My Korean birth name is Shin 신. My record doesn't give the Chinese character though, so I can't be sure which clan I come from (申,辛,愼). Apparently I was born in Kyonggi-do, though, which may be of geographical significance. Wiki implies that Shin is an fairly common family name with nearly a million people identifying as such in 2000. Only a few family names reach the million mark; Kang, Kim, Park, Lee, Chung, Cho, Choi. Yoon and Shin are the only 900k ones. I'm actually surprised that there's no Hanji in my record. Shouldn't you use Hanji for official stuff? I don't know if I mentioned it here already, but they tried to white-out my parents names, though I can easily see my mother's name is Jeong Sook. Dunno about the father's name though. The white-out is thicker over his name.
The record also states my mother has two sisters and one brother, so I'd have aunts and an uncle to complicate things, though that's interesting in itself. Cousins? It says my mother's parents had a "commercial business". My mother was 18 when she had me. If my grandmother was 20 when she had my mother, she would be 58 now. My mother is 38. I'll say my grandmother is +- 5 years, so 63 still isn't that old. I'd say there's an 80% she's alive, since she had a "commercial business", which might imply middle class and access to medical service. I'd say this "commercial business" would be an invaluable clue if I were to search. If I get better at reading Korean I could easily access some kind of business documents from the 80's: how many businesses run by Shins in Kyonggi-do do you think there are - Shin is 1.0% of the family name population? [however, the problem, I said, was that I don't know which specific Shin clan I belong to...but I wonder if that even matters?]
[luckily the consonant S in Korean is the same kanji for "people" in Japanese (hito/jin, 人) so it's easy to remember]
The record says my mother was admitted to Esther's temporary home for unmarried pregnant women in the Eastern Child welfare center, which I also assume must have cost a lot - I'm guessing this only since abandoned children probably had mothers who didn't have enough money to live in a care center before birth.
My first legal guardian was Dr. Kim Do-Young - he also gave me my given name. Was he your legal guardian?
I'm pretty sure I'll go to Korea. Maybe when I graduate around May 2011, only on the condition that I obtain some level of confidence in the language. But damn is Korean hard...
I'm finally getting around to part wasting time part absorbing Korean via dramas. Some googling brought me to this one, Shining Inheritance. A few minutes in this line came up:
I'll probably do it later on, that is, change my last name back to my Korean birth name. My western name isn't common, no one knows how to pronounce it, and in general it's just annoying. But I wouldn't do it while my parents are alive, probably. I guess I'd feel insulting to them or something...I dunno.
why do I watch these things [yeah, this clip is pretty old...I know]? It's even scarier since I sided with Bill on this one. It's not necessarily that Bill is "correct", it's just that the other dude's argument was not that logical based on speculation.
State boundaries are fictive, constructed. Humans are real. Social institutions have always imbued upon people constructed values, identities which make people easy to manage. Classification is a method of social control. The church created heretics. The state creates criminals. Medical institutions create mental illnesses. The nation state creates citizens.
The thing is that in a modern, global political economy the construction of the citizen cannot be ignored. Perhaps it seems like an inevitable, necessary tool, just as the nation state itself is a necessary tool for capitalism to function. Therefore, humans are citizens before they are humans. That is a political economic perspective which doesn't really yield to human rights definitions, unfortunately.
The state as a territory defines humans in a political perspective before a biological perspective, and thus all beings within the fictive borders of a state must abide by such definitions. That is a prerequisite for legitimately existing within the borders of the state. To exist within a state, you must be classified by the state accordingly. You could, however, proclaim that you exist not in a nation state but simply on a land on earth. This is more of a biological definition, and as such it requires to arbitrary abstractions. You simply exist as a biological creature. But if you in any way associate with the state, you are an object of the state. That is unfortunate. Political economic paradigms usurp any other and make it impossible to exist in the world free of political classifications. You can't not be a citizen of some state; you must have a passport for international travel. You must have a political identity to legitimately exist in the global political world. I find these unfortunate truths, not that I actively support them, only because hegemony is the lesser of the two (anarchy) evils.
So, yes, an "illegal immigrant" must abide by the rules of the state in order to live within its boundaries. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that if an immigrant that doesn't abide by state identity classifications kills a citizen of the state, they can remove that person from their boundaries, since they didn't have the "right" to be there in the first place.
In analogy: I steal a cookie from the jar. I get caught, and receive punishment on two accounts - (1) for stealing; and (2) for stealing a cookie before dinner. This distinction is important because a crime is committed when it is predicated upon another; I stole, but I stole at a certain time. The first is an act, the second is a condition in which the act takes place. Both require volition, the will to act, and the will to act in a certain condition. Thus, a person can kill, and they can kill when they are in a certain condition (illegal residence).
The problem, as Rivera points out, is that migrants come not to wreak havoc but because of economic promises. It complicates the 2nd account of cookie analogy but does not entirely refute it; migrants come out of their "volition" but it's pretty fatalistic. And of course shifting attention away from the individual to structural issues is something people with little critical insight never do. Deviance has long shown how problems are individualized. The state should assume economic responsibility for globalization, not individuals.
Anyway, it's not like I directly support state hegemony, but I find it the lesser of two evils. Isn't that reform is all about?
I only recently found out what the hell a double eye-lid was. It was from some adoption book, may have been Trenka's, or this novel, called "Somebody's Daughter" by Marie Myung-Ok Lee. It was a significant discovery because I vividly remember in high school some people were sitting around, discussing Asian eyes and whatnot, and this Latino guy with distinctly European features comes up to me and was like "well, yours aren't bad." Like Trenka, double eyelids are my mothers genetic gift to me...if it's a "gift" you'll call it. If single eyelids would have resulted in more teasing, then I'm glad I have doubles.
OK, but on to what I just discovered now. There's these things called circle contact lenses:
Mei-Ling's book. Doesn't she have a blog? That's pretty cool, to be able to come into contact with authors in such an open way.
I liked this book way more than Wuhu Diaries. Mei-Ling was spot on when she said around half-way in the book that every adoptee's experiences are different. She knew that from her brothers too.
There's was also an author's picture on the back flap. I think she'd look better without bangs than with =p.
Also, I grew up in the DC suburbs, so I totally knew about Hard Times! I don't go to the one in Alexandria a lot, but there's one in Arlington that I go to a lot. Best chili ever. If you're ever in the area, make sure to go...but the one in Arlington is undergoing renovation now.
LaTex seems great. The syntax probably isn't hard to grasp and seems much simpler than Word...I hate Word, especially for Macs. My foray into open source goodness came from a resentment towards Windows and Lilypond, which I still use sort of frequently for various music projects. Lilypond gets rather confusing though and has a lot of annoying "limitations" that can only be overridden with the most ingratiating of syntax.
Just read this book by Emily Prager. I enjoyed it for the most part. It was kind of boring in some places where nothing seems to happen, but I liked the overall "message" I guess. I thought it was an interesting trip through a perspective of an adoptive parent. The only thing that made me go "WTF" was when Prager's daughter asks about her birth parents, Prager says that if she looks in the mirror she will see them, that they're in your legs, in your body. Wtf? If all adoptees were comforted by that logic do you think the majority would still go back to their place of birth in search for their parents? I don't really hold it against her though. I have no idea what I'd say if I were an adoptive parent. That bit didn't stop me from enjoying the book though.
Then again, scathing Amazon reviews do confirm that I know nothing about China nor travel writing.
...that I started to find Asian women attractive? [Feminists, put down your pitchforks and torches...] Ever since I can remember - through my K-12 education - I was never attracted to Asian women. Maybe I was even scared of them...although I had many male Asian friends. Perhaps my memory has blotted out any attractiveness I did see?
But then this past winter I began to read more about adoption. I think Jane Trenka's first memoir was my gateway book into the entire discourse on adoption. Not coincidentally Asian women became attractive. Well, my school does have a very large (11% or so) international student population, many from Japan, South Korea and China. And, again, not coincidentally, this was around the time where the fact actually "dawned" on me that I had a birth mother. I guess I "knew" it all along, but I never really engaged with the reality of the statement.
Attractiveness, adoptedness, birth mothers...in other words...I've never seen a more Freudian thing in my life.
If you're an adoptee, well, you may be able to meet your birth parents, but you cannot return to the past. Adoption is, well, there's no use crying over adoption just as there's no use crying over spilled milk.
Do you have a pet? I've had several cats through my youth. The one I have now my family got right when it was born. It was a large cat family...maybe 7+ kittens. But we adopted only one. She was de-clawed and went through all standard house-cat-ification processes. But, ten years later, the cat is really fucked up. She is terrified of outside, terrified of other cats (we never socialized her), and has very strange habits. She'll start sucking on my t-shirts, maybe since it never had a real mother. My parents say (I'm at college, cat-less ;_;) she howls at night looking for me.
I guess the point is...does this sound remotely familiar?
edit - I found this paragraph after searching "socializing cats" in google:
Getting a new kitten or cat is exciting. Whether you have one already and are getting an addition to the family, or whether you getting one for the first time, socializing your new furry friend should be right at the top of your agenda. You know, next to the litter box training? It's too bad that a lot of people don't think of socialization as being an important part of owning a pet. In fact, socialization makes all the difference between a timid, aggressive, shy, scared, and/or irritable cat and a sweet, cuddly, loving, trusting, bundle of joy. Socialization also teaches your cat the rules of the house, what kind of behavior is allowed and what isn't. This is especially important if you have children in the house that might possibly be chasing your kitty around, picking him up in odd ways, and petting him a little too roughly for his liking. A well socialized cat will put up with all these things without lashing out, and that is what you want in a cat.
Comments are closed on that post...the author wasn't "looking for a discussion".
However, disregarding the futility of this post, I wanted to point out one thing in the aforementioned post. She states:
Because we are your parents, who labored for you in ways you can never begin to understand.
[...]
Above all, let's find ways to help the current generation of adopted children, so they don't waste so much time in the emotional limbo of wanting something they cannot have.
I presume the author thinks "they" know what is best for adoptees, yet adoptees cannot, allegedly, "begin to understand" the plight of adoptive parents. Whadda they call that?...a double standard? And from a mother too...
***
On the other hand, I had been learning more about all the trouble my a-parents went through, stuff I have absolutely no memory of; how much of a pain it was to find a daycare, negotiating hours and pay at work, maternity leave, etc. But wouldn't any empathetic individual eventually think of those kinds of things?
Most of the time, I see little point in demonizing the individual when it's a larger structural problem. I also thought that was common wisdom in the community from what I've read.
That's kind of a very...strange, sort of scary feeling, that I'm of the age that my father conceived me. He also apparently joined the army when he was 21.
I don't think we're very similar.
Also, b-mother has always had a more special place than b-father. I don't really...hmm...care about b-father, even if he primarily exists in my imagination. Maybe I'd try to beat him up if I ever met him (I don't think it's very nice to impregnate an 18 year old girl and then join the army without a notice). I don't think I'd win...haha. If I go searching in Korea, it'd be to see b-mother and her family.
I'm not a philosopher, I don't really claim to be one. Fancy labels/jargon are useful because the establish language structures that other people can enter. However...jargon alienates people for that very reason. Sometimes it's hard to enter the structure. [notice I use the tag 'academentia'...a funny meme I heard from a professor]
At any rate, what I understand from briefly reading the wiki article is that existentialism seeks to understand stuff from the perspective of the individual and their experiences. That is to say, the world can only be understood internally and that there is no "objective", external world.
In the case of adoption, as I said before, it can be divided roughly into two perspectives. The existentialist one, and...another one for which I know no fancy philosophical term. Adoption as an economic mechanism of capitalism surely exists external to the individual, yet all that which people experience due to adoption must surely be, well, experiential, or internal to the individual.
The classification "adoptee" itself is derived from adoption as an external mechanism. A classification seeks to group people together for conceptual convenience, and the only way we are able to avoid logical fallacies is to group people together based on objective criteria, criteria that are external to individuals. Thus we could define "adoptee" as one that, as others have noted, is separated from her biological family and raised in another.
This "logical fallacy" we wanted to avoid would occur if we group together "adoptees" based on adoption as an internal mechanism. It would entail our grouping together people based on subjective, widely variant experiences. If we did this, then our category of "adoptee" would not be consistent with itself; one person could base their classification on their feeling of loathing towards his adoptive parents, while another could base it on her desire to meet her birth parents.
Moreover, a nasty case of circular reasoning emerges if we examine the classification of adoption as an internal experience:
"I don't like being adopted because it makes me feel disconnected."
If you replace "being adopted" for an internal experience, you get
"I don't like feeling disconnected because it makes me feel disconnected."
Therefore, adoption as a classification based on experience holds no explanatory power. When we speak of "being adopted", it must be in reference to an objective, external condition.
Despite all that, the condition of adoption is what binds people together. Imagined community, or what have you, powerful feelings swell up when you realize there are other people that have been through the same situations, and may hold the same or similar feelings as yourself.
Well this becomes considerably more confusing the more you delve into it.
Metaphors can be damaging if they get out of hand. If a certain language usurps the prevailing discourse of an issue, that language will define the issue. This language, however, is external to its issue and is observable for everyone (already with complicated phenomenology...). Thus if a whole bunch of dumb metaphors start to dominate the discourse on adoption, there is a probability that the general public will be saturated with these metaphors, and the concept which the metaphor seeks to describe will basically become those metaphors. Lakoff and others get into this, what the metonymy and everything. I think this is the main problem with metaphors, to which I should be more careful to heed.
Here was another part of my comment on that post:
Do I know what it is for you? No. Adoption is a process, a condition, a mentality, not just some political and economic function external to individuals. So you can’t really reduce it to a one liner and say “what it is”. That’s speaking for everyone. I don’t think about my biological family. It wasn’t really a family anyway. Just a mother. Or will you say you know what my definition of a family is too? It’s all too complicated to grasp with one line.
At first you'd think I was instantly contradicting myself, saying that adoption is different for everyone, then saying that "adoption is". But there is a key epistemological difference. We can say what adoption is when it is a process external to the individual. You might say it's "objective" that way. But when we're speaking of the internal, psychological process and condition of adoption, you can never really say what it "is", because it will always differ between individuals. We are able to say what adoption is only as a social, political and economic function because these criteria are what bind us together in the category "adoptee", a category that is external to the individual. To say otherwise would be a horrid essentialist argument. However, when we arrive at the psychological realm, I think there will always be different experiences.
Before, I had said that this blog had an unfortunate academic flavor. I maintain that opinion. People usually scoff at things overly-academic. It's kind of a shame on both sides of the table, but I think this is important enough to discuss, hopefully without getting to rallied up as to cloud our visions.
\a box of cookies if you can detect all thirty-six instances of hypocrisy in this post
Though baby selling is illegal, it would not necessarily constitute human trafficking where it occurs for adoption, based on the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the UN Protocols on Trafficking in Persons and the Sale of Children, the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in respect of Intercountry Adoption, and definitions of adoption established by U.S. jurisdictions.
The purposes of baby selling and human trafficking are not necessarily the same. Some individuals assume that baby selling for adoption is a form of human trafficking because trafficking and baby selling both involve making a profit by selling another person.
However, illegally selling a child for adoption would not constitute trafficking where the child itself is not to be exploited. Baby selling generally results in a situation that is nonexploitative with respect to the child. Trafficking, on the other hand, implies exploitation of the victims. If an adopted child is subjected to coerced labor or sexual exploitation, then it constitutes a case of human trafficking.
In some respects, the victims are indeed exploited. Recently, some have spoken about love, so you'd think that the purchasing of a child for emotional satisfaction of the adoptive parent would constitute exploitation, especially if the child grows up to be emotionally detached from the adoptive parents.
The problem is that such a definition of exploitation resists prevention because it's predicated on how the child's mentality evolves over time. The only partially viable prevention method would be to do rigorous background checks on adoptive parents to make sure that children aren't adopted for the sole purpose of pleasing the parents. But didn't we come to that conclusion already? Semantics...
Norimitsu, Onishi, "For English Studies, Koreans Say Goodbye to Dad," The Boston Globe, June 8, 2008.: Hints at third culture kids, a change in Confucian culture and foreign exchange Korean students learning English in order to get ahead in Korean society.
2009
Hopgood, Mei-Ling, "Another Country, not my own", The Boston Globe, August 23, 2009.: Briefly chronicles shifts in adoption discourse from assimilation to "birth culture" and back again.
Joyce, Kathrine, "Shotgun Adoption", The Nation, August 26, 2009.: Good information on CPC's (Christian pregnancy centers), how child-birth is medicalized and individualized. CPC's coerce women into having babies for the sole purpose of adoption.
Well, humans are connected genetically. Isn't all life genetically related, going back to a common ancestor? Not like I know when the first eukaryote evolved out of a prokaryote though.
But the notion that all humans are connected by a real bond - biology - just serves to indicate how disconnected humans are, how barriers are constructed, and the material of these barriers isn't anything real, nothing concrete. That's what race is, as one of my professors put it: it's everything, and it's nothing.
But of course race is more complicated than that. It can't easily be reduced to a single aphorism. What does it mean to be "white"? "Asian"? Merely the color of your skin? Is it what's on the outside? The inside? Race is as much external as it is internal. Why else would memes like "oreo" or "coconut" exist?
Race also exists as a function of class. btstormb2006 writes:
I am white because my aparents are white and my afather makes more money than your father, so that makes me white. It’s about the color of my aparent’s skin and amount of money my afather makes, but nothing to do with me.
Why is it that being rich can, to an extent, count as being white, regardless of ethnicity and heritage? I've seen this growing up too.
Eventually...idealism can be nice, but it's just a means to an end. \end marxism
-instead of having a blogroll, here's a compiled .xml of all the adoption-related blogs I'm subscribed to, currently 171. This .xml will be updated every once in a while. [as of 9/21/09]
-my archives for collecting various articles related to adoption.
-need contact? SDPDGL at gmail dot com
-comments are 'moderated' not because I really care, only since I actually know when people comment instead of having to skim all the posts' metadata.
