Allen's Korean Adoption Story

my name is al adopted in January 1961 from Korea I'm 53 years old and I was raised in eastern central Illinois outside of a small town Ridge Farm Illinois circumstances surrounding my link Wishman are that i was left on city hall or at the police station like so many other people were and then the name my korean name was given to me after i was relinquished and there's no there was no note there was no paper there was no name in eastern central illinois it's a very white rule culturally and isolated area it's a homogeneous that can be positive or not positive it's not a very progressive area it's not cosmopolitan at all so it was it that said in many respects it was a good upbringing I was very on a farm I learned many resourceful things a work ethic kind of a can-do attitude you don't have what you otherwise would need you make do and you get it done somehow and I value that but as far as kind of broad and deeper experiences we would traveled some but it was very much a white middle-class upbringing with no other people of color around so what I was growing up I really wasn't aware of any feelings reflective kind of feelings or emotions around being different of being adopted because I was so inculcated just 100 percent inundated in in the white culture the white rural middle-class culture where I was raised my relationship with my parents when I was growing up was with respect to adoption was that I always knew I was adopted but it was not really talked about ever it was there it wasn't hidden but out on the other hand it wasn't really delved into her embraced a few years ago unfortunately my father I won't give you the greater context but he saw fit to give me the message that I owe them for what they did for for adopting me it made me feel some anger some resentment but as I process this it was really and this goes into where I am now I love my parents but it's a very difficult painful love because it is on their terms I started thinking about my the circumstances of my being relinquished and my birth parents about five or so years ago the emotions that have been brought up from me delving into my adoptive background and the possibility of maybe locating birth parents and so on has really created some tension in my life but it's something that on let me be clear it's not pleasant at all a lot of times but it's something I really welcome because for me it's a part of who I am it's a reality and I you know I embrace that in even in the face of the tension [Music] I was adopted in January of 1961 I went back for the first time in the summer of 2009 I was 49 years old I had been in the United States for 48 years so I'm kind of a little later than many people to the getting involved in the adopted community and getting you know involved in exploring birth cert and so on my experience going back to Korea for the first time in 2009 was it's difficult for me to put into words but there are these thoughts that come to mind I love the saying you know it's such a powerful validation to be around people that look like you to have faces that are similar so there was that and we I couldn't help and I think this is true of a lot of other people you can't help but wonder about the life that might have been now I don't necessarily spend a lot of time and energy on that but on the other hand it bumps up against where you are the life you have so there's that and making new friends and being part of the adoptee community in many respects it's very much like a second family adoption is a loss and it is a tremendous loss being back in Korea open the door to the room in me that could begin to explore that and but wasn't really so much a rush but it was just the first step in a journey that I'm still very much continuing to this day every time I come back from Korea it's difficult and I'm not sure why but at this time it's been more difficult than the other two times coming back from Korea to the United States where I've lived pretty much my whole life there are different kinds of connections so the connections I have here on the one hand are comfortable they're familiar I can with respect to what I understand of the language English and being raised white middle class I can move pretty well in that arena all of that said it's not the same kind of a connection as someone who looks like you that is a powerful validation or someone that you share a culture with even if sharing that culture is at the very beginning stages it's not the same so the connections that I make in Korea are different I won't say they're necessarily deeper but they are very different than the connections here they have they have a different kind of relevance for me and and probably that goes to where I am in my identity and and seeking more about my birthday and so on so with respect to my finding birth family I have to be realistic about that the records to be kind are sketchy and it was a long time ago it was a very long time ago so I'm hopeful but not very optimistic there are dates on my Holt records that are obviously not correct because the date I was processed and some of my paperwork is earlier than my birth date on my papers so something you know doesn't add up there when I was there in 2009 I went on YTN and did one of those 90-second spots to seek to avail myself to someone who might recognize me but again I'm not the same person I was when I was 14 months old and I also did a short interview for Korean guidepost magazine and they did a little one-page kind of a public service announcement appeal I didn't hear anything from that this past summer I went to the police department there's a department or officer that deals with missing persons and so I talked with them I did a DNA swab they copied the paperwork I have so that's kind of in the pipeline but again I'm I'm realistic about the chances with that too I never really felt before I went back to Korea that I wasn't missing anything and that I was incomplete though now as I go back there's this kind of sense of looking back I didn't know what I didn't know so I never felt back then I was missing anything and now I still don't think in those terms I think of looking ahead more what I can explore and experience and become so if I was going to make a comment to other adoptees I would say if you have any inkling at all any inclination to explore that aspect of who you are I would strongly encourage you to do it to join the adopter community considering and going back to Korea I think your life will be deeper and richer because of it if you don't choose to do that I respect that I understand that too I will say I think you're missing out though more directly I think you're doing yourself a disservice even I would say to adoptive parents as it turns out I've had occasion to have quite a few conversations with adoptive parents and there are some non-white adoptive parents but the vast majority of the adoptive parents are white so I tell adoptive parents because I'm always asked what would you tell us what advice can you give us and I say explore whiteness explore what it means to be white to always be on the inside to have that privilege - the analogy I like is that fish don't understand they swim in water it just is it's there all the time as an adoptee being a person of color in many respects you're always on the outside looking in and so I encourage white adoptive parents to explore the privilege of whiteness and to try to understand more what it's like to be on the outside looking in to not have that privilege because otherwise you take you're able to take so many things for granted that being a person of color being a person of color in a family where you don't look like everyone else you're not afforded the luxury of taking those things for granted [Music] the document means to me it's just the life I have it's a different life I'm not saying it's better I'm not saying it's worse I don't necessarily feel indebted to my adoptive parents though in random respects I am grateful I don't feel anger or blame or bitterness toward the people that relinquished me at this point absent further information I choose to believe that they did the best they could and they had their valid reasons for doing so so with respect to adoption we we never know the path we didn't take I don't know what my life would have been otherwise all I know is the life I've lived there are many good things about the life I've lived life being what it is there are many challenges just like everyone else [Music]

Channel: Shelby Redfield Kilgore

Views: 1,538

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Adopted, Adoptee, Adoption, Adoption Awareness, Intercountry Adoption, International Adoption, Korea, Korean, Korean adoptee, Mirror Light, Mirror Light Productions, Transnational Adoption, Transracial Adoption, We Are Mirror Light, adoption, asian american, my adoption story

Id: 2lHU55NN_x8

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 24 2020