Reclaiming the Adoption Narrative
I am pushing back against the dominant adoption narrative.
The narrative that describes my life as being a Korean orphan saved by adoption, given a better life in the West. The narrative that has told me that I should be grateful and happy. The narrative that continues to reinforce that—regardless of the pain inflicted on me in my new life in the West—it is better than what my life would have been if I had stayed in Korea.
But for me, transnational and transracial adoption is survival.
For me…
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving family separation.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving attachment trauma.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racial and ethnic displacement.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving culture and language erasure.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racism in your own immediate family.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racism at kindergarten.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racism at school.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racism at the workplace.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racism among your friends.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving being Korean with white parents who do not have the skills to help you navigate racism in a white society.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving being Korean with white parents who do not think racism is something that happens to you—because you are ‘Swedish’ and ‘assimilated.’
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving internalized racism.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving gaslighting.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving shaming.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving racial discrimination.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving hating to look at your own reflection.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving hating your Korean body.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving the grief of losing your Korean family.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving the grief of losing your Korean family history.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving not knowing if your Korean mother held you in her arms when you were born.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving realizing that the adoption trauma is intergenerational.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving seeing your own children struggle with racial and ethnic displacement.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving the heartbreak of trying to comfort my children when they grieve not knowing their Korean family.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving trying to find good answers to my children when they ask why they cannot learn Korean in school.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving wondering to what extent your origin story is true.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving wondering to what extent your adoption paperwork has been falsified.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving wondering if you would have stayed in Korea if it had not been for the unethical, illicit, and illegal ways the adoption agencies collected children to feed into the adoption trade to the West.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving wondering how it can be that the Korean adoption industry resulted in millions of dollars in profit, yet adoptees struggle to find financial means to travel to Korea, pay for therapy, and pay for resources to learn Korean.
Transnational and transracial adoption is surviving wondering how come you have to be a paying member of the Swedish adoption agency Adoptionscentrum to get help with finding your Korean family—even when your adoptive parents have already paid thousands of dollars for your adoption fee.
With time I have realized that my adoption is not something I can ever heal from.
It is a wound—inflicted on me by the adoption industry—that keeps getting deeper and more painful the more I understand the extent of how much has been taken from me, done to me, and done to my Korean family.
For decades, the darker sides of transnational adoption have been drowned out by the dominant adoption narrative—a discourse controlled by adoption agencies, governments, and lobbyists. But now, the human trafficking-like practices behind it are finally being exposed. In Korea, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating the unethical and illicit practices that fueled mass international adoption, while in Sweden, Adoptionskommissionen (S 2021:08) is examining the extent of misconduct in Sweden’s international adoption system. These are long-overdue steps toward accountability and justice.
But while these investigations are in progress, adoption agencies are lobbying to preserve transnational adoption—resorting to gaslighting and deflecting the legitimate questions raised by adoptees. That is why I believe it is more important than ever to use my voice and bear witness—to speak the truth about what this unprecedented human experiment of transnational adoption has done to me, and to so many others.