Hanging on by a thread

I thought this might be a good time to re-introduce myself to everyone since I’ve enjoyed reading the introduction posts by our new Kimchi Mamas and the re-introductions by some of the other KM’s. I went back through the archives and discovered that I’d never really written an introduction post when I first joined the blog, so here goes!

I am a mama to two hapa kids, a daughter who is 14 and a 10-year old son. I’m a social worker, and currently work at a non-profit agency. I will soon be re-entering the university as a Ph.D. candidate in Social Work at the “seasoned” age of 40! I joke that I’m making up for time, as I spent most of my 20s and half of my 30s starting and dropping out of college and 8 years of being a stay-at-home mom. Oh, do I wish I’d had a Kimchi Mama-type group back then!

I can only guess as to my origins of birth – I know it was likely somewhere in the Daegu area of South Korea, sometime probably in 1968. The reasons for my unknown birth information is that I was found abandoned on the Daegu City Hall steps in a box, wrapped in quilts, in February of 1970 and I appeared to be about a year old. According to the city hall records, I had a note with my name and birthdate pinned inside my jacket which would have made me 14 months if accurate. I was immediately whisked off to White Lily Orphanage, run by the Catholic Church, in the city. I lived at the orphanage for 5 months before being transferred to another orphanage in Ilsan (closer to Seoul) where I stayed just over a year before I was placed on an airplane and flown to Minneapolis, Minnesota where I was picked up by my adoptive parents. I was just under 3 years old.

I grew up in Minnesota in a suburb where I was one of only two Koreans in my school (the other not adopted) until my teen years when there were a whole 3 of us Korean adoptees in school – and we spent much time and energy avoiding each other. My parents did what they were told to do by their adoption agency – “Raise her like your own.” So, I grew up in a culturally Norwegian-American home with a sister and brother who look like little clones of my parents, and I did my best to avoid family photos and mirrors – anything that reminded me that I was indeed NOT WHITE like them.

Unlike many contemporary adoptive parents these days who understand the complexities of transracial and international adoption, my parents thought love was enough and that assimilating me into “American” (read: White) society was the goal. So, I didn’t eat any Korean food growing up, I didn’t celebrate any Korean holidays, I didn’t go to Korean language school or culture camps – in fact, we didn’t acknowledge Korea in any fashion at all. Until I took it upon myself in 6^th grade to research South Korea for a school geography report, I didn’t even know where it was on a map! So while my adoptive family raised me with a lot of love, they were completely ignorant about how much I would struggle with my racial and cultural identity. They were fond of saying, "I don't see you as being Korean at all, you're just my daughter!" While in many ways that was a lovely thought, and it made me feel like I was a fully part of the family, it also meant they wanted me to act White and be White and they chafed when other people saw me as an "Oriental;" plus, they struggled with their own racist prejudices against Asians and other groups of people, which I internalized while growing up.

In Twizzle’s post the other day about the term “Oriental,” I commented about the cultural and generational gap of using the word, only in my case instead of having Korean parents, it was my white adoptive parents and grandparents that frequently use the term. I gave the example of a recent visit from my grandparents who live in the South. On a visit earlier this month, they’d called and wanted to get together for dinner. My grandfather suggested an “Oriental” restaurant. I had to qualify what kind of Asian restaurant he meant – in my neighborhood that could be Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Malaysian or Indian. Of course, he meant Chinese since in his mind, that is what “Oriental” means. Later on during dinner he referred to “Orientals” several more times, including “a nice Oriental doctor” at the hospital he volunteers at, who “even spoke without an accent.”

Having to navigate the racism embedded in my own family – and sometimes I really had to wonder why in the world they would have adopted an Asian child when they clearly had not reconciled their own racial biases – was very difficult. The first “real” Asians I met were through a work place – where Asians were the majority and White folks the minority. That is where I met my first “real” Koreans – two brothers, who attempted to teach me how to say “kahmsahamnida” and “annyonghaseo.” At age 20, I had a lot of catching up to do.

I have a conflicted relationship with my “Korean-ness” because I’m rejected from my birth country for being “ibyangim” (adopted) and “too American” yet in America I have to justify my right to be a part of my adoptive family because I’m racially “othered” by folks. I once wrote it this way; I’m rejected by my race because of my culture and I’m rejected by my culture because of my race. I have often struggled with fitting in to the “Korean American” community in my state because my cultural knowledge is so far behind. I struggle with my attempts to learn Korean because I can somehow pick up French or Spanish with more ease than Korean; I believe I have a psychological block in learning Korean because of my complicated feelings about having been adopted. I have tried to find my Korean family and have been searching since 2000. I even did a DNA test with a family but it turned out we weren't a match. At this point I am fairly resolved that I won't ever find them and while most of the time I'm okay with that knowledge, at times I really feel a lot of sadness that I won't have the chance to know my Korean family too.

I first really felt like I’d lost a huge part of who I am when I had my daughter at age 24. Not being able to raise her with any knowledge of Korea inspired me to seek out what I’d lost. When I was 30, I went to Korea for the first time with a few other adult Korean adoptees and returned again in 2004 and 2007. This past year, I brought my kids and my husband for the first time. Along the way, I legally changed my name on my 35^th birthday by adding my full Korean name to the first name my adoptive parents gave me. It was my attempt to bring together fully both the Korean and American part of being a Korean American woman. I started blogging in 2006 as a way to keep connected with other Korean adoptees around the world, and that's how the Kimchi Mamas and I found each other!!

Even though I don’t post much on Kimchi Mamas, being part of this group has been hugely healing for me. I think one of the things I love so much about this group of amazing mamas is that for many of us, I think, we’ve struggled with feelings of “authenticity” - whether it is because we are hapa, or whether we are not Korean but have Korean children, or however tenuous our links to Korea sometimes seem. Sometimes I feel like my connection to Korea and to Korean America is just a thread - but I hang on to it for all its worth. I feel blessed to have found such a welcoming and diverse group of bloggers at Kimchi Mamas.

-- Jae Ran