My Korean mother had kept me for two months and then took me to Eastern Child Welfare Society where I was put into foster care for about nine months. I was just shy of a year when I came to the states. I bonded very quickly to my mom. I still have a tendency to attach very quickly in situations when I change jobs or move. It’s a survival instinct I believe stemming from having been moved three times to different caretakers before my first year.
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Meeting my dad for the first time, was a different story. Apparently, when I first looked up at his blue eyes, mustache and glasses, I immediately began to cry. Even though he probably looked like an alien to me, they say I got over it pretty quickly. They loved me deeply from the start and I was able to love them back. I just didn’t learn how to love myself until much later in life.
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My parents adopted another Korean baby when I was about three, and he became my brother. I don’t have any memories prior to when I was five or six, but my parents told me I said he could go back to Korea after about only two weeks. As might be expected, I was very jealous of him as probably any sibling would be, adopted or not. But possibly more fearful that I wouldn’t be loved anymore.
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When I was eight, my parents moved us from Maryland to South Florida, a huge transition. Maryland was definitely more ethnically diverse. My parents took us to family adoption gatherings with other Korean Adoptees. They exposed us to Korean culture and I even had a Korean babysitter who spoke Korean to me. My mom told me I understood a little bit of Korean up until about the age of three or four.
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When I started second grade in Florida, I honestly remember more of the stressful times that tend to overshadow everything else. We lived in a predominantly white community and other kids really didn’t know what adoption meant. I was one of the few Asians at the school and kids can be really mean. I was called ‘flat face’ and kids would say a rhyme that ended with, ‘Chinese, Japanese, look at these,’ and then they would put a finger next to each of their eyes and pull so their eyes would be ‘slanted’, like mine. Kids would ask, ‘Why did your mother give you up?’ It was so hurtful to me at the time that I just froze and didn’t respond.
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In fifth grade, I felt pressure to excel. I somehow got it in my head that my parents would send me back to Korea if I didn’t get all top grades on each report card. The stress I felt was overwhelming. I remember struggling in math, and I of course knew about the stereotype that all Asians should be good in math, so I felt like a failure of what was expected of me.
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Middle school was tough then and is now; and middle schoolers can be brutal. I currently substitute teach in between freelance work as a TV producer in documentaries and Reality TV. Even as an adult in classes I teach, kids have said ‘you sound like a white girl,’ ‘Ching Chong,’ they have bowed to me, and some have said ‘Ni Hao.’ Most of the time I try to use it as a teaching moment, but sometimes I don’t have the energy. I substitute teach mainly, because I didn’t have an Asian teacher growing up, I didn’t see many Asians in the Media.
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The hardest part for me in middle school was when I started struggling with my self-identity. I did not feel any connection to my Korean heritage, nor did I want to. One of my best friends, who rode on the bus with me, told me much later when we were in high school, that I used to wear makeup that was obviously much lighter than my skin tone. I didn’t realize it was so noticeable. But at the time I wanted to be white.
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In high school, I worked extremely hard to get straight A’s, and plug myself into as many clubs and extracurricular activities outside of school as I could. I craved praise from others to fill a void I felt inside. Words of affirmation helped fill the hole, but it never felt like enough. I didn’t feel loved enough.
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I went to a wonderfully diverse high school of the arts. But there were still very few Asians, and my struggles with self-worth and self-identity continued. I felt uncomfortable being around other Asians, because they reminded me that I was adopted, and that I didn’t really belong. There was one time a kid called me, ‘Twinkie.’ At first, I didn’t get it. But then found out it means yellow on the outside, white on the inside. I remember my brother and I were sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room, while our mother was getting a check-up, and this old man just started going off on how he hated the Japanese people. He looked my brother and I straight in the eyes. We were just kids, and we froze.
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Growing up, in general I thought a lot about my Korean mother. I for some reason just focused on her, not my Korean father, or if I had any siblings. My parents had always told us they were going to take my brother and I on a trip to Korea. Around the age of 14, I started to obsess over the idea of meeting my Korean mother. I felt if I could just meet her, I would feel complete and whole.
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On my family’s homeland tour to Korea, when I was 17, we still didn’t know if I was going to be able to meet my Korean mother. The agency had found her prior to us going on the trip, but she had said she didn’t want to meet with me. When I found out, it felt like a second rejection. I remember going to my room and crying for a long time. Eastern Social Child Welfare Society also sent a letter that they had withheld from my adoption file. It stirred up so much anger inside of me, that they would keep that secret. I learned so much more about my story, where I came from, all these questions I had pined over many times as a kid. I found out I had several half brothers and sisters. On my Korean mother’s side, I had two older half-brothers, and I was the youngest. None of my other half siblings had been given to adoption. I was the only one.
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The trip back to Korea was an emotional rollercoaster ride. My family joined other adoptive families on a homeland tour, where we visited the highlights of Seoul and Pusan and ate traditional Korean food. We met foster mothers at the agency, Korean women at a group home who were giving their babies up at birth, and children in an orphanage who were not eligible for adoption. Each day was filled with enjoyable activities and heartbreaking ones, as well.
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During the middle of the homeland tour, my Korean mother relented and decided to come meet me with her sister. It was a nice surprise that I was able to meet my Korean aunt, as well. I had never learned Korean. There was an opportunity when my brother and I were much younger to go to a Korean school on the weekends, but my mom told me later in life, that the contact at the school didn’t recommend that we go, because we would be called ‘KBAs’ which stands for Korean but American.
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