One really fascinating thing about the adoptee community is that it's accessible. Or that's kind of my take on it. Trenka has a blog, so does Sun Yun Shin. Julia Chadyere Oparah is the only editor of Outsiders Within that doesn't seem as much present on the internet. Harlow's Monkey was also a gateway blog for me, then I stalked blogrolls and within a few hours got a list of 170-something, it's that .xml I keep for people to download if they want.
Anyway this critical mass of adoptees needed 50-some years since the armistice to develop into a knowledge-producing community. Some dates...
Trenka, 1972, 39 years old
Sun Yung Shin, 1974, 37 years old
Jae Ran Kim (Harlow's Monkey), 1971, 40 years old
me, 1989, 20 years old [if you're wondering!]
When You Were Born in Korea: A Memory Book for Children Adopted from Korea, 1993*
A Single Square Picture, 2002
After the Morning Calm, 2002
Language of Blood, 2003
Somebody's Daughter, 2005
Cultures of Transnational Adoption, 2005
Outsider's Within, 2006
Once They Hear My Name, 2008
Slant, 2008
Fugitive Visions, 2009
Slant and When You Were Born are the two from this list I haven't read; the list is only to give a brief chronological view of the development of adoption literature written by adoptees. The exception, noted with the asterisk, is that When You Were Born in Korea was written by adoptive fathers. However, their words are revealing:
This book will be read and enjoyed by 7-to-12 year-old children and their parents, and it can be shared with younger children to help them learn more about their life before coming to you. ...I'm sure more observant people could pick apart the myths in their statement, but it's not an ill-intended book (ie. $$$$$), I don't think. But, a book for 12 year-olds written in 1993 would include adoptees born in 1981, 10 years after Jae Ran Kim.
When You Were Born in Korea was developed as a fund-raising effort by two adoptive dads who began this project to give their own children a better understanding of their lives as babies, and of those people who were important to them then.
I hope that there are more books written by Korean adoptees than those I have listed. There is truly a dearth of "traditional" knowledge production if a handful of memoirs and one scholarly anthology (Cultures of Transnational Adoption isn't written entirely by Korean adoptees) account for the entirety of this critical mass of intellectuals. Of course, scholarly work like Outsiders Within is founded on decades of research carried out by non-adoptees, but my point is that it takes a certain condition and amount of time for a community to develop and insert their voices into mainstream discourse. If 2002 really is the first "organic" piece of literature - surely motherland trips must have existed in the 90's, right? - I find that really shocking. Not in a bad or good way, it's just kind of...wow.
I was wondering if you had read After the morning calm and what you thought about it. That was the first book that really got me into the Korean side of matters.
ReplyDeleteSo the dates for the people are either adoption dates or birth dates?
Interesting! Sara Dorow's book, Cultures of Transnational Adoption isn't an adoptee authored book, Sara is not a Korean adoptee (or adopted at all).
ReplyDeleteMy one critique of "Once they hear my name" is that none of the editors are Korean adoptees either. They are a social worker, a Korean American and an adoptive parent of a Korean adoptee. The narratives are all by adopted Koreans however.
Somebody's Daughter by Marie Lee is not an adoptee authored book. Marie Lee is a well known Korean American author but not adopted.
Others to add to your list:
Seeds from a Silent Tree http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0965936007/harsmon-20
The Unforgotten War by Thomas Park Clement (first memoir by a Korean Adoptee, I believe, self published in 1998) (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0966795202/harsmon-20
Trail of Crumbs by Kim Sunee http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446579769/harsmon-20
Twins in a box by Jeannine Vance http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403391394/harsmon-20
Voices from Another Place http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0963847244/harsmon-20
There are a bunch of scholarly work out or soon to be published by Korean adoptees, Tobias Hubinette, Jini Roby, Kathleen Bergquist, Kim Park Nelson are a few that come to mind.
I forgot some poetry that have Korean adoption as a central figure. Sun Yung Shin's Skirt Full of Black, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs Paper Pavillion and Lee Herrick's This Many Miles From Desire are three that come to mind.
ReplyDeleteAdelaide, the date listed here (1971) is my adoption date. I was born in 1968 (yes, that means I am almost 41).
ReplyDelete@Jae Ran: Wow thanks a lot, that's a whole bunch of really useful information right there! I am more interested in adoption literature written by adoptees in the 90's, and from the looks of it I would be very surprised if there was writing from the 80's. It's also very related to the growth of more "mainstream" literature written by both truth-seeking adoptive parents and myth-propagators alike. It seems like this literature exploded in the new millennium and late 90's with books rooted in psychology and attachment theory written by non-adoptees. While I'm sure there were some small pockets in liberal academia throughout that time which worked to dispel these myths, it only came to the forefront of adoption politics by adoptees themselves in the latter half of the first decade of the new millennium, perhaps most noticeably by Outsiders Within. I'm mostly making estimated guess here. I've only been reading adoption books since January.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the correction on your birth date too. I think I misread that from your bio on your blog or something...
Yes, you are definitely correct that there was an explosion of sorts of adoptee-authored pieces after the 90's.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how much of it has to do with adoptees "coming of age" (I hate that term) - but basically having enough assets to critique/influence/theorize a counter-narrative to the psych/social work work done mostly by "professionals" in academia or the field, and adoptive parents.
I used to be a creative writer. I once wrote a critique about the typical adoption as salvation narrative and I was told by a social worker that my experience "did not make me an expert." This person felt their alphabet soup behind their names made them more of an expert than me. So, I seriously decided if that's what it took, I could get those letters too.
I hope you continue on and write that dissertation.
I can see why you're not so keen on the "coming of age term", it has kind of "immature" connotations. I think that, in a sense though, it refers to the maturation of an entire community. Only a small number of people would probably understand it that way though.
ReplyDeleteI think that this project will eventually be completed, not necessarily by me, but by someone. It's one of those things that's bound to happen. The conditions are ripe, the history is raw and tender, memories are still fresh.
Developmental maturity and geopolitical maturity are two different things.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate the clarification on the dates and the great new books and scholarly papers.
It could be described as vaguely, a rite of passage.
We need all kinds of experts and interaction between them is important too.
I would love to comment on your dissertation plans and other things.
Until recently, though I would consider myself a social and economic liberal (or perhaps a progressive), I swallowed the myths as much as anyone.
Thomas Couter in another field has an idea of why. There is the myth of the comic plot, which demands resolution.