The Korean Nationality Act Article 12 states: “Any national of the Republic of Korea who falls under one of the following subparagraphs shall lose his or her nationality (1948-presently Art. 15)" 2. A person who has been adopted by an alien and has acquired the parent’s nationality… — Korean Nationality Act Article 12 I was adopted in 1984 from South Korea, and according to this Nationality Act, I should have lost my Korean nationality when I was naturalized as an American citizen on December 5, 1989 through my adoptive parents in the USA. As a result of my paternity suit that I won in June 2020, I have gained the right to be legally recognized as my biological Korean father’s daughter and put on his family register. However, in processing this registration as a foreign citizen, I found out that my Korean nationality was never expunged. Furthermore, since I’m not interested at this moment in becoming a Korean citizen, I had to prove that I was indeed naturalized so that Holt could expunge my Korean nationality. I’m apparently still a Korean national, which means this process was never followed up on after my adoption was finalized with Holt back in 1984. If it had been, you could also conclude that there wouldn’t be a single adoptee from South Korea out there without citizenship in their adoptive country. If government institutions had mandated that adoption agencies expunge every finalized adoptees’ Korean nationality, then they would have had to confirm that the process of naturalization was completed by sending a naturalization certificate to their adoption agency, just as I recently did. However, once we were adopted out the final checks were not in place and that is the reason why there are an estimated 26,000 Korean adoptees currently without citizenship in the U.S. alone. Furthermore I recently learned via a lecture given by Professor Kyung-eun Lee (Ph.D. in law) hosted by KoRoot in Seoul (a non-profit organization that fights for Korean adoptees’ legal rights to origin while also hosting visiting adoptees in their guesthouse), that when adoption started in Korea (1955) after the Korean War it was actually illegal to relinquish your child. So, in order to combat local law and follow international requirements for adoption, they circumvented them by creating “abandoned” children. Even if a family member physically relinquished their child to an adoption agency, they would fabricate a story to comply with local laws and international standards. Hence, the reason why so many of us were “found on the doorsteps of…” or “in a parking lot,” “at a train station,” etc. If a child was labeled as “abandoned,” then a new family register was created in order to easily process the paperwork for adoption. I’ve encountered so many adoptees who, post-reunion, have found out that even though their paperwork from their adoption agency states that they were “found”; in actuality their parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles, etc had actually physically relinquished them at the adoption agency. One of the two recent cases where I’ve had the privilege of helping find the adoptee for their birth families matched this exact story. A year ago, one of my good Korean friends after hearing my story, had reached out about how her mother had been searching for four years for her sister who had been adopted back in 1973 at 3 years of age. Four years ago, my friend’s mom had found her half-sister when the adoptee had come searching for her birth family. Sadly, after meeting, the family found out that she was actually the half-sister instead of the biological sister they had been searching for. The backstory is that my friend’s grandfather had two wives. Apparently, in Korea in the '70s/early '80s it wasn’t unheard of to have what Korean’s call a “big house wife” and a “little house wife,” or in other terms a first and second wife. When they found themselves in financial difficulties, each wife gave up their youngest daughter (3 years old) for adoption. The mothers physically went to Korean Social Services (KSS), an adoption agency in Seoul, and put their daughters up for adoption. Sadly, when the adoptee had returned searching for her family, her mother (second wife), had already passed away and my friend’s mom realized that it was her half-sister due to a burn mark on her stomach. What this means is that KSS had mistakenly switched their files during the adoption process and had labeled both of them as being “abandoned.” After the meeting, my friend’s mom kept returning to KSS asking them to find the other sister, but their response was always “we emailed them but have not received a response.” Last year, when we met I introduced them to the possibility of DNA testing and they took a test I gave them through 325KAMRA (a non-profit whose aim is reuniting families through DNA) in the hopes that they would find her this way. Unfortunately, there weren’t any matches. When I was in Korea for my trial in June, I met her mother for lunch, as she wanted to meet her daughter’s friend, but came also with the hopes that I could help her find her sister. She brought pictures that she carried around with her everyday, and shared that her sister was adopted through KSS in Korea and LSS (Lutheran Social Services) in the States to Minnesota. She shed heartfelt tears during the lunch expressing her sadness due to her age and how long she had been searching without any success. I promised at this lunch to do what I could. After returning home, I reached out to Minnesota adoptee groups and posted on Facebook groups asking with the adoptee’s details if anyone was my friend’s aunt. I also reached out to LSS via email (posing as my friend’s mother during all correspondence) and phone but initially, there wasn’t a response from either outlet. Surprisingly, after two weeks, I received an email from LSS willing to help me if I verified through KSS in Korea all the information I had shared in the email with this social worker. After KSS did this, they started searching and within one month they found her. It took another two months for her to respond after sending a few emails in between and the last one with urgency, detailing the rapid health decline of her birth mother. The adoptee never realized her family could possibly be searching for her as her file said she was “abandoned on a street corner,” and needed time to process this all with her family. However, after receiving this urgent notification, the adoptee responded directly to my friend and four months later adoptee, mother, and sister/family have been reunited virtually, and she is currently quarantining in Korea waiting to meet her mother and family in person. Four months…. The second case is with a birth mom who had been searching for three years. She had been spreading her search quest via social media and asking any person she met to help find her daughter. A friend of hers reached out to me after I had participated in an adoptee discussion panel regarding my lawsuit shortly after I returned from Korea in June. She requested my help, as the U.S. adoption agency where her daughter was adopted through was coincidentally the same as mine—Bethany Christian Services in Michigan. I followed the same steps as I did with LSS, sending emails posing as the birth mother begging for them to do their utmost to search for her, and within three months her daughter was found and has received the letter her birth mom wrote her. The adoptee had no idea that her birth mom was or could be searching for her, and is quite shocked by it all. She needs time to respond, so the birth mother is anxiously waiting. Three months…. Why is the search process so difficult? Even for birth families? Why isn’t there a sense of urgency or empathy from agencies and government institutions in the importance of this to adoptees and first families? Father: No Record Mother: No Record Need for protection: Abandoned Child When/If an adoptee gains access to their file from their adoptive parents or adoption agency, seeing these words above, immediately has a discouraging effect on an adoptee’s inkling to search for their birth family. When strangers ask us as we get older, “Don’t you want to find your birth family?” they cannot possibly comprehend how weighted a question like that is, when we constantly hold “abandoned” in the back of our minds. Since Korea used “abandoned” as a legal way to bypass local laws to accommodate international laws, it created for us adoptees a lie that we carry with us our entire lives. Just as it was unknown to my friend’s aunt and most likely the other adoptee that they were never “abandoned,” it was also probably the reason why they never searched themselves for their birth families. It was the reason why I never searched for my birth family until four years ago. I believed fully in the “lie” used by the Korean government and agencies to cover up relinquishments, that I was “abandoned”; and therefore, could never find my birth family even if I had any urge to do so. However, with the development of DNA testing the whole ball game has changed. Access to DNA has pushed a door wide open that government institutions and adoption agencies could never have imagined. Adoptees are finding out the truth behind their “abandonment,” and in the majority of cases we are finding that we were never abandoned. Governments need to take responsibility for their creation of these lies, and one step in doing so is to give adoptees their legal right to origin, opening up records completely, and allowing direct contact between birth families and adoptees. Only then, can there ever be forgiveness and peace found in the trauma of inter-country adoption that was founded on a lie. During the 2012 Paris gathering of Korean adoptees, Le Monde (a French newspaper) did a special feature about this gathering and sums up a portion of this struggle quite accurately: “The Problem, it’s not having been adopted, but having been abandoned.” There are certain cases of adoption that were what some may consider out of necessity, but the fact that the government allowed us to be legally registered as being “abandoned” allotted for the continuous turmoil many of us who search for our identities later in life face. As a result of this label, the search is painful, defeating, tiresome, degrading, and many of us give up. To the Korean government I would say: “I urge you to give us our legal right to origin, restore justice for us who were never ‘abandoned’ and want to know who our families are.” To fellow adoptees I say: “I urge you to never give up and fight for your right to know!”

Looking around and you’re all different from me. “You look like your Mom, you got your dad’s teeth.” My parents are white, but I’m not the same. Feel so alone and I feel so ashamed. I got love, friends, and a roof over my head. I should be grateful and happy, but simply instead, I feel left out, there’s no one like me! Too Asian for the whites but still not Asian enough, Hold back these emotions though, I need to be tough. Words of affirmation but lacking affiliation, I don’t know who I am. Damn. “You’re cute for an Asian dude or go back to where you’re from,” Backhanded comments beat me like a drum. Racist faces behind welcoming eyes, Ignorance is bliss but it shouldn’t be a disguise. Come on, guys. I took this stuff and I just shoved it to the side, Kept pressing on, because there’s nowhere to hide. I reflect. I’m blessed. I grew up better than the rest, I digress, “Hey! You better do good on that math test! Asians are smart, you guys are good in school.” Maybe I wanted to be “less Asian,” and be more “cool.” You see the problem here? You see what’s lacking? Culture and education simply ain’t happening. But that isn’t the point folks, that’s not what these words are for, I write these things down to open the door, to love and acceptance, and a welcoming presence. Times are crazy right now, the world is askew, But maybe, just maybe guys, this is our cue. To be better than before and to rise above hate, And maybe, just maybe guys, we really can be great. To that little boy or girl that faces that opposition, rise above it and be strong, you’ll end up better than the competition. Learn to accept you’re different and to love your background. You’ll find yourself, your identity, and remove all doubt. You. are. you, not because of where you’re from, or where you ended up, To all my people out there you. are. you. That’s where it ends. And that is enough. Looking around and you’re all different from me. That’s just fine, I love who I am, where I came from, and now I’m free. Jacob Soltysiak loves to spend time with his beautiful family, play baseball, and help be a voice to all adoptees that have felt or still feel as I do. He has been inspired and will continue to work on interesting ways to help express what so many others feel.

On a dreary, rainy day ten years ago, I begged my grandmother to teach me her recipe for dumplings. It’s a dumpling I was most familiar with at home, rarely spying it at even San Francisco’s sprawl of dim sum shops and restaurants. The closest I could find was at one Clement Street hole-in-the-wall. The fried pockets reliably waited on the second shelf closest to the door—an aluminum tray next to the wispy taro-shrimp dumplings, but above the mountain of potstickers and rolling fields of dried shrimp cheung fun. My grandmother’s iteration was steamed, with a translucent, chewy skin, but the savory, salty fillings were otherwise similar. This occasion felt momentous since my grandmother stopped cooking after her Alzheimer’s diagnosis and after the death of my grandfather. My grandmother’s memory, at that point, had already rapidly begun slipping away. My grandmother collected the bits and pieces of ingredients in neat rows on the cutting board. Seeing how little my grandmother grasped of each ingredient was a reminder that she could manifest something so wonderful out of the smallest things; like the time at a banquet meal she folded an entire fried flounder into a rigid takeout box and I was convinced that she was secretly a magician. Like so many Depression-era immigrants, she found a way to get by on so little, and wasted nothing. As my grandmother seasoned the filling for the dumplings, I couldn’t pinpoint how then, but I knew by smell that it was familiar. When the raw filling mixture sizzled in the hot oil of the wok, she dabbed in oyster sauce and tossed the mixture around. She passed me a spoon to taste the cooked filling. It was just like I remembered. My grandmother then dumped wheat starch and boiled water into a mixing bowl for the dumpling wrappers. She didn’t really measure, she just felt when it was right. She had a skill I only dreamed I could have—that knowledge of feel after cooking something undoubtedly dozens, if not hundreds, of times. After approving the texture of the dough, my grandmother proceeded to form the dumplings—each dough ball pressed to a flat round with a tortilla press, a few teaspoons of meat slapped into the center, then crimped with the precision of three folds to seal the pockets of filling. Her hands—with nearly 90 years of life whipping through the folds—just did. Alzheimer’s Disease is a thief that decides whether my grandmother remembers if she had porridge for breakfast or if she went for a walk already. She had undoubtedly prepared these dumplings hundreds of times. For what she couldn’t remember in the present, her body could remember in the past. Since that initial lesson ten years ago, I’ve only attempted the dumplings a handful of times. I would make the filling but avoid the dough. I even avoided the dough long after finishing culinary school and working in professional kitchens, for fear that my abilities would never match my grandmother’s. The bag of the wheat starch I stowed away for a rainy day trial and error activity got long forgotten in the pantry. Often, I would instead rely on that one dim sum shop to satiate my craving for these particular dumplings. A theme I have returned to during this shelter-in-place is: just start. Propelled by a newfound bravery, I decided to try my hand at the dumpling dough one day. With my kitchen scale handy, I dumped a cup of wheat starch in a mixing bowl, and added boiled water until it felt like the dough was coming together. Forming the dumplings, I could tell something wasn’t quite right about the dough. But I pressed on, fumbling my fingers through some awkward pleats. As I clumsily formed and sealed these dumplings, I ached to visit my grandmother. I recognized how 80 years ago this month she first arrived in the United States. Immigration was less about courage and bravery than it was an imperative of survival. I sighed about the challenges my family has grappled with her inevitable declining health, especially with the silent sadness of her Alzheimer’s Disease. So much of my reluctance to make these dumplings meant conjuring a memory of who she was prior to her lesson with me, prior to her disease. I longed to perform even a fraction of my grandmother’s muscle memory. She defied all trust and reliance I had on proper measurements and weights and precision, the tangibles I claimed were holding me back. I raged against the constant pursuit of perfection, especially for Asian-Americans under the thumb of the model minority construct. I realized how that pressure—even on an otherwise therapeutic task like making dumplings—was in fact its own sort of sabotage. This notion that I should intuitively cook based on heritage and cultural assumption was fatal. In all honesty, the only thing I needed to do was just start. No, the dumplings weren’t Instagram-perfect, but they tasted just fine. Diann Leo-Omine was born and raised in San Francisco (Ohlone land). She now resides in the North Central Valley (Nisenan land), between the expanse of ocean but before the ascent of mountains. Her writing is influenced by her experiences on the trails and professional kitchens. Follow more of her musings on Substack and Instagram.

The Field She has such a way with words Everything just rolls off the tongue She sits outside in a field of grass So bold, so beautiful, so young Everyday is just the same She sits alone in field of green What to draw or what to write She needs to let her mind take flight Back outside to the field of dreams A boy her age, only seventeen They sit and share ideas of their own She has found a new friend with whom to share her home Social Media A picture is a memory A moment for anyone to see It’s for likes, and follows, reposts Make it nice, pleasing, aesthetically Social media now has complete control It clouds our minds, our judgement, and soul When in time will this horrific reign of terror end To save ourselves, our families, as well as our friends There’s no end and this nightmare is what we’ve become But this could be good, we could spread joy, peace, and love Maybe this way, somehow, if all came together and join as one Lauren is a regular contributor for The Universal Asian. To learn more about her, check out her Contributor’s Page here. Cover photo credit: Thought Catalog

New York, New York Walking down the crowded streets The rush of the people, the city beats All around the people chatter All around, construction clatter. New York, I love you With your beauty and lights Despite all your sins and secrets at night Broadway classics and new shows about Singing and dancing and laughing aloud Never does the city sleep Not for student, nor actor, yet they all follow dreams A Book A book. What is a book? When in school, it’s a nuisance. When not, it’s a treasure When compared to reality, it comes as a pleasure Little thin pages making a pile The hundreds of pages, well worth the while It takes you to a far off land That only you create, only you can understand The fantasy place is yours in your mind Until the book ends, where your land gets lost in time But a well written story is never truly gone The sequel is here, and it is a new dawn Raindrops One on my hand, one on my face Curiously, I gaze towards outer space People rush, hurry into shops Avoid getting hit by all the raindrops A little spritz,a little rain A little downpour, a little game Down a window two raindrops flow “Mine will win!” She shouts “Maybe so” Soon enough the rain near stops All that’s left are little raindrops Lauren Kofalt is her adopted name, but she’s taken back her birth name of Zhu Ling Jin as of the past few months. She was adopted from China at age one and is currently in the United States. Zhu Ling Jin has been writing poetry since she was little and has always had a passion for it. She is currently attending Penn State University and is happy to share her poetry with our Universal Asian community!

The best action we can take to honor Breonna Taylor is to vote. The best action we can take to honor George Floyd, and so many other murdered Black lives, is to vote. To the person who removed the “Black” from the “lives matter” and “Defund the” from the “police” etchings on the local tree: How do we have a discussion on systemic racism if you wordlessly eliminate the parts of the equation that matter? At least, we can agree on love. But mere “love” will never bring Breonna Taylor back. Justice has not been served. Diann Leo-Omine was born and raised in San Francisco (Ohlone land). She now resides in the North Central Valley (Nisenan land), between the expanse of ocean but before the ascent of mountains. Her writing is influenced by her experiences on the trails and professional kitchens. Follow more of her musings on Substack and Instagram.

Most adoptees, at least in my experience, are adopted into Christian homes. I put an emphasis on this as “Christian” is interpreted in many different ways depending on the religion one follows and how deeply-rooted the parents are in their beliefs. I was raised in and adopted to the U.S. Midwest­—Michigan to be more precise. My father worked and my mother was a stay-at-home wife, as many were in the generation and region I was raised in. I was raised Baptist, and we went to the local Baptist church close to our home. Our social circles outside of school were primarily, if not exclusively, related to our church. I became a Christian when I was 13 years old. Before this period, I went through the motions of what my family seemed to approve of, but never made the decisive decision myself until the brink of my teenage years. God became a symbol of someone who would never abandon me, loved me no matter who I was, and was a source of joy founded not in the moment, but deep within myself. With this kind of foundation, my life as a teenager and young adult were filled with certainty. I didn’t question God or my faith, as I knew who God was to me, and that was all that was important. Because of my faith, I was able to focus on always moving forward and the bright future that was laid out before me. I was a relatively smart student, and was very focused on my studies as I always had a desire to accomplish more than what my small town of Plainwell, Michigan seemed to offer. I knew that the world was bigger than the world I was living in, and that there were more adventures to be had. In my mind, the only way to pursue these things was to get a high-paying job that would then afford me the opportunities to travel and see what was out there. I remained strong in my faith and never questioned who God was in my life. I knew He rescued me from far worse, as I was often told this, and any inkling of curiosity regarding my birth mother was stifled quite quickly with the realization that the past was the past, and I had only the future to look forward to. Being an adoptee wasn’t relevant to who I was at this point, and being a transracial adoptee was even more irrelevant. I was Kara Bedell, an American. I didn’t see color, and continued chasing after the dream of becoming anything I wanted to be as long as I worked hard to achieve it. This is the dream that is promised to every immigrant that overcomes the hurdles of entering the USA, as it’s what continues to make America so special in the eyes of the outside world. My university years didn’t differ from my high school ones in regards to who I surrounded myself with in relation to race or like-minded individuals. I never sought out diversity as many adoptees do at university, as it didn’t occur to me that I was ethnically different as well. I truly saw myself as Caucasian as those I hung out with, and never diverged from that path. I majored in business, as I thought this would offer me the most access to the outside world, and would allow me to make the most money. I minored in Japanese, but not because I wanted to know more about Asia–as you the reader may be thinking. Instead, it was based on practical reasons. I come from Michigan where the auto industry is prevalent, and so I foresaw more opportunity to work for General Motors, or even Toyota, if I could be bilingual. However, being bilingual is no small feat, and with only a minor at university, I wasn’t adept enough even though my ambitious mind had thought two years was a realistic goal. Upon graduating with honors, I managed, even during a recession, to immediately land my first job with Nestle. My career had begun. Thoughts of my adoption and who my birth mother was never crossed my mind. I could only think of whom I might marry, which was the next phase in the rat race of society. Fast-forward to today… I’m almost 39 (at least I think so, my date of birth is still unknown). I have had a successful career in pharmaceuticals, am the founder and owner of a business. I travel the world. I’m happily married with two children, and live in Amsterdam, Netherlands. A lot of the dreams of my youth have been fulfilled. I’m still a Christian, and have a relationship with God. However, I no longer view myself as part of the white racial majority and recognize what it means to be a transracial adoptee. I know I’m American, but I’m also Korean. Those questions that were stifled and never given the room to be asked, I’m now asking: “Who is my mother?” “Why was I put up for adoption?” “What does it mean to be Korean?” “How do I assimilate these new identities of now being Korean but not really Korean, being Dutch but not really Dutch, and being American but also not feeling very American after having lived more than 10 years outside of America?” I’m confronting my past, and no longer believe that God desires us to leave the past there. How God fits into my adoption story has been a difficult journey that I’m still struggling with. Just as with many social injustices around the world, religion has been the banner flown to rally people to act in the most hideous ways. Think of the Holy Wars, the countless wars between Protestants and Catholics in Europe, domestic and international terrorist attacks done in the name of religion and continuous conflicts with radical Islamists, and adoption. “What? How can adoption be on the same list as wars and terrorist attacks?” Being confronted with this truth makes many people uncomfortable, as adoption has been neatly packaged and sold under the slick marketing skills that: “Poor impoverished children are being saved, and without the West’s help, these poor children would meet far worse ends.” This notion then becomes a duty or even a “calling in the name of God to rescue these children.” However, as more and more adoptees are coming forward with the blatant truth and evidence of falsified records, illegal adoptions, baby farms, stolen children, lost children, embryo farms, and the list goes on...shouldn’t we question this quest that has been countlessly sold as being God’s work? Shouldn’t those of us who identify as Christians take a more proactive approach in protecting these children, single mothers, and families from being torn apart? Shouldn’t we, as a society, call on governments to prosecute and change this malfunctioning process of adoption if it’s creating so much corruption? Magdalene laundries were designed by the Catholic Church and the Irish state to hide away the delinquents and people who didn’t conform to the identity of being Irish at the time. Many of these delinquents were “fallen women”—those who had children out of wedlock. The mothers were then kept on to “work” as slave labor at these laundries as penitence for their sinful behavior; some for the rest of their adult lives. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child filed an inquiry after a mass grave of children was found in 1993 on the grounds of a former convent in Dublin. Even after this atrocity was discovered, it took another 20 years before the Prime Minister finally apologized; therefore, taking responsibility and admitting to Ireland’s dark past. Many victims are still awaiting compensation for the crimes committed against them. It’s estimated that around 2,000 children were illegally adopted to the U.S. during some of these years. How many more children in Ireland under the banner of the Catholic Church were killed, stolen, and sold during these 70-odd years without censorship? How many lives continue to be affected by the lies and loss of identity? And this is only in one country…. Shortly after the trial, my father kept asking me if I found my peace by fighting for this injustice so publicly. He does not approve of my methods, and thought it should have been handled behind closed doors or with the use of a private detective. One should note that the use of private detectives is illegal in Korea, and if I could have done any of this behind closed doors it would have been done. “Peace,” by definition in a social sense, usually means a lack of conflict and freedom from violence between individuals or groups. My answer to my father, and to anyone who asks this question, is “No” because there isn’t a lack of violence happening between my biological family and myself. There isn’t a lack of violence happening to the millions of adoptees out there without access to their files, families, and identities. Violence isn’t always physical; although, initially, for adoptees, it was since we were torn away from our first families and all links were severed. Even if our first families consensually chose to physically give us up for adoption, emotional violence occurred in that trauma that allowed these events to happen. Emotional violence continues to occur around the globe. It singles out unwed mothers, poverty-stricken population groups, and disaster-torn countries where children are labeled as abandoned even though they may be accidentally separated due to natural or man-made disasters such as war. As stated by the United Nations in the Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 8: 1. States Parties undertake to respect the right of the child to preserve his or her identity, including nationality, name and family relations as recognized by law without unlawful interference. 2. Where a child is illegally deprived of some or all of the elements of his or her identity, States Parties shall provide appropriate assistance and protection, with a view to re-establishing speedily his or her identity. Until legal rights to preserve identity are restored to adoptees, and State Parties take responsibility, and provide appropriate assistance and protection to adoptees, this peace can, and will, never be achieved. Christians will argue that if you just give your burdens or troubles to God then He will give you peace. My father argues this. I argue that God is a demander of justice, and that peace is not attained in this simple way. The justice of God is an essential part of His character, and in the Bible, Micah 6:8 confirms this: “He has told you, O man; what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” Peace is attained by not only giving your trauma or pain to God, but also doing justice; and in my case pursuing restorative justice for adoptees in giving us the right to know and reach out to our birth families, if desired, and the right to know our origins. Recent events in American politics with the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court has once again brought racism, along with adoption, under heavy public criticism. The right wing is praising the choice, and in their minds Democrats and Liberals don’t have a leg to stand on as she’s a woman who has two black Haitian children in her family; thereby, "proving” her not to be racist. However, the left is firing back by questioning the legality of her adopted Haitian children and the idea that just because she has children of color doesn’t mean she isn’t a racist. I do not know her, and feel that any person’s story is personal and their own. I recognize that there will always be criticism as a public figure in the media, and I am not interested in criticizing her personal choices. However, I do want to criticize the general public’s thought-process. As a transracial adoptee, I would say: “Yes, adoptive parents can definitely be racist even if they have children of color; just as any person can be racist if they don’t actively educate themselves not to be.” She may have educated herself and proactively encouraging her adopted Haitian children to get to know their roots and culture, and may be making these things easily accessible to them, so that they can maintain their Haitian identities as much as possible in the States. Or, just as I was not seen as a person of color in my family, her children may be being raised in a similar manner. When I was adopted in the 1980s, my parents were told to “raise me as an American, and forget about Korea.” I don’t fault them for their incognizance, which was due to the advice given by adoption agencies and social workers at that time. I’m an embodiment of this “advice.” However, later in life recognizing that I lost my Korean identity, just as the majority of adoptees have, has changed my skin color and my reflection in the mirror. I now see a person of color, and I do not despise the almond shape of my eyes, the color of my skin and hair, or want to be anything other than Korean. I am Korean, I am American, and I am now Dutch. These are my nationalities, but I choose to see color, and appreciate it in all of its beauty. Just as my lawsuit was representative of “a girl looking for her mother,” adoptees search journeys are “lost children looking for their lost identities.” Can governments and institutions get beyond the red tape and see this as well? Just as a beautiful lotus flower grows in muddy water but rises above to pristinely bloom above the water without being tainted by the mud, I hope we, as humankind, also rise above the muck of ignorance and become more enlightened to the truth of color and justice. But, until then, I will continue to “do justice” and see color. I hope that you will join me.

Too broken to be fixed Too loved to stop fighting Too tired to keep struggling Too dark to feel the green warmth of pulsating peace Too determined to give up Too hurt to feel pain Too many demons bound restless Too loose the threads that bind them Too insidious the flame dancing Too crowded the violent calls Too angry the scars Too fresh the open wounds with crimson cackles mocking Too dangerous to be ignored Too familiar with chaos Too volatile for testing Too contagious to continue even in quarantine Too confused to be lost Too many disappointments to be hopeful Too fast the seconds Too turbulent the heartbeat that only knows forward Too telling the lies Too fitting the masks To ever be naked To ever be Brian Krebs is a Korean American adoptee living in Manhattan. If the way we spend our moments reflects who we are, he is a lover, entrepreneur, poet, reader, sleeper, activist, eater, and traveler. He’s also spent significant time as a student, drop out, inmate, mental health patient, and mental health advocate. If you missed Brian’s previous poem "Walls," check it out here! Cover photo credit: Noah Silliman

“One of the basic rules of the universe is that nothing is perfect. Perfection simply doesn’t exist… Without imperfection, neither you nor I would exist.” — Stephen J. Hawking Abstraction, metaphors, and visual symbols are the tools I use to both understand the world and articulate that understanding. Informed by patterns found in nature, my visual vocabulary has developed over the years. It is natural that Abstraction may be difficult for viewers to relate to. Viewers often do not have a reference for an artist’s unique visual language. When viewing abstract work, one is often attempting to read a foreign language—a unique visual language that needs translating and one that requires time. Self-portrait Early on in my work I imagined identity, not as a visual representation, but rather as a lived experience. Being a Korean-American adoptee often means being initially perceived within a limited understanding of my race. I think that many minorities in the United States can relate to this experience. What do you see, when you see me? Never just a woman, but always an Asian woman, and with that whatever you, the viewer, have discovered, understood, or assumed an Asian woman to be. Self-representation is always more complex than a face in the mirror. I am a mix of the diverse white cultures I was raised in and the experiences I have encountered throughout the course of my life. Being an imported American and raised in a transracial family within a predominantly white Western society has played a key role in how I define myself in relation to society. Like many minorities, many of my choices are filtered through my understanding of the predominant culture and how that culture perceives me. Yet the problem of defining my own culture becomes a necessary and unique challenge. Interracial adoptees often cannot find racial or ethnic identity with their white Western family. Some may choose to see themselves as defined by their adopted family’s culture, or they can look to their country of origin as a home base affirming their racial identity. I have learned that culture is much more fluid and subtle than that. As an artist, I have always felt the need to explore all the possibilities, and then create my own way, and my work reflects this practice. My art has always been my cipher and my solace. And so, my self-portrait represents an amalgam of experiences and stories embodied by ornamental organisms, clustered together like coral around what once was a flower. Peacock Poppycock When we are most daring, when we feel our true selves we are covered in pomp and the feathers of our accomplishments. Wallflower Women and artists are both seen and judged by the public eye. Sometimes harsh, sometimes loving, and sometimes predatory, yet we put ourselves on the wall because to be seen is the first step into the arena. Alien in an Easter Bonnet Taken from my first Easter photo in the United States, this silhouette begins the reshaping of my story. Like a cute little “doll” or a “charity trophy,” I was a prop in my adopted mother’s story. The moth upon seeing her reflection in the lamplight After having children of my own and tending to the multitude of transformations that motherhood demanded I wondered and questioned the pursuit of my desires. Would the changes be beautiful or disastrous? What had I become? A.D. Herzel is an Asian-American artist and writer who has shared her work nationally and internationally. You may learn more about her and her work by following her on social media and visiting her website. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pseudopompou FB: https://www.facebook.com/PseudoPompous Website: https://www.pseudopompous.com Medium: https://medium.com/@pseudopompous

My passion stems from promoting equity, advocating for underrepresented communities, and continuing to explore brain-based relationships involving perception. Transracial adoptees are the paradigm for walking, talking contradictions, which provides us with the power to forge our own journey and create a pathway for others, despite what society believes. However, there are real-life repercussions of transracial adoption, such as being outcast by Asian and white communities. Most transracial adoptees are adopted by white families due to the institutional racism that places generational wealth into the hands of white people. Many do not have the opportunity to reconnect with their culture until they develop critical thinking skills, gain multicultural exposure, and secure an empathetic support system. We are often reduced to objects, and our ethnic identities are stripped off like a band-aid on an open wound where white families can praise how lucky we are or exotify our identities, leaving the open wounds still unhealed. Thankfully, I was raised in a diverse city, but I constantly question the mental health, identity development, and constant invalidation that transracial adoptees raised in rural, white neighborhoods experience. Being adopted by a white family forces the adoptee, who is in the role of the token child, to raise otherwise undiscussed topics of race and discrimination to “colorblind” family members. This helps explain why many adoptees, including myself, are diagnosed with anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder. Every adoptee’s experience is different, whether it’s immersing themselves into their heritage, having indifferent feelings towards their background, or showing racism towards their own racial identity depending on the environment and community they were raised within. I was adopted from Yueyang, China at 18 months old by an Irish-American family. My family provided unconditional love and support, financial stability, and a childhood I am eternally grateful for. My small, predominantly white neighborhood was a privileged environment where I didn’t yet understand the complexities of racism. Families knew I was adopted, and I felt comfortable being surrounded by a white community then. It wasn’t until middle and high school where I connected with various cultures and ethnicities, and in university that I truly began to dissect my dynamic and ever-changing relationship with racial identity. As humans, it is important to acknowledge, reflect, and applaud the progress that we make, and this need is especially critical for transracial adoptees, given that we face constant invalidation. My journey began from the constant void I felt during my time enrolled in university. I felt isolated from my family, hadn’t healed from my adoptive mother’s death, and couldn’t forge relationships, even though I was surrounded by students my age. I felt alienated from my white friends, because they did not understand the struggles minorities faced, yet embarrassed and frustrated with my minority friends because of the lack of empathy for navigating two identities from multiple perspectives while they did not consider mine. That time of my life was filled with despair, hysteria, depression, and substance misuse from knowing something was missing and being microscopically close to understanding; yet there was a barrier blocking my path to redemption. I couldn’t escape the constant reminders of society ingraining adopted children with the notion that we’re not loved and the deeper sense of isolation of being constantly surrounded by others and yet feeling that no one is truly there. One day, a Ph.D. student emailed a survey studying microaggressions, familial pressure, self-identification, and multiculturalism on campus to students who self-identified as Asian nationals and Asian-Americans in their university records. The majority of transracial and trans-ethnic adoptees experience the imposter syndrome when self-identifying as “Asian” on census forms. We are not culturally Asian, but still experience racism and discrimination. This question that usually caused me anxiety and confusion led me on a path to finding my community. The Ph.D. student and I discussed microaggressions, the sense of belonging, and the lack of cultural diversity on campus. I even shared that although exotification is dehumanizing, I partially enjoyed the attention. It was refreshing to gain new perspectives, share similar experiences, and understand that my complicated relationship with exotification may be due to my lack of cultural connection. Being exotified was one of the ways I finally felt connected to my Asian identity. An expected 15-minute interaction lasted for two hours, and I finally felt inspired and motivated to search for other adoptees and begin my journey to finding myself… My name is Brianna Clancey, and I was adopted at 18 months old from Yueyang, China. I have never returned to China, but that is the top destination on my travel list! I love being engulfed in nature, painting, learning new things, and studying brain and neural pathways involved in preconceived contradictions. I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in May 2020 with degrees in Psychology and Criminology, and I hope to pursue a career in cognitive sciences with a specialty in transracial and transethnic adoptees to the provide developmental support I hadn’t received. Please feel free to reach out, I love connecting with other adoptees!

BLM just celebrated its seven-year anniversary. In reflecting on the movement to date, BLM co-founder and executive director Patrisse Cullors wrote: “Our community has created the largest, most diverse civil and human rights movement in the history of both our country and our world.” Yes! There is much to be proud of. However, there have also been missteps. Cullors goes on to mention some in her article. I’m here to discuss some within the Asian-American community. It all started with a colleague who was growing increasingly frustrated with Asian Americans who seem to believe that honoring our own community’s experiences with oppression under the white establishment somehow detracts from BLM—particularly because, some say, our history “isn’t as bad” as the African American experience: the “they’ve had it worse” argument. This is nonsensical to me. First of all, atrocities cannot be categorized into superlatives; there is no “bad, worse, or worst” atrociousness. Both the African American and Asian American communities have suffered at the hands of whites; our early histories have more similarities than people often realize. Second, as the Chinese-American writer Minna states in her Shrimp Chips blog: “We would never expect Black folks to ‘sacrifice’ their own histories in order to support [the] Asian struggle, and we shouldn’t expect that of ourselves for other groups either.” I agree. Honoring our own histories does not detract from BLM; voicing our unique struggles does not disrespect it. On the contrary, acknowledging the tragic parts of our history, as well as the ways millions of Asians continue to be oppressed under pro-white policies and norms, helps to inform BLM. Our stories, their stories (and the stories of all people of color) lend power to the continuing civil rights movement and help to strengthen it overall. BUT WHICH STORIES? WHOSE VOICES? “What Asian American story?” you might ask. Well, this is where things get a little dicey. In textbook form, Asian American history usually starts in the late 1800s with the exploitation of Chinese immigrant workers on the construction of the transcontinental railroad. At the same time, Japanese immigrants were working on sugar cane fields in present-day Hawaii, and as farmers and fishermen along the West coast. The dominant white culture gave birth to the “good Asian, bad Asian” dichotomy by favoring the “refined, law-abiding” Japanese over the “dirty, job-stealing” Chinese. Later, of course, the labels were switched when, following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which essentially started a witch hunt for all Japanese, regardless of citizenship. In this climate, the Chinese were now lauded as hard-working people who fully understood and embraced American values. By the 1950s, however, white America decided it had bigger problems than “good Asians, bad Asians” and turned its attention to the Civil Rights Movement. In a propaganda move against Blacks, the white establishment lumped all Asians together as the “model minority.” It was an attempt to downplay the effects of systemic racism and show that the American dream could, in fact, be achieved with hard work, tenacity, and civil obedience. When the “model minority” term was first coined, it mostly applied to ethnic Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans. In recent years, the group has widened to include South Indians. Over time, the “model minority” group has indeed become an elite class of Asians: usually highly educated professionals, politically and culturally savvy, who live in “good” (i.e., desegregated, gentrified) neighborhoods, and whose children attend “good” (i.e., private and the best of public) schools. Ok, great: upward mobility. Success. Achievement. But there are some problems here. First, these specific ethnic groups (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Indian) with their longer histories and wide-open path to assimilation have become—in the eyes of whites and themselves—the Asian American community. This renders the 30-ish other ethnic groups—mostly with roots in Southeast, South, and Central Asia—nearly invisible. While most Asian Americans resent the “model minority” label, privilege does give rise to status, and status keeps the “good Asian, bad Asian” dichotomy alive. This is the second problem: when privileged, “good Asians” go to great lengths to distance themselves from “bad Asians”—the minimized “silent minority” within the Asian American community, marginalized by their very own. GOOD ASIAN, BAD ASIAN So what does it mean to be a “bad Asian”? Well, if “good Asians” are the “model minority,” then “bad Asians” are the opposite. Over the years, privileged Asian Americans have, frankly, looked down on other Asian Americans who are economically poor, and/or poorly educated. If they’re first-generation, they might have heavy accents, or otherwise don’t speak English very well. They might be blue-collar workers or unskilled laborers with roots in a country that is still developing, such as Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Nepal, or Bhutan. But let me circle back to BLM and social justice. In our current climate, “good Asians” don’t just see themselves as educated and middle- to upper-class. They also see themselves as being “woke”—and they’re always quick to call out the new “bad Asians” for, well, “not being woke.” And what does that mean? Well, “bad Asians” stand accused of being largely complicit in the fight against social injustice. In this age of social media and keyboard activism, where it’s so easy to say something, they have nothing to say. They haven’t re-posted or re-tweeted the appropriate memes. They haven’t explicitly showed their solidarity with Black Americans. They haven’t stood up to white people. Yet, “good Asians” also take issue with those who, they say, are too vocal: only “bad Asians” would take up space to air their own thoughts and grievances, when both the platform and the focus right now should be solely for the Black community. Ironically, this call for deference is part of the model minority code too. The message is: show up, be seen, participate, but don’t say too much. Neither of these views is right. First, the “good Asians’” righteous finger pointing follows exactly what white oppressors have done since the first Asian immigrants arrived. It perpetuates the “good Asian, bad Asian” dichotomy, which robs too many of their Americanness. Second, and what I argued earlier in this piece, burying the struggles of our own people, both past and present, “for the sake of” BLM isn’t noble acquiescence at all; it’s turning the tools and expectations of white oppression on ourselves. And worst of all, we do it under the guise of “wokeness.” ASIAN AMERICANS AS ONE In the ongoing fight for equality, there is room for all people of color. As Asian Americans, we need to take care in truly allying ourselves—both to BLM and to the most marginalized in our own community. Instead of being quick to point out “bad Asians” when we see them, we should be asking ourselves: “What can we do about the blatant social and economic gaps, not to mention the prejudice, that exists among ourselves?” Let’s not dismiss the thousands of Vietnamese, Hmong, and Karen who came to America just a few decades ago as refugees with few resources, little education, and limited knowledge of English—all factors that put these groups at a significant disadvantage and remain barriers to assimilation and upward mobility, even now. They didn’t arrive in modern America with a work visa in hand and money in the bank. What about the thousands of Southeast Asian children struggling in U.S. schools because of the language barrier, yet their teachers believe they’ll pull ahead because “that’s what ‘good Asians’ do”? What can we do or say about many of the Bhutanese, Nepalese, and Mongolians who currently live in the U.S. below the poverty line (see here)? What about the hundreds of thousands of Asians living undocumented as victims of human trafficking for forced labor, sex work, or illicit adoption schemes? Where are their rights? Who’s speaking for them? What about Asian Muslim immigrants from Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, southern Thailand, and Pakistan, who face continual discrimination, detention, and harassment as a result of the War on Terror? It’s right to call out injustice—it is. But if you’re an Asian American of privilege, I ask you to check your place, your words, and your motives. Is your message a true contribution to the ongoing fight for equal rights and opportunity? Or is it simply performative? Because I would argue that calling others out for anti-Blackness while remaining complicit towards the stark inequalities in our own community is truly hypocritical, and not “woke” at all. We must find a way to see ourselves, really see ourselves, and recognize the stories of all Asian Americans—that is the way forward, with BLM and all future movements toward equality.

This month, we share more of Eunsoo Jeong’s Koreangry work. If you missed her article in September, you can check it out here. Eunsoo welcomes your connection via social media! Website: www.koreangry.com Social media: @koreangry @madeinkorea1988; Facebook, Twitter

My walls are made of an unearthly substance that I cannot see. The material is ethereal and opaque. Their very existence is unfathomable to me. I live in a world that is constrained by the weight of nothing, its gravity impressing upon my every movement. I do not feel a wall and yet I know it’s there because I feel its boundaries. I used to convince myself that those invisible guards were not guards at all. They weren’t blocking any movement that I cared to pursue. I chose to stop on my own accord. Perhaps the thing waiting in that direction was not worth the journey. Perhaps there was nothing there at all. In time, the walls became two-dimensional lines that I did not cross. It wasn’t due to any thought of the thing on the other side anymore. It was because the world was finite. A fact accepted and believed. A law of science and reason; as clear as the wall the horizon makes against the evening sky, blocking from view the thing beyond, obscured behind heavenly drapes. But like a child slowly waking from thoughtlessness to illumination, I realize that my world is not flat. The walls I perceived were simply horizons on the ocean; light, pale and orange, dancing on an azure body. Then, the glow erupts into a brilliant explosion. It is as if the skies have given the final kiss goodnight. But this sunset never fades nor dies. Brian Krebs is a Korean American adoptee living in Manhattan. If the way we spend our moments reflects who we are, he is a lover, entrepreneur, poet, reader, sleeper, activist, eater, and traveler. He’s also spent significant time as a student, drop out, inmate, mental health patient, and mental health advocate. Cover photo credit: Annie Spratt

WHAT IS THE KOREAN ADOPTEE HEALING PROJECT? The Korean Adoptee Healing Project explores the multitude of issues around international, trans-racial and Korean adoption from a personal and political perspective. After 50 years of living in the United States as a minority, and very often being the only Asian face in the room A.D. Herzel circles back to her origin story. But, this is not just her story, as there are at least 200,000 Korean adoptees globally. We are a tribe. How we evolved in trans-racial families, how we identify culturally, and the trauma some of us have experienced are the visual stories I have begun telling. Through realistic drawing translations of Adoption photos to abstract golden silhouettes, I examine the shadows of my subjects and with each new portrait the facets of this beautiful tribe multiply. What began as a personal exploration has grown as I continually add participants. Where once the Adoption photos represented orphan sales pitches, they are now, often the only vestiges of an unknown history. Each portrait is a story of survival and I draw to honor that. For me, to draw something is to know it so well that you have taught yourself to love it, and so I do. After the first portrait, my friend wrote, “You don’t know how healing this is.” So, there is that too. I hope to have an exhibition of the portfolio within the next two years. A.D. Herzel is a Korean American adoptee, Visual Artist, writer, and educator. She has exhibited work nationally for the past 20 years. She trained as a painter and printmaker at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and went on to receive her M.Ed. in Art Education at the Tyler School of Art in 2000. Her digital work has been published in the Manifest International Drawing Annual, INDA 8 and she has won several awards of recognition for her drawings. In addition to exhibiting work in numerous juried shows, she has been recognized by curators from the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, The Kimbell Museum of Fine Arts in Texas, and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. She has been represented by galleries in Fort Worth, TX, Nashville, TN and Philadelphia, PA. If you are interested in learning more, participating or supporting the Korean Adoptee Healing Project and A.D. Herzel visit her website and become a member of her Patreon.

It’s been two months since the fateful day of the verdict of my court case where the Seoul Family Court recognized me as 99.981% being my biological Korean father’s daughter. I’ve held countless interviews, and there are currently 10 Google pages that host the numerous articles written about my paternal lawsuit and search journey. I would, and could, not have imagined that this would happen, and I’m still in awe of it all. However, two months after the spotlight and shock of what happened is finally settling in. I’m realizing that in my everyday life and in my search for my mother, nothing has really changed. I still do not know who she is, and have not been able to meet her. I’m back home with my beautiful family and traversing life as I did before, and continue to be ignored by my father and his family. The hurt and questions that burdened my heart before are still present, and even though victories were won and many different adoptee/non-adoptee communities are cheering me on, my quest is ongoing without any real hope of it coming full circle. I’m in survival mode again as each day passes by and I try to focus on the here and now; enjoying the amazing life I have and the amazing family I have, but in the back of my mind I’m still agonizing over those unanswered questions that I had worked so hard to get answered. COMPLEXITIES FOR ADOPTEES It’s amazing how we as adoptees manage it all if I do say so myself. We are expected to forget the trauma surrounding our circumstances of arriving into our new families. We are expected to move on, and not dawdle on mere things of the past, as what good will come from doing so? We are expected to be thankful and happy for the new life we’ve been given, and if we dare to search for our roots, then others demand to know what went wrong in our childhood that we would ever have this longing? Are we not happy or thankful for our current families? I’ve been criticized quite a bit from strangers, and even loved ones, with these types of questions since my trial broke headlines around the globe. As often as I say I can brush it off, it of course does hurt. How is it that people are so ignorant about adoption and the complexities involved? This has become my mantra alongside restorative justice for adoptees’ right to origin; to educate the everyday person on the street to gain—even if it’s a sliver of—understanding that adoption is so much more complex than how it was, and still is, currently packaged and sold where: “Adoptive parents are saviors and adopted children have been rescued from poverty and should be thankful for the new life they’ve been given.” I want to tell you that most adoptees are thankful for their new lives, as we’ve been told since we were young to be so. Most adoptees are also afraid to search for their origins or birth families as they feel it will be a betrayal to their adoptive families. Most adoptees also will fall into an identity crisis at some point in their lives, since most are raised in a homogeneous Caucasian society, and it’s natural that they will at some point recognize that they themselves are not Caucasian. WHY ADOPTEES SEARCH When most adoptees search it is completely not associated with whether or not they are thankful for their families or lives, and whether or not they love their families or have a good relationship with them. It has everything to do with the fundamental need of knowing as a human being where one comes from, and seeking answers to those life questions. My lawsuit was representative of a girl searching for her mother and all the culminating events that led to that fateful day of June 12, 2020. I never imagined finding a family member, let alone my father; and I never imagined I would file a lawsuit against him. I’ve rehashed countless times in my interviews, and all social media platforms, that finding my father or filing a lawsuit was never my goal. If my father or his family would have discreetly given answers as to who my mother was, does one really think I would go to these excruciatingly painful lengths? Do I not as an adoptee, have a right to know these answers? Does a birth family’s right to privacy outweigh my right to know my origins? These are questions that are now circulating because of my lawsuit and interviews I have done. Thousands of Koreans in Korea, for maybe the first time, discussed my actions, and the overwhelming majority of those comments were in favor of my father taking responsibility and telling me whom my mother is. Statute of limitations, closed adoption, and the severance of first family ties are completely irrelevant now with DNA-proof of family origin. The Korean Family Court has now set a precedent that even an adoptee who’s family was completely stripped away in Korea by a closed adoption case from Holt in 1984, has a legal right to be on their father’s family register with proof of DNA. However, questions remain: Will it continue? Will my lawsuit actually set a precedent and bring about systemic change? Or, will it bring harm to the birth search quest as some critics claim? Only time will tell, but my hope is that the Korean government will provide restorative justice to adoptees’ rights to origin when they revise the Adoption Act of 2012. In doing so, they will be taking responsibility for their role in sending the more than 200,000 adoptees away, and allowing us our rightful place to find our way back “home.” Kara Bos (Kang Misuk) is a Korean-American adoptee—now a Dutchie—living in Amsterdam with her Dutch husband and two amazing children. She’s an adventure seeker discovering the world one country at a time (more than 50 so far!), an entrepreneur running a drowning prevention program Swim4Survival, and through her journey has become a resilient spokesperson for adoptees’ rights. She is determined to change the rhetoric of the more than 200,000 Korean adoptees searching for their identities and past; while also hoping to change the narrative of the definition of what adoption means to the average individual. Furthermore, she is a woman, wife, and mom, trying to do her best at all three of those while not sacrificing any of them.