requirements in doc.
Reading
(1) Buzzfeed News. “Asian American Adoptees Are Grappling With Incomplete Histories And Cultural Gatekeepers”
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/tanyachen/asian-american-adoptees-connect-identity
(2) Laybourn 2018 – Being a Transnational Korean Adoptee Becoming Asian American
(3) Why Are So Many Korean Americans Adopted?” by AJ+
Discussion (1)
In Laybourn’s article, she states that “many of the Korean adoptees interviewed in her study identified as White growing up (pg. 32), most had felt firmly rooted in their White Adoptive families, and had negative perceptions of being Korean” (pg. 33). An interviewee in Chen’s article in Buzzfeed “spent a majority of her teenage years hating being Korean.” Discuss what aspects of Systems of Oppression could play an influencing factor in the experiences of the Adoptees featured in these two readings. Use quotes from the articles to support your insight
(300 word)
Discussion (2)
responses to at least one (1) of your classmates
(150 words)
Discussion (3)
In at least 250 words, name the
types of Power and
aspects of Systems of Oppression present in the experiences of Asian American Adoptees . Use quotes from any of featured adoptees in the videos and readings this week. Then reflect on Buzzfeed reporter Tanya Chen’s question in this week’s reading: “What does reclamation look like for those who grew up feeling disconnected from their own ethnic identity?”
image1
being a transnational korean adoptee, becoming asian american
Author(s): Wendy Marie Laybourn
Source: Contexts , FALL 2018, Vol. 17, No. 4, asian america/ns (FALL 2018), pp. 30-35
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26562937
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contexts.org30
being a transnational korean
adoptee, becoming asian american
by wendy marie laybourn
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31FALL 2018 contextsContexts, Vol. 17, Issue 4, pp. 30-35. ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. © 2018 American
Sociological Association. http://contexts.sagepub.com. DOI 10.1177/1536504218812866.
Thirty years ago, Korea hosted the Summer Olympics for the first
time. While the global spotlight highlighted Korea’s miraculous
transformation from destitute to highly developed, not every head-
line was celebratory. Among critical commentary from a variety of
countries, North Korea took advantage of the political stage, char-
acterizing Korea’s sending of its children to adoptive families in
Western countries as the “ultimate form of capitalism.” In response
to this global shame, Korea’s Minister of Health and Social Welfare
announced that the country would cease international adoption.
Afterward, Korea’s international adoption slowed, but even today,
Korean children continue to be adopted to the United States.
Since the 1950s, U.S. families have adopted over 125,000
Korean children. Adoption from Korea was the first sustained
intercountry adoption program to the United States. To date,
Korean adoptees comprise about 25% of all international
adoptions to the United States and are the largest group of
transnational transracial adoptees in adulthood. It should come
as little surprise, then, that during the 2018 Winter Olympics
in Korea, Korean adoptees were again the subject of Olympic
headlines. Rather than demonstrate ire from the global com-
munity, however, these human interest stories followed U.S.
Korean adoptees who had been scouted to South Korean teams
and were returning to their birth country, often for the first time.
Over the past three years I surveyed, interviewed, and joined
hundreds of Korean adoptees across the United States and in
Korea to understand how this unique group of Asian Americans
navigates belonging. Whereas in the United States popular
press have portrayed Korean adoptees as evidence that we are
“beyond race,” in Korea, government officials herald adoptees
as global ambassadors bridging the two nations. Yet Korean
adoptees often report feeling in-between races, cultures, and
identities. To learn how Korean adoptees fit in to United States,
Korea, and Asian America, we must first go back to when Korean
adoption began.
from past to present
Over honey citron tea and melon cream bread at a local
Korean bakery, Mary*, 54, told the story of the day she was
chosen by her (adoptive) mom. Mary had been at an orphanage
for the first 10 years of her life. Older children often age-out
of orphanages, as adoptive families tend to want younger chil-
dren, infants if possible. However, Mary’s mother specifically
requested an older child. “I remember they chose 10 kids, ages
ranging from 8 to 11, and that’s the age range she wanted,”
Mary reflected. “I remember going through that process. It was
almost like American Idol, being picked out.”
Although the idea of selecting children paraded on display
reduces family-building to simple consumerism, Korea’s selec-
tion of healthy children and the ease of its adoption process
established it as the “Cadillac of adoption programs.” Prior to
adoption from Korea, international adoptions were carefully
controlled family-making meant to minimize difference through
matching children and adoptive parents by physical features,
religion, and temperament. The goal was that these adoptions
appear “as if begotten.”
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https://doi.org/10.1177/1536504218812866
32 contexts.org
Adoption from Korea changed these norms. White adop-
tive families were sold on adopting Korean children directly after
the Korean War. Newspapers and television showed images of
abandoned children, missionaries returned from Korea bringing
news about these children in need, and U.S. G.I.s stationed in
Korea set up some of the first Korean orphanages, often writing
home to their families in the United States asking for donations.
So Korean orphans flooded American consciousness. But,
it was after Harry and Bertha Holt’s very public 1955 adop-
tion of eight Korean children, “seeds from the East,” fulfilling
what Harry called a “mission from God,” that adoption from
Korea soared. Through media framing, first-hand accounts from
Christian missionaries to church congregations, and the Holts,
Korean adoption became linked to Christian ideals of helping
the fatherless.
On the geopolitical stage, U.S. aid to Korea secured the
country’s position as “big brother” to a fledgling Korean nation-
state, while, within the United States, White American families’
adoption of Korean children affirmed U.S. perceptions of East
Asians as “model minorities.” Adopted Korean children joined
their White adoptive families during a time of otherwise exclu-
sionary Asian immigration policies. The juxtaposition emphasized
Korean adoptees’ exceptional status.
Though Korean children were obviously racially different
from their White adoptive parents, mainstream press and adop-
tion agencies portrayed this difference as negligible. Korean
children were seen as having a racial flexibility and benign
exoticism. The assumption was that Korean children would,
and could, assimilate totally into their White families. Social
work best practices at the outset of Korean adoption were that
no attention be given to transracial adoptees’ racial difference
or heritage culture. These transnational transracial adoptees
were seen simply as family members, not racially different and
not immigrants.
Once Mary was adopted, her ties to Korea were essentially
severed. Her mother wanted her and her sister to learn English
fluently without an accent. They took ESOL (English to Speakers
of Other Languages) courses in an American school and also
had an English tutor. “She forbid me and my adopted sister to
speak Korean to each other,” Mary recalled. “It was just like
going from being a Korean to American overnight. From culture
point-of-view to language point-of-view in every way.”
Though international adoption is often seen as a firmly
middle-class phenomenon, given the timing of early adoption
from Korea (before the policies and practices of today), fami-
lies from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds were able to
adopt. Working-class, middle-class, and wealthy families from
cities, suburbs, and rural areas across the United States adopted
Korean children. The two constants across these adoptive fami-
lies were that the overwhelming majority were White and most
resided in predominantly White communities. I interviewed over
100 Korean adoptees (these survey and interview respondents
were identified through Korean adoptee organizations, adoptee
activities, Korean adoptee list servs, and snowball sampling,
and though this is a convenience sample,
the demographic data and experiences
mirror previous research on Korean adop-
tees), and virtually all had been adopted
by White adoptive parents and 92%
reported growing up in a predominately
White community. These factors, com-
bined with parents’ approaches to their
Korean children as devoid of racial differ-
ence, posed challenges to Korean adoptees’ racial and ethnic
identity development.
neither quite white nor completely korean
Like the majority of Korean adoptees, Stacey, 38, grew up
in a predominantly White town. As a child, when people asked
where she was from, she would tell them Ireland. “I thought
I was Irish,” Stacey recalled. “Then, I thought I was Italian for
a little while. I really was so confused. I had no idea, but it
didn’t last very long because people would look at me and go,
‘What?’”
Stacey was the only Asian person in her otherwise Irish-
Italian community. It seemed logical to her that she was Irish or
Italian like everyone else, particularly because, like other adoptive
parents, her parents took a colorblind approach to her upbring-
ing. Still Stacey found that neither of those identities was fully
available to her.
When she was in the fifth grade, two Japanese boys moved
into Stacey’s neighborhood. Even though, by then, she “was
always reminded that [she] was Asian and adopted by everyone
else,” Stacey wanted to separate herself from other Asians,
especially these two classmates. Dozens of other Korean adop-
tees I interviewed echoed this experience. Most grew up in
predominantly White neighborhoods, attended predominantly
Social work best practices at the outset of
Korean adoption were that no attention be
given to transracial adoptees’ racial difference
or heritage culture.
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33FALL 2018 contexts
White schools, and
identified as White
during childhood.
Almost none identi-
fied as immigrants
when they were
growing up. Their
experiences and ways
of thinking about
themselves lined up
with the social work
best practices of the
time, aimed at mini-
mizing transnational
transracial adoptees’
racial, ethnic, and
immigrant status dif-
ference from their
adoptive families.
Though over
60% of the adoptees
I surveyed character-
ized their parents’ attitude toward their Korean heritage culture
as “not important,” they nonetheless learned that their Asian
group membership was important to how they were perceived
by others. As they interacted with people outside of their
immediate neighborhoods, even with extended family mem-
bers, respondents reported encountering the expectation that
they were knowledgeable about their heritage culture, spoke
their heritage culture language, or had ties to Asian American
communities. In my interviews, Korean adoptees also relayed
common experiences of racialization, such as being told to
“Go back to where you came from!” or being bullied because
of their racialized physical features. These experiences taught
respondents that even though they felt firmly rooted within
their White adoptive families, the expectation beyond their
homes was that they were accountable for their racial group
membership—the very identity social workers had downplayed,
diminished, and ignored.
So adoptees were reminded that they were Asian, but they
didn’t exactly know how they fit into Asian America. For some,
this came out of unfamiliarity with other Asian Americans; for
others, from internalization of negative perceptions about their
racial group.
creating community
What happens when you don’t feel fully part of either of
the communities you are expected to belong to?
A critical mass
of Korean adoptees
was coming of age
as the internet’s
mainstream expan-
sion took hold in the
mid-1990s. Korean
adoptees started to
use online message
boards to find peo-
ple like themselves.
Facilitated first by
Yahoo! Groups and
now by Facebook
Groups, Korean
adoptees created
spaces to find one
another, share their
experiences, and
explore their Korean
heritage culture. For
some, these online
spaces offered their first connections to other adoptees. Due
to geographic constraints, some Korean adoptees’ interactions
remain constrained to the online groups, while for many others,
in-person meet-ups extend their connections into “real-world”
spaces.
“Where did you grow up?”
“Have you been back to Korea?”
“Have you done a birth family search?”
“Any suggestions for where to take Korean [language]
classes?”
Over a family-style meal at a local restaurant, a flurry of
questions and recommendations filled the air. About a dozen
adult Korean adoptees, women and men ranging in age from
their late 20s to early 50s, were bonding. Some were new to the
Korean adoptee community and others more established, but
they were coming together over experiences such as being the
“only one”—the only Asian, the only adoptee—when they were
growing up, addressing race or avoiding race altogether with
their White family members, and visiting Korea for the first time.
Korean adoptee groups like these can be found across the
United States. Some have only a handful of members, like the
newly formed Tennessee Korean Adoptees group, while others,
like the New York City based Also-Known-As group that began
in 1996, count hundreds of members. These groups have a
sustained online presence, but also meet up for monthly dinners,
weekly workshops, and other events based on the members’
An #18MillionRising sticker pack shows the range of issues Asian American activist
networks undertake, including, but also going far beyond Adam Crapser’s individual
deportation case. (Available for purchase at store.alliedmedia.org/products/18-million-rising-sticker-set.)
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18
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im
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es
b
y
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34 contexts.org
self-identified needs and interests. Through these groups, Korean
adoptees normalize their family formation but also carve out
space to express an Asian American identity often missing
from mainstream understandings. The impact of these groups
is demonstrated by the 32% of my survey respondents who
participated in Korean adoptee group activities and identified
distinctly as “Korean adoptees,” a reference to their Korean heri-
tage culture, American upbringing, and adoptee background.
Korean adoptees articulate feeling in-between the White-
ness of their adoptive families and the Korean-ness of their
heritage culture, yet I had heard similar feelings expressed by
second-generation Korean Americans. At a panel on “Korean
American Influencers in the Age of YouTube” at the Council for
Korean Americans’ annual summit, for example, Korean Ameri-
cans, the second-generation sons and daughters of Koreans who
immigrated to the U.S., described feeling as if they didn’t fit into
mainstream American culture because of their assumed foreign-
ness. They also felt disconnected from Koreans of their parents’
generation, because they grew up in America. As I listened to
these second-generation Korean Americans articulate their dual
exclusions, I was struck by how comparable they sounded to
Korean adoptees.
What both the Korean adoptees and the second-gen
Korean Americans were expressing were feelings of conditional
acceptance within Asian communities and a lack of visibility
in mainstream American culture. Though their conversations
seemed to miss one another, they were responding in similar
ways—through YouTube and other online platforms.
While these Korean Americans were leveraging user-gen-
erated media to create alternative Asian American content, in
mainstream news, another headline was forming.
american… without citizenship
In early 2015, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforce-
ment (ICE) served deportation paperwork to Adam Crapser, a
40-year-old Korean adoptee who had come to the United States
as a toddler. Crapser had recently applied for a green card. His
background check was flagged for a crime he had committed
and for which he had served time. By the spring of 2015, the
New York Times was covering his “bizarre deportation odyssey.”
In the article, Crapser is quoted: “I was told to be American. And
I tried to fit in. I learned every piece of slang. I studied everything
I could about American history. I was told to stop crying about
my mom, my sister, Korea. I was told to be happy because I was
an American.”
Yet Crapser was, in fact, not an American. His adoptive
parents never took the necessary steps to secure his U.S. citizen-
ship. Though currently, under the Child Citizenship Act of 2000
(CCA), international adoptees adopted by U.S. citizens receive
automatic U.S. citizenship, that was not always the case. At the
time of Crapser’s adoption (and up until the enactment of the
CCA) it was incumbent upon adoptive parents to know they
needed to naturalize their adopted children and to follow the
necessary steps to do so. Many parents
either did not know or, if they did know,
did not do so due to the high costs or out
of neglect. There are an estimated 35,000
international adoptees without citizenship.
The majority of these are Korean adoptees.
Crapser’s case sent shock waves
through the Korean adoptee community. Korean adoptees had
been told all their lives that they were American, yet here was
the most absolute refutation of that. Almost immediately after
Crapser’s deportation paperwork was served, Kevin Vollmers of
Gazillion Strong, an adoptee-created advocacy group, began
advocating for Crapser. Korean adoptee groups across the
United States joined in supporting Crapser’s case and called for
a legislative fix. Their goal was “citizenship for all adoptees.”
Crapser’s case activated a communal Korean adoptee identity,
as adoptee organizers emphasized that he “could be any of
us.” The specter of deportation emphasized Korean adoptees’
immigrant status in a way previously unimaginable.
Joining the mobilization efforts were Asian American activ-
ism networks such as 18MillionRising and the National Korean
American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC). In
the spring of 2015, 18MillionRising launched a campaign to
#KeepAdamHome, which included a petition against Crapser’s
deportation and fundraising for his legal defense. By the fall,
NAKASEC had taken over Crapser’s legal defense and was sched-
uling meetings on Capitol Hill to reintroduce a bill that would
retroactively grant U.S. citizenship to international adoptees
not covered under the CCA. This bill would be known as the
Adoptee Citizenship Act.
In addition to NAKASEC’s support for the Adoptee Citizen-
ship Act, within the organization, they also developed a position
to solely focus on Korean adoptee needs. Though Korean
adoptees often feel separate from other Asian Americans, the
advocacy by these groups demonstrated Korean adoptees’ inclu-
sion within Asian immigrant communities.
There are an estimated 35,000 international
adoptees without citizenship. The majority of
these are Korean adoptees.
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35FALL 2018 contexts
Despite the organizing around his case and for adoptee
citizenship rights, in October of 2016, an immigration judge
ordered Crapser deported to Korea. Unfamiliar with the lan-
guage or culture, Crapser’s outlook was bleak. Deportation
intensifies the precarious position of those who are already
vulnerable, and with little financial, social, or cultural support,
deportees face enormous hurdles to integration into their new
country. For many, integration is nearly impossible. It can lead
to fatal outcomes, such was the case for Philip Clay, another
Korean adoptee who was deported back to Korea and com-
mitted suicide in July 2017.
In the midst of continued advocacy for adoptees, NAKASEC
also began a 22-day, 24-hour vigil in front of the White House
to draw attention to other immigrant rights. From August
15-September 5, 2017, NAKASEC led “DREAM Action” or
#DreamAction17 to protest the end of the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and the Temporary Protective Status
(TPS) programs. DREAM Action drew together wide-ranging
members of the immigrant community. Korean adoptees, who
have typically not considered themselves immigrants, joined this
around-the-clock action. In the current political climate, height-
ened immigration scrutiny and adoptees’ precarious citizenship
rights appear to have facilitated an awareness of “linked fate,”
whereby the conditions and outcomes for one are connected to
the many, among and between immigrant groups.
Support for a legislative fix for adoptee citizenship continues,
and in April 2018 a new version of the Adoptee Citizenship Act
was introduced in the House and the Senate. Ironically, although
it was Crapser’s case that reignited support for citizenship for
all adoptees, this version excludes the most vulnerable—those
adoptees who, like Crapser, have been found guilty of a violent
crime and have already been deported.
adoptees and asian america
Korean adoption began at a time of exclusionary Asian
immigration policies, yet, until recently, Korean adoptees were
excluded from Asian immigration history. An appropriate cor-
rective must also incorporate an inclusion of Korean adoptees
in how we think about contemporary Asian American com-
munity and identity. Though adoption from Korea has slowed
considerably, international adoption from other Asian countries
to the United States continues. Like the critical mass of Korean
adoptees before them, other Asian adoptees will soon be coming
of age. Not only will issues of identity and belonging likely still
be key, but the new contours of this cohort of Asian adoptees,
who were adopted at older ages, often have identified medi-
cal issues, and hail from countries across Asia, will necessitate
examinations of age, disability, colorism, and adoption within
and across Asian America.
As my respondents’ experiences growing up and the fight
for adoptee citizenship rights demonstrate, adoption into White
American families does not translate into complete social or legal
U.S. citizenship. Korean adoptees still experience the world and
are treated as hyphenated Americans. By incorporating Korean
adoptees within our understandings of Asian America, another
layer of the Asian American experience is illuminated. Korean
adoptees face many of the same realities of belonging and non-
belonging as Asian Americans more broadly, but their adoptive
status provides an additional lens through which to view the
Asian American experience.
recommended resources
Samantha Futerman and Ryan Miyamoto. 2015. Twinsters. Net-
flix. Ignite Channel. A documentary following Korean adoptee
twins who were separated at birth, adopted to families in two
different countries, and reunited with the help of social media.
Eleana J. Kim. 2010. Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean
Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging. Durham, NC: Duke Uni-
versity Press. Based on interviews and observations with Korean
adoptees and the earliest international Korean adoptee gather-
ings, this book details the beginnings of a global Korean adoptee
consciousness.
Jon Maxwell. 2016. AKA SEOUL. NBC Asian America. CA: Inter-
national Secret Agents. The follow up to akaDAN, a documen-
tary about Korean adoptee and music artist Dan Matthews, AKA
SEOUL provides a candid exploration of five subjects’ experiences
attending an international Korean adoptee conference in Korea.
Arissa H. Oh. 2015. To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War
Origins of International Adoption. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-
versity Press. A robust history of U.S.-Korean adoption, situated
within domestic and geopolitical contexts.
Kim Park Nelson. 2016. Invisible Asians: Korean American
Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptional-
ism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Drawing from
Korean adoptee oral histories and archival research, Park Nelson
examines the experiences, histories, and racial implications of
Korean adoptees.
Wendy Marie Laybourn is in the sociology department at the University of Mem-
phis. A Korean adoptee and former child services worker, Laybourn is the author (with
Devon R. Goss) of Diversity in Black Greek-Letter Organizations.
*All names, except Adam Crapser’s, are pseudonyms.
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