Adoptionland: From Orphans to Activists

By Janine Myung Ja

Ever wondered what it's like to be adopted? This anthology begins with personal accounts and then shifts to a bird's eye view on adoption from domestic, intercountry and transracial adoptees who are now adoptee rights activists. Along with adopted people, this collection also includes the voices of mothers and a father from the Baby Scoop Era, a modern-day mother who almost lost her child to adoption, and ends with the experience of an adoption investigator from Against Child Trafficking. These stories are usually abandoned by the very industry that professes to work for the "best interest of children," "child protection," and for families. However, according to adopted people who were scattered across nations as children, these represent typical human rights issues that have been ignored for too long. For many years, adopted people have just dealt with such matters alone, not knowing that all of us—as a community—have a great deal in common.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Against Child Trafficking USA
• Release date: Jul 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781501487965

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Somebody Cares

My Journey into Truth, Transparency, and Adoptionland

As of this writing, it has been ten years since my twin sister and I first traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to attend the 2004 Korean Adoptee Conference. It would also be the first time we intermingled with other Korean adoptees who had been sent to various Western nations. From the more than 160,000 children flown overseas by agency facilitators, 400 of us arrived in our motherland as adults intending to celebrate and contemplate fifty years of intercountry adoption. We made friends for life over the course of the trip. Like many others, we decided to use the opportunity to look for our Korean families.

My time in South Korea was the catalyst that led to a decade of research into the practice of intercountry adoption. I shared my initial thoughts and feelings inspired by the trip in a book titled The Search for Mother Missing: A Peek Inside International Adoption. It detailed how I became aware of emerging and divergent adoption perspectives.

The first surprise of the trip was when we discovered the street we were found on, according to the adoption documents, did not exist. Was the street name a fabrication? The Certificate of Orphanhood placed in our file gave the impression that we were orphans, but could we still trust the accuracy of this paperwork? Later, we learned innumerable children were not actually orphans, but came from Korean families, families who would come back to the orphanages (or to the agencies) to retrieve their children. Because of the way the facilitators had set things up, however, Korean babies and children had already been flown overseas for profit.

Because we were not given satisfactory answers, numerous questions arose. Were we merely manufactured (or paper) orphans generated by lines of text? Were we labeled orphans in magazines and in advertising campaigns to make the transaction appear ethical? Even the definition of orphan, I later learned, had been manipulated to include children of single and/or poor parents. Did this allow facilitators to finagle more children from vulnerable parents? My sister and I were raised with the dogmatic belief that Korean babies were typically abandoned on street corners. Almost fifty years into the future, Korean-born adoptees are discovering that they actually came from loving families. My sister and I have also heard that the adoption industry targets children and abandons the mothers (some mothers were merely given a bus ticket home in exchange for their babies). Weren't the mothers, then, the abandoned ones? And how many other mothers were treated with the same disregard? Is this a normal practice in Adoptionland? (And why is it still acceptable today?)

An Unknown Culture Club

During the 2004 Korean Adoptee Conference, intercountry adoptees could finally speak freely. Other situations occurred, but I didn’t grasp their significance until much later (due to my own self-doubt about my right to question the established industry). Fellow adult Korean adoptees, from their early twenties into their late fifties, confided in private sessions that they never stopped mourning the loss of their Korean families and were still trying to deal with the abuse and/or lack of care within their adoptive homes and communities. They weren’t joyfully relating fairytale endings or the type of stories regularly flaunted by the agencies. Many felt something seriously missing inside their loving, and not-so-loving, foreign (now adoptive) homes. Some relayed feeling rejected, lost between two worlds.

I listened to their stories and gave my own adoption some serious thought. The heartbreaking testimonials caught me by surprise. One thing that we all had in common, it seemed, was that even though we had been sent to foreign families, we still also loved and appreciated them as our own. I had an added benefit. The close relationship that I shared with my twin sister prevented me from feeling deprived of my Korean family. Many agency employees had no qualms about separating siblings, even twins. It appeared as if expediting the shipment of children overseas had become the priority. I was lucky compared to siblings who were torn apart.

Korean adoptees were also upset by the lack of post-adoption services. I had even heard rumors that, in years past, agencies acted as a go-between to newly-reunited families. Employees would translate letters between mothers and adoptees (blacking out certain parts) to protect the adoptees or the birth mothers from each other.

I found out that it was common for agencies to claim we were unwanted babies while they convinced the mothers that we (their children) did not want our cosmopolitan Western lives to be disturbed. This was untrue. After listening to numerous personal accounts, I learned that suicide was one way that some adoptees escaped their unacknowledged trauma. In fact, Joseph Holt (an adopted son of the missionary farmers who set up the intercountry adoption system in South Korea), committed suicide in 1984 at the age of 32. Being separated from one’s original family, culture, community, and country of birth was somehow normalized by way of adoption. Suspicions of abuse were to remain secret (even from the adoption community). One of the Holt’s other Korean-born adopted sons drowned in 1972. What gave Harry and Bertha Holt the right to promise a better life to anyone sent to the United States when they so obviously turned a blind eye on the realities of adoption?

As a child, my adoptive mother adored the Holts, which, by extension, meant that I also felt required to adore them. Questioning their work was the most difficult thing I have ever done.

At the adoptee conference, I cared about the other Korean adoptees, even seeing them as a community of soul sisters and brothers. When I heard that one adoptee threw an egg at one of the Holt’s biological daughters (in frustration over his lack of access to his own birth records), I didn’t blame him one bit! I could totally see where he was coming from. Why should strangers be entitled to falsify our birth records? And why should they have more rights to our personal information than we do?

Another shock to my system was the fact that Korean parents were looking for their missing children. A Korean father even approached me in a back alley hoping to get help with finding his son. One of the biggest problems with intercountry adoption is the language barrier. This begins when prospective couples fill out the application to adopt and then, because of the immense geographic distances, the imbalance continues throughout the course of the transaction. Transcultural adoptees are typically unable to communicate with their families and often lack any contact with citizens from their countries of birth. This isolation can last a lifetime. These unfair economic advantages, working in tandem with the countless communication barriers, ensures that there will be no birth family to contend with down the road for affluent couples wanting to adopt foreign children.

Being Called "Anti-Adoption"

Back home, I started to question the way babies were obtained for adoption. During the process of researching and writing, I tried to remain as neutral as possible and gave the facilitators the benefit of the doubt (even giving them my trust) over the course of a full decade of reflection and study. I truly believed that they were saints and that I should respect them. They claimed that they were saving children, but their actions raised several red flags. As early as 1956, two years after they travelled to Seoul, the missionaries were already having trouble finding children, yet they were swamped with requests from Western couples (according to Bertha Holt’s 1986 memoir, Bring My Sons From Afar). Soon, followers were scouring the Korean countryside for mothers who might be willing to relinquish their offspring. Bertha Holt’s book revealed that some Korean children were kicking and screaming as they were pried from their mother's backs and that most Korean mothers sobbed as they waved goodbye to their sons and daughters, not grasping that intercountry adoption, as it is known today, meant a clean break and forever.

Eventually, these adoption pioneers were able to petition the governments to sanction the legal removal of children. In order to justify their activities, they claimed that they were colorblind and executing God’s will (never considering that God might actually be on the side of the splintered families). They set up the Child Welfare System in several countries. Those who investigated or protested at the time were demeaned and demonized. The name-calling continues today. The first label given to me was orphan, which enabled strangers to send me to foreigners, believing that this transfer was in my best interest. Forty years later, they call me anti-adoption (even though I love my adoptive family and they love me). This reactionary name-calling avoids the core issue involved: Namely, the often unscrupulous methods used to harvest children for adoption.

If you continue to deconstruct the history of adoption while ruminating about your family, you might find yourself digging up more adoption irregularities, not because you want to, but because child trafficking is where adoption ultimately leads you. When I first started reading cases, I archived adoption articles online. At the time, I did not consider myself a writer (or a researcher), but rather a curious soul led by compassion and empathy for the families who were left behind. I had no idea about the grand scale of this industry or about the missionary fervor involved with adoption. (I have since learned the practice is almost a religion to many!)

I started my investigations when I was very much pro-adoption. However, after learning about the myriad human rights violations involved, I could no longer advocate for a lucrative system predicated on a total disregard for the actual families it destroyed.

Today, adoption recruiters have targeted Africa’s uncharted territory. In order to protect this continent from falling prey to child traffickers, officials around the world need to be educated about adoption trafficking. Safe havens from adoption brokers need to be set up within community centers, promising and promoting an agenda for the parent and child to be treated as a unit in order to protect vulnerable children from being sent off to foreign countries. Anti-adoption trafficking and children’s rights curriculum needs to be taught at the university level by victims and survivors, not led by adoption facilitators or their allies. Also, for the past decade, Korean-born adoptees have discussed filing a suit against the facilitators who removed us from our origins with a complete disregard for our Korean parents and families (similar to Australia’s Stolen Generations, representing about 150,000 Aborigines, who were issued a national apology by the government on May 26th, 1998). I often wonder if my parents are languishing on the streets of South Korea right now. Is anyone looking after them?

Staying Neutral

While educating myself about adoption history, I remained on-the-fence and kept my mouth shut like a good little adoptee, eternally grateful and always happy. I assumed that I had no right to voice an opinion on the issue, let alone to be openly critical of the thing itself. I remained a hermit, living in my own world, unknowingly imploding, dealing with my own trepidations and industry-induced shame about having the audacity to wonder about my Korean family when the industry dictated that I should remain loyal to my American guardians. I happily played the role for 40 years (and often still do). Reverting back to some of my roots, peaceful Eastern philosophies have comforted me through some difficult times in my adult life.

We have reached a time in history when adopted children (now adults) deserve consideration, especially those who were abused emotionally, mentally, physically, or sexually. Some authorities continue to fear that adoption is at risk of being abolished if we discuss things such as exactly how children are obtained or the reasoning behind altered and sealed birth certificates. The truth scares many people. Some might even be afraid of the collective voice of liberated adoptees. Some have yet to give themselves permission to see their own narratives through a wider lens.

The truth, conversely, has a way of liberating all of humanity. While we were growing up, we were told myths that caused trauma and pain. In order to become intact beings, however, we must investigate those lies. The truth might be difficult to acknowledge at first, but it is essential for humanity’s evolution and for our own well-being.

If you were adopted, or are thinking about adopting, or if you have lost a child to adoption, you have a right to be informed about the way this man-made system has affected families globally. Please be aware and protect yourself! If you decide to be a messenger, you might be met with resistance or even fearful knee-jerk reactions. Friends might fear that, by discussing negative adoption stories, potential adopters might be dissuaded from adopting. You might be told not to rock the boat, to remain positive, to stop being bitter, and to only relay successful adoption stories. However, you have a right to voice concerns. For years, investigative journalists have been reporting that children have been kidnapped for adoption, yet still, no laws have been passed to protect families from this type of atrocity. It is imperative that those of us in the adoptee community address the problem before more babies and young children are falsely tagged as orphans and unnecessarily placed into the arms of strangers.

Within the confines of adoption culture, adopted people are not supposed to know about their roots. Facilitators have expected us to smile for the camera, to be grateful, and not to ask too many questions. It is now being recognized that all humans deserve to have access to their individual origins and should have a right to share their perspectives (even if they disagree with the predominate thinking).

Nobody cares, we were told by those on the profitable side of the fence. Sometimes it may seem as if no one cares.

People do care.

Some adopters might have a hard time accepting these findings at first, but there is reason for optimism. It actually took our own adoptive father a short time to understand that the hidden side of adoption had yet to be spoken, seen, or heard and that these omissions actively contribute to the perpetuation of abuse.

The trouble with painting all adoptions as good – which is the North American presumption – is that those who have been obtained fraudulently (namely, trafficked) are ignored and, therefore, refused due consideration and reconciliation. Someone needed to admit that adoption is not always a win-win on both sides of the equation, as it is endorsed in agency marketing campaigns. Adult adopted people must be cautious of the way facilitators will, finally, invite us into the adoption industry arena by tempting us with a salary to promote better practices. We might be so elated at the invitation that our emotions will not allow us to see the toxic buffet. Years of adoption propaganda have fueled the seemingly insatiable demand for children. To the exploited families and their missing children (now adults) still without answers and access to health history and ancestry, adoption can no longer be considered in the best interest of the child. Not when adoption means children are being legally trafficked for profit.

At first, it appeared no one cared. Then, in 2011, my sister and I co-founded a group called The Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Network. Hundreds of exceptional individuals, mostly parents who had lost their children to adoption, started joining our group. We started getting private messages from parents who appreciated being heard. To date, more than 5,000 people have joined this community. Some are from splintered families and others are hardworking adoptee-rights activists. Some feel acknowledged for the very first time and others have been coping with the pain of adoption for many years, even decades. More needs to be done to create safe spaces for discussion and healing.

Those who seek truth and transparency do not represent the dark side of adoption, but rather, a beacon of hope in the midst of an imperfect, unregulated, and incredibly profitable industry. Once we heard the true stories, as opposed to the rhetoric from the agencies, we knew our efforts to spread awareness were well worth the struggle. We have been fortunate to find an organization that has been fighting for the rights of parents who have lost their children to adoption trafficking. Against Child Trafficking is conducting necessary research and investigational fieldwork.

It has been almost ten years since my trip to South Korea. I have learned that some segment of the public might not care about first families, but we do. For every family created by adoption, another family exists that has been forever torn apart, either across the street or across the globe.

Since my sister and I started listening, we have heard thousands of stories that mirror our initial feelings of doubt and uncertainty. Now the voices of first families have become a chorus of validation. Adopted people started joining our group and now they have a space to educate the public on unfamiliar insights into the practice. These courageous and assertive individuals are willing to see adoption through a wider lens, which includes the experiences of families from around the world. The social media group has provided a platform for open discussions, oftentimes uncomfortable, essential to someday protecting families from being unnecessarily destroyed. I have written about adoption to the best of my ability, but I have found listening is the best way to show I care.

This is the journey that led me into truth, transparency, and Adoptionland.

___

Janine Myung Ja is the author of The Search for Mother Missing: A Peek Inside Intercountry Adoption and co-editor of The Unknown Culture Club: Korean Adoptees, Then and Now, an anthology that serves as a tribute for transracially-adopted people (particularly from Asia). She has also written several feature-length screenplays on the transnational adoption experience. She is the co-creator of the social media group Adoption Truth and Transparency Worldwide Network and is a supporter of Against Child Trafficking's investigational work into unethical adoptions. Find Janine on Goodreads or contact her at [e-mail].

The Beginning of the End

WITH NO LESS THAN six cups of coffee in my stomach at the Asian-American conference hosted at the University of Michigan, I felt as though I was lost in a sea of my own ancestry. Everywhere I looked, there seemed to be some sort of ethnic person who shared the same yellow skin as me, but I still felt as if I truly didn’t belong. Why not? I kept thinking, If we all looked alike, didn’t that mean we could automatically connect with each other or something?

Trying to ignore this angst, I entered the discussion panel about international adoption, a topic of particular interest to me since I was adopted from Korea. I arrived too early, however, and the silence was deafening. My heart pounded at what seemed to be a million beats per minute, my palms were coated with a cold, clammy sweat, and my foot refused to stop tapping. Still, I managed to take a seat, creating a buffer zone for myself (sitting just close enough to see clearly, but just far enough not to be noticed).

As more and more people started to fill the empty seats, the storm of my nervousness passed, and I was able to finally sit still. The discussion began with people talking about their experiences with racism and the hostility they faced because of the way they looked. People talked about feeling like they would never ever fit in, that Asian adoptees would forever be phenotypically different and that, even though they looked the part, they would never be able to relate to their ancestral struggles. Well, shit, I whispered to myself. This had never occurred to me. It seemed so obvious now, but somehow I had chosen to overlook

Reviews for Adoptionland

[JJ Y. · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Nothing in the adoption literature can beat Adoptionland and its global diverse voices from adoptees and even a few voices from long-lost families and parents from around the world. It is definitely thought-provoking.