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>> 21 1 Shift in South Korean Policies toward Korean Adoptees (1954–Today) Korean adoptees bring in needed hard currency for Korea— roughly $15 to $20 million a year. They relieve the government of the costs of caring for the children, which could be a drain on the budget. And they help with population control, an obsession of the Korean government. —Matthew Rothschild (1988) Children who were adopted to developed countries in the 1960s–1970s received a good education and became competent adults. That is why it is in our interest to ensure the creation of a network. —Dong-A Ilbo (08/02/2004) Today, returning adult adoptees are considered a resource by the South Korean government in the context of globalization. Since the 1990s, the positive image of successful adult adoptees’ return to South Korea has tended to supplant the negative image of unfortunate babies being sent abroad for transnational adoption. This chapter is about the changing public opinion about transnational adoption in South Korea, a lens through which we can uncover the changing place of South Korea in the world. The phenomenon of return may have several conflicting interpretations, but adoptees’ personal quests primarily depend on their birth country’s will to establish an institutional structure that welcomes them. Overseas Korean Adoptees: A Visible Population Since 2005, May 11 is the national “Day of Adoption” in South Korea.1 Unlike in the past, journalists, politicians, and adoptees today speak openly of international adoption. Between 1953 and 1988, adoption of Korean children was hidden from the Korean public despite ever-increasing rates. Official figures 22 > 23 adoption.”12 Domestic adoption had become the controversial subject par excellence. As a means of follow-up, social workers, especially from Holt, started contributing regularly to this type of program on adoption. In another broadcast of 1999 they were invited not to be blamed in public but to contribute their expertise as the most convincing advocates for domestic adoption.13 Seen at first as the main child-trafficking institution, a supply for foreign countries, Holt Children’s Services transformed over a decade into a pioneer for children’s rights and the foremost potential child supply for South Korean families in the context of a decreasing birthrate. A glimpse into the history of Holt Children’s Services will provide us with an appreciation of South Korea’s peculiar adoption history and culture.14 Holt Children’s Services: From Blame to Sanctification The target of much outrage and criticism in 1988, Holt is today regarded with respect. Its advertising posters are openly displayed in public places, even in subway cars: the posters invite South Koreans to “experience the joy of adoption ” (Bourbon-Parme and Tourret 2004, 76). Holt’s changed status in South Korean society parallels the change of attitude and policies of the government vis-à-vis transnational adoptees.15 From 1950 to 1953, the Korean War featured South Koreans allied with Americans in opposition to assailing North Koreans allied with the USSR and China. Each side invaded the other’s territory, one after the other. A stalemate resulted in the separation of the two parties by an artificial frontier fixed on the thirty-eighth parallel by the United States and the USSR on July 27, 1953. South Korea had undergone the most destruction and was the poorer of the two states in 1953. Damages were both material and human. Historical sources converge to assess an exceptional number of family separations in Korea due to the lasting division of the peninsula.16 Yet it remains to be seen if this separation phenomenon is really unique in history,17 or if its perception as unique depends on values and social structures specific to Korea. In postwar South Korea, there were indeed multitudes of orphans, mostly taken care of by foreign institutions. In the 1960s, an American military official wrote: “It is certainly unrealistic at this point for Koreans to think in terms of a welfare state” (Wade 1966, 90). As a matter of fact, Americans blamed the successive military regimes for the precarious nature of the South Korean social welfare system (Eckert and Lee 1996, 347–387). They also deplored a common trait of all postwar societies (Sorlin 1999): the lack of interest and involvement of Koreans in the plight of orphans (Wolfe 1966, 24 > 25 girlfriends, who stayed behind, often treated as prostitutes by their neighbors . Their children suffered the effects of strong prejudices. Mothers and children were the first and main targets of Holt’s...

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