Answering the adoptee questions:
I was adopted at the age of 3 months to a white family in the state of Oklahoma. I spent the first seven years of my life in Oklahoma City going to a private school where there was actually one other Korean adoptee who I became friends with. There were also a few other asian kids at the school as well. Right before I started 2nd grade we moved to Edmond, Oklahoma which is just north of Oklahoma City and a predominately white town. I spent the rest of my childhood in Edmond. I don't remember finding myself having the so-called "identity crisis" as a kid. I was always surrounded by great family and great friends who never once made me feel like I was different even though I pretty much was. My friends always tell me..."Caroline, you're the whitest asian we know." It's true and I'm OK with that. As far as dealing with any discrimination there was a boy who lived down the street from me who would always make rude comments to me whenever he saw me. Or he would throw things like balls or frisbees at me when I was riding my bike or roller blading by his house. But, that didn't really seem to bother me all that much.
I've always known that I was adopted. I don't remember a time when I didn't know. My parents have always been very supportive in any decisions that I make involving my adoption. They will forever be my parents, but I came to the realization when I was 13 that I wanted to try to find my birth parents. So my parents helped me start the search with Dillon International Adoption Agency in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is the agency they got me through. The search didn't turn out as I had wanted. They found my birth mother, but she had her own family to consider and didn't want contact at the time. I understood that she had her own life. That she did what she had to do when I was born and I am forever grateful to her for wanting to give me a life that she didn't think she could.
I am now 24 years old. I'm living and working in Seoul, South Korea as an English Teacher. I've always wanted to come back to Korea to learn about my heritage because I never really took advantage of any of the "Korea Camps" that Dillon International put on. So I thought what better way to learn about my heritage than to immerse myself in it completely. It has definitely helped me fill a little bit of the hole that I think a lot of adoptees have. It's a bit strange here because I've never not been the minority. Here I'm part of the majority and for some odd reason it's hard to wrap my head around it. It's also somewhat frustrating in that I cannot speak Korean and people are always expecting that I can. So when I reply to them in English I always get these quizzical looks like...What's wrong with you? Why aren't you speaking Korean? It took me a while to get used to that, but now it doesn't bother me as much.
I've decided that while I am here that I will try to make contact again with my birth mother since it has been 9 years. There's just that curiosity that I will always have if I never get to meet her. Do I look like her? Do we have any of the same interests? Does she think about me? There would be no expectations from me as far as a relationship goes. It's more of just wanting to meet her and thank her for doing what she did for me.
Being here in Korea has definitely helped me with finding myself. It has helped me figure out some of the reasons I am the way that I am. To me it feels like home. But then, America has always felt like my home as well. Which is why I am so proud to be Korean American. I know that Korean's are very prideful and now I understand why. And to be able to say that I am Korean is a privilege in itself. A fellow adoptee friend of mine and I were talking not too long ago and he says something that I find to be 100% true. As adoptees, we tend to live our lives asking the "what if's." What if I hadn't been given up for adoption? What if I lived in Korea my whole life, what would I be doing? What if...what if...what if. It's inevitable that those thoughts will run through our heads. But, as out of place as I seem to feel at times, I'm having a blast here.
The article:
The follow up answer:
What makes my experience in this country unique? I guess the fact that this is somewhat considered "home". A part of me feels like I belong here. Well, that is until someone asks me a question in Korean and I have to reply with, "sorry I can't speak Korean." But it's the place of my birth, it's where my ancestors are from, and it's in my blood. Before coming here I knew relatively nothing about Korean culture. As I got older there was a part of me that was interested in learning about my cultural background, but never put forth the effort to learn about it. It's been an amazing experience learning about the Korean culture first hand by living here in the country instead of reading about it in books and on the internet. I think the thing that makes adoptees experiences over here different from other Korean Americans is that our parents are most likely not of the same ethnicity, so we don't get a taste of what it's like to be "Korean." We don't grow up hearing the language. We don't grow up eating Korean food. We don't grow up around other Korean kids. It's weird to say that for us adoptees we have to go searching for those things. We aren't surrounded by them on a daily basis. It seems to me that as adoptees we do a lot of searching. Searching for who we are, searching for ways to fit in, searching for our birth families, and the list can go on and on. I sometimes find myself thinking that maybe I need to stop searching. Maybe I just need to be satisfied with what I have, with who I am. But, then there's that voice in the back of my head telling me that you will never be truly satisfied until you see the face and hear the voice of the woman who gave you life.
I guess patience is one thing that most adoptees are experts at when it comes to things like this. But, sometimes it's just too hard to wait.
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