Posted: July 25th, 2024

discussion 6

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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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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