up and throw away the key, but the draw is full to bursting. Your mom can’t talk about her feelings because she probably can’t identify them. She can probably only generically know that they don’t feel good. I don’t know how many years on a couch with the talking cure this would take. I’m not sure it’s even possible.
The best therapy is the company of those that love and care about you and will work with your disabilities. That’s how I feel. After nervous breakdown I feel I spent my whole life disabled with PTSD.
So I don’t have any practical answers for you here. I do think sharing is a much better approach than inquiry. Your interest and your exploration she may suffer through, because if it’s an issue to you then maybe she’ll sit passively by and observe, in an effort to support you. A lot of information filters through in passive listening. A lot more is noted than is dismissed. But it shouldn’t be confrontational. You might find/ institute a movie night and slip in some movies with adoption-related themes, which can generate some discussion. Or you might introduce her to some Koreans friends. Or you might start enjoying some Korean cultural things and introduce them to her, through your infectious enthusiasm.
Her experience, from what I have been told and/or understand was largely positive. I can’t be sure as this is something that my mother and her adopted korean sister are both reluctant to talk about, unless it is to express their gratitude for “being saved from a terrible life”.
Well, it’s obvious from your use of quotation marks that you recognize what a cliche this is: what a scripted response. You might ask how they know it would have been terrible. She does come from that gray period after the war and before reconstruction. But I am still a firm believer that helping a starving country does not mean helping oneself to its children.
Do you know how completely I blocked out knowledge of Korea? Until two years ago, I didn’t even know when the Korean war ended. Until last year, I didn’t know who Confucius really was, except that his name came before proverbs you might find in a fortune cookie. Really, I didn’t know ANYTHING about where I came from. I’d only seen photos of the place from the turn of the century. As a child I’d envisioned people living like pigs under their thatched roofs in unsanitary conditions. That image goes hand in hand with the orphan image of ourselves. The dogma that we had been “saved from a terrible life” and that we were “chosen” becomes our default answer. Again, because we have no other choice but to support this life we find ourselves having to live. We were programmed to say these things to justify our adoptive parents actions. It ends the adoption inquiry. It shuts people up. So we can be annoyed without harassment.
I know that it is really none of my business and that I shouldn’t pry, but I was very taken aback when recently I mentioned that I was thinking of adoption myself. She was extremely adamant that I did not adopt but would not elaborate on why she felt so strongly that I shouldn’t.
It’s probably no surprise that I totally agree with your mom on this. Adoption has been a very very very complex thing for us adoptees and it is my opinion that those of us who do not drink kool-aid would never in a billion years want to put any child through what we’ve gone through. And just because your mom (and many many other adult KADs) can say she had good relations with her adoptive family does not mean she drinks kool-aid. I’m sure she recognizes many traumas or would not be opposed. Like I said, we tend to be pragmatic. And stoic. And try to make lemonaid out of lemons, because we have been given so many, what else can we do? Just fail and be miserable? But is that any kind of life to lead? No. It’s not ideal. We don’t want other children to have to lead a life like that. To be taken from a known and thrown into an unknown with total strangers. To have no choice. To have our identities erased. To be forced to adapt. Adoption is a crappy solution.
I am the half korean child of a KAD…
…As I get older, I find myself wanting to connect to the korean side of me more and more. My looks are a mix of korean, white and native american and it is very obvious that I am of some asian extraction, so I am constantly questioned by others as to my ethnicity. There has always been a wanting on my part, wanting to know the culture, the food, the people.
There has always been an avoiding on my part. A not wanting to know the culture, food, or people. (I wrote about this recently, though I can’t remember where, so I guess I’ll just replicate it and apologies if you’ve read it before)
In a culture where Asians are exotic and eroticized yet the “model minority” is also marginalized as being defective and weak, to be a KAD in a white community presents a new paradigm. I call it being white +. I got more superficial attention than my peers because I was exotic, but I didn’t suffer as much racial stigma as the insular Asian communities do because of my white parents and white ways. I avoided all contact with Asians because a) they didn’t exist where I lived b) they were so foreign they scared me and c) being associated with them would be embarrassing and lower my hard-fought social status. Not to mention that later in life, when I did meet Asians, they were hugely judgmental and made me feel inadequate. My looks were an asset and a curse. And what little benefits I could glean from them were dependent upon me not being knowledgeable about the culture of my birth. I had to make the most of my isolation. I had to tend my uniqueness.
This wanting has always been discouraged by my mother. Not out of self loathing, I think, more from knowing that I would not be fully accepted by culturally korean people.
Really? Does she know any Korean people? I was kind of the same way with my daughter, but not for that reason. I think it was more because I felt if it was no longer my culture, then how could it possibly become hers? (my mixed race daughter – my son hasn’t chimed in on the discussion yet) It would lack authenticity, which I would be incapable of giving her. It felt like a road to frustration and destruction, and I didn’t want her to end up feeling as empty as I did. More so because I didn’t try.
She didn’t listen to me. But also her brush with Asian cultures has not been artificial, as she rubs elbows with a pan-Asian crew in her line of work. And so she learns from other Asians who are Asian Americans, and thus acceptance is not or is less of an issue with them.
But it’s still a huge issue for her – this legacy of having no cultural heritage yet bearing the burden of it by merit of ones skin and eyes. She has to deal with all of the exotification and racial issues I did as well. And though she’s not isolated from Asians like I was, she still has no community that shares her unique subset of challenges. So it’s a lonely place to be for her. She’s been looking for someone like yourself to have a dialogue with, so if you don’t mind I’d like to send her your email address.
How can that be true? How can it be true if I wonder about her birth mother all the time?
In re-reading your comment, it seems to me like you already know all the answers to your questions. But I am really thrilled to give you some of my insight, and view it as a wonderful opportunity: the descriptions of the adoptee experience we read are so blunt and dumb sometimes. It’s much more complicated and nuanced than that. Adoption has constipated my personal growth to such an incredible degree for such a long time…I’m not sure I can do any better than what I’ve done here today, but it feels good to shed some light on what it’s like and how this effects not only us but future generations.
So thanks for coming here and reading and bringing this blog back to its intended purpose.
Hello Korea ! 