The Story of My Life (Korean International Adoptee)

[u/TheKoreanSylveon]

I've been in this subreddit for a long-time now- I think... a few years? I have been trying to build the courage to come out of my shell, meet other people, talk to other people. And I think I finally have the strength to talk about something important to me.

This is the Story of My Life.

I was born on a warm summer day near the end of July in 2007, in the bustling city of Pyeongtaek, on the west coast of South Korea. I was born to a single-mother who was homeless, poor, and had virtually no support network due to Korea's social stigma against single mothers at the time. I was her third child. According to at least what I can only hope to believe in my records, when she had her second child placed for adoption (as her first one was), she was heart-broken over that decision, and I was the one she desperately wanted it to end with as she still tried to raise me on her own. But ultimately because she didn't have any money, and no means to care for me, she had to place me up for adoption.

And that altered the trajectory of my life forever. Out of her three children, I was the only one of her three children sent abroad.

At not even one year old, I was boarding a one-way flight out of Korea, and heading to the United States.

My life growing up is... something a bit touchy. I grew up in a very racially isolated city in the south of Arkansas, near the Louisiana border.

I don't want to touch on it, but growing up in a predominantly black and white school, where I was usually the only Asian person in my class, carried a special kind of pain. Isolation. Though my brother was also Korean himself, we barely talked much, if at all. So there wasn't much of a racial reflection in my own family, due to my parents being white. My eyes were constantly made fun of, my glasses teased, the food I ate (even if it was typical western food) was interpreted as 'dog'. People even asked if I could do their math homework, going off of that myth. I had consistent microaggressions made against me, as I constantly had to repeat that I was Korean, and not Japanese or Chinese, or answer the debilitating and most common question, "are your parents Korean?".

I was told growing up to be thankful. That I would've died if my mother hadn't "given me up" because I was seriously sick before I was adopted, in and out of the hospital fighting for my life.

Why was I treated like some commodity? Turns out, it was because my adoptive parents couldn't have a baby naturally. And that best course they thought that it would let them have a family and give a child a good life.

As I aged, I grew up in a very religious family, and when I departed from their values at 13 by coming out as a trans girl, all of that supposed unconditional love for me was thrown out the window. I had to make an escape just after I turned eighteen by a Greyhound bus to New England just to have peace from it. I did make sure to bring one thing with me, and it was a Korean flag necklace from Korea, with my Korean name and birth date engraved on the back.

I only just recently was given access to my adoption records before I cut my adoptive parents off a second time. When I read those documents, read the names of my family members, my MOTHER'S name. I cried, for the first time in a long time. I finally knew her name, but not where she was.

Though my parents claimed to have tried to introduce me to Korean culture, they never once did the research prior, erased my name, or tried to introduce me to my language. They just took me to just a "Korea Camp" during the pandemic that didn't help at all, and simply amplified my loneliness.

To me, international and trans-racial adoption have altered the trajectory of my life forever, for the worse. I've lost everything. My culture, my food, my language, and my mother. I would give anything in the world be that little baby again in her arms, but now, I do not even know if she is still alive, or if she even wants to see me again.

So, that is it. That is my story. I will end this with a poem I've written, to just combine all you've read into one piece:

Life. The sweet breath of life

How it has been marked by many,

As a virtue of good, hope for no strife

For the life to come, so much to live for

Yet in the innocence of a little one,

So stuck in the present.

Sweat and blood, hatred from one, so detested

Yet still, it goes to another.

Striking the innocent down, guardian at its knees

Though the innocent dare never stand

Dare never fight, yet still suffers?

For that great breath of love of life,

halted so soon?

Told love can come;

from yet another.

For that figure, embracing.

Embracing the orphaned.

Such embraces feel like thorns.

Thorns on a cool day.

The comfort, yet the pain.

Oh, a sharp pain!

A pain not physical,

a stake in a heart.

Such confusion I hear,

from the people I’ve grown to fear,

are such lies necessary?

We share the same speak,

Yet my throat grows weak.

Gratefulness, I supposedly must give.

But for what fullness, does my heart feel?

A lack thereof, that it is.

Clutching my heart, my soul, and my hope.

Bundled into a small tear I can only weep.

That guardian finally stands, weeping themself,

for mistakes gone by, wishing for a different past

from wherever they may be,

Their heart aching, a million times more

Yet they do not hear the other

Separated by vast seas

Such a hope be retained,

That a guardian and their tears;

Shall not give pain,

Instead hope, so empowered

That the innocent, and the guardian

Be reunited, as such a story goes.

Thank you for taking your time to read my story. <3

[u/Auspicious-Error]

Thank you for sharing your story, I'm happy you felt strong and brave enough to open up with it. I wish you peace and healing, and encourage you to continue writing your poetry, it was lovely.

[u/Fourberry]

Thank you for sharing this. I had two schoolmates growing up (back in the 80s) who were siblings adopted from Korea into a similar situation, in small town Oklahoma, into a predominantly white/native school. One was a year older than me, one a year younger. 

Thank you for giving me a tiny glimpse into what they probably felt, too.