Reposted from The Korea Times This article is the 18th in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. — E.D. I’m often asked by Western diplomats, “I know Korea had a problem with that issue in the past but is it still relevant these days?” Korean civil society and human rights groups have demonstrated a similar depth of understanding, “Wasn’t that the legacy of the military dictatorship? With democratization, hasn’t that already changed?” Rather than addressing the fundamental flaws and injustices of the legal system and legislation, these problems have been swept under the rug to be forgotten or ignored. Korea’s political landscape has changed since 1992 and now resembles a “democratic” presidential system. This progress has been complemented by economic growth that has elevated the level of social and cultural development of the country. Unlike in many other countries, a 1987 revision of the Constitution banned consecutive or multiple executive terms, limiting the president to a single five-year term. Critics have expressed frustration over the short term limits that encourage presidents to prioritize short-term gains to secure their legacies. However, considering the times in which the revision was passed, the primary aim of the term limit was to prevent the re-emergence of prolonged dictatorial rule, which remained fresh in the minds of the people. The democratization of Korea did not mark the end of tyranny but rather ushered in a new stage of struggle for human rights. We only need to look at world history to see that democratization does not guarantee an actual “democracy.” Moreover, “democracy” does not automatically equate to the protection of human rights. After the series of regimes led by military leaders ended in 1992, Korea has had six civilian presidents, and among them, former President Kim Dae-Jung (1998–2002) may be the most well remembered by adoptees. Over the years, he has come to symbolize and embody the democratic movement to such an extent that he’s been compared to Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Similar to Mandela, throughout the military regimes of the 1970s and 1980s, Kim suffered torture, imprisonment and a death sentence. Despite enduring such oppression, he survived to oversee the democratization of the country in his 70s and led efforts towards peace with North Korea, which eventually earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. While the death penalty remains legal in the country, Korea maintains an “abolitionist in practice” position, which can be traced to Kim. Throughout his administration, he never approved an execution, and his successors have maintained this tradition to this day. Some presidential candidates have campaigned on resuming executions, and opinion polls reveal that a majority of Koreans approve of the death penalty. However, despite 60 inmates currently sitting on death row, their sentences have never been carried out. This lack of death penalty enforcement illustrates how Korean society tends to respond to human rights issues. Although laws and the official system remain unchanged, Korea pretends to abide by those universal norms endorsed by the U.N. However, this stance does not represent a genuine gesture to honor life but rather reflects the means by which politicians and policymakers hide behind opinion polls and evade what should be their responsibility, to initiate dramatic reforms. Ironically, such a strategy seems implicitly endorsed by the international community, which has conveniently overlooked Korea’s legal death penalty provisions. Instead of condemning the country, like other countries that impose the death penalty, the global community seems to overlook Korea’s lack of legislative reforms in this area. We must bear this paradoxical situation in mind when understanding Kim’s action toward transnational adoption. While this story has never been officially recorded, I heard from a former Korean ambassador to a certain European country that Kim had visited that country before becoming president. During a meeting in which he gave a speech, an adoptee stood up and asked why Korea sent away their children like commodities. Kim began to cry with the young adoptee and immediately apologized, saying that he hopes that the adoptee thrives despite what Korea had done to this person and all other adoptees. Once Kim became president, he invited a group of Korean adoptees to the presidential office, Cheong Wa Dae, to issue an official apology, and promised that the government would provide support for birth families and birth family search programs. Although he pledged many policy reforms, the actual implementation of those promises fell to the same government bodies and private agencies that had a history of maintaining the practice of exporting children. In the end, adoption remained a private decision without public intervention or child protection measures. The policy tools his administration provided for reform were little different than those exploited by the previous authoritarian governments, in which they aimed to control the number of child exports. In other words, while the policies’ titles changed, the reality remained the same. Consequently, from 1990 to 2010, the number of children sent abroad hovered first in the 2000s, and then the 1000s, annually. Throughout those two decades, basic national systems and measures for child protection, such as mandatory universal birth registration, intervention, and limitations over parental rights and court-appointed guardianship, failed to develop properly. Instead, private adoption agencies continued to expand, which gave them greater leverage in dealing with the government. Perhaps more significantly, along with the president’s policy, promoting the stories of so-called “successful” adoptees obscured the systematic injustices and harm done to the children through the process of intercountry adoption. Whether Kim had good intentions and sympathy toward adoptees is not in question. However, human rights issues are not matters of charity, and such issues demand a rights-based approach. As it has been said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but protecting people’s human rights requires fundamental reforms in the laws, policies and systems of a country. Mere charity and benevolent rhetoric without any commitment to confront uncomfortable truths only disguise human rights violations and delay the achievement of justice. Click here to read the 19th article of this series, "What does Korean law say about adoptees’ right to information disclosure" by Kang Te-ri. Image: In this Feb. 25, 1998 file photo, President Kim Dae-jung, right, puts his hand on his heart during his inauguration ceremony. Kim tried to reform Korea’s overseas adoption system. Despite policy changes, however, the reality remained much the same. — Korea Times

I sit at my desk, laptop open, staring at a blank screen. I am supposed to be writing a letter to my 9-year-old son’s birth mother in Korea. I have written to each of my sons’ birth mothers several times, each time painting their lives like watercolor pictures with broad strokes and vibrant colors. This time, though, I sit frozen, my fingers heavy, my thoughts like lead weighing them down. The adoptive parent in me could write the letter, but the adoptee in me is refusing. Looking for distraction, I scroll through YouTube and come upon a video featuring a family taking custody of their adopted Korean son. I have experienced three Korean adoptions in my life, one as an adoptee and two as an adoptive parent, so I am intimately familiar with the story unfolding before me. I watch as images of an adoptee’s loss are set to a soundtrack of hope, adoptee pain obscured by parental gain, two sides of this firmly entrenched dichotomy fighting to tell the story, fighting in me. In the early months after we adopted our oldest son at 3 years old, we would tie long pieces of yarn to our waists and walk around the house, mimicking the push and pull connection that parents and children are supposed to feel, trying to weave the tangled ends of severed attachment into a solid rope. The tangible yarn no longer needed, we still pull each other around on this stiff, braided line, the narrative of our experiences dancing in pieces before us, the rope tightening and slackening depending on how hard we pull towards our version of the truth, always at risk of breaking. The next time I try to write, I am quickly distracted by a box labeled “donations” that has been sitting below my bookshelf for a few days. I walk over and trace my fingers along the books on the shelf when I reach the sky blue spine of a book I had forgotten I had. It is a memoir by Melissa Fay Greene, a parent of nine children, including five internationally adopted children, called "No Riding Your Bike in the House Without a Helmet." Funny, heartfelt, and honest, my husband and I read it before we adopted our first son, and it has sat on our bookshelf as a talisman-proof that it would be okay. I flip through the book and realize the supernatural powers it once held are no longer there. The stories that once delighted me of her biological and adopted children, stories treated with an equanimity that I used to admire, fail to recognize the fundamental differences between adoptee and non-adoptee needs. The vivid descriptions of the personalities of her children feel too intimate now, a cage of words defining each child and pinning them in print for eternity. I realize that as adoptees, people who have already had so much agency stolen from them, we have just one currency to even the scales of power: defining our own narrative. I understand why adoptive parents want these stories, but adoptees need them. I hold the book up to my non-adoptee husband. “Do you want to keep this?” “I loved that book,” he says. “I did too,” I reply as I toss the book into the donation box. A week later, ready to give up on the letter entirely, my adoptive mom calls and I actually answer, the desperation to avoid writing at dangerous levels now. My mother’s calls and texts are usually met with perfunctory responses, the strings tying us together long gone, the continued contact an act of peacemaking for others in my family who are still tied to me. As my mom prattles on about a movie she recently watched, I remember a letter she wrote after I excluded her from my wedding. She addressed it to my birth mother, a woman neither of us know, and gave it to me. An act intended to induce guilt or to try to connect? I still do not know. The letter portrayed my birth mother as a martyr, and her as a hero, the two of them combining to create the perfect jewel of a daughter, all my grit, determination, and bravery erased. It reminded me a bit of the letters I had written to my sons’ birth mothers. It is now cold outside and I’m wrapped in a blanket next to a space heater with a warm cup of tea determined to write this letter. I think about the two parts of myself, about my mother and me, and I know what to do. The adoptive parent in me stops pulling and walks to the adoptee, who tells me what to write. “Dear Birth Mother, We hope you are well. We are all safe and healthy. We have attached some pictures from the last year that our son felt especially proud to share. We think of you often.” The mostly blank page shines brightly back at me. I leave the space empty for my son to write his own story, his own way, whenever he is ready. We come closer together, the tension released between the parts of me, and between me and my son, now that the story rests with its rightful owner.

Reposted from The Korea Times This article is the 17th in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. — E.D. Over a seven-year span (1985-92), the number of transnational adoptions from Korea fell by 1,000 annually, dropping to a level not seen since 1970. Despite the absence of any meaningful reforms in child welfare or legislation, this decline represented a dramatic shift that satisfied many, including Western policymakers, who assumed that the root problems of transnational adoptions had been addressed, as the country’s economy and democracy progressed. On the contrary, the plunge in intercountry adoptions represented a campaign orchestrated by the 1980-88 Chun Doo-hwan military regime to appease its critics while outwardly portraying Korea as a prosperous nation. To understand the context that led the regime to reach this reversal of its 1980 policy aims, we need to examine two of the largest sports events of the decade: the 1986 Asian Games and the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games. As discussed in my previous article, “The unrestrained expansion of child exports during 1980s authoritarian period,” published Sept. 26, the leaders of the 1980 military coup lacked governing experience, and therefore employed “child exports” as an opportunity to engage Western countries diplomatically to fulfill the military regime’s needs and to stem any condemnation over the dictatorship. The need to mollify international and domestic demands for Korea’s democratization intensified over the years. Thus, a primary concern that occupied the Chun regime was to bolster domestic support and legitimacy for military rule through economic growth and efforts to “enhance national prestige.” Consequently, it aimed to achieve these goals by hosting two enormous international sporting events that would erase any lingering memories of Korea being an isolated, war-torn nation and cement its image as a vibrant, modern country. Considering the stakes, Korea pursued its public diplomacy drive with an aggressive determination that entailed fully leveraging domestic and international propaganda to promote its suitability as a host country for the Olympics. Ironically, its efforts betrayed its expectations. By capturing international attention, any acts of repression or brutality that had come to characterize the regime would be on full display. In response, the regime exercised some restraint in dealing with pro-democracy protests. Since its attention centered on curbing ever growing calls for political change, it was unprepared when Western media unleashed a slew of articles criticizing the country for exporting its babies. The president and his administration scrambled to reduce the number of transnational adoptions, but could not resort to their usual coercive tactics without jeopardizing the country’s hosting of the Olympics. As the Chun regime wanted to preserve the image it had cultivated with the world, it employed an administrative tool that the government had long used to control the number of intercountry adoptions—permission to exit the country. Tucked inside the 1962 Emigration Act, legislated under the previous military junta of Park Chung-hee, was a provision that prohibited Korean nationals from emigrating overseas without government permission. While the government justified this measure as a means to prevent male citizens from evading conscription and to ban “inappropriate” Koreans from moving overseas and degrading the country’s image, these reasons hid the act’s true purpose, which was to control and oppress Korean citizens. The severe human rights violation that this travel restriction imposed eventually led to its revision in 1983. Under the revised permit procedures, people underwent screenings of their qualifications to emigrate. Eventually, in 1991, the entire process, except the reporting procedure, was abolished. What does this act have to do with intercountry adoptions? The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which oversaw this policy, was charged with issuing “permits to exit to a foreign country” to those wanting to emigrate to other countries. However, in 1977, the Ministry of Health and Welfare assumed this role from the foreign ministry for children sent for intercountry adoption. To this day, the welfare ministry maintains this practice of issuing permits, despite the original permit system being eliminated for violating people’s human rights. To be clear, I am not arguing against state intervention in the cross-border movement of children; on the contrary, such intervention is necessary for the protection and safety of children. However, the permit procedures employed by Korea were never designed for protective purposes. Instead, this system served primarily as a type of “quota” system, or a means to control the numbers of children that agencies could send abroad, without the need to satisfy any public authority’s requirements to ensure protective measures. In other words, the permit system revolved around the permit, which served as an essential document needed to apply for an immigration visa from a receiving country. No Korean permit meant no visa for a Western receiving country. Thus, these permits served as the strongest, most effective form of leverage to control adoption agencies, whose revenues relied primarily on fees paid by adoptive parents. Until the 1990s, the government welfare budget excluded support for adoption agencies. Instead, the government granted them exclusive authorization to engage in intercountry adoptions, including setting their own fee levels. As explained in my previous article, “Korean adoption system must not be allowed to be profit-driven,” published June 27, adoption agencies operated and continue to operate as private entities. Consequently, there is little knowledge of their internal operations, and most critically, the conditions and status of children under their protection or influence remain relatively unknown. The extent of this independent nature is evident in the methods employed by the government to exercise control. Rather than assuming direct management of adoption agencies, the government has relied on a web of incentives and punishments, even going so far as to appoint a regime associate to a leadership post within an agency. The tragedy surrounding the 1988 Olympics is the momentum squandered by the nation. With the world watching closely in the lead-up to the Olympics and the foreign media denouncing its wide-scale export of babies, the country had an opportunity to genuinely reflect on and address its failures in child protection. Instead, the military government used its administrative measures to set an arbitrary number of intercountry adoptions, so as to provide a superficial response that would quiet the criticisms from abroad. This choice excluded more children from mainstream welfare policies, leaving their fate at the discretion of a global cartel, which eventually treated them as commodities to transfer overseas. Nelson Mandela once said, “The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.” Because childhood represents the most vulnerable period of a human being’s life, the treatment of these children shows the shallow depths of human rights protections that this country afforded to those who needed it the most. Image: The number of children sent overseas for adoption — Courtesy of Lee Kyung-eun

The Universal Asian had the privilege of speaking with Anthony Sayo, an award-winning actor from the Philippines who is making his dreams come true in Hollywood. Despite his parents’ preference for him to become a lawyer, Anthony Sayo found himself challenging the norms of his small Philippines’ provincial town. Growing up as one of six children in the family, Sayo was called at an early age to the world of movies and storytelling brought by the influence of his older brother, a big fan of fantasy films and wrestling entertainment. With his father a pharmacy owner and his mother a doctor, it was not a common dream for kids to want to be in the movies nor pursue a career in acting, let alone a career in Hollywood. However, Sayo says, “Even when I was a child, I was already very optimistic, I believe that if you have the drive and the willpower—you will be able to create an opportunity for yourself to make anything possible.” Sayo followed this belief while holding on to his motto that we only have one life to live and we should pursue a career path that truly brings us fulfillment. He says, “When I realised that acting was the career that I wanted to pursue, I told myself that I will go for what I want. That is non-negotiable. My life is so precious to me, and I want to be doing what makes me happy.” Therefore, pushing aside his mother’s persistent wish that he pursue a medical or law career, Sayo focused his efforts on how to get to the U.S. to fulfill his dream of being in the movies. After making sure he did his best academically, graduating with a Political Science degree from the University of the Philippines, Sayo found an acting school in the Philippines and enrolled in a one-year diploma program. For that year, Sayo studied under the wing of an American acting coach who trained mostly in New York, but has performed in both American and European TV/films. Sayo is very appreciative of this formal introduction into the world of acting and credits his solid foundation to his mentor. During his year of study, his teacher told him that “Hollywood is a white man’s world” to keep him grounded about his expectations of finding work in Hollywood. Even with this dose of reality thrown at him, Sayo simply pushed on with the belief that talent will always find a way to be recognized, regardless of ethnicity or race. While waiting for the right timing and opportunity to go the U.S. to pursue acting in Hollywood, Sayo decided to become a certified fitness trainer, and trained clients in Manila. He is also very passionate about fitness, and for six years he enjoyed imparting his knowledge and guiding his clients on a journey to a healthier lifestyle. During this time, he also took advantage of social media to build up a support network that he could use if he ever made it to Los Angeles. Then, in 2019, one of Sayo’s sisters moved to Chicago to work as a nurse. He saw this as opportune timing to take bolder steps to fulfill his acting aspirations. During a family trip to visit his sister in Chicago, he booked a one-way ticket to L.A. and told his mom that he was returning to the Philippines, as he was now ready to embark on his acting journey. As one might expect, Sayo had very little money when he arrived, but through his social media contacts and support network, he was able to meet people who kindly provided him with a place to stay and helped to get him started. He went from audition to audition, and managed to get his first major role in “The Withered Ghoul’s Ceremony,” an independent film director’s debut. Sayo booked the leading role and won Best Actor at the Hollywood Blood Horror Film Festival for his performance. He has also played leading roles in films slated for release like the romantic drama “Tears at the Edge of the World,” and the crime drama “Daughter.” Sayo is also a part of the cast of the ”Mantis Club,” a horror comedy which is currently having success in the film festival circuit. Despite this, Sayo always keeps his eyes on the bigger projects. His next big target is to land a role in the mainstream TV or book a role in a studio film. Thanks to growing advocacies for equal representation on the screen nowadays, there are more opportunities for people of color, and previously underrepresented ethnic groups in the movie industry, including Asians. He acknowledges that there are other Asian actors and Asian leading men who are leading the way, and he wants to join this wave of bringing more Asian faces to the screen. In the meantime, he says, “I am enjoying the process, to be honest, but there’s no way that I will say that it’s easy. So, I’m enjoying it because I realize that I belong here, because I can stand the ups and downs. I can stand the hits. I can stand the blows because there are also so many blows. It’s like being in a boxing match. There’s no way that you enter without being punched. I’m okay with taking punches and I’m also getting out my punches. So, I’m happy with the game.” For those who aspire to be like Sayo, he advises, “Don’t listen to the noise. Don’t let anyone tell you that it is impossible. You have to follow your heart in whatever you do. So, if you’re already somewhere and you think your heart is not there, if you’re thinking you don’t love it, you only have one life and you can change the menu, you can change the channel.” Cover photo: Still from “Daughter” directed by Yiwei Yao

The meaningful and meaningless documents that make up the story of my adoption inspired this set of digital composites. The first step in any search for one’s origin begins with the application for one’s adoption files. Used as source material my file represents a story created wholly by my adoption agency, Holt International.

Full title: Dialogues With Adoptees: The unrestrained expansion of ‘child exports’ during 1980s authoritarian period Reposted from The Korea Times This article is the 16th in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. — E.D. Shortly after the assassination of Park Chung-hee in 1979, Chun Doo-hwan led a successful military coup that would see Korea’s authoritarian leadership period continue until 1992. The tumultuous political change that has come to define this period also influenced the politics of intercountry adoption. Throughout Chun’s rule, the number of children sent for adoption experienced dramatic annual fluctuations, as seen in the graph. Since the dominant narrative of adoption has been populated by stereotypes and myths about so-called “outcast” children, little attention has been paid to fully contemplating the sheer number of children these statistics represent. When these figures shift by the thousands, it’s easy to forget the human lives behind the data. Moreover, we should not forget that transferring a single child across a national border requires navigating a complex set of administrative immigration procedures. In the 1980s, these travel processes were further complicated by the restrictions that the authoritarian government placed on people’s overseas travel. Before 1989, few Koreans were granted passports to travel abroad. Those who were among the limited number of Koreans who were granted a passport stand in stark contrast to the outflow of Korean children for adoption. In 1985, when the rate of intercountry adoption peaked, more than 8,800 children were sent abroad. This figure represents 1.3 percent of the total births, which was around 650,000, in Korea that year. Thus, despite the difficulty that Koreans had in traveling internationally, the rate of children transnationally adopted during the Chun Regime exceeded 74,000, which comprises nearly half (45 percent) of the total number of Korean intercountry adoptions. This expansion was part of a larger trend in the 1980s, which witnessed a global surge in intercountry adoption. As much as 73 percent of the total intercountry adoptions involved children from Asian countries, and Korea played a central role constituting the largest majority of Asian intercountry adoptions at 75-77 percent. Globally, Korean intercountry adoptions accounted for 60 percent of the world total throughout the 1980s. The graph reflects Korea’s intercountry adoption rates. In spite of the popular belief that these adoptions were guided by welfare measures, political decisions dictated the steep rise. The Chun regime on the one hand pursued repressive policies against civil liberties and democracy, while on the other hand maintained a highly liberalized approach toward its economic and foreign policies. Although eager to portray itself as open and democratic to the international community, the government exploited Western countries’ desire for adoptable babies by “liberating” the export of Korean children through the deregulation and further privatization of intercountry adoption agencies. Rather than serving as a child protection measure, the country’s intercountry adoption policies aligned and functioned as an extension of the government’s national policies at the time. Consequently, the government pursued an open-door foreign policy that exported adoptable babies as a form of diplomacy with Western countries. As the legislative foundation and legal infrastructure of intercountry adoption had already been established during the 1970s, increasing the rate of children sent abroad was relatively easy once the government had made the political decision to do so. The proportion of intercountry adoption within the total emigration figure from Korea represented a significant portion. In 1985, the peak year of intercountry adoption, the total emigration figure was 27,793, and 8,837 of that was comprised of intercountry adoptions. In other words, intercountry adoption accounted for over 30 percent of Korea’s total emigration that year. Most of the general emigration, which one can also refer to as non-intercountry adoption emigration, was to the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The destinations for the remaining 6,021 Korean emigrants were classified as “other regions,” which presumably pertained to countries in Latin America and Europe. Seeing as European countries received 2,413 Korean children for adoption, one can safely assume that a large proportion of the Korean emigration population to Europe consisted of Korean intercountry adoptees. These high rates did not go unnoticed. A U.S. Embassy consular officer in Seoul charged with issuing visas for intercountry adoption commented to the media that 500 kids per month represented an incredibly high number that could not be explained by humanitarian needs. He added that the institutionalization of intercountry adoption in Korea permitted the attainment of such numbers. Why hadn’t these numbers been achieved earlier? In the late 1970s, poor management and internal conflicts marked the operations of the adoption agencies. Corruption prevailed to such an extent that law enforcement arrested the head of an agency for embezzlement. In line with its national economic and foreign policy agenda, the Chun Regime may have intervened to promote the performance of the agencies. Such intervention is evidenced in a 1981 adoption agency yearbook that mentions the newly established government appointed a new executive director for the agency “with a mission to lead welfare reform.” Trained by the military, this new director eventually expanded the agency’s business by securing government support to promote intercountry adoption. He would later serve as a member of the 1988 Olympic Committee and the National Assembly, as well as a Minister of Government Administration. The prominent positions occupied by this figure and his role in the adoption agency demonstrate how terms such as “privatized” and “quasi-government,” while contradictory, simultaneously characterize the status of adoption agencies. Unlike in the 1970s, the new adoption agency came to operate with efficiency and discipline. Under its new leadership, the agency underwent a restructuring that affected all elements of its operations, from personnel to resource allocation. These reforms enhanced the agency’s capacity to gather adoptable children from a variety of sources nationwide, including orphanages, birth clinics, hospitals and unwed mothers. Each of these sources was overseen by specially dedicated divisions inside the agency. The agency established a special processing division to expedite immigration administration and recruited specialized staff. For instance, a former staff member of the processing division said that those proficient in English received better treatment, since such language skills were rare at the time but highly sought after. Despite the better conditions for these staff members, the fee for a single intercountry adoption could cover their entire annual salary, which gives perspective to the amount of money involved at the time. This inflow of money cannot be overlooked, as it reveals the true motivations behind the upsurge in adoptions. In the 1980s, the level of fees collected from adoptive parents by Korean adoption agencies was known to be twice the per capita GDP of Korea. In sum, contrary to the belief that the high rates of intercountry adoption out of Korea in the 1980s were due to poverty or a growing orphan population, the swift upsurge may be attributed to the regime’s political will and the reforms it undertook to realize this will by improving the efficiency through which the agencies performed. This article is the first of two that covers the rise and decline of intercountry adoptions in the 1980s. The next article will discuss the reasons behind the downturn in intercountry adoptions in 1986 as featured in the graph. Image: The number of children sent overseas for adoption — Courtesy of Lee Kyung-eun

As I walked the streets in the Asian part of Rome near Termini Station, the Asian stores were mostly empty, perhaps as a result of COVID but I cannot say as I’ve not seen the streets in normal times. Still, what was striking was the gradual demographic change and mixture of skin tones darkening the further away I walked from the popular city center. Most paid little to no attention to me since I hoped I didn’t have a tourist air about me. Probably, though, it helped that I was not white. There have been a handful of times in my life when I have felt thankful that my Asian face is what it is. That day was another time to add to my list. As I walked with a smile on my face, I wondered at the recent comments and questions I had read posted on social media about racism in Italy. While I am aware that certain social media platforms are predominantly white, I am still amazed when I read people’s denial of race struggles in the world. For example, the U.S. is facing a massive increase in crimes against Asian people yet no one wants to call them hate crimes. Instead, many want to blame it on mental illness for those who are committing these crimes, which obviously does need to be addressed as another social and systemic issue, but the fact is that Asians are being targeted more than ever for whatever reason—though I think there is no question as to who or where it started in 2020. However, as I walked the streets of Rome, in a part of town mostly void of white Italians, I found myself feeling safe. I found myself comfortable. I found myself a part of the community of people of color walking about, and I felt proud to acknowledge it. I also felt thankful that I was not living in a place where I would have to worry about my safety walking around. More importantly, though, I was thankful that I was not white; that I did not carry myself as I imagined a white person would walking past Asian restaurants, supermarkets, clothing stores, etc. I did not view the space as them being less-than or worse-off than my privileged way of life. Instead, I felt connected and as if I could hear my heritage finally speaking out to me to own what is mine and to accept that I belong in these spaces just as much as someone who speaks or knows the culture as their own. For DNA carries more than just our genetic makeup but also the whispers of our ancestors. As I sat to eat a Korean meal on my own, an act I rarely do since I hate eating alone, I decided not to distract myself with my phone or pretend as if I had something to do to try to lessen a discomfort for dining as one. Instead, I chose to focus on the flavors, the bitefuls of sour and spicy mixing in my mouth. I imagined myself as a child in Korea first eating a bowl of rice or tasting the complexity of kimchi. I imagined I could hear the smile in my omma's voice as she encouraged me to take another bite. It was in this mindful space that I could appreciate that somehow against all odds, I had come to love the food of my motherland. I sat eating as if I had always known Korean food, as if it was something I had always eaten and was just missing while living abroad. The cook, and probably owner, of the restaurant asked me if I was Korean in Korean. I replied in English, “I am, but American.” She nodded with a smile and accepted my admittance. Food always serves as a way of bonding. The “breaking of bread” has long been used as a way of uniting people. In that restaurant there were people of all skin tones enjoying the same kind of food. In that space, we all had something in common. Isn’t it strange then, once we go back outside we are again defined by the color of our skin? When we go our separate ways, once again I will be seen as Asian, and they by whatever nationality they seem to look; yet, none of us will know that on the inside, we may be of all different colors. But, in that space, in that city, in that moment, I felt as if my outside and my inside were the same—even if it was brief. Image: Cathy Lu

Nothing What can you do when there’s nothing to do The sun shines bright and the sky so blue Yet sitting inside thinking of you It seems as so lately it’s all I can do When everything fails and nothing is new I sit and I wait until I can see you Far How many more moons until this feeling lifts Longing and yearning and still nothing fits It’s just like a puzzle and you’re the last piece What should I do to make this pain cease I look and I ponder of what I do miss It’s the feeling of whole, the feeling of bliss I write this here poem to remind you dear friend That even though we’re apart I’m with you ‘til the end Friend I just met you I know and you seem so shy What happened to you, I wonder why Soon enough though, we’ll be best of friends I help you as you do me and we’ll make amends I’m not here to harm you, just here to say I’m with you and I’ll love you every single day See Open my eyes so that I may see What exactly do you want of me What do I want is better to inquire Because as of yet nothing inspires What should I do to relieve this feeling Nothing to me feels appealing I do what I can to pass the time Get me to a point I’m feeling fine But I sit here alone feeling no purpose Give me something so I’m not feeling worthless Lauren is a regular contributor for The Universal Asian. To learn more about her, check out her Contributor’s Page here.

Moon face. I have a really big, round moon face. I never really considered my face until the boys at school wanted to point out that my face was flat. So, I was then known as flat face. I added this to the list of taunts that already got fired at me like missiles. Chinese, Japanese, Dirty Knees, Look at these. Ching Chong. I used to wish I could change my face to be small and petite. That the large bridge of my nose wasn’t so protruding, and my cheeks weren’t fat, flat tortillas on either side of my nose. I wanted blonde hair that was light and fluffy. You could spray that hair with hairspray, and it actually stayed in place. My thick dark hair refused to curl, always straight an hour after I got to school. Those rag curls my mother put in my head, futile. My mom said I was pretty. But no one cares what their mom says. Moms have to think you’re pretty. They are blinded by love. My eyes have monolids. It’s where the top lid doesn’t roll back into the eye socket. Instead, it curls up, under, and folds on top of itself like an accordion fan. That means if you put thick black eyeliner on, it’s going to smudge and disappear under your top lid and you end up looking like a raccoon. The discount version of a smokey eye. Oh, and Heaven forbid, you smile big or close your eyes tight when you laugh. Your eyeliner ends up on top of your fat tortilla cheeks. My ears connect to my head awkwardly. There’s no distinction between my cheek and my lobe. The bottom of my ear just sort of blends into my face like a merge lane. There’s no cute round lobe on the side of my head. Just a little triangular flap of skin I got pierced when I was eight at a mall kiosk in Indiana. The holes aren’t even. My unicorn earrings always sat weird, one dipping lower than the other. The real crux of the six-word memoir is that this face, this awkward, Korean-looking face, does not match me. My face doesn’t represent who I am. People who don’t know me look at my face and make a lot of assumptions. They assume I am Asian of some sort. They assume my face is Korean—if they are a good guesser. Some people assume I don’t speak English, that broken English should come out of my mouth, or that I’ll speak a language that sounds like pots and pans falling down the stairs, as the racist joke goes. When I was a greeter at Olive Garden in college, an older woman complimented me on my English saying I spoke English well. I said, “Well, I ought to since I’ve been here since I was 6 months old.” I thought I was American. I grew up in America. I ate American food. My lunch was Chef Boyardee. My family drove through McDonald’s and my parents’ favorite restaurant was Cracker Barrel. I spoke English. Yet, my face would say otherwise. My face came with baggage that wasn’t mine. My face gave some people permission to think they knew a part of me. When this happens, you are constantly trying to prove you are someone or something. How many times did I overcompensate for this? Did I speak extra American-like? I tried to do all the American things like cheerleading or ballet to show how white I was. I dated the white boy in high school…to be fair, there was only one Asian boy in my school, so choices were limited. I think I’ve spent a lifetime trying to combat my outward appearance instead of accepting it’s a natural part of what makes me, me. Acceptance is what we crave so much in our youth, yet we tend to find it much later in adulthood. I wish acceptance had come earlier. I wish I had given myself permission to feel like an outsider but had the confidence to know I really did belong. I know my face does not match who I am inside, but now I know it doesn’t matter. Cover image: Cathy Lu

I had always dreamed of having children. I grew up in a big family with lots of siblings, relatives, and cousins. There were so many adventures—it was a great experience. I just assumed my spouse and I would have kids of our own one day. He came from a big family, too. So far, there’s none. Apparently, it’s complicated. But that’s a different story. Over the years, I have done a lot of research on adoption, and I’ve certainly learned a lot. I always wanted biological children, but I was interested in adopting as well. There’s a lot of things to consider when it comes to adoption. As a woman of Asian descent living in America, there’s additional things I think about. What is the best for the child? What is the best fit? Does race matter? I had first looked into domestic adoption and spoke to an agency based in America’s Midwest. When I told the representative that my husband and I were both of Asian descent, he informed me that it would be difficult for us, as the Asian population is small and there are rarely Asian children to adopt. He also said that Hispanic children are a rarity, because they have large families and some relative typically steps up to take care of the child if the parents are unable to or have passed away. The representative encouraged me to consider adopting African American children, many of whom are in need of a loving, supportive home. My first thought was, yes, race doesn’t matter. A child is a child, a valuable human being, regardless of ethnicity, social constructs or labels. As a minority myself, I don’t discriminate. I just want to take care of someone, nurture, and guide my child, let the kid know that I’ll always be there for them and will help them through life. At the same time, I fully understand that pushing the colorblind narrative is outdated and actually harmful, especially when it comes to adoption. Even if I, as an adoptive parent, see past the child’s race, that doesn’t make race or ethnicity less important. As much as some say race shouldn’t matter, the reality is that race has always mattered. Whether I like it or not, race—with all the assumptions that go along with it—is the first thing that people see when they meet someone. People stereotype and make judgments simply based on surface appearances. I know that a child who is of a different race than their parents will have experiences that are unique and distinct from their family members. If I were transracially adopted, I would want my parents to hear me and see me and appreciate all aspects of who I am. I would want my concerns and feelings validated. I believe that transracial adoption puts the onus on adoptive parents to learn about their child’s unique ancestry and cultural heritage and to share that knowledge with their child. Adoptive parents need to build a network of cultural relationships and activities that develops their child’s self-identity, supports good mental health, and keeps their child safe. Interestingly, I also spoke to a woman from an adoption agency in California who asked me to describe my husband and me. I told her that we were both of Asian descent. We were both born in America and raised in white suburbs in families with a Chinese American cultural context. Neither of us can speak Chinese or any other Asian language, though. We only speak English. She asked me if we are considering adopting white children. I was kind of surprised and told her that I hadn’t thought of it. I explained that I live in a part of the country that is very homogenous, so the child would likely comfortably fit into the community; he or she wouldn’t stand out. Since there were so few minorities where we live, however, I wondered how the child would feel about having two Asian parents. I admitted to her that I’ve never seen nor met Asian parents with a white child. The woman seemed taken aback and told me with sharpness in her voice that I should be open to adopting a child regardless of skin color. She stated that they have had several families of non-white backgrounds, including Asians, who adopted Caucasian children. I explained that I used to live in California where it was racially diverse, open and progressive in general, so I understood where she’s coming from. I don’t live in California anymore though, and I wondered how a white child in the more conservative, traditional Midwest environment would feel growing up with parents who looked different from their friends’ and classmates’ parents. Would the child be teased and grow to resent us? Transracial adoption when the child’s ancestry is from a race that is the same as the dominant culture could be easier, but surely some work must be done to ensure the child adjusts and grows up feeling good about themselves and their family. Ultimately, I see that an open adoption—whenever possible (and usually the case with all domestic adoptions) —is always the best for the child. I have read stories that feed into the fear of things becoming complicated when birth parents get involved. But, I believe that the inherent desire and need to know where I came from and how I got here is often undeniable. I would rather have the opportunity to support that journey than not at all. Overall, I have personally seen more in the past few years than ever before, that life is incredibly short. Why not help make the experience, while we’re here, as positive, painless ,and encouraging as possible? Despite our multitude of differences, there is something that bonds all of us humans together. We all experience the same thing. Something beyond our control caused us to enter this world from somewhere none of us knows. We live our lives, and then eventually, inevitably, we transition back over to some other place—a place that I like to believe is peaceful, inclusive, wholly accepting, all understanding, and beautiful. Cover photo: Kevin Liang

Reposted from The Korea Times This is the 14th article of the series on Korea’s policies on adoption. The history of the politics of adoption permanently affects and fundamentally changes the lives of those it touches. The reason we should know the truth of this history is not for contemplating or passing judgment but for moving forward to restore the rights of adoptees. — E.D. In 2018, an adoptee recounted to me a meeting with a group of Korean government officials. They had met to discuss measures to support deported adoptees’ resettlement in Korea. When they sat at the table, the adoptee noticed that on the official’s agenda, deported adoptees were referred to as “people who failed their adoptions and returned to their birth country.” Upon seeing this, the adoptee became infuriated and questioned how these officials could essentially blame the adoptees for their unfortunate circumstances. He said, “It is not the adoptees who failed their adoptions; it is the Korean government that failed to protect its own children.” These words hung in the air and brought me back to the previous year. Between July and December of 2017, the Korean media had reported the deaths of two adoptees. This news affected me because I had personally known a third adoptee, who had taken his life that same year but whose story was never reported. Philip was born in Korea in the 1970s, but after living in the U.S. for 27 years, found himself deported to Korea in 2012. He had tried to survive here, but it’s not easy for a middle-aged man to suddenly find himself thrown into a “foreign” country. He was not just adjusting to Korea; he was starting an entirely new life in his 40s in a country where he did not know the language nor had the requisite educational background and skills to earn a living. Without adequate connections to his friends or family in either country, he struggled over the years, going in and out of mental health facilities until he eventually committed suicide in 2017. Like Philip, Jan was also born in Korea in the 1970s. Adopted to Norway in 1980 at the age of 8, he chose to return to Korea, settling in the city of Gimhae along the southern coast. He had been on a five-year journey to find his birth parents, which led him to a small orphanage in the city. This orphanage facility was mentioned in his adoption file and served as the only link to his origins. It historically functioned as a “feeding orphanage.” Like many of the child welfare institutions that existed throughout the country at the time, these places provided children to adoption agencies. Jan rented a small one-room apartment near his orphanage to continue his birth search. However, despite his attempts, he failed to find any new information. He grew depressed and spent his last few months mostly alone before the building staff found him. He had died from what doctors described as excessive alcohol intake. The third death of 2017 was Joe. He was born in the 1970s and adopted to the U.S. He grew up with a loving family and became an award-winning teacher. In the early 2010s, he returned to Korea to reunite with his birth family who’d been searching for him. However, despite this reconnection, he still could not overcome the unanswered and unresolved questions plaguing him and ultimately took his own life. Some have argued that focusing on such tragedies undermines the “love” of adoptive parents and harms the “dignity” of adopted people. But, can we divide inter-country adoption into such dichotomies? Can we say there is only darkness and light? No life is free from pain or suffering, so why must we judge an adoption as “successful” if it only seemingly lacks such experiences and feelings? So-called optimistic narratives seek to portray adoption as ethical and safe while downplaying the tragedies do a disservice by overly simplifying adoption experiences. Furthermore, dismissing cases of abuse and suicide as “exceptional” and “rare” ignores the system under which all adoptees were processed. It must be noted that four adoption agencies have monopolized transnational adoption in Korea and employed the same set of practices. In other words, rather than being atypical cases, the so-called “failed” adoptions were conducted under the same procedures as every other adoption. Over the years, a number of adoptees have shared their adoption records with me, so I’ve examined these issues from a variety of positions—as a professional, a scholar and a witness. I’ve seen numerous documents from immigration officials from different receiving countries from different periods and from different agencies. Despite such diversity, the records reveal a surprisingly similar pattern—a massive quantity of files approved in such a fashion that it seems as though bureaucratic machinery indiscriminately processed cases. There was no evidence that any public or private entity in either the sending or receiving countries conducted individual case assessments or reviews on Korean children to determine whether they were adoptable or should be placed in alternative care. Instead, a collection of Korean government bodies issued orphan-related documents, including the orphan hojuk, orphan certificate, and guardianship certificate (granted to the head of adoption agencies). Many, if not most, adoptees have questions about their origins and identities. While their individual experiences are unique, their cases remain connected in a sense. Regardless of the differences in their lives, they all began life under the same set of adoption procedures. It can also be said that even today, all of us in this country are connected under the same legal system and laws. Therefore, rather than turn away, we must confront the uncomfortable truth. We must avoid dividing people’s lives and experiences into darkness or light and success or failure. If we hope to find answers, then we must acknowledge and begin to understand the prejudices and discriminatory actions that, although they happened yesterday, constitute the problems of today. Click here to read the 15th article of this series, "The search for origins is also a search for dignity" by Ross Oke. Cover photo: gettyimagesbank

The Korean Consulate sits on a busy roundabout in the Dupont Circle area of Washington, D.C. It is indistinguishable from the surrounding buildings except for the life-size statue of Phillip Jaisohn, the first Korean-born U.S. citizen, looking proudly into the distance. Inside the gold-colored doors, I step forward into 1980s Seoul, the fluorescent lights bouncing off the bland walls and the faces of five stern Korean women behind five glass-covered windows. Large blue signs in both English and Korean cling to the walls designating each one for some service that does not match what I need. There is no sign saying, “DNA Tests for Abandoned Babies Looking for Their Birth Family.” When I tell people I am adopted, the conversation often turns to my birth family. “Do you know your birth family? Have you searched? I saw something on the Today Show about these adopted twins reunited through a DNA test.” Asked with innocent curiosity, these questions feel voyeuristic, a yearning for proximity to a sensational story, a casualness to something so intimate. If I had infinite time and a bit more gumption, I might explain that a birth family search for a Korean adoptee is a daunting and mostly futile process. Adoptees, who search, regularly find the alarmingly scant paperwork in their files falsified, their names and birth dates fabricated, and the adoption agency social worker telling them that there is nothing more to be done. I might explain that DNA testing is expensive, requires giving up your anonymity to private companies, and those twins on the Today Show are the exception not the rule. I could explain that the options offered by Korea, fought for by the hard work of adoptees, involve making public pleas in newspapers, on YouTube, and even on the back of government health insurance mailings akin to those “Missing” notices on milk cartons in the 1980s. I imagine my picture lazily strewn on a table with a coffee mug stain on it, a grocery list scrawled in the margins, or looked at with a quick, “Aw, sad,” and then thrown into the trash bin. These options are desperate, unsettling, and for the majority of Korean adoptees, our only choice. It took thirty plus years for me to initiate my search. The desire roused by the adoption of my sons from Korea and galvanized by my pregnancy with my daughter, I contacted the American agency that handled my adoption and they contacted the Korean agency. I received an email with a few documents attached, all of which I had seen before in the green binder in my mom’s closet. As a child, when no one was looking, I would open the binder, hide under the powdery scent of my mother’s clothes, and read the same words over and over again. Birth mother: unknown. Birth father: unknown. Status: Foundling. Both adoption agencies said there was nothing more they could do. Over the next several years, in starts and stops, I took various DNA tests in hopes of connecting with someone from my biological family. With each test, hopes ran high and my imagination ran with them. I fantasized that my birth mother made her way to America settling somewhere on the East Coast, just hours away this whole time, waiting for me to come or that a sister adopted by another family in another town yearned for that elusive connection to Korea and found it in me. For a blissful few weeks as I waited, I lived in these reveries, only to be yanked out with each negative result. I berated myself for being hopeful, for jinxing the results, and each time I vowed never to test again. Of course, I always do. The most recent DNA test brings me to the Korean Consulate, surrounded by beige, trying to make eye contact with the woman behind window number three. “Hi,” I wave and smile, trying to hide the nerves that turn my stomach every time I speak with a person who looks like me. “I have an appointment at 3:00,” hoping she does not notice it is already 3:22. She does not wave back as she glances at the clock. “What for,” she asks without smiling. There were lots of answers I could give but somehow, even though she speaks English, I did not think these things would translate. I give her a paper with a certification stating that I am an abandoned child and entitled to a DNA test on the Korean government’s dime, another service fought for by my fellow adoptees. She skims the paper and looks back up at me for a second too long, and then picks up the phone. I look around as other Korean people navigate this world effortlessly, approaching the stern ladies with a bow that softens their faces. Would this have been me if I hadn’t been adopted? A short, slightly pudgy man in his 20s rushes in, a binder swinging in his hand reading “Adoptee DNA Tests.” I take a breath and follow him to a separate area. He efficiently explains how we got here, like a lawyer reciting the procedural history of a case, and I played the role of the defendant nodding along as if her future were not on the line. “Your DNA will be matched against the DNA of Korean families who declared their children missing. God willing, there will be a match. After today there is nothing else we can do for you. I will pray for you,” he says, pity in his eyes that infantilized me despite being at least a decade his senior. After the paperwork is completed, an older gentleman comes down with a box in hand. “Annyeonghaseyo,” he says to me. “Annyeonghaseyo,” I return and quickly follow it with, “How are you?”—the perfect defense to stop him from continuing a stream of Korean I cannot understand. “You don’t speak Korean?” he says more than asks. I quell my conditioned response to apologize for my inability to speak the language my face tells him I should speak, a habit I have had my whole life to allay the confusion of my existence to Americans and Koreans alike. “Can you write your name in Korean?” he says, like a teacher asking a kindergartner. “Yes,” I respond, a pupil eager to please, conjuring the image of the Korean name given to me by the adoption agency and trying to copy the letters. And, just like a kindergartner, I write one of the letters backwards. “Open your mouth, please.” He proceeds to take a flat circle shaped cotton swab that looks like a lollipop and rubs it on the insides of my cheeks and under my tongue. My face flushes as this older Korean man inspects the inside of my mouth and swabs my Koreanness onto that tiny cotton lollipop. My chest hardens, my fists tightens, and tears blur my vision as I submit to this act of desperation and violation. When he mercifully finishes, he wipes the swab on two circles on a cardboard card with my handwritten Korean name, places it in a sterile bag, and walks away, back to his paperwork and coffee. Whatever happens after that moment is a blur. I rush out of that room, that office, that building, pushing down the rock in my chest and holding my eyes open to evaporate my tears. I run to my car and as soon as the door shuts, I let it all go. The embarrassment, the pain, the anger, the loss, and the abysmal yearning folded in the depths of me emerged in a piercing scream. I imagine my DNA, the microscopic proteins that live in my cells and make me who I am, flying back across the ocean I flew over decades ago, in an airplane marked along with other diplomatic mail to a government that sent me away, a country I am not a citizen of, and who, despite its status as a world economic leader, still cannot properly support its own families. Groveling to the government that embedded the trauma in me, in my two sons, and now in my new baby is its own kind of re-traumatization. Amidst the tumult in my heart, sitting in my car on a side street crying alone, a streak of light emerges. I imagine my birth family waiting in Korea, hoping their child will send a part of herself back home before it’s too late. The fantastical hope of another DNA test. I wait. Born in Busan, South Korea, Cynthia was adopted to Washington, D.C. by her Jewish adoptive family as an #importedAsian. As a recovering perfectionist and overachiever, she left her legal career in favor of caring for her two sons, both adopted from Korea, and her biological daughter. Cynthia looks forward to exploring issues around parenting, adoption as an adoptee, and the overall adoptee experience. You can find more of her writing at her website.

On March 28, 1942, Minoru Yasui violated a curfew imposed on Japanese Americans, with Yasui intending to use the arrest as part of a test case to challenge the constitutionality of the curfew laws, which ultimately led to Executive Order 9066. Minoru “Min” Yasui was born in Hood River, Oregon in the middle of World War I. His parents were issei, first-generation Japanese, who emigrated to the U.S. Masuo Yasui, Min’s father, came to this country in 1902. The elder Yasui struggled and educated himself, eventually opening a store in Hood River. Min’s parents were married in 1912. His father was one of the few Japanese who could not only speak English, but also was able to read and write. As such, he served as a de facto civic leader, reviewing all manner of documents for people in the Japanese community. Min and his siblings were all nissei, the first children born in this country. They grew up in a warm home that was always full of ideas. Min graduated from the University of Oregon with a law degree, and took a job in Chicago, working for the Japanese Consulate. At the beginning of WWII, Min took leave and returned to Oregon where he opened a small practice in Portland. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the Japanese American community was plunged into an atmosphere of fear, recrimination, and confusion. The leaders of the Japanese communities were targeted and isolated in prisons and camps, and virulent misinformation campaigns targeted organizational structures the Japanese community had built over a few generations in the U.S. There was great discord in the Japanese community in the Pacific Northwest. Many felt Japanese Americans should comply with the legislative humiliations that racially targeted their families. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. This order paved the way for the creation of internment camps. Min’s small act of civil disobedience occurred on March 28, 1942; the offense: walking around downtown after 11 p.m., or violation of a curfew that institutionalized a form of discrimination based on ethnicity. The arrest was used as part of a test case to challenge the constitutionality of the curfew laws imposed, which ultimately led to Executive Order 9066. In 2015, I participated in a reading of "Citizen Min," by Holly Yasui. The reading was part of a moderated panel that explored the role of social activists in our historical narratives. In 2016, this reading toured 17 cities in New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington. The play is a biographical dramatization of Minoru Yasui during the 1940s. It allows storytellers to educate audiences about an important civil rights leader and offers his story as a thread in the story of life in the U.S. I didn’t grow up learning about Minoru Yasui or Lt. Susan Ahn Cuddy, who was a Korean American gunnery officer during WWII; or Hazel Ying Lee, who was a Chinese American WASP pilot during WWII. Fred Koramatsu, Gordon Hirabayashi, Yuri Kochiyama, Vincent Chin, Soh Jaipil, and others are not figures in the American historical narrative. AAPI civil rights leaders were not part of a cultural heritage easily accessible when I was a child. I had an understanding of the role Martin Luther King Jr. played in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. I knew of Rosa Parks and Malcolm X, had an awareness of Thurgood Marshall and Booker T. Washington. But, even Caesar Chavez and Harvey Milk were distant and vague ideas. Movers and shapers who were of non-white, non-European descent were few and far between. Media representations matter. Experiencing stories that reflect how we live gives us a vision of what our communities can look like and ultimately, who we are and who can be. We need to see people from all cultures and subcultures and ethnicities and nationalities represented in magazines and books and in film and television and plays and music and art and advertising and history books; when we hide the accomplishments and battles and failures of the people who came before us we disrespect the real work of real people finding ways to live together. I want to know Yurok stories and Hopi legends. I want to hear about Chinese American immigrants building the railroads, and to understand how our economic and drug war policies forced waves of families into displacement, causing generations to search and struggle for a chance to escape poverty and violence. These are all American stories. This is a time when we need representations of Americans of all shapes and sizes standing up and offering their truths. We must strive to understand the totality of the voices that raise families and build communities; we need to reject an ahistorical, linear narrative and embrace the turbulent and rich complexity that is human history on this continent. Learn more here. Heath Hyun Houghton (he/him) is a Korean American adoptee who grew up in rural Michigan and is currently based in Portland, OR. He is an actor, writer, and director. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing with a focus in playwriting from Goddard College and a B.A. in Theatre with a focus in performance from Humboldt State University. He also studied Korean dance and performance styles in Jinju, South Korea with USD Modern Dance. To read more about Heath, click on his bio in the Contributors’ tab.

“Writing Your Truth.” It’s a phrase I hear a lot nowadays. It implies there’s a hidden story, a secret one that no one knows. Maybe your voice has been stifled by more powerful voices in the room. Maybe a writer has been scared to share their truth for others to hear. Writing is such a powerful tool that can expose the author and invite unrequested judgment and criticism. And, what if you do share your truth and it involves someone else? Is there a line where exposing my truth exposes their truth and they weren’t ready for that exposure? Do I owe that person their right to privacy? To what point do we censor ourselves to protect someone we love, yet still share our truth and create our authentic story? There’re lots of stories I can share and not worry about repercussions. I can share the story about how in first grade Monroe Nugent threw me down on the playground and punched my gut until the wind was knocked out of me, how I cried and told the playground supervisor but she ignored me. And then, how I saw his name in the arraignment section of the newspaper 13 years later. There’s not a lot of risk in that story. My sharing is pretty vanilla and clearly the other party can’t complain about my sharing since it was in the newspaper for all to see. I can share the story of how my grandmother got the passenger window of her Chevette shot out when she was driving at 12:30 a.m. on a Halloween night and got caught in the crossfire of some conflict. Grandma lived on the rough side of town in Saginaw. It was one of those cities that was racially and economically separated by a bridge and she was over the bridge. We asked her why the heck she was out driving at night that late and on Halloween! She said she had to take bread to someone. Grandma has been gone since I was in high school; so again, there is minimal risk in sharing her story and those who knew her are mostly gone as well. But there are the good stories, the deep stories. The ones you really sink your teeth into and come out the other side all exhausted and spent. But, these stories often involve other people who are close to you and who you care about. As I want to share my truth, how much can I share the story of others? As I work to create my own boundaries of what is and is not acceptable, is sharing my truth going to cross my husband’s boundaries or my new found sister’s boundaries? I have a strong desire to write my truth. I know others can relate to my story and learn from my journey. My life is not a Hallmark Channel movie, more like a Lifetime Original. Can you tell your truth at the expense of others? My husband’s grandmother used to write journals. She used those old spiral bound steno notebooks. By the end of her life, she had pile after pile of stories she had written about her life. She was a crazy lady. I have this series of pictures of her and her friends when she was in her 20s—laughing, smoking, and drinking in a park. She evidently ran with the Saginaw mob at times. She was in the psych ward of the hospital when my husband was born, diagnosed as manic depressive, going through shock therapy, and eventually going on lithium. I was dying to get my hands on those notebooks when she passed. I wanted to read her stories, unearth her secrets, and really see her for her. Right before she passed, she purged them all. They were all gone by the time they entered her home to prepare her for burial. All those memories—gone. Her truth was never told. Maybe some truth is too much. To share or not to share is a question no one can answer for you. But, it’s nice to know I have the option to write my truth, in a little notebook, that may just happen to disappear before I die. Cover image: Cathy Lu

(Part 1) America’s entertainment landscape continues to evolve. In the past, Asian/Asian American men typically could not get romantic lead roles in studio-produced Hollywood films. Malaysian-British actor, Henry Golding, changed that with the film "Crazy Rich Asians" (2018) co-starring Constance Wu. "Always Be My Maybe" (2019), starring Ali Wong and Russell Park was another Netflix romantic comedy hit where the leading couple are both Asian American. Hollywood also rarely, if ever, cast an Asian male with a non-Asian female in a leading romantic role. We seem to have turned a corner with that as well. Henry Golding co-starred with Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick in the film "A Simple Favor" (2018). Henry Golding also co-starred with Emilia Clarke in the romantic comedy "Last Christmas" (2019). Chinese-American actor Jimmy O. Yang also co-starred with Nina Dobrev in the romantic comedy "Love Hard" (2021). Twenty-two years ago, in the movie "Romeo Must Die" (2000), which was based on the romantic "Romeo and Juliet" classic, Hong Kong actor Jet Li gives his co-star Aaliyah a hug in the final scene. Today, Asian actors, like Golding and Yang, actually get the girl in the end and kiss her. Critics have also long complained that the “model minority” image is a myth perpetuated by the media. Not all Asians are wealthy and successful. This too is changing as we have begun to see stories of Asian Americans with more varied backgrounds. Actress Awkwafina aka Nora Lum, for example, defies blanket assumptions about Asians with her role in the HBO comedy series "Awkwafina is Nora from Queens" (2020–present). Her character, Nora, didn’t go to college, gets fired from her job, accidentally burns down a friend’s apartment, works at a cannabis dispensary, and lives in a modest, urban home with her dad and quirky grandmother. While a number of releases have been mentioned in this article, there have been many other successful movie, book, music and streaming TV projects that have featured Asians/Asian Americans artists in the past three years. Many more are currently in development and in production. Opportunities have clearly opened up in recent years for Asians and Asian Americans in entertainment.  A few of the many recent “firsts” for Asians in entertainment must be mentioned. Actor Simu Liu is the first Asian Marvel superhero. He plays Shang-Chi in the movie "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" (2021). Bowen Yang is the first full Asian on-air cast member of "Saturday Night Live" hired in 2019. Awkwafina is the first woman of Asian descent (Korean and Chinese) to win a Golden Globe award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for her role in the film "The Farewell" (2019). Chinese-born filmmaker, Chloe Zhao, is the first Asian woman and second woman ever to have won an Academy Award for Best Director for her film "Nomadland" (2020). "Nomadland" also won for Best Picture. Actress Yu-Jung Youn is the first Korean actress to win an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in "Minari" (2020). The previous year, at the 92nd Academy Awards, the South Korean film, "Parasite" (2019), won four awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best International Feature Film. It was the first non-English language film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. Speaking of non-English speaking entertainers, the Korean wave or hallyu, has made a significant impact on American pop culture as well. The Korean streaming TV series "Squid Game," released in 2021, is Netflix’s most-watched series, ranking number one for the most watched show in 94 countries, including the United States. Other milestone “firsts” include those in music. The South Korean K-pop band, BTS, for example, is the first group since The Beatles to have six No. 1 songs on America’s Billboard Hot 100 in just over a year (Aug 2020–Sept 2021). Imagine turning on the radio in Oklahoma City and hearing Suga rap in Korean! BTS has turned the Empire State building in New York their signature purple in 2019; had a McDonald’s meal named after them—the BTS meal in 2021; are regular guests on late night talk shows; were on the cover of Time magazine in 2018 and were named Entertainer of the Year by Time magazine in 2020. They have won countless awards, including many from American cultural institutions—MTV, iHeart Radio, and the Billboard Music Awards. Most recently, they won Artist of the Year, Favorite Pop Group, and Favorite Pop Song at the American Music Awards in 2021. They are nominated for a Grammy in 2022. The fact that BTS first became popular in the United States and worldwide by singing in Korean is another testament to changing times. CNET reporter Roger Cheng, in a July 12, 2021 article, references today’s “golden age” of representation for Asians. When one compares images of “Long Duk Dong” from the movie "Sixteen Candles" to the hysterical American fans screaming saranghae (I love you) to Asian K-Pop and K-Drama actors, it is striking to think how far we’ve come. While there is a lot of hate and self-hate that Asian Americans must deal with, there is also a whole lot of love for the people and culture. Asian America will undoubtedly continue to evolve in new and surprising ways. As mentioned, social media has certainly helped to increase awareness and access to Asian and Asian American artists, musicians, creators, and entertainers. The intimate and personal nature of platforms such as YouTube have also helped to legitimize and humanize minorities who were previously unseen. Changing demographics in the U.S. have also created an environment more receptive to Asian faces on screen and on stage. Darnell Hunt, dean of UCLA’s social sciences division said in an Associated Press article dated October 26, 2021: “People basically want to see the TV shows that look like America, that have characters they can relate to and have experiences that resonate with them.” How Americans look and racially identify will also continue to impact how Asians and Asian Americans are perceived and accepted online, on-screen, and in real life. Interestingly, the fastest growing demographic in the country is multiracial people. According to U.S. census data, in ten years, there was a 276% increase in multiracial people—from 9 million in 2010 to 33.8 million people in 2020. That equates to roughly 1 in 10 Americans now identifying as being of two or more races. A Washington Post article dated October 8, 2021, quotes Richard Alba, demographer and professor of sociology at the City University of New York: “The mixing of all sorts [of races] is really a new force in 21st-century America…. We’re talking about a big, powerful phenomenon.” U.S. Census data showed that from 2010 to 2020, the population of specifically multiracial Asians grew faster (55% increase) than the Asian alone population (35.5% increase). In 2020, there were close to 5 million Americans who identified as Asian American or Pacific Islander in combination with another race group. When 1 out of every 5 AAPIs is mixed race, that will certainly affect social/cultural perceptions and behaviors within and outside the AAPI psyche. The influence of these demographic changes can be seen on social media. Some of the biggest and most popular, most watched YouTubers are of mixed race—Alex Burriss (Filipino and white) with 11.5 million subscribers; Liza Koshy (South Asian and German) with 17.5 million subscribers; and Lauren Riihimaki (Japanese and Finnish/Ukrainian) with 8.6 million subscribers. Recently trending are also the highly watched channels of members of a new creator house in New York City called “urmom’s house.” The roommates include Korean American Elliot Choy and three American biracial Asians—Kelly Wakasa (Japanese and German), Ann Marie Chase (Korean and Finnish/German), and Ashley Alexander (Korean and British/French). Their videos also include people in their circles—an ex, siblings, and friends of the group—who are also multiracial Asian. The talk is that these fun-loving roommates are “the modern day ‘Friends.’” In their videos, the creators are high energy, entertaining, and funny. There’s even a possible Rachel-Ross love dynamic developing.They comment how well they relate to each other, how they’re like a family and feel at home with each other. Multiracial Asian Americans have their own distinct experiences and common identities and may not fit traditional Asian stereotypes. The rapid expansion of this particular Asian American demographic has spawned terms on social media, such as “Blasian” (Black and Asian) and “Waysian” (white and Asian). It has also led to the creation of online community groups like r/hapas on Reddit, tags on social media, and the growth of multiracial student clubs on college campuses. The growing trend of multiracial Asians dating other multiracial Asians as seen in media and offline is also an emerging social dynamic. Rather than trying to blend in to either race, multiracial people are taking pride and ownership of their own unique communities. Life for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders hasn’t been easy, but the experiences and identities of the group have continued to develop in unique and positive ways. Today, it is more plausible than ever to become all that you can be—in any field. Courageous Asian Americans have been reaching new milestones; they are achieving many “firsts” and inspiring others to reach for the stars. Cathy Park Hong writes in her book, "Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning": “I like to think that the self-hating Asian is on its way out.” Hopefully the kind of extreme self-hate and subsequent Asian repulsion for other Asians, as Hong describes, will be diminished given the increasing prevalence and popularity of relatable, well-rounded Asians/Asian Americans in film, TV, music, books, and social media. Of course, the world is not without challenges; but each day is a new opportunity to move past all the haters, go after your dreams—in a way that’s authentic and on your own terms—and make them a reality. America is waiting. Cover photo: Joseph Gonzalez; @prettysleep1; HiveBoxx