I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

I was born in Jinju, South Korea in July 1987 to a mother and father who later separated and have spoken only a few times since. Nine days before the Summer Olympic Games commenced in Seoul, I began my new life in Minnesota after being adopted by Irish and French Canadian parents. As Catholics raised during the Baby Boom, my extended family consists of 22 aunts and uncles and about twice as many cousins.

As a child I attended Camp Choson in Hudson, WI, where I met several adoptees whom I still call friends today; still, my first real introduction to Korean culture came during college, when I was a reporter for Korean Quarterly newspaper and joined Shinparam, a Twin Cities-based Korean percussion group.

In 2009 I moved to Korea on a Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) grant. For 11 months I lived with a Korean homestay family in Jeollabuk-do province and met other adoptees through events put on by KoRoot, G.O.A.’L, ASK, and the Korean Unwed Mothers’ Support Network (KUMSN).

During that year I also located my birth mother, who now lives in Daegu. Although my existence was kept secret from her husband and kids, my mother and I met about once every 4-6 weeks and texted or called in between. We have the same ears, eyes, and nose, but she says I look more like my birth father, whom I have not yet had the opportunity to meet.

After spending the past year in Seoul, I recently moved back to Minnesota and now work as a university writing consultant. I spend my free time teaching my brother how to drive and visiting my 96 year-old Irish grandmother, who still remembers all her grandchildren’s birthdays.

Lately I have been reflecting on how someone can love two families equally regardless of the amount of time spent together; how love between a parent and child can grow with age despite (and perhaps aided by) long periods of separation; and how, despite the myriad ways we can analyze it, adoption remains a mysterious, ineffable experience whose deepest meaning eludes even the most carefully selected words.