From Orphan to Adoptee: U.S. Empire and Genealogies of Korean Adoption

Notes

Introduction 1. The official dates of the Korean War are 1950 to 1953. In 1953, the thirty-eighth parallel became the demilitarized zone (DMZ) upon signing a cease-fire agreement by both the United States and Soviet forces. Currently, as the most heavily militarized space in the world (with about a million North Korean soldiers on the northern side of the DMZ and about a million South Korean and U.S. soldiers combined), the term “demilitarized zone” is a truly a misnomer. Although the signing of the armistice signaled the end of the Korean War, it is important to point out that many Koreans—from both the southern and the northern portions of the peninsula, as well as Korean diasporic peoples all over the world—do not see this war as being over, even if direct combat has ceased. National division continues to plague the Korean people to this day. 2. While there is currently a push for North Korean adoption, the entire history of Korean adoption has involved South Korea. Therefore, when I use the phrase “Korean adoption,” I am referring to the adoption of children from South Korea. 3. The Korean peninsula is divided into two nations: South Korea (Republic of Korea) and North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) were both officially formed in 1948. I use the terms “South Korea” and “North Korea” to refer to the two nations. 4. The fact that the practice of sending Korean children overseas for adoption has not ceased—despite many pronouncements made by the South Korean government to do so—also confirms that factors other than the Korean War are at work. To date, nearly 2,000 children are sent abroad every year. South Korea continues to be a leader in transnational adoption, moving from first place to being the fourth-largest sending country (after China, Ethiopia, and Russia) to the United States. See Tobias Hübinette, Comforting an Orphaned Nation: Representations of International Adoption and Adopted Koreans in Korean Popular Culture (Seoul: Jimoondang, 2006), and Jane Jeong Trenka, “A Million Living Ghosts: Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK)” (lecture, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, February 11, 2010). 5. Christina Klein, Cold War Orientalism: Asia in the Middlebrow Imagination, 1945– 1961 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 16. 6. Ibid., 144–46. 167 NOTES 7. “‘The Lord is their sponsor’: Korean Octet Gets a U.S. Home,” Life, December 26, 1955, 58. 8. Letitia DiVirgilio, “Adjustment of Foreign Children in Their Adoptive Homes,” Child Welfare 35 (November 1956): 15–21. 9. Ibid., 15. International Social Service, United States of America Branch Inc. (ISSUSA ) is an organization whose mission is to “improve the lives of children, families and adults impacted by migration and international crisis through advances in service, knowledge and public policy” (www.iss-usa.org). They seek to provide social services to children and families separated by international borders. During the first half of the twentieth century, ISS-USA focused on migrants, refugees, and displaced persons from Europe. After the Korean War, however, they began participating in placing Korean orphans into American homes. See Cathy Choy, “Institutionalizing International Adoption: The Historical Origins of Korean Adoption in the United States,” in International Korean Adoption : A Fifty-Year History of Policy and Practice, ed. Kathleen Ja Sook Bergquist et al. (New York: Haworth Press, 2007), 26–27. 10. Choy, International Korean Adoption, 20, 21. 11. Margaret A. Valk, “Adjustment of Korean-American Children in American Adoptive Homes” (paper presented at National Conference on Social Welfare, 1957), 4, in ISS-USA Papers, Box 10, File “Adjustment of Korean-American Children,” Social Welfare History Archives (SWHA), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Of the ninety-three children, seventy-five were “Korean-Caucasian,” fourteen were “Korean-Negro,” and “four are probably of Korean-Mexican or Korean-American Indian.” These descriptors are hers and not mine. Identifying four of the children as “probably Korean-Mexican and Korean-American Indian” reveals the slippage of racial categories. It also suggests that the fathers were unknown in these cases, so Valk is probably guessing what their parentage is on the basis of appearance, again indicating the inadequacy of racial categorization and perhaps the inaccuracy of these numbers. 12. Ibid., 18. 13. Dong Soo Kim, “Intercountry Adoptions: A Study of Self-Concept of Adolescent Korean Children Who Were Adopted by American Families” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976), 62. 14. Ibid., 165. 15. Ibid., 166. Dong Soo Kim does admit that as the adoptees grow...