By April Maas, Jon Oaks, and Celeste Newman
For National Adoption Awareness Month, KCP asked members of our community to share their personal essays about their experience as Korean American Adoptees. We hope you will spend time with each story, helping us to more deeply understand the experiences of adoptees. We are profoundly honored to share these with our readers.
Click on the links below to read their full essays:
Last year, my mom decided I was old enough to be the keeper of my own administrative history and gifted me two overflowing file folders that contained everything from my naturalization paperwork to Sesame Street Live ticket stubs. Stuffed between my parents’ pre-adoption home visit report and a Frost Middle School Honor Roll certificate, I found an undated essay, written by me and notated with my mom’s neat copy edits…
With November being National Adoptee Awareness Month, I've found myself reflecting on several experiences that have made me think differently about my upbringing. Growing up in Flint, Michigan, meant experiencing the world largely through what was familiar to my family. At the time, I didn't have much reason to question how things might have been different had I grown up in Korea. Today, even an ordinary day at work can leave me wondering how different my life might have been and how my upbringing continues to influence the person I've become….
Growing up, I always knew I was adopted. My parents did a good job being transparent from an early age, and I never had to question where I came from. I understood that my birth parents, because of their young age as students and their unmarried status, would not have been able to give me a “good” life in Korea. And so my birth mother made the decision that I would be adopted. I was adopted from Korea, and in July 2002, at seven months old, I flew across the world into JFK, where I met my family for the first time…
