I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

I am a wife, mother, writer, and language enthusiast (Bachelor’s degree in Spanish, Master’s in Education).

I was born in Seoul, and on March 20, 1978, at nearly four months old, I landed in New York at JFK airport.

Raised in a Caucasian family, I’ve obviously always known that I was adopted, and I’ve always cherished being an adoptee as part of my identity. Although always proud of being a Korean American, it’s taken me a long time to find my place in the community, to reconcile who I think I should be and who I am. Twinkie, banana…having grown up without any Korean traditions, those labels are pretty apt in my case.

I have a very loving family, normal in every way except our family portrait, which we all think makes us even more special (we’re big on each other).

Now married to a fellow American of French-Canadian and Italian descent, we have two boys. Our oldest is four years old. He is our biological son. His younger brother is 20 months old and just arrived from Seoul in June. We’re thisclose to finalizing his adoption.

Choosing Korea as the place from which we would adopt was easy; parsing through the ethical arguments on both sides was less so. If you’ve had a good adoption experience (I have), it’s unsettling to have to acknowledge that foreign adoption is big business.

Ultimately, we stayed the course because we felt that whatever the historical, social, and political constructs that have enabled the adoption of Korean babies by American families, those were not for us to judge.

And simply: We wanted another child.

Somehow, between working, filling out paperwork for the adoption, mothering and wifing (is there such a word?), I found the desire and time to do a search about my background.

About two months after my initial inquiry, I received a letter from Korea Social Services, and in one paragraph my personal history was changed. I’d not been abandoned at a police station, but relinquished at an orphanage.

That changed my story, the one I’d carried with me for 32 years.

For a time, it felt as though the thread that tied me to Korea became a little stronger, more tensile. I discerned a fuzzy outline of a 19-year-old girl where previously there was just me on a doorstep with a brief note of the facts of my birth tucked into the blankets. That is what the official papers from 1977 state.

It’s been six months since we became a family of four. We’re settling in.

The baby arrived knowing no English, responding completely to Korean, brightening up at Pororo on Youtube, looking around the dining room for his foster mother when I said “eomma” and meant me.

One day soon, he’s going to forget his Korean, and that makes me sad. He arrived knowing so much more than I do, and probably within a year, my acquired knowledge will surpass his memory.

I really want to keep Korea alive for him.

When we get the chance, we take the train from Hoboken to Herald Square, literally a step away from Koreatown. We subscribe to Koream, keep kimchi in the fridge, sometimes pop into the Korean church down the street.

Do these things make me more Korean than before? I only know that I am increasingly comfortable inhabiting both cultures, one as my birthright, the other as my familiar. Now when I go into The Face Shop on 32nd street, I say hello in Korean rather than just shyly shaking my head in response as I’d always done.

This year, I am lucky enough to be a stay-at-home mom. In October, I started a year-long project called The Suburban Minimalist (www.thesuburbanminimalist.com), which I hope to parlay into a memoir on simple living. Here and there I talk about adoption and being Korean. I’m getting to a point where I just want to let it all out.