The Universal Asian got to know Kristen Meinzer, an award-winning podcaster, culture critic, royal watcher, and author. Named 2020 Woman of the Year by The Women’s Center in Washington D.C., Kristen Meinzer has also served as a panelist, consultant, and speaker at conferences, in classrooms, and for private companies. To learn more about her and her work visit her site here. Tell us about yourself, your childhood, and your experience of growing up. I’m a Korean adoptee, raised in Minnesota by white parents. My older sister is also adopted from Korea. My mom’s mom, whom we all called Nanna, was always the family member I was closest to. She lived a few blocks from us, and I spent a lot of time crashing at her apartment, going to movies with her, or just hanging out together. She was a resilient, kind, and funny gal. And like me and my sister, she was also orphaned at a young age—but unlike us, she was raised in the foster system, not adopted. What inspired and motivated you to start a podcast of your own? I’ve hosted ten podcasts over the past 12 years. The first was WNYC’s "Movie Date" (2010-2016), and I was pretty much assigned the hosting job, alongside the station’s film critic Rafer Guzman. We reviewed new movie releases, interviewed movie stars, and had an occasional segment called “movie therapy,” in which listeners would write in with their quandaries, and we would prescribe them movies and TV shows to help them feel better. When I left WNYC, the show ended and I went on to host "By The Book, When Meghan Met Harry," and other hit shows for other networks. But in March 2020, old "Movie Date" listeners started reaching out to me and Rafer asking if we would bring back just the “movie therapy” portion of our old show, since they were stuck at home because of the pandemic, and feeling more anxious and frustrated than ever, which is how we launched "Movie Therapy with Rafer & Kristen" in April 2020. It’s the first podcast I’ve hosted that’s all ours, not a network’s, and we wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for our old, loyal listeners asking us to. Thank you, listeners! You have several award-winning podcasts up until now, and in a lot of ways you’ve been telling people to follow their dreams and passion and to never give up. I’m sure you went through challenging times yourself. Can you tell us about the inner challenges you faced and what helped you to stay motivated in the hard times? I’ve had loads of challenges in my podcasting career! For example, early on, some people wrote in and criticized my voice. They didn’t like my Minnesota accent. They hated that I laughed so much and was so animated. They thought I sounded unprofessional. And truth is, compared to other public radio podcast hosts, I did NOT sound like the norm. But, I didn’t know how to tone down my enthusiasm or change my accent. And when I talked to our digital producer about it, he insisted: “Please don’t change a thing. You sound exactly like yourself and that’s what makes you so fun to listen to.” I give the same advice to other podcasters all the time: Embrace what makes you uniquely you. There’s only one of you in the world, don’t deprive the world of your voice or your story. Your funny accent or quirky personality or unconventional upbringing might just make someone out there feel less alone and more seen. You’ve done a podcast about self-help books and if they really are effective. However, if you had to, which one book that you read during or outside the podcast would you say was the most impactful for you and why. On "By The Book," my friend Jolenta Greenberg and I live by the rules of a different self-help book in each episode, following the rules down to the letter for two weeks straight. Along the way, we record ourselves at home and in the world so that listeners can hear how each book enhances or destroys our lives. [Note: Jolenta went into this project wanting to believe the promises of self-help books]. As a culture critic, I went in as a big old skeptic. And so, full disclosure: there aren’t a lot of self-help books I’m fond of. But, I will say that I have enjoyed a few over the years, notably: "Dream More" by Dolly Parton (her optimism and work ethic are contagious); "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie (his advice to treat people like they matter never goes out of style); and the "Year of  Yes" by Shonda Rhimes (the book was more memoir than advice, but it was so much fun to hear her story of trying to embrace life for a year, in her own words). You’ve also spoken about various social issues like feminism and inequality. What is your belief system about equality and how do you think it can be achieved? We can’t just change hearts and minds if we want to change the world (though it’s absolutely important to aim for that, as well!). We also have to change systems. That means passing laws to protect the marginalized. It means public education that gives as much weight to the literature and history of women and people of color as it does to white men. It means college admission policies that eliminate favoritism for the wealthy and well-connected. It means employment hiring practices that look beyond “culture fit.” It means taxing those at the very top the same percentage that the rest of us must pay. What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into starting a podcast, or become a writer? Ask yourself two questions: 1) Why do you want to start a podcast/write a book? 2) Who is it for? If you know your “why,” and your “for whom,” you’ll have something to drive you, and someone to share it with when it’s done. During times like these, we all are facing a lot of issues emotionally and physically. What is your advice or message that you would like to share in order to be productive and healthy? No one is more of an expert on you, than you. So, I can’t tell you what will work best for you. But I can say this: Life is easier for most of us if we don’t go it alone. Over the years I’ve leaned heavily on friends and family. I’ve gotten support and advice from mentors. I’ve turned to mental health professionals. I’ve read books and watched movies to feel less alone and gain clarity on life’s challenges. Please, don’t go it alone. And, be grateful for those who want to help.

The Universal Asian got to know Makayla Gessford, an engineer as well as an admin of the Asian Adoptee Community on Clubhouse. Tell us about yourself. My name is Makayla Gessford. I’m currently living in Boston, Massachusetts, and by day I work as a process engineer in a biotech company. I work on products that serve patients with sickle cell disease. And then, my side projects—I do a lot of volunteering. Currently, I’m volunteering with Asian Hustle Network as a team member and moderator, and I also volunteer for an organization called Ascend, which is a pan-Asian professional life cycle development organization. A big piece of my identity, which I haven’t mentioned yet, is that I am an adoptee. I was born in China, and then adopted at the age of 2 to a single white mother who lives in Oregon. The other part of the volunteering I do is spending a lot of time in the adoptee community; holding space for people to talk and share and navigate what they may be going through with regards to their own experience. What was the inspiration behind the Asian Adoptee Community Clubhouse? So I got on Clubhouse back in early January, and I got on from [sic] Patrick Armstrong, who is a fellow adoptee who I met through Asian Hustle Network (AHN). I was actually interviewing him for something for AHN. So, we were both on Clubhouse and we both shared a feeling that there were a lot of AAPI-focused spaces and rooms, but we didn’t necessarily feel included in them. A lot of that is our personal feelings of acceptance in Asian spaces, but we also wanted to curate a space that was specifically for adoptees. We held a room back in January and invited all the people that we knew on Clubhouse who were adoptees to just come together and get to know each other and just talk. Then it turned into a little community there, and we decided to make a club so that people could have a consolidated location to come back (to) and have other people and other support when and if they needed it. I didn’t have any adult adoptee friends until quite recently, so there were all these things that I wanted to talk about that I just never had a place to, or people to talk to because I didn’t know they existed for a really long time. Through Clubhouse, I’ve found more of that community. In addition to the model minority myth, what are some stereotypes that harm Asian adoptees? Definitely the predominant adoption narrative. That’s something that I have been doing a lot of work to understand and learn more about myself, and just acknowledge that adoption really is an industry that is for profit. When you look at who created that industry, who has power within it, where our understanding of adoption comes from, and who’s telling the story, you start to realize that maybe there are all these facets that are missing. For example, one of the things that I grew up always telling myself because the people around me would say it, is “Oh, you’re so lucky to have been adopted,” “You were chosen,” and all this bullshit, honestly. People mean no harm by that, but it is coming from a very ignorant place because it feeds into this narrative that says adoptees are happy; they were saved. There’s a saviorism [sic] complex feeding into it that really diminishes the trauma, and doesn’t allow any space for grieving the loss that adoptees feel. That can create a lot of harm later. And it also, again, is just feeding an industry because you can’t have successful adoptions that make a profit for a company unless there’s this image of how successful and how happy and how wonderful adoptees are. No one talks about how adoptees are at higher risk of committing suicide and things like that because it’s not good for the industry. It also goes against adoptive parents, and their singular, narrow view that they’re doing a good thing by adopting. That’s not to say that they’re doing a bad thing, but I think that there needs to be more depth to the conversation. When you even say things like “the predominant adoption narrative,” people get confused. Well, what do you hear about adoption? You hear a single story of a poorer child in need of a home swept up and saved by some well-off white family—not always white—and suddenly they’re plopped in this home, and they’re then expected to forget who they were before, forget their culture, and then they’re expected to be well-adjusted. Like, look you have a loving family now, so everything is great, right? That’s so harmful, again, because it just doesn’t allow for any safe space for conversations that fall outside that box, and that’s what we need to be having. How do you deal with people who, knowingly or not, invalidate your pain as an adoptee? I really try to remember that ignorance is not something people should be blamed for, but instead it’s an opportunity to teach and inform. Of course, not everyone can nor should force themselves to do that all the time. But I think in moments when I feel I’m safe enough and I have the emotional and mental capacity to educate about why a statement or a comment is hurtful or harmful, I will take that opportunity to just share a little about what I know within the historical context of adoption practice, and also just share a little bit about my feelings and lived experiences growing up. I try to never make it an attack against the other person. It’s not their fault if they don’t know, but it becomes their fault if they’re given an opportunity to learn and blindly choose to reject it. What are some things you want potential adoptive parents and allies to know before adopting? I just wish they knew it’s a very complex issue, and that it’s rooted in a lot of trauma. I think there’s a lot of information and that the roots of adoption that are seated in very dark origins. For example, just with international adoption from China, we have the one child policy that occurred in the '90s. There were also things like the international adoption laws and domestic adoption laws, and very long-running cultural preferences that contributed to an environment of child abandonment and human trafficking. I think a lot of people don’t want to acknowledge that adoption is considered by many a form of modern-day child trafficking, and it just depends on the circumstances and who you talk to. I would just want people to know that it’s a very traumatic experience, and it’s not up to you to tell an adoptee how they should or could or will feel about being adopted. But it’s for you as the potential adoptive parent and friends and allies of the adoptee to just create a safe space for the adoptee to express what they may need to, regardless of if it goes against whatever your personal view of adoption is. Adoptees straddle the line between two worlds, which can be difficult. Sometimes, we lose touch with an entire culture. How can we reconcile the distance between our heritage and where we grew up? What advice do you have for adoptees who may be struggling with identity? First and foremost, it’s up to each adoptee how much they want to re-engage or how much they want to get involved in their birth culture. Because, definitely for myself, I wasn’t interested in it too much when I was younger, and I think if it had been forced upon me in some kind of way I would have rejected it. I do think if you’re curious and want to get involved and start learning, there are resources—starting by talking to other adoptees is a safer route. For example, I’ve experienced a lot of imposter syndrome in trying to engage directly with AAPI-specific community groups or spaces. A lot of that comes from a lack of confidence in my own self, so kind of a me-thing. I also think that, externally, being subjected to the model minority myth and not having any racial mirrors or anything growing up—not even knowing how to be Asian and then suddenly trying to later as an adult but not feeling genuine about it can be really tough. I get concerned it can discourage adoptees from leaning in more, because it discouraged me a little bit. I think just acknowledging that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to anything, and that it’s really hard, but you have to tell yourself that you’re no less Asian or no less American because of your identity. Theses are pretty tumultuous times to be alive. How do you take care of your mental health? How do you practice self-care? I actually go to therapy. Therapy is a huge part of my self-care, and working with a therapist one-on-one virtually. It’s not quite the same as in the office, but I think if COVID has taught me anything, it’s that I can build just as deep and genuine relationships with people over virtual calls as I can in person. Sometimes it’s almost easier, in a way. It just depends on the person. So therapy’s a big one; also journaling. I’m pretty heavily a verbal processor, so for me, getting to spend time one-on-one or with a very small group of people that I really trust and just talking about our lives and what we’re going through is very healing for me. Also, spending time with my partner and being outside as much as possible. The weather is getting a lot nicer now, and any time we can do something outdoors, that really helps my mental health.

From her humble beginnings in Lincoln, Nebraska to Delaware Teacher of the Year, The Universal Asian spoke with Kimberly Stock, English learner teacher at McKean High School. We found out her reaction to receiving this prestigious award, what teaching means to her, and discovered what school was like for Kimberly growing up as a Korean-American adoptee in Nebraska. Congratulations on receiving Delaware Teacher of the Year 2021! Can you tell us what it was like to receive such an accolade? I’m going to be honest; every step along the way I’ve been surprised! I was not expecting it. But luckily, I had prepared two speeches; one speech in case I won, and just for luck I put it on top, then I had another speech just in case I lost. It was one of those things where I was really happy and surprised, and my family were watching too. So, to make my two teenage daughters proud is really a big deal! It’s just such an honour, but very unexpected. And how much did it mean to you to win? It meant a lot. I believe I’m the first Asian-American woman to win this award, but I don’t believe that there’s very many teachers of color who have ever won. So, to represent Asian teachers, of which there aren’t very many, was important and not something that I ever take lightly at all. In your winning speech you said, “You deserve to see yourself represented in what you learn and on the walls of where you learn.” How much does equal representation in the classroom matter to you? It matters. It’s everything. More recently, we’ve understood that we need to confront our complicit biases. It’s a really imperfect journey, but I think that it’s one that we need to continue on. With there being those from the other side who are very anti-this and -that, it just becomes another hurdle to getting to that fight to have representation in the classroom and to break down the structures of why it is that in education, or in society, where certain groups of people tend to have an easier time than others. I realize this is going to be an uphill battle, but I think that the more people we can get on our side, the better. What techniques do you implement to ensure that equal representation of all students (no matter their ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc.) is met in the classroom? It’s intentional. So, the first things that we have are diversity committees both in terms of adults in the district and with students at school. From a curriculum standpoint, we look at the Social Justice Standards, which goes through four main components of identity, diversity, justice, and action. I love that they don’t just stop at looking at the issues of injustice, but that there is a component of asking ourselves as young members of society: “How can we actually go about this?” I learned a lot from my students. I’m really lucky that I work at a high school, because young people are constantly teaching us things. I strongly believe that as educators we have to lead the way in society and we can’t be scared of that. This is really our job and why we’re here. What was school like for you growing up? Did you like school much? There were things about school I liked, but it was really difficult to grow up in Nebraska with my family because there was just a lack of understanding. My parents didn’t have the same kinds of resources that adoptive families have today. Growing up, I was very angry at them but I realize now that they couldn’t have known what they didn’t know. Although I liked learning, I also felt tormented. As I was applying for Teacher of the Year, I realized that there was one teacher in particular who told me I should be an English teacher and it meant so much. She read to us "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou, and it was the first time that I read something from a woman of color. I could relate to things she talked about as being othered, and I could relate to the trauma of racism. It’s really why I am who I am today. It made me realize the kind of impact the teacher can have on individual students. As Delaware Teacher of Year 2021, do you feel a sense of duty to let other Asian-Americans know that they too can be teachers? Yes, definitely. One of the things I did with my teacher of the year is that I successfully ran a campaign to become a school board member of the district I live in. Our opinions and viewpoints, as teachers, are not valued even within the education professions. So, to have that conversation about whether teachers should be allowed on the board is something I had to prove. And finally, what advice would you give to people, like yourself, who want to get into education? I think you need to be willing to work really hard and be patient because, oftentimes, the reward and why we teach doesn’t happen until years from now. If you love kids and have a passion in whatever subject in education, then that’s exactly the kind of person we want. Your background doesn’t matter, because we need all different kinds of people to reach all different kinds of kids.

The Universal Asian got to know Jean Elliott, a wholehearted apparel designer and creative. Visit her site here. Tell us about yourself. I was adopted from China at age two; and my parents have lived in Portland, Oregon for the past 25 years, I believe. So I’ve been here, went to school here, and went to college at the University of Oregon. I graduated with a degree in Product Design; and I’m currently working as a product developer at the company Poler. What got you into apparel design and design as a whole? When I was in fifth grade, I was super into dragons. I drew them all the time. Then, in high school, I was part of the AP Studio Art class, which was just an art class with concentrations and a bunch of different projects. From there, when I was looking at colleges, I didn’t know what I wanted to do degree-wise, and I had a college admissions person ask me if I’d ever heard of product design. I hadn’t, so I looked into it, and it seemed like a really great major for my interests. My parents were super encouraging; they didn’t steer me away from any sort of degree. In my program, we had a term where we had to just figure out how to sew a bag in five weeks. Since then, I’ve been super interested in sewing. Now, I sew a lot of my own clothes. I’m in the process of getting one of my friends to design a label for me, so I can start selling more professionally. I’m actually getting married soon, so I’m going to make my wedding dress for that. But, yeah, I think it’s such a cool hands-on art form. What inspires your pieces? At the moment, since I’m still learning and teaching myself how to make things, a lot of it is construction-based. I want it to fit well, and I want all the stitching to be perfect. But, I think in the future, when I start to actually create my own things and not worry about construction, I really love the idea of creating stuff that’s a little more extra or has more frills on it, because that’s not really my personality; I think it’d be a really cool thing to explore. I just made a super cute baby blue tiered dress that I’m super excited for. It’s kind of too cold to wear it right now, but I’ll wear it sometime. What is the process of designing a piece from start to finish? Usually you have to start out with sketches and that kind of thing, and I’m kind of lazy—but that’s the process you start with any real design. You do need to start out with sketches, and that’s what I had to do. I had a ten-week course where we had to have sixty drawings every class… it was horrible. So, you design it on paper, and then you start constructing it either by hand or on a computer program. You create the pattern out of paper usually, and then you make a test pattern out of muslin, fit it, and if it doesn’t work, you have to do a bunch of other adjustments. Then, you continue that iteration until it basically fits the way you want it to. And then, you go into creating an actual product. If you’re really good and know exactly what you want, then you can skip a few steps, but I’m not at that point yet. What are some challenges you find yourself running into while working on a piece? Personally, I’m a bit of a perfectionist. Like, if I feel like something isn’t going to be perfect or if I feel like I’m not going to have time to do it the way that I want to, I freeze up and I’m like ‘oh my god I can’t do this’ so I work on other little things. Then, I have to finish at the last minute and stay up for two straight nights to do it. It usually turns out fine, but I just psych myself out a lot of the time because I want it to be a certain way. Construction-wise, it’s so annoying if the fabric is stretchy at all, and you’re just not careful about it. With sewing, it’s think twice, sew once. It’s a pain, because I don’t quite have the technology to sew certain things. With stretch fabric, you need the stitch to also stretch. Leather is also a huge pain to work with because if you mess that up you really mess that up, and it’s really expensive. What’s your favorite material to work with and why? I would say just plain old 100% cotton. Only because it doesn’t stretch, and a lot of the products and clothes I like to make are made out of it. Like, I’ve made a few chore jackets; I’ve made pants. I think it’s easier to pattern for those because you don’t have to make the pattern while considering that it might stretch or that it will stretch in the final product. Who are your biggest influencers as a designer? I just recently finished the entire season of “Next in Fashion,” which is hosted by Tan France and Alexa Chung. The winner of that show is a Korean designer, Minju Kim; I love all of her stuff. It’s so great. It’s all super flowy, and it’s very playful but not childish. She blends that super well. There’s also Vera Wang. She does bridal gowns all the time. I read that she didn’t start designing her stuff until she was 40 or something. I think she was already in that scene, but didn’t start designing until later, so there’s hope! Then, in general, not design-wise, I just love Asian representation. Like, Ali Wong. I love all her stand-up. I love everything she does. What advice do you have for aspiring designers? I have my own problems with this: be able to create stuff, and then not be afraid to hate it in the end. Because sometimes I’ll create something, and the perfectionist in me wants it to be perfect, and if it’s not I’ll get really upset at myself. Also, be okay with wasting fabric. That’s one of my big issues, I don’t like wasting anything. And I know you need to have a ton of iterations to get something to where you want it to be. It’s a muscle you have to work on, just like anything else you want to be successful in. Continue to do what you want to do even if it sucks sometimes. Find people—find a lot of Asian-American or Asian creatives to follow. Yeah, just finding people who look like me has always been super cool for me. Growing up, I didn’t really get into it until college. What is the business side of designing like? How do you market and promote your work? The business side of designing is literally the worst part for me, because it has nothing to do with the actual designing process. I know a lot of this from work, because I’m emailing all day, for eight hours plus. I’m a product developer, so it’s my job to help move the designs along, but the designing part is such a small part right now. So the business side of design, if you’re only into design, is very upsetting. You have to be able to tell a story, you have to be able photograph your work—which I cannot do. You also have to be able to write coherently about your work, which I also sometimes cannot do. You need to find the people who are interested in your work; otherwise, you’re just throwing it out there, and if nobody knows it exists it’ll be hard for people who like that stuff to find it. The business side, for me at least, is a pain in the booty. If you can find a friend or a person you trust to help you with that kind of stuff, it’s super great. How can BIPOC creatives lift each other up in a world that won’t make space for them? I mentioned it a little before, but yeah, finding those people who you either align with or who look like you, finding those and seeing how they’re successful and where they went and what they did to get there. Also, if you do end up in a position where you can help people, help them. That’s one of my goals in life. I want to be able to take people who look like me or who are underrepresented and be able to recommend them to people, and have those people I’m recommending them to understand that I am picking somebody who I know is good and they can trust my opinion on that. That would be super great.

Amee Finigan is an adoptee. She is a Korean-American adoptee (KAD), who currently resides in Portland, Oregon. Amee is the host of "The Monolid Diaries"—a podcast that shares and highlights the experiences of other transracial adoptees and encourages individuals to find their voice through her platform. "The Monolid Diaries" is available to listen on all podcasting streaming services, and you can follow her on Instagram. Born in South Korea in 1985, Amee was sent to a foster home shortly after she was born, until she was adopted into the Finigan family at four months old. It’s a day that Amee and her family remember fondly, as she was adopted on St Patrick’s Day, which ties in nicely with the Finigan’s Irish roots. Growing up in a predominantly white neighborhood, she shared: “It took me a long time to come into my own and be comfortable in my own skin and my identity as a Korean American.” She was labeled as quiet and shy and “people actually called me mute,” she revealed, “But now you can’t get me to shut up!” Now, she hopes to raise the voices of other transracial adoptees through her latest podcast, "The Monolid Diaries." The name of the series originates from wanting to highlight the beauty of Asian features and feeling a need to share her experiences as a KAD. “I really wanted to highlight the beauty and uniqueness of Asian features because it’s something that I was never proud of. The ‘Diaries’ part is just me opening up my heart and soul and just really getting into the nitty gritty,” Amee explained. Noticing a lack of representation of KADs and international adoptees, Amee uses her unique storytelling technique to open up about not only her experiences growing up, but the stories of other adoptees too. She’s spoken to the likes of Kevin Kreider, star of Netflix’s "Bling Empire" and saxophonist Jordan VanHemert, and plans to speak to many more adoptees soon. She hopes that by sharing her own experiences, it will help other adoptees to share theirs too, which she dubs as her passion project and life mission now. “There’s a whole generation of adoptees that I feel like are coming forward right now and really sharing space and letting their voices be heard like never before,” she said. It seems her work has inspired others to find their own voices. “I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’re thinking about starting their own podcasts about transracial adoption,” she said. “Anyone that has a voice can get on there and tell their story, and so I just think it’s so cool that if I have any influence at all, then I think it’s great whoever is able to get their voice out there.” For many of Amee’s listeners, her stories have resonated with them. She shared, “The response has been incredible. I’ve gotten so many DMs from people. I’ve also created so many meaningful and wonderful relationships with every single person that I’ve interviewed… So, it’s been an incredible experience, and the support I’ve received from other transracial adoptees has been amazing.” While Amee understands the importance of sharing adoptee experiences, she also wanted to celebrate the joys of adoptee life too. This sparked the idea for “Adoptee Joy,” her newest monthly live series on Instagram where Amee chats with friends to showcase the joyful side of adoptees. “A lot of times, it’s about the sadness or trauma, and so I definitely wanted to highlight [the joys] with this series,” she explained. She’s also using her platform to ensure that the next generation of adoptees have resources, like her podcast, to refer to and resonate with. This stems from growing up as one of only a few adoptees in her area. Amee felt that support for adoptees and adoptive parents wasn’t present: “What was most challenging growing up was my parents not having any resources to do anything. So, basically [they were] going into it blind and also [were] not getting the best advice from the adoption agencies.” Through her own social media presence, she hopes to provide and increase resources, so that other adoptees and parents have people to look up to and speak to for advice. She believes that there “needs to be more educational resources, especially for transracial adoptive parents” and recommends therapy, saying, "I think family therapy is super important," noticing the value of it for herself and her family. Initially, it wasn’t easy for Amee to find her voice, which is something you wouldn’t be able to tell from meeting her, given her confident, bubbly personality. For her, it took exposure therapy to really build up her own confidence. But, what advice does she have for others who want to find their voice and let their story be heard? “Try and step outside of your comfort zone, outside of the bubble that you’re used to,” she advised. “You never know what could come of it.” Be sure to watch out for Amee’s other ventures too! She has a new podcast in the pipelines: "KAD Confessionals with co-host Maddie O’Brien." The uncensored, R-rated podcast will delve into the stories of female adoptees and their stories as Asian-American women.

The Universal Asian got to know Woo Ae Yi in her own words. Woo Ae Yi is a published author, poet, and screenwriter. Her latest book, “Profiles of KAD Relations with the Black Community,” is available for purchase in paperback and Kindle. To learn more about her and her work, visit her site here. Tell us about yourself! What was growing up like? I grew up as a Korean adoptee in the D.C. area. Even though the county I grew up in is 20% Korean now, last time I checked, I was one of maybe three Asians in my high school. One was mute (probably due to the trauma of being a minority and being bullied), and the other one was part of a mysterious Asian gang outside of school. I’m sure that being a minority had something to do with the fact that I had a minimum of 10 bullies at any given time. The building itself hadn’t been updated since the ‘60s, and I was there in the late ‘90s. When did you start writing? What made you keep writing? I’ve always been a reader and a writer for as long as I can remember. However, I started publishing in 2008. I see it as my life’s purpose and don’t think I’ll ever stop. How did you know you wanted to write "Profiles of KAD Relations with the Black Community"? I write about this within the book itself, but I had basically always known that I would return to it, which I started in 2007 as part of my original Master’s thesis. My Bachelor’s thesis was about African American poetry. We’ve seen an exponential rise of hate crimes against the Asian-American community, and unfortunately, the perpetrator of a particularly viral incident happened to be a Black individual. How can Asians and Asian-Americans fight anti-Black sentiment within their own communities? I think some of the first steps include awareness and education—particularly of history and how we got where we are today. It’s ironic, but a person can consider themselves anti-racist and still have a blind spot for Asian-American issues dealing with race; it’s quite common. I think it’s important that one understands that combatting racism is not as simple as just focusing on learning about the issues for one race (which could take a lifetime in itself) but for all races and all issues surrounding privilege and the kyriarchy (a system built around who has power). General compassion and hospitality can go a long way no matter who you are interacting with, as long as it’s not “white saviorism,” which can do more harm than good at times. What are some takeaways you would like readers to have from "Profiles of KAD..."? I would like them to learn more about Asian-Black dynamics, Korean adoptee issues, and trauma-related issues that they did not know previously. I would also like the book to be either a beginning stepping stone or along an already existing path toward anti-racism and general compassion and hospitality toward all humans no matter their intersectionality (where their privilege or lack thereof intersects). I also advocate that race-based and adoptee-based trauma should be included in the most current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Some people don’t even know that’s a thing, and some don’t know that it’s still not in the DSM. What does the process of writing a book look like for you, from start to finish? It really depends on the type of book. Nonfiction books require a lot of structure, and this nonfiction book in particular required me to go out there and ask people for interviews, set up a time with them, decide what I was going to ask them, and edit/structure the book in a way that did justice for everyone’s interviews. I also gave them a chance to look at the book before I published to make sure they were happy with how I captured their interview. On the other hand, fiction books, for me, require a lot of spreadsheets to keep track of all the characters and lots of ideas in case I get writer’s block, but there are generally fewer “rules” because you’re not necessarily dealing with reality. Each genre requires a different strategy. What advice do you have for aspiring authors? The advice I have for aspiring authors is to do their due diligence on publishing companies. More than any other industry, there are so many scams and so many vanity publishing houses that care only about money. It’s a tricky field to be in. The best places to learn about scams are Writer Beware and Absolute Write. How do you deal with writer’s block? In addition to writing books, I also write screenplays. There’s an entire series that I found about getting over writer’s block, and it uses the analogy of improv. If anyone has ever watched improv, they’ll know that actors are able to create a comedy out of something as simple as a word or a couple of words. Comedy is a genre where anything goes. The trick is fitting it into something more realistic, but getting over writer’s block is more like the process of brainstorming than it is of researching feasibility. You’re also a poet! Where does your inspiration come from? I once met a psychic who told me that all artists are channelers and that they get their ideas from the aether. Whether you choose to believe in that is up to you. I’m the type of writer that will not write if I don’t feel inspired (when it comes to poetry, “inspired” means “emotional”). However, if I were to write full-time, I’d probably have to give up that ideal. Alisa Valdes said, “There’s no better teacher for writing than reading.” Do you agree?Why or why not? Yes, there’s also no better teacher for editing than reading as well. I’m balancing three different book clubs because I know the importance of keeping up with reading and keeping up-to-date on the times and trends. I enjoy book clubs because they give me a chance to read something I never would have picked up on my own. What is a piece of advice you would’ve liked to have given to your younger self, and why? Going back to what advice I would have for aspiring authors, I would have told myself not to have trusted every publisher I find so easily. There are only about two legit major publishing houses in America that don’t have a vanity publishing branch underneath as a cash cow, but the money they’re making is from authors, not readers. It’s a tough world out there, but I still believe it’s worth it.

Please tell me about your background: Where are you from? What is your job? etc. I am a mixed-race adoptee. I was adopted as an infant, and my older brother was also adopted as well. However, we are not biologically related. I grew up in rural Vermont, which was primarily a very white state. I think my brother and I were probably the only Asians in school. There were maybe a couple of Black kids, but some of them were also adopted. Thus, we didn’t really grow up with much diversity around us. It is a small town after all. I always felt like the odd one out because I looked different than the other kids. Being an adoptee as well added another layer to the feeling of being different. I always enjoyed art in school because it was therapeutic for me. It was like meditation to me, and I would just get lost in it. I then went to college and got an undergraduate degree in psychology with a minor in studio art. However, although I did a lot of painting and drawing, it never stuck with me. When I got married, whilst planning my wedding, I found working on the design concepts fun. That really sparked my interest in doing wedding-related things. When I worked with flowers, it was a whole different level for me. I am an anxious person, but somehow when I work with flowers, everything else just goes away and it’s just me and my flowers. I feel so peaceful as well. How long have you been a florist for? I’ve been a florist for about five years. Originally, I really wanted to do styling and planning for wedding events, but then I moved from Vermont to Virginia with my husband. I still wanted to do something within the wedding field, so I got in touch with the local flower shop. Although I didn’t have any experience with flowers at all, I had a passion for the wedding industry, so they hired me. From then on, I fell in love with flowers, and they became my art medium. I think this is what I want to do forever in terms of work. I feel super lucky that I found something that I love so much. You mentioned that you studied psychology in college. Was there a reason why you didn’t pursue a career in psychology? I always felt kind of out of place growing up. I was also really drawn to psychology and mental health, and because of that, I had the intention to go to school and become a therapist. However, after college, I realized that I didn’t want to go to grad school. To become a therapist, you have to really go to grad school. Despite that, I did end up working in childcare and worked there for a couple years until I got married. What was it like growing up? I think, regardless of race, being an adoptee automatically makes me different from others. It’s a subconscious feeling that I can’t explain. Growing up, I honestly didn’t think much about it. I was surrounded by mostly white families and kids, and I’m white passing, which is also another thing. I never really felt Asian nor white. Some people do think I’m white, but that’s a whole [other] kind of complexity. It wasn’t until recently that I started exploring who I am and dove into what it means to be an Asian adoptee and how it impacts me. I think for so long I just pushed it aside, especially because I didn’t feel that there are communities out there that I was aware of that I could talk to and explore things with. Growing up, I wasn’t part of any adoptee community. I had met only a handful of other adoptees, but I’d never had a real conversation with them until last year. That might be because of the pandemic and everyone is doing things online. I guess it made it easier to connect with others online and organize Zoom chats, etc. I currently live in Portland, a relatively diverse city. However, most of the people I interact with or work with are mostly white. So I have never really been exposed to a group of Asian people. As I’m also half white, I don’t think I would be comfortable going to an Asian meetup or joining the community. I guess this feeling also stems from the fact that my parents are white. Other than my brother who is Asian, I don’t have any connections to my Asian roots or ancestry. There’s this Facebook group called Subtle Asian Adoptee Traits. When I first joined the group, I had to clarify with them that I’m half Asian because a part of me doesn’t feel like I deserved or earned the title of being considered an Asian person. However, I’m now slowly telling myself, “No, I am Asian as well. I’m allowed to say that.” Although, I do still feel like a fraud sometimes—especially as an adoptee, that [has] added another layer of complexity. Were you ever curious about your biological parents? As I was adopted in the U.S., I think it is much easier for me to get information about my biological parents than international adoptees. However, I grew up not wanting to have any information. I just didn’t feel like I needed it. I think a part of me was pushing it away because of all the complexities of an adoption. Apart from that, I didn’t have a support group as well so I didn’t want to go down that path. However, I think during one of the holidays, my mom got me a 23andMe genetic test. Everyone knew I was half Asian, but we didn’t know the exact details. So, I took it and we found a DNA relative who was listed as a second or third cousin. In the beginning, I doubted that they would have any information, but out of curiosity, I reached out to them. We found out that his mother and my biological mother were sisters. Since then, I’ve started my journey to get more information about my bio family. It’s really complicated, and there is a lot to unpack; but I do feel a sense of relief from it. I think I’m at the point where I just don’t have expectations. A part of me thinks that it would be easier to not think about it or have any attachments towards it. All those years, I didn’t even think about my being adopted. I was just suppressing a part of who I was. But now I [have] realized that being a half Asian adoptee is a huge part of me. In terms of your career, do you have any plans for the future? I’m the kind of person who doesn’t really plan that far ahead into the future. I like to take things month by month. However, my husband, who is from Belgium, and I love to travel. We’ve been going to different places throughout our lives together. There are a lot of national parks in the U.S., which has designated areas that are preserved landscapes. We’ve been trying to travel to all of them. We would get an RV and just live on the road. In terms of my career and flowers, I really want to focus on elopements. I want to make flowers for people who want to like elope in the mountains, or some beautiful place. It will mostly be intimate and personal weddings that are smaller scale. I’m not really into big, grand, fancy weddings. I think in the short term, such as in the next five years or so, I would love to get on the road fulltime and be able to travel wherever we want to and freelance. For instance, during the summer, Oregon is really great for weddings, and maybe during the fall or winter, we will move to the South where I will do elopements and small events. I think it’s a big thing for me to be able to do something that takes the noise, stress, and anxiety out. Whenever I work with flowers, my mind feels clear and at peace. That feeling is the best thing. I just love that I can do that for work. It’s simply amazing. Follow Caroline on IG @carolinereusenflowers and/or go to carolinereusenflowers.com Cover photo credit: Angela Nunnink

The Universal Asian got to know Mia Kaplan, a multi-talented artist with a focus in metalsmithing and jewelry. Visit her store here! Give us a brief background on you. I’m 24 years old. I was adopted from China when I was six months old. I’ve lived in North Carolina for most of my life. I grew up in central North Carolina in Durham, and got to go to an arts high school, which was really great. I went to undergrad in the Midwest, in Indiana, and that was at a school called Earlham College—a Quaker liberal arts school. I graduated, and now I’m in this program at the Penland School of Craft. It’s a two-year fellowship that has now turned into a three-year fellowship because of the pandemic. I had a full year where everything was normal and it was really great—I’ve gotten to learn all these other mediums, but have mostly stayed working with metals, and got to meet a bunch of different instructors—then this year [2020] happened, and all the programming was canceled. So I’ve just been hanging out in Penland, North Carolina, which is where I currently live. When did you know you wanted to be an artist? I mentioned that I went to an arts high school, and that was probably one of the catalysts for wanting to become an artist. I got to learn 3D art, ceramics, and woodworking, and that was a lot of concentrated time for me to just really dive into that stuff. Even before that, I was always a creative kid. I went to a lot of art camps and really enjoyed making or playing pretend or just building stuff. I’ve just always been really excited about working with my hands. But really, that high school experience paved the way for all the work I’ve been doing now. It was such a good foundation for a lot of skills, and learning about other art schools. How did you get into metalsmithing? Well, I went to college thinking I was going to do ceramics, and that totally got blown out of the water when I saw the metals studio there. It was just so cool, and I didn’t understand any of the equipment, but I wanted to know. I took a class there and had a really amazing teacher, and just fell in love with the intricacy of the material and the processes. What are the challenges and rewards of working with metal? It’s pretty hard on my body. This year especially, I’ve had a lot of wrist problems. The repetitive motions can be kind of strenuous when it comes to grabbing small things and holding onto them for filing or sanding. It’s also a pretty expensive medium to work in. That’s something I always have to consider, especially since I work with a lot of silver. The cost of that just adds up. But I really like how physical it is, making the material move, figuring out how it can transform, and learning the processes to make it do what you want. Some other processes like soldering—using a torch to heat up a piece and melt silver solder into seams to attach pieces together—can be really fast and exciting, and you get to play with fire. You learn to move quickly and be coordinated, and it’s been really fun to learn to hone my skill in something that’s really complicated. Metalsmithing as a craft is also so connected to all of these different techniques and tools, and I’m such a nerd about all of the equipment. What is the process of creating a work, from start to finish? I usually start in [sic] sketches. Then I make a lot of models, sometimes out of paper or cardboard. It’s really helpful in figuring out how a piece is going to come together if you can figure out some of the nitty gritty in the beginning. It saves you a lot of time later on. I usually make a lot of my work in sheet metal, so the next thing to do is transfer the design onto the metal and then saw it out, which can be pretty fun. Then, working through the mechanics of putting something together, a lot of times things can change from the original sketch because something on paper can’t ever capture the complexity of how an object is going to come together. So, whenever I’m making a piece, there’s all of these adjustments and mistakes, because it’s pretty easy to melt something or mess up a solder seam. Sometimes, I’ll mess something up or not think it all the way through, and I’ll have to go back a few steps. A lot of it is problem solving, even just trying to figure out [how] to make something attach to something else. I do enjoy it, and it definitely gets frustrating sometimes—especially if you’ve made a lot of mistakes. I’ve been learning to be a lot kinder to myself with the process, and [to] really allow myself that time from start to finish. What inspires your work? Geometrical forms, architecture, and nature. I find that I’m often replicating or reimagining architectural elements, like brick patterns or doorways. I like translating that into smaller components that get put into a larger piece. I draw a lot of inspiration from icons or symbols, and making them illustrative but also 3D. Like, I made this brooch that looked like an orange slice, and that was pretty fun. For a while, I was making work that was based off of cloud imagery. Other times, it’s more gestural, like I’m inspired by natural forms branching off or geometrical patterns that are tessellating out or building off of themselves. It’s hard for me to hone in on one particular style, since I’m in this space where I’m freshly out of school and still playing with all these different interests. All these different things inspire me, and I just follow what I want to do in the moment. What is your favorite medium to work with? I really like working with copper, brass, and silver. And I really like using metal as the base material for color. You can patinate, which is how you color metal, but you can’t really get that much color out of it. I like using the tones of the pinkish copper, the yellow-gold brass, and the silver of the silver, and using that palette to construct imagery, because even though it does provide some color, it’s still super clear what the material is. I think the metal itself is really beautiful. Whose work has most influenced yours? I’m a big fan of Ai Weiwei and his modular sculptures, as well as all his humanitarian and activist work. There’s also Maya Lin, who made the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They both make a lot of huge installations that use little pieces to form vast landscapes—accumulated objects to form a larger whole–but each object itself is a piece of art. Ai Weiwei’s "Sunflower Seeds" piece is all these tiny, hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds laid out in this giant field in a museum. Metalsmiths that I’m inspired by include Gary Schott, Lola Brooks, and Shingo Furukawa. I’ve been really interested in kinetic artists lately, because I want to start including movement in my work. How does the business side of art influence the way you create, if at all? That’s something I’m thinking about a lot. I’m trying to figure out exactly how to make my art practice sustainable for the rest of my life, and it’s a really hard thing because there’s all these different paths you could take, like grad school or becoming a studio artist. I could put out a production line, and try to sell that to support myself. A lot of times, what people will do is a sort of parallel approach. They’ll sell their production work to give them the money and time to set aside for the work they actually want to do, or [make] larger, more complicated work to use to apply for grants. I’ve been working on a production line and [have been] struggling, honestly. I’m trying to figure out if it’s the right thing for me. I don’t quite enjoy production or the repetitiveness of it, or how hard you need to work to compete with manufacturing and be the sole owner of a business. So yeah, it’s something that’s been on my mind a lot, and it’s something I’m going to need to figure out if I want to keep doing this, which I do. What advice do you have for aspiring artists today? I would say: “Just be kind to yourself.” I’ve been trying to do that in my life recently. I was going through a lot of self-doubt this year, and I didn’t have a lot of people around me for encouragement or motivation. In a normal year, you would have people working around you, but there are no students now and no instruction, so I’ve just kind of been let loose. At the same time, this has been nice because I do get a lot of uninterrupted work time. However, the self-doubt is definitely real as an artist, so the number one thing is to just be kind to yourself and see all your time as productive. Don’t put yourself down for mistakes you’ve made. It’s just a process, and you’re always learning. Cover photo credit: James Henkel

The Universal Asian spoke with Katie Bozek, the Executive Director of the Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN). We first introduced KAAN, their mission, and organizational activities in October, 2020. Can you tell us about KAAN and how you became involved in this organization? KAAN was founded in April 1998 through a leadership summit that revealed the need for Korean Americans, adoptees and adoptive parents to be connected. The conference is a unique experience to help build a community which blossomed into a place with professionals, researchers, adoptees, adoptive parents, the Korean-American community, etc. This has been an all volunteer-run organization for 22 years but we’re growing by size and membership and now have ASL interpreters and youth programs. KAAN itself came out of a leadership summit in 1998. I was one of the local coordinators for KAAN 2013, and stepped into the role of Executive Director at KAAN in 2018 as the first Korean adoptee. Since the pandemic, we have hosted virtual happy hours and community conversations where we discuss pertinent issues within our community and connect this to broader concepts. What emotions do the holidays bring up for you? Holidays in general are layered, and they mean different things for different people. Any holiday can bring a variety of emotions, especially Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and birthdays. It’s important to identify and validate your emotions during these times, but it’s equally important to realize emotions are only temporary. What have you found to be the most effective methods of communicating white privilege to white family members? What do you do when a family member doesn’t want to talk about white privilege? You must recognize there are limits to what you can do. Adoptees want our families to understand our experiences, and we believe if our families cared for us then they would make an effort to learn. It is not necessarily an issue of caring or not caring, but being able to have empathy and listen to understand the other person. It’s important to set boundaries—meaning do not continually put yourself in situations where they will continue to invalidate you. There is no one effective method for communicating white privilege, it comes down to how open the person is. Sometimes they simply aren’t ready for it. Families have a tendency to have a fixed mindset that views adoptees as kids, so when we bring up important topics they may be more dismissive. How do you think adoption affects attachment style? How do you create secure relationships? It is an individual basis, but adoptees commonly share the experience of being continually dismissed and invalidated. Outsiders are constantly asking questions and families sometimes avoid open communication. Creating secure attachments is a lot of difficult work to heal from the trauma, microaggressions, and, often, abandonment issues. What advice would you give adoptees who aren’t comfortable with their identity? Starting somewhere and making that first step is vital—our blog is a great place to start! It is important to recognize that you are not alone, and be vigilant of [sic] where you live. Tapping into the adoptee community may be difficult depending on your location, but there are also a variety of resources to connect to virtually! What are some of your 2021 goals? I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions because I believe everyday is a “New Year.” Every day is a new opportunity, and I’m focusing on being intentionally connected. It’s difficult to stay connected with people through the current pandemic, busy schedules, and life events. Also, I want to emphasize the “intentionally” connection, because there’s a difference between a Facebook connection and mailing someone personal notes or talking on the phone or video chat. I’m also focusing on how we, KAAN, stay connected as a community and make it meaningful during these times. During the KAAN Conference they had their own space and were able to connect with the other attendees. We want to make sure they feel comfortable, and we love to follow-up after the conference. We are working through how to replicate those hallway conversations that occur outside of the conference? What advice would you give to your younger self as a woman of color and adoptee? You need to do the work and can’t forget to stay grounded. Find your community; accept yourself, no matter what! Give yourself permission to ask all the difficult questions and think through different answers. What is the best way to get involved for the readers who are interested in KAAN? All contact information can be found on our website at www.wearekaan.org! You can also email for more information at info@wearekaan.org.

Would you please introduce yourself, and tell me more about your background, what you do etc.? My name is Kelsee, and I belong to the subgroup of Asians known as adoptees. I was adopted in 1996 from the province of Anhui, China when I was just 4 years old. My mother, who was a single white American, came all the way to China with my grandmother to pick me up. I was then brought back to America and essentially assimilated into my family. I recognize and value my privilege of growing up in a white community and benefiting from the opportunities, such as formal education. With that said, there is a tradeoff that occurred for these privileges. I lost a piece of myself that I can never regain, no matter how much effort and time I try to understand myself. I’ll speak more about that trade-off as we continue. In my younger years, in my new homeland, fate would take away my adoptive mother and in place, my grandmother would step in to care for me until I reached adulthood. Ironically, my grandmother wasn’t supposed to accompany my mother to China, but fate had other plans for her. My grandmother went with my adoptive mother to China on her first and only trip outside of the country. I’m glad she did, because those moments in China laid out an important foundation for her and my future relationship with her. I’m grateful for her because she essentially ended up with another kid that she didn’t expect to have. There’s a reason for everything, and this is one of the life philosophies that I live by. This life philosophy, taught by my grandmother, would show itself again as the caretaker role reversed itself. I found myself caring for the very woman that cared for me in my younger years. I felt that I came to my family for a reason and this comfort and helps me to cope with my adoption and life transitions. Growing up in a predominantly white community, have you ever struggled with your own identity as an Asian woman and especially as an adopted Asian woman? The short answer is yes, as I am sure many others that share similar beginnings do. I landed in the Midwest in America, and I haven’t strayed far away from it since. To give you a little perspective of my area’s demographics, in the 2000 census in America, it revealed, in my area, that 99% of the community that I inhabited was white and there was only 1% that were of Asian origin. Today’s me is a bit proud of that fact; I added a little historical diversity to my community. There wasn’t a lot of diversity in my area to say the least. As a result, it didn’t provide me with much opportunity to interact with other Asians, let alone Chinese adoptees or the adoptee community. My family also didn’t celebrate festivals like Lunar New Year or anything to do with my heritage. My family is based in Christianity, so we celebrated Easter and Christmas. Because of that, I had little exposure to my heritage, and as I grew older, I didn’t know how to act appropriately when I met other Asian peers or during Chinese festivals. When I was in school, other kids would make fun of me and they even gave me a racist nickname. My new nickname was only used in certain areas and I thought to myself, “What the hell was that? What was the meaning of the nickname?” I didn’t really know what was happening, other than the fact that it was because I was Asian-looking. I did not bother to look it up. That’s all it was—a dumb nickname. But I wasn’t the kind of person who would stir up trouble either. I wanted to fit in, so I would never say anything about it. Looking back, I probably should have said something about it and how I was feeling, but I was taught to stick up for myself in that way by my teachers or family. I was not taught to be proud of my heritage or my differences in general. Not only did I not do anything about the bullying, if anything, I even joined in with that kind of behaviour. It was, unfortunately, self-deprecating. I was in-between two different cultures, and because (of this) I was still trying to figure out where I fit in. I didn’t realize that I can embrace both cultures, so I ended up gravitating towards one only—the one that I’m most familiar with, which was being with the white community. As a result, I denied the Asian aspect of myself for a long time. The name-calling started with the older students, and the younger students followed suit after learning from the older ones. Now, as an older individual who has a platform and better understanding of herself, it’s important to speak out so that the current and next generations don’t grow up with the same misconceptions as my community and I did. I want them to have a better understanding of the differences every culture has. It’s important to recognize those differences and not just try to assimilate others. Things are changing but it’s very slow. It’s one of those things where the more we—the adoptee community—put ourselves out there, the more our community gets that much-needed exposure. The world should know who we are, how we fit in, and that it’s okay that we are not all the same. Are you currently part of any adoptee or Chinese adoptee communities? When I was still in college, I started to do more research and tried to have a better understanding of my own Asian heritage. There was a lot more diversity on my college campus and a lot more opportunities to engage with other individuals from different walks of life. Eventually, I found another adoptee and her experience was very similar to mine; both of us were abandoned at birth but ended up being adopted to America. We just clicked on the same level and understanding. I didn’t have to explain anything to her about my adoption like I did with others. Later on, I started exploring more online community groups. I also watched this movie called "Somewhere Between," which talks about the stories of adoptees, and there was one adoptee who was also from my province. In the movie, the adoptees talked about how they were able to connect with other Asian adoptees, and that really got me thinking about how I can connect with others. Since Facebook is one of the biggest platforms, I decided to search on there. I managed to find a group of other adoptees who were also 20-something. Due to COVID-19, it has really accelerated people’s means to connect with others. The online community has definitely grown so much since I joined. I also learned so much more about myself, such as about adoptions in the early 1990s. (I would be considered part of the first wave of Chinese adoptees.) There were also Korean adoptees, whose adoption wave came before the Chinese adoptees. They, the Korean adoptees, tend to be a lot older than us as a result. One thing you mentioned in our conversation was “learned helplessness.” I find this a very interesting term. Do you mind expanding as to what this term means? Sure. One of the things I learned in college is that children are taught behaviors and they learn behaviors. Learning is a fundamental part of being human. We never stop learning from the early stages of conception to well into our senior years of life. Essentially, “learned helplessness” is the thought that one cannot accomplish a task or achieve a concept due to learning from repeated failures or negative feedback from stimulus around them. This isn’t the exact definition; I encourage those who are interested to look up the exact definition, but it has a big factor in how future behaviors occur in both children and adults What we learn is greatly influenced by our environment and experiences we go through. Now, throw in the life-altering event of adoption into another culture and you have a recipe for learned helplessness to occur. Our identity and self-worth stems from our learning. For me, as a transracial and transnational adoptee of the mid 1990s, I was raised in a race that was not biologically mine and in a country that held different values and beliefs than that of my homeland. Like I had said earlier, in my family, we did not celebrate traditional Chinese holidays. We did not celebrate my arrival day in the form of, “Gotcha Day” or “Family Day.” My family’s values and beliefs centered around Christianity, and as such, we celebrated and recognized the traditions that came along with it. I learned that speaking my native language did not get me what I needed, so I picked up on English quickly. I ate what the family ate. Occasionally, we’d eat Americanized-Chinese restaurant food from the city adjacent to my hometown. I never looked at it as a cultural tie—it was food. Despite retaining my abilities to utilize chopsticks, my family household did not hold such utensils. As the only Asian representation of diversity in my hometown of all-white citizens, I had no reason to want to learn more about my differences. I had learned that I am not Chinese, but was just another member of my family and community. I knew that I was different; that this difference was not necessarily a good thing. I learned to avoid anything that made others question me for fear of judgment or exclusion. I felt discomfort around those who were Asian. “I could not be like them, so why try? Why learn more about my heritage?” These were my thoughts when I was younger. Ironically, the country I was raised in valued individualistic ideas and promoted independence, yet I was taught to devalue my uniqueness and held up to arbitrary standards that I would never be able to live up to due to just the very nature of my biological makeup. As I grew, I continued to learn more about myself. I learned and had to unlearn new ways of thinking that shaped me into the person I am today. Do you think it’s important for children to have a figure to look up to and guide them? Especially when they’re an Asian adoptee growing up in a white community? Yes, I think it is very important that children that are raised in a culture and race other than the one they were born in, are given every opportunity to engage and interact with those who are like them. I never had that growing up and as a result, I lack the ability to properly engage with and be proud of my heritage. I felt awkward, and still struggle to this day, around other Asians. I must constantly fight back my learned, negative thoughts of: “I am not Asian enough” or “You’re not really Chinese.” Being Chinese is not just one construct as some may try to have you think. I think if I had an appropriate figure to look up to, that I’d be less self-deprecating. Having a figurehead is not a 100% guarantee that everything is alright, but it eases that transition and the loss that occurs in a slightly gentler way. At the beginning of the interview, I had mentioned that living in the white community gave me privileges and opportunities. But again, I ask: “At what cost?” The financial cost is nothing compared to the lifelong adjustment a child will go through. Some will be more successful than others. Each of us must learn to cope the best we can. The choice of adoption wasn’t ours and was made for us by multiple parties before we had a voice or understanding . I am also not saying: “Adoption is bad.” What I am saying is that it is important that individuals, be it parents, friends, family members, or community members, understand that adoption can be both a blessing and a life-long struggle over loss. Denying an adoptee’s feeling of sadness over their adoption if they feel this way can be detrimental to some adoptee’s growth and mental health. Adoptees can feel both happy about their adoption and sad too. It’s okay. It’s not a failure, but a realization that things are different. Having a mentor, or someone to look up to, can help in this process of understanding. With our connected world, there are plenty of resources for adoptees to utilize for guidance. If a child is too young, it’s on the parents to act in their child’s best interest and not necessarily their own. There are still pockets of communities that do not have much diversity; but again, it does not mean that there are not any resources for those adoptees to access. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but recently there’s a couple from Youtube who came under fire for adopting a child from China and eventually giving him away because they couldn’t handle him because he had certain learning disabilities. This is heartbreaking because it is as if the child is a mere commodity and they only adopted the child to “save” him/her. However, when they could not deal with him anymore, they gave him away. What is your opinion towards this? Adoption is a hard decision to make. It should not be taken lightly. Adoption involves two families changed forever. Adoptees are not commodities to utilize for what they are worth and then to be thrown away or abandoned when things do not go the way the parent expects it to. Adopting from another race and/or culture is even more challenging. I understand that there is only so much an adoptive family can do with a child, and then they have to make a decision on what is in the best interest of the child. But they need to ask themselves: “Would they do what they are planning to do to an adoptee if the adoptee was biologically theirs or would they continue to fight just a bit harder to not lose the child?” They took in a child, and that child is theirs. If they give that child away, then they are abandoning that child as well. The parents have to live with that guilt of abandoning. Families that have abandoned an adoptee should have an extra layer of requirements to go through before they are allowed to adopt another child. I know we have discussed a lot of different topics today, but is there anything else that you would like to talk about today? To sum up what we discussed today, I would like to re-emphasize that being happy and sad about adoption is okay. How adoptees interpret their adoption, their identity, their culture, themselves is for them to determine. If you see yourself as Asian, then you’re Asian. If you do not, then it’s okay as well. Your feelings are valid, and no one can tell you how you should or shouldn’t feel. Through my journey as an Asian adoptee, I am constantly learning and reevaluating myself. Some days I feel more Asian than others. Some days I’m more interested in my culture than others. It’s all okay. This is my interpretation on being a “Universal Asian.”

The Universal Asian got to know Allison O’Brien, author and illustrator of "Sewn from the Stars," which is available for purchase here. Tell us about your background? I’m a Korean adoptee, and I came to the U.S. as a baby with my twin sister. We were adopted together. I grew up in a suburban area on Long Island, NY. In college, I met some friends who inspired me to pursue meeting my birth family. So, I became interested in Korean culture once I entered college. During my junior year, I studied abroad for a semester at Yonsei University. There, I contacted my [biological] older sister and my mother. Because of that connection, I decided to live in Korea for two years upon graduation, and I taught English. What drew you to design? From a young age, I was always really creative. I was drawing all the time. It’s kind of funny, because many years later, when I first met my birth sister, I found out that she actually majored in graphic design like me. She said she thinks it came from our birth father—that creative drive—because my twin sister is also creative. As a kid, I really loved anime and manga, so that kind of got me into drawing my own characters and writing my own stories. Out of everything you’ve done, what is your favorite type of design and why? I’ve always really liked digital illustration because I enjoy watercolor and I like blendable colors, layering, and adding to my work. I prefer working digitally because it’s easy to erase your mistakes; whereas, on paper it’s kind of what it is. I also prefer illustration over typical graphic design work, like logo design or brochures. I just find I have a lot more creativity drawing. I’ve usually only done digital illustration. I mean, I can paint, but I don’t do it very often. How would you describe your design style? I would say “soft and airy,” because I like watercolor. So, anything that really blends together. I love fantasy, so anything with those kinds of elements. I also really like painting flowers, so I guess kind of feminine too. What is "Sewn from the Stars" about? "Sewn from the Stars" is a fairytale that takes place in ancient Korea. The main character is a girl named Ha Neul, which means “sky” in Korean. She works for her aunt sewing hanbok, which are traditional Korean dresses. And, when the King of Joseon asks for a hanbok for the queen, she embarks on a journey to make the most beautiful hanbok in the land. So, it’s about magic, and she meets a couple of interesting characters along the way. What inspired you to write it? As a child, I recall only seeing children’s books with beautiful blonde or white girls as their heroine. So growing up, I had a bit of a complex about being Asian. I grew up in a primarily white community, so I really felt like I wanted a connection with the characters in some of the stories I read. The only memorable story with an Asian female lead was "Mulan," so that was one of my favorite movies and still is. It was my goal to create something with a strong female heroine, someone who was Korean, and creative like me. What made you choose children’s literature over any other? I felt that there weren’t many Korean children’s books, specifically, written in English. So, I wanted to create something that other adoptees, Korean or Asian-American, and even parents of adoptees, could relate to. I also knew I wanted to illustrate it, and children’s books/picture books was really the way to go. Additionally, I’d like to get kids interested in other cultures from a young age. I felt like I didn’t open my eyes to the world, or get interested in traveling, until I entered college. It just wasn’t something that I was exposed to from a young age. How did the illustrations come together? I came up with the idea first by illustrating the cover. I knew I wanted it to have something to do with Korean culture. So I drew the cover, then I came up with the characters, and I wrote the story in Word. I did the sketches and illustrations last. Kind of like how I talked about before, I did everything digitally at the time. Is there a lesson you want readers to take away from the book? Without giving too much away about the story, there’s this one part in the book where Ha Neul meets a boy. And, although it’s clear after she talks to him that he comes from a more privileged background, she kind of realizes that they actually have a lot more in common than she thought. I like the idea of incorporating mature lessons into books that are meant for younger readers, where adults can still take something away from that kind of book. There’s this overarching idea of family, love, and following your dreams. I hope that I can inspire my readers to dream big, and to see past their own inherent prejudices. What are the pros and cons of self-publishing? I think if I had my book published by a company, marketing my book would be so much easier because it’s hard to get exposure on your own. But, I decided to only publish an ebook for now because printing a fully illustrated picture book is quite expensive. I am looking into having hard copies printed further down the line, but right now this format is the most accessible and affordable. Ultimately, when I was thinking about it, my main goal was just to get my book out there for people to see and read. Finding someone to publish your book is a really long process. I did try sending out query letters a few years ago, but I finally decided that I just wanted it out there rather than collecting dust on a shelf somewhere. I wanted everyone to be able to read it. Is writing a book something you’ve always wanted to do or was that a spontaneous thing? I’ve always wanted to write a book because I’ve been drawing and writing since I was a kid. In elementary school, almost every day I would write short stories, because that was just something I enjoyed doing. I’m also a really big fan of fantasy novels and young adult novels, so it’s kind of always been a passion for me. Do you have any plans to write another book in the future? I’m considering writing and illustrating another children’s book, when I have the time. I just don’t have any ideas yet. I’m always drawing, so I’m sure I’ll come up with something. If not, I do sometimes dabble in writing young adult stuff. I haven’t published it yet, but I’m thinking about it. However, I’m definitely looking into publishing something else in the future. Website: https://www.allisonobri.com/about.html

The Universal Asian had the pleasure of interviewing Lyla Mills, founder of Adopted, Chosen, Loved, which is a mentorship program that places older and more experienced adoptees with younger adoptees to explore interests and develop a lifetime bond. What is your adoption story? I was adopted from China at three months old and raised in Alpharetta, Georgia, a suburb outside of Atlanta. Growing up, I wished I had an older sibling or someone to openly share my journey of adoption with. I created this program hoping to establish a big sister/brother environment to help younger adoptees navigate that experience. Can you tell us more about the program you organized called Adopted, Chosen, Loved? It’s created a welcoming sense of community! Mentors are matched with mentees depending on their experience, interests, and goals. I worked really hard to establish a family environment, and that’s what we’ve created! All mentors are like older siblings and even connect with the mentees’ parents! We hold different events from Netflix movie parties to makeovers with middle schoolers. Everyone gains a new perspective and a chance to connect with others. When was the first time you experienced discrimination towards your race or story of adoption? In elementary school, my class was singing “America (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee).” There were probably about three other students who weren’t white, and my teacher pointed at us as we sang the lyrics “my native country, thee” and instead forced us to sing “my chosen country, thee.” Of course I didn’t think anything of it during the time, but looking back it shows how misconstrued our American education system is. With the holiday season coming up, what types of emotions do you feel? Do you face any racist family members? I have a small family, so holidays aren’t lonely for me. It’s always myself and my parents, and we go to different locations depending on the holiday. My grandparents fought in WWII, so I’m glad that they aren’t racist towards me. Even though I’m Chinese, they do tend to group Asians together. Because I have a strong connection with my immediate family, the holidays usually bring up feelings of anxiety. I think about what will happen when my family passes away and when I’m all alone. I’m scared because I lost my birth family, and I don’t want to lose my adoptive family also. I try and focus on the positive memories I’m creating now, but I know all feelings are valid. What activities do you engage in outside of Adopted, Chosen, Loved? I actually created Adopted, Chosen, Loved because of the extra time I had due to the coronavirus. If it wasn’t for this pandemic, this program wouldn’t have been established. At first, it started off by connecting a few people; I never thought it would grow to what it is now! However, I’m also a law student. Every summer, my mother would bring me to a camp in Atlanta, which saved me in a way. Everyone had a different background and it was a fresh experience, and was nice to get out of my suburban town. One year this girl at camp introduced me to her boyfriend, and the next year I found out he shot and killed her. People began making nasty comments about how he was a Black man and she was a white woman, and I wanted to get to the bottom of the case due to the close nature of the crime. I secured an internship at the District Attorney’s office in Atlanta, and it further inspired me to become involved with multiculturalism in the criminal justice system. Have you returned to China? Are you interested in looking for your birth parents? I know a ton of transracial adoptees want to connect with their heritage, but I never felt that desire. When I was younger, my parents tried to educate me about my Chinese heritage. I was never interested at the time, and they eventually gave up, which is something I regret. I wish I had maintained some type of connection, but we can only continue to move forward. However, I’ve always been interested in the chance of having biological siblings. I wonder who my biological parents are, but it is not something I’m actively searching (to find out). I was angry with my birth mother for a while, which presented itself as hatred towards myself. I eventually came to terms with the fact that adoption was her only option. During that time in Chinese history, women had to hide their newborn daughters, or place them for adoption, in hopes of a better life. One night, I was watching this movie about a teenage mother, and it completely shifted my perspective of what it’s like to have a child when you’re not prepared. I know we will always be connected, and I am eternally grateful for my life now. Do you think transracial adoptees of white families have white privilege? Such an interesting topic. I think it’s contextual, sometimes we have access to white privilege and sometimes we don’t. Being transracially adopted shows the struggles of not fitting into minority or white racial categories. We have higher chances of getting a call back from recruiters reading our name on a resume, but we still experience racism due to the fact that we aren’t white. What’s your favorite part about being adopted? That’s such a great question. My favorite thing is the life I’m living now, and the thought that no one knows what it would’ve been like if I wasn’t adopted. The adoption community has an incredible support system, and I would not be where I am today without them. They truly make me feel adopted, chosen, and loved. What advice would you give adoptees, especially young adoptees of color? Don’t let the negatives get to you and ruin your compassion. I know it gets lonely, but once you establish a support system your life completely changes. Learn to be accepting of yourself. My mom always said: “You’re never going to be the smartest or the prettiest person in the room, but find the people in your life that make you feel like you are.”

Can you please introduce yourselves and how you both started the podcast “Adopted Feels”? Hana (she/her): Hi, I’m Hana. I was adopted from Korea to Australia, but I’m now living and working in Seoul. I actually met Ryan a few years ago in Melbourne, and it was their idea to create this podcast. We discuss issues related to adoption, race, and identity, and aim to create a safe adoptee-centric online space. We’ve been doing it for over a year now, and it’s also been a really nice way for us to keep in touch. Ryan (they/them): I’m Ryan; and I was adopted to Melbourne when I was around four months old. However, I actually spent most of my childhood in Taipei. Due to my father’s work, the family relocated to Seoul and lived there for roughly four years.  In hindsight, it was quite a unique experience as an adopted Korean to be able to spend quite a number of years in Korea. After high school, we moved back to Melbourne, and I’ve been living there ever since. The podcast with Hana has been a really wonderful and rewarding project. I have also been doing academic research on Korean adoption for the past couple of years. What was your experience like growing up as an adoptee? Hana: I was adopted into a white Australian family within a predominantly white community. I felt very self-conscious growing up and I just wanted to fit in. I basically wanted to be white. I have a good relationship with my adoptive family, but when I was growing up, they couldn’t really help me develop a clear sense of being Asian, or an adopted identity, or how to deal with racism. Living in Australia as a transracial adoptee, I experienced various microaggressions regularly and struggled to integrate my various identities. It’s through connecting with the broader Korean adoptee community that I’ve found guidance and support for dealing with these kinds of things. Ryan: I have a different background to Hana because my family was already multiracial before I joined them. My mom grew up in Singapore and immigrated to Australia, and my father is Swedish. So, in a way, they were already kind of foreigners in Australia. Although my mom and I don’t look alike, I think some people would assume that I was from my mom’s first marriage. So, I suppose you can say there were a few different ways in which our family “configuration” was perceived, and my being adopted wasn’t always so clear to people. I spent most of my childhood and adolescence in Asia. However, as I went to international schools, I can only really speak English, and most of my teachers were white. Even though I didn’t grow up in a Western country, whiteness still structured a lot of my experience, and I did internalize a lot of racial discourses. At what point in your life did you feel like connecting with your own heritage? Hana: For me, the real turning point was when I came back to Korea for the first time since my adoption. That was 10 years ago now. It was really significant for me to visit Asia for the first time and to physically blend in and feel this real sense of safety and freedom in my own body. After that trip, I started to explore what being Korean meant to me, and I started to slowly identify as an Asian person. This also started a process of feeling more comfortable in my own skin and beginning to appreciate my Asian physical features. I also started to learn about Korean culture, language, and history—including the history and context of transnational Korean adoption. Ryan: For me, that happened a lot later, probably only within the last five years or so, despite having lived in Korea during high school. I don’t think I was prepared to move to Korea, and I don’t recall my parents having a conversation with me about my feelings around moving to the country of my birth. All I remembered was that when I first moved to Korea, I felt pretty different. I didn’t know Korean cultural norms and expectations – for instance, using specific terms and bowing to kids older than you. I thought it was a bit bizarre, and I felt pressure around not knowing what was expected of me. I felt that I was pushed into this space where I was supposed to know how to behave, but I had no pointers! I think I probably rebelled against it. So, at the time, all I could see were my differences from, and not commonalities with, Korean people and society. It was only later in life that I started to become more interested in learning about Korean culture. I’m not sure if there was a particular turning point, but rather a gradual and growing acceptance and interest. I guess I realised that if I don’t start asking these questions on behalf of my future self, for instance, about my birth mother, one day when I’m older and if I do want to look for her, it will be too late. What is the best thing about doing the podcast “Adopted Feels” together? Was there a specific episode that you particularly enjoyed doing? Hana: One of the cool things about hosting a podcast is that it gives you a reason to contact anyone and ask them to have a conversation with you. We’ve been able to talk to amazing artists, activists, therapists, and just really inspiring people. I’ve also been so struck by our guests’ openness and vulnerability when they were talking to us. I think partly because we’re both adoptees, adoptee guests are more inclined to open up with us. It’s been a real privilege to bear witness to their stories. The tone of our episodes varies a lot. Some are more frivolous and some are a bit heavier, such as adoptee mental health, which is a really important topic for me. We did a series on adoptee suicide that was partly motivated by some recent suicides within our Korean adoptee community, including one Australian-Korean adoptee who was a friend of ours. I’m actually really proud of that series because it was something that we still need to openly acknowledge and talk about more within our community. Ryan: I totally agree with Hana, but just to add—the episodes we have on adult adoptee therapists and/or adoptee mental health, have tended to be the most downloaded. I think that’s kind of indicative of what information or support people are seeking. That said, I love all the episodes we’ve done, especially the ones which feature multiple guests. It just adds that extra dimension, when you can hear and feel the connections and rapport guests have with each other. What are your plans for the future? Do you plan to expand your podcast into something more? Hana: Recently, we have been asked to create some educational resources for a wider audience, e.g. counselors and social workers who are working with adoptees. Honestly, we’ve just been taking it one step at a time, and we haven’t necessarily been planning anything too far into the future. Ryan: I think when we first started the podcast, we were thinking as to whether we should do seasons or just let the podcast roll. We decided to just let it roll and it’s been a surprisingly enriching experience. I’m really glad we made that decision. I think my dream is to just keep doing what we have been doing. Hopefully we will be able to find more people to come on and chat with us. I love receiving feedback from people that are listening in, especially those who take the time to send us direct messages to let us know that they enjoy it. It’s so meaningful to us. In general, I’ve just really enjoyed the process. Hana: Yea! We often get these messages from Korean adoptees who live in tiny white towns in the middle of nowhere to let us know that our podcast played a small role in helping connect them, no matter where they are. It gave them access to conversations around race and adoption that they might not have where they’re located. I think one of the upsides of COVID-19 is that Zoom meetings are now so normalized. So, it’s made us more brazen in who we approach, and we just figure out the time zone difference. Sometimes, we also invite guests who aren’t adoptees, but perhaps have a similar experience around race, identity, or family separation, and are able to provide a useful perspective. You can listen to Hana and Ryan’s podcast “Adopted Feels” on all platforms via: https://adopted-feels.simplecast.com/episodes.

The Universal Asian is excited to introduce Dr. Jordan VanHemert, a gifted saxophonist and composer. His new album “I Am Not A Virus” will be available to the public in early 2021. Tell us about your background? Where did you grow up? Where did you study? I grew up in West Michigan, which, ironically enough, is where I now reside. I promised myself when I was 18 years old that I would never ever return to this place—I was not a fan—and life brought me back here. I have a Bachelor of Music from Central Michigan University, a master’s degree from the University of Michigan, and I recently completed my doctorate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. How did you get into music—specifically, the saxophone? After my grandfather passed away, my family inherited his CD collection. I used to sit on the floor of the living room and just listen to music over and over and over again. So, one time, I was just listening through, and one CD I stuck on was The Essential Charlie Parker. I listened to that CD, and I remember the exact recording that came on, that first track. It was Charlie Parker’s recording of “Stella by Starlight” from Charlie Parker with Strings, and I was completely hooked. I had no idea up until that point what a saxophone sounded like—I had no idea. So from that moment on, I was kind of fixated on the saxophone. When I got my first saxophone in sixth grade I just couldn’t put it down. We didn’t really have to practice the music in middle school; I just did because I loved playing it. At the career fair, everyone was like: “Oh, what do you want to be when you grow up?” and I thought about it and I thought: “Well, being a professional musician would be pretty cool.” I didn’t know it at the time, but I thought: “Yeah, playing the saxophone every day and getting paid to do it, that sounds great. That sounds like the life for me.” What is it about jazz that draws you in? Who are your favorite artists? Improvisation. The idea that you can just spontaneously create with no previous thought of what comes out the other end of the instrument. To me, that was always a really fascinating process. But, more than that, I grew up in a place where I rarely saw people of color playing music. Like, at all. And one of the first places where I saw any kind of BIPOC musician was jazz. My idols growing up, and I would say still now, were Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, Hank Mobley, and Joshua Redman—all of whom are African American. What is the most rewarding part of performing for you? What is the most difficult part? I really think that during this time, in a global pandemic, you really understand how meaningful it is to share music with other people. It’s been a while since I was able to do that, at least in a live situation. I think live music is so cool because anything can happen. The performance will be completely different even if you play the exact same thing the same way night after night. It’s completely different. And, to me, that is one of the most rewarding things. You’re creating an experience, sharing an experience of what it means to be human, and you’re sharing that experience with people in a way that everybody understands. The most difficult thing for me about playing music is to overcome the judgment zone with my own playing and composing. I am very new to the concept of not judging your work, but it’s something that I pass on to all of my students: “Don’t judge yourself, don’t judge your work. When you get off stage, don’t start thinking immediately of things that you could have done better.” I’ve always been kind of a perfectionist, and that element of myself has always been my worst enemy. You’re set to release a new album next year called “I Am Not A Virus.” What can you tell us about it? Well, this really has been a labor of love for me. I almost cancelled this entire session; this album almost didn’t exist. When I had originally planned the recording session, this was pre-COVID; and then COVID happened. It was devastating, first of all, to the music community, and second of all, to the Asian and Asian-American community. All of that led to me being very, very fatigued. There was about a month where it was really difficult for me to even write any music. In April, I was thinking: “Okay, we have this recording session scheduled for July, am I going to be ready for this.” What I ended up coming to was that the music was really important for me to share. There was something specifically that I could say about living in the year 2020 as an Asian-American that I wanted to say. I thought about how we would remember this year, especially how our community has been, in various ways, oppressed throughout this time. I realized I had to say something, and I had to say it in the way I felt most comfortable with. And it just so happens that it flows out of the activist tradition of jazz music. So I thought it was a perfect way to say: “I am Asian-American. I am also a jazz musician. And I am here to say that this is what I am really experiencing.” Your latest release directly addresses the Black Lives Matter movement and the oppression Black Americans have faced since the foundation of this country. What can the Asian and Asian-American community do to be conscientious, earnest allies in the fight for justice? That’s a great question. When I wrote that song, I was so broken and frustrated and angry about the most recent killings of unarmed Black individuals—Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd. I’ve been asked the question: “This is an Asian-American activism album, so why is there a tune called ‘Black Lives Matter’?” My response to that was that first of all, people of color need to stand together. We need to stand with our Black brothers and sisters because that’s what they have done and would do for us. The most heartbreaking thing, the most appalling thing for me is when I saw the video of George Floyd’s killing, when I saw an Asian police officer just standing by and not doing anything. That haunts me. That image haunts me. I think it’s a good metaphor for the way that we need to move forward because the fact of the matter is that while we all experience racism in different ways, by continuing to fight alongside our Black brothers and sisters I believe that we make life better in this country for all of us. We need to see ourselves as parts of a larger community of color. The way forward is, first, to stop being bystanders. An attack on one group of people of color is an attack on every one of us. The more we think that way, the less we are minorities. We’re so much more powerful and our activism is more enabled. It’s a complex question, one that I don’t think I’ll ever answer perfectly, but the idea is that we need to, even if we fail, we have to try. We have to start trying in ways that matter, in ways that are actionable. There was a tangible backlash against Asians and Asian-Americans after the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. What steps, artistic or otherwise, do you think we can take to stop the spread of hatred and racism in this country? The first thing we need to do is talk about this stuff, about these issues. And be open. I think, a lot of the time, our community doesn’t speak up for itself. We experience things, and then we bottle them up and bury them inside. When we do that, it’s almost like we erase the evidence of our own struggles. We need to start speaking out, and start talking to people about dismantling the model minority myth. As much as people in our community can have the misconception that it’s helping us, it absolutely is holding us back. Be on the lookout; be vigilant about those kinds of terminologies being thrown around. Understand our own history. I think we have a very bad short-term memory as a community. Right now it’s COVID, but before that it was Yellow Peril, before that it was Japanese internment, the Chinese Exclusion Act, etc. etc. etc. We’ve somehow been fooled into thinking that we’re not at as much of a risk. That’s something we need to check ourselves for. The more we do that, the more we dismantle the model minority, the more we understand how much we actually do have to gain here. The second thing is sometimes we’re our own bystanders. Learn to speak up for yourselves and say: “No, that’s not okay.” Hold our elected officials accountable. Hold the words that they speak accountable. Hold them accountable for their actions. One of the fundamentally important things for us is to come together as a community. Because the more I talk to other Asians about things of this nature, no matter where someone is from, everybody says, universally, that we have experienced these things. The more that we can come together around these things and present a united front, the more our world is going to start looking better. You’re also an educator. What do you want people to take away from your music? In the art form of jazz, the nature of the music is that is inherently accepting. The great Jimmy Heath always used to say that jazz is the truest and purest form of democracy that we have. Everybody gets a voice. Everybody gets a say. And jazz doesn’t say that you have to be somebody. It demands that you respect the lineage and the ancestry, but it does not tell you who to be or what to play like. It invites you to contribute all of yourself. And in that way, with this record, I’m contributing myself. For any young musicians who are Asian, I would want them to take away that there is somebody who hears you; there is a music that sees you. We can do this. We can be present in this world. We can be represented in this community. Our voices are important, and our voices are powerful. Website: https://www.jordanvanhemert.com YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1ql5_vRzOpcyoE4ZlhN5HQ

What was it like growing up as an adoptee? If anyone thinks about it, when they’re a kid, you’re not really aware of these kinds of things. Recently, I had this moment where I tried to explain to other Asian-Americans or people of colour that I can just point to any couple, who are white, walking down the street and say they could be my parents. My parents are exactly like them. I can identify more with the white American culture than Asian-American culture because I didn’t really know about Asian food or the language or any of those reference points. Despite that, there were still some types of unspoken signals to me that I didn’t fit in with white culture, and I really couldn’t understand why. However, I just kind of accepted it and absorbed it. In a lot of ways, it was damaging, but in other ways, I took ownership of it and told myself that I don’t have to put up with this. I’m just going to be my own person and figure it out. It wasn’t until I started spending more time with Asian-Americans that I started hearing different stories. I was also able to identify with the things that they talked about such as being treated in the same way—as we are externally perceived as the same. It wasn’t until I was 25-30 years old when I finally started to kind of come out and realise that the world sees me as Asian-Korean. I thought to myself that I should probably figure out what that means for me and how to respond to it. With everything that has been going on with politics and race relations in the U.S., it’s been so much for us to realise that we have a lot of internalised racism because of the way that we learned about racism from our white parents, especially in terms of anti-blackness. I grew up in Chicago, in a nice white suburban area of Chicago, which was right next to the more crime-ridden, predominantly black and impoverished west side of Chicago. That’s how race was taught to me in a very clear-cut and explicit way. It sends the message that being black is poor and dangerous, etc. It took me moving to Portland, Oregon to realise that my education around race was totally wrong. For about a few years, I volunteered with the Asian Pacific American network of Oregon. That really helped build a network for me to meet other Asian-Americans who all had different experiences of being hapa, first or second-generation immigrants, refugees etc. We were all able to hold a space together for all our experiences, but there still wasn’t much representation or acknowledgement of the adoptee experience. For a long time, I heard a lot of people talking about how their grandparents immigrated or about internment camps or refugee experiences and that they descended from them and learnt all about their cultures from their ancestors. Whereas I’m here twiddling my thumbs and thought to myself "I can’t really relate to this." But, I also don’t feel comfortable talking about my white family because in these places, there are a lot of associations with having a white family to being privileged and having a better life, which is all kinds of mixed messaging and traumatic. I grew up in an upper-middle class white neighbourhood so I went to good schools, had healthcare and all those things. However, in terms of identity, there wasn’t a whole lot there. The attitude that a lot of adoptive parents had was just to raise them as if they were your own. It did take 30 years before I was able to finally come out again. I say come out because I also identify as queer! Not sure if you have heard of the comedian Joel Kim Booster before. But he’s also a gay Korean adoptee. In his comedy shows, he tells all these funny jokes; and one of them was that he knew he was gay before he knew he was Asian. That just spoke to me so hard because it’s the weirdest situation to be in. Someone told me before that being gay is more of a logistical identity aspect to figure out, whereas the Asian part is more of an emotional and cultural aspect of your identity… Every aspect of me coming out at different stages is like coming out of a different closet; first I’m a person of colour, then I’m Asian-American, then I’m Korean, and then I’m actually a Korean adoptee. I realised that when I met other Korean adoptees that we really support each other and understand that experience. From my understanding, Yeondae wasn’t created purely for Korean adoptees, but it’s also a platform to show solidarity towards the Black Lives Matter movement? Yes, and I want to address the complexity that comes from supporting the Black Lives Matter movement from the experience of being Korean adoptees. We carry certain privileges, but also our own racial traumas, that in this moment, in Portland (Oregon), requires careful consideration in how we demonstrate solidarity with Black lives. So we talked about how we, especially as Korean adoptees, have this close proximity to whiteness because we’re basically taught how to be white. However, we still encounter situations where we can no longer be white and being Asian still separates us out and we still get discriminated against. As such, by being able to focus on that and recognise how white supremacy operates in our experiences, we can dismantle that and target white supremacy as a problem. There is also this whole aspect of colonisation and we are colonised people who were taken from our country and raised to be white. Just like the US and other countries have done with indigenous folks and Black people. Personally, I found discussing topics like BLM with the older generation slightly challenging. There were passing comments such as "people should just work harder and stop complaining." Have you also experienced similar things, especially as an organisation who will inevitably have these types of conversations with people within the Asian community? That’s interesting. Actually, a couple of us last summer in 2019, who were at the moment of realisation of our adoptee identities, wanted to organise a panel series with the Asian Pacific Network of Oregon (APANO) where we educated ourselves and the general public. So, we put on this panel series about the past, present and future of what it meant to be a Korean adoptee and seeing how it was actually the first and biggest movement in the history of transracial transnational exploitation of babies. It all started in Oregon by the Holt Family, a missionary couple who came to Korea right after the war. Due to the colonisation and occupation from Japan and the U.S. and other places, it affected Korea a lot. In addition to the culture of being so shaming towards women having children out of wedlock and other things, it resulted in a lot of unwanted babies. So, we have what we call the first wavers, who are Korean adoptees and grew up in the U.S. in the '60s and '70s and would probably have a very different outlook on race and racism. They owe their lives to the U.S., so they tend to be grateful for being American. In some ways, you can’t blame them, but also again they benefited from that in a very different way at a different time. As a result, there’s always this bootstrap narrative among that generation. It does take a delicate conversation to suggest to them that it’s not like that anymore. Now, we are kind of seeing that attitude at its worst. The whole model minority myth as well plays a huge role resulting in many false presumptions. However, at Yeondae, we realised that we, as East Asians, have a closer proximity to whiteness and more access to boardrooms and people in power. We just want to be as honest, transparent and authentic as possible. I think the whole system just operates in a way that if you comply with whiteness and become assimilated into it, completely blind to all other ways, our powers are being limited or manipulated. So, we want to exercise that and make sure that the messages are going through to the higher levels. Just because we’re also allowed in white spaces doesn’t mean that we will comply. We have this agenda to continue bringing and keeping that door open to other people of colour because we recognise that white people are more prone to listening to us. I’m actually reading this book called "The Primal Wound" which is about adoption. It talks about the reality [of being given up] that gets glossed over so much around adoptees because, for our whole lives, we were fed this very sugar-coated narrative that we were saved from our impoverished, sick and poor family into this privileged and wealthy family. Some people believe that because we were adopted as infants, it’s not as impactful or traumatic as being adopted as grown kids. But the reality is, as the book says as well, it’s being taken from your birth mother at an age when you needed her the most. No matter how good your adoptive parents were, that’s not the same bond. Have you ever had conversations about race, identity and #BLM with your family? Personally, I have not. I deliberately chose to stop communicating with my family about 3-4 years ago. Like I said, every adoptee experience is different. Some have similar experiences, but some have more violent histories with their families than I do. Others have perfectly wonderful relationships with their families and can openly talk about race and adoption. My adoptive parents only had so much capacity and they’re not really fully prepared or equipped to handle these things. At Yeondae, we are doing a lot of internal work. We just had restorative justice training and we had so many conversations about conflict, resolution and transformative justice. We also learnt what it is like to have non-violent communications especially in terms of micro-aggressions and addressing our white co-workers or family members. It’s just a weird situation to be in for our 60-70 year old white parents to fully understand our experience not as their child, but as an adult who has this experience that doesn’t have anything to do with them but also, at the same time, has entirely to do with them . Is there anything else specific you would like to bring up today? I also want to make sure to bring up another major action that Yeondae is focusing on right now, which is adoptees’ rights. I’m not sure if you’ve heard about the recent case of this Korean-American adoptee Kara Bos, who won this landmark case. She was able to find her biological father who refused to meet her, so she filed a lawsuit against him and the country of Korea for a DNA test to prove that she was his daughter to ultimately have access to know who her mother was. We were able to host an interview with her to not only learn about her first-hand experience, but also how she created all these resources that are now available for other adoptees going through that birth search. That’s just a huge life choice of whether or not we choose to find our biological families. So, Kara was zooming from Panama and she told her story which was really tragic. But, the most tragic part about her story was that it could be any of us. In addition to that, a group called Adoptees For Justice are also in the middle of working on this Adoptee Citizenship Act. In the year of 1984, I believe, adoptees didn’t have automatic citizenship in their paperwork and for the past two years, this act has been stagnated in the government. Because of Yeondae, we were able to get two different people from Congress from the state of Oregon to sign onto that. We’re getting really close to getting it because there are so many adoptees who have been deported because of inaccurate paperwork. There are so many cracks in the system and the government just straight up deport these folks who may have committed a misdemeanor when they were a teenager, but now they are sent to a completely foreign place where they don’t speak the language and don’t have any resources. It’s pretty scary! On a positive note, what are Yeondae’s plans for the future? Our core value and mission, from my perspective, always boils down to supporting the Korean adoptee community. Maybe just in Portland for now, but with the benefits of Zoom and the Internet, we’re also connecting and building coalitions with all kinds of organisations across the country and around the world with similar motives as ours. The more we learn about inter-continental adoptions, the more opportunity we see to join our voices and dismantle this exploitive system from every angle. I believe that what makes Yeondae really special and unique is that most other Korean adoptee organisations operate on a more surface or social level, which is great, but often they won’t dig deeper into certain aspects such as trauma, justice and race, etc. So we’re hoping that with Yeondae, we can bring people together on a greater level of community healing and transformative justice in whatever ways we can share with each other. To learn more about Yeondae or get involved, connect with them on one of these platforms: Website: https://yeondae.org/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yeondaeofficial Instagram: @yeondae.support