Invisible Asians

Kim Park Nelson

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780813570686
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Asian American Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

The first Korean adoptees were powerful symbols of American superiority in the Cold War; as Korean adoption continued, adoptees' visibility as Asians faded as they became a geopolitical success story—all-American children in loving white families. In Invisible Asians, Kim Park Nelson analyzes the processes by which Korean American adoptees’ have been rendered racially invisible, and how that invisibility facilitates their treatment as exceptional subjects within the context of American race relations and in government policies.   Invisible Asians draws on the life stories of more than sixty adult Korean adoptees in three locations: Minnesota, home to the largest concentration of Korean adoptees in the United States; the Pacific Northwest, where many of the first Korean adoptees were raised; and Seoul, home to hundreds of adult adoptees who have returned to South Korea to live and work. Their experiences underpin a critical examination of research and policy making about transnational adoption from the 1950s to the present day.   Park Nelson connects the invisibility of Korean adoptees to the ambiguous racial positioning of Asian Americans in American culture, and explores the implications of invisibility for Korean adoptees as they navigate race, culture, and nationality.  Raised in white families, they are ideal racial subjects in support of the trope of “colorblindness” as a “cure for racism” in America, and continue to enjoy the most privileged legal status in terms of immigration and naturalization of any immigrant group, built on regulations created specifically to facilitate the transfer of foreign children to American families. 
Invisible Asians offers an engaging account that makes an important contribution to our understanding of race in America, and illuminates issues of power and identity in a globalized world.  

1

A Korean American Adoption Ethnography

Method, Theory, and Experience

[I] can see you can understand . . . why I feel the way I do and why I’m talking about what I’m talking [about]. . . . Thank you . . . I don’t have to worry about explaining myself. . . . I think a lot . . . I think you know 99.9 percent of it all is . . . [Sighs.] I was a misplaced human being. I don’t think that I should have come here.

Nadine, fifty-two years old, on why she chose to participate in this oral history project1

When I embarked on the project of collecting oral histories from a population (Korean adoptees) of which I am a member, I had two major goals. The first was to understand, and help others to understand, the experience of Korean American adoptees as a powerful lens through which to understand the multiplicities of Asian American identity, American race relations, U.S.-Asian foreign relations, and historical changes in the American family. The second goal was to expand, correct, and augment stories about transnational and transracial adoptees. Much of the previous research in this area has been positioned to influence policy affecting transracial and transnational adoption, but, despite claims that these studies are undertaken for adoptees, the perspectives of transracial and transnational adoptees themselves are often deemphasized. In an industry (and, I would argue, a body of research) that privileges adoptive parents and rich nations over birth parents and poor nations, supporting adoptees in a research context is crucial. In the course of this project, I have come to realize that I also have a third goal: to develop a methodological niche as a within-group researcher, and to understand and describe the benefits and liabilities of such a position.

In the interest of transparency, it is necessary for me to disclose my position as a Korean adoptee active within the local transracial/transnational adoption community, and as a scholar at odds with many methods and findings within transracial/transnational adoption research. I am a former board member of my local adult adopted Korean organization, am an organizer for research conferences for adoptees, and have a broad network of connections to many others in the Korean adoptee community nationally and internationally. My central criticism of past transracial adoption research is that it tends to focus on parents as the primary agents of adoption processes, even when the researchers claim to be focusing on adoptees. In addition, I have critical concerns about the tendency within the American adoption industry (including adoption agencies, social workers, parent groups, and national governments) to interpret high cultural assimilation and normalization of adoptees as a measure of adoption success. I am ambivalent toward the practice of transnational adoptions (which are often also transracial adoptions); the more I have learned, the more objections I have to how the vast majority of adoptions are carried out. However, I also understand that transnational adoptions continue to take place, and the overall rate of transnational adoptions may continue to increase; as the number of children adopted from one sending country falls, other countries take its place. I continue to advocate for changes in the profoundly flawed structures of transnational adoption, changes that acknowledge the difficulty of the transracial adoption experience for many adoptees, and the sense of nonbelonging and alienation many experience within their families and communities. Nevertheless, a blanket rejection of the practice of transnational and transracial adoption does not, in my view, help adoptees or those who will become adoptees, whose interests I most deeply share.

This research has deep personal implications for me. My initial motivation was born of my impassioned response to the lack of information about my own experience. I felt that my experience had been overlooked and that the experience of thousands of transracial adoptees was being disregarded and subsumed into a middle-American (which I broadly defined as White, heterosexual, and middle-class) experience even though, I strongly believed, the life experience of transracial adoptees was generally distinct from that of most White Americans. (Of course, for many transracial adoptees, the envelopment into Whiteness was the prescribed goal.) As I became more intellectually engaged in these topics, I saw transracial adoption as a lens through which to understand intersections of race, culture, class, gender, and sexuality. Particularly in regard to race and culture, transracial adoptees are in the unusual position of developing our racial identities separately from our cultural identities. Further, transracial adoption, which today is often transnational adoption, complicates projects of imperialism and nationalism as transnational adoptees become visible markers of differences between the global West and East, North and South, rich and poor, imperial and colonized, and White and non-White.

The Decision to Collect Oral Histories

In his introduction to Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America, Martin Manalansan notes that much of Asian American Studies research and theory has focused on literary and popular media rather than on ethnographic work. As an Asian Americanist anthropologist, Manalansan articulates the need for ethnographic work in Asian American Studies as a meaningful way of knowing. Although his discussion of the influence of postmodern theory on ethnographic work acknowledges the importance of literary and cultural criticism to the field, he calls for multi-sited ethnographic work and “community-based research” in Asian American Studies.2 Likewise, Jeffrey W. Burroughs and Paul Spickard stress the importance of community narrative in the understanding of ethnicity, particularly in groups with multiple ethnic or racial identities.3 France Winddance Twine, in her introduction to Racing Research, Researching Race: Methodological Dilemmas in Critical Race Studies, advocates a transformation of ethnic studies fieldwork by considering complexities around the significance of insider and outsider positions occupied by researchers working in community contexts.4 Both Manalansan and Twine consider the critical importance of native researchers; Manalansan writes that both researchers and their subjects “are now apprehended as producers as well as products of history, and shapers and builders of culture.”5 Their suggestion that researchers from within communities may empower those communities is critically tempered with the reality that this situation also necessarily complicates research.

The focus of my research is on adult adoptee oral histories, and in choosing these as the most important source, I am consciously privileging adoptee voices. In addition, the oral history methodology I have chosen gives me access to subjects who have not previously been heard from; several of the adoptees I worked with told me that they would not consider participating in research with any other format than the oral history, or with anyone not adopted themselves. This might be partially explained by the fact that the oral history process is not totally outside cultural norms within the Korean adoptee community: exchanging adoption stories is an informal ritual of socialization among Korean adoptees. Making connections based on personal adoption histories forges relationships that become the foundation of adoptee community. The process of giving an oral life history (especially to another adoptee) mirrors this practice, to a degree. My overall research design and methodology here answers Manalansan’s call for critical native multi-sited research, in that it is a response to my own knowledge of, and connections with, a local and global Korean adoptee community.

I chose to learn the stories of transnational adoptees by collecting oral histories (rather than completing traditional interviews) because I wanted my adoptee informants to have as much autonomy and as little imposed structure as possible in telling their stories. After obtaining human-subject consent from each narrator, I told them that the choice of what to include or exclude from their oral histories belonged to them. They were each told that they could stop whenever they wanted to and that they could structure their stories however they wished. I did tell them I would ask clarifying questions if something was not apparent, or if I felt the topic of identity development was not coming forth. I also invited them to ask questions about my research or my experience as an adoptee. When compared to less messy methods such as surveys, this method can appear imprecise, but I subscribe to the position taken by historian Gary Okihiro, who advocates for oral history’s significance in contributing to the history and knowledge of an ethnic group whose histories may not have been valued enough to be preserved in mainstream history and society.6 If history’s winners are also its authors and owners, members of ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups must take ownership of their own histories, and oral histories are uniquely suited to this task. Through the telling of our own stories, we take control of the making of our histories. In the case of Korean adoptees, the question is not only who owns history, but, more precisely, who owns Korean adoptees’ histories in terms of birth records and birth country culture and experiences. The question is also one of understanding the adoption experience within Asian American experience and within the histories of American family and society. In addition, I have been influenced by a long tradition of feminist ethnographers who acknowledge their positions as women so as to access other women’s experiences, and who use so-called feminized interviewing skills in order to gather information. Feminist approaches to ethnographic work include research design that acknowledges research participants as empowered and knowledgeable actors, rather than treating them as positioned beneath the so-called expert researcher; such feminist approaches include the encouragement of open-ended responses.7

Ensuring that my subjects retained their autonomy was important for several reasons. First, the stories of Korean and other transracial adoptees have not often been told (especially in the academic arena) from the perspectives of adoptees. Instead, the perspectives of parents, social workers, and adoption advocates have taken center stage, even in research that supposedly focuses on the experiences of adoptees. Work carried out under the banner of improving adoption practice comes to mind most immediately, although in my experience even work purporting to focus on “the best interest of the child” usually does not take actual adoptee perspectives into account. I am motivated to fill this significant gap in transracial/transnational adoptee research with adoptee voices and perspectives, my own included. If this body of research describes and analyzes us, and will play a role in determining what happens to future generations of adoptees, our voices should be a major part of the discussion—and though they are increasingly included in the scholarly literature, they are still marginalized within broader discourses around adoption practice.

I also wanted to guard against shaping the replies of my subjects though the interview process. This is an important consideration for any qualitative researcher using interviews; recognizing subjective biases and attempting to remove them from research questions is delicate business and always warrants close attention. For me, this is a concern of special importance because I am conducting research within my own group. Because I cannot expunge my own experiences as a Korean adoptee, I may be susceptible to fusing my own story with the stories of other adoptees. I have hoped to avoid this by asking participants to tell their own stories outside the context of my experience. Although I did ask some clarifying questions in which I included some of my own experiences, I tried to make clear to my sources that the oral histories were about them, not about me or my questions. In addition, I knew that presenting myself as someone who, because of my own experience as an adoptee, understands the Korean adoptee experience in its entirety (or at least more than I do) could be leading or censuring for other adoptees. Avoiding interview conversations (as opposed to oral history conversations) where I might be in any position to control content seemed a good way to protect against these types of transgressions.

Finally, the oral history process seemed to put most subjects at ease. Because the adoptee subjects were in control (and had been told they were in control) of the process of telling their stories, they seemed to be relatively unconcerned about how they would be represented or how what they were telling me would be used. The narrators’ feeling of power and autonomy seemed to allow them greater expressive freedom in describing their lives. This autonomy, in combination with a trusted listener with similar experiences, elicited extremely detailed and very personal histories. I expected to hear a lot of personal information but was still surprised at how much these informants opened up. In addition, several adoptees remarked that they had never been given the opportunity to tell their stories at such length or in such detail: they considered my interest in their lives a great compliment. The experience of telling their stories seemed to be both cathartic and difficult for them at times, and I have no doubt the narrators’ personal investments in the oral history process added to the experience both for me as a researcher and for them as narrators.

In making these choices to frame my research, I focus on oral history narrative as a way to understand meaning in the everyday details, the social and political beliefs, and the self-reported behaviors of this vibrant community. The oral histories central to this research are meaningful in political, social, and intimate spheres, as lived experiences of adoptees in the many overlapping Korean adoptee communities in the United States and around the world. Because these stories examine the ambiguous and in-between positions of Asian American transracial adoptees, they reveal much about the complicated nature of Asian American identity, American race relations, and transnational crossings between the United States and South Korea. Through their stories, adoptees explain how they have coped with and taken control of their identity formation, despite the absence of ready-made roles for them in the strictly enforced and categorized world of racial and national identity. This methodology is particularly useful in illuminating the balances and imbalances of power that exist between adoptees, as real and symbolic racial and national entities, and the respective racial (White, Asian American) and national (American, Korean) groups to which Korean American adoptees ostensibly belong—despite the fact that they are frequently excluded from these groups because of their perceived status as racial, cultural, or national minorities.

Accessing Korean American Adoptees

When I decided to take on this project, I was fairly certain that I would be able to access adult Korean adoptees locally who would be willing to give their oral histories. I grew up and resided during my research in the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, area, which is the largest metropolitan area in the American state with the largest concentration of Korean adoptees. The large population of Korean adoptees in this area makes it a particularly rich location for this work. Two large adoption agencies, Children’s Home Society (CHS) and Lutheran Social Services (LSS), both located in St. Paul, facilitated transnational adoption in the area for over thirty years. Many people making the decision to adopt in Minnesota or in the adjacent states of the Upper Midwest had likely considered using one of these agencies, and anyone in the area wanting to adopt transnationally more than twenty years ago would almost certainly have had to adopt through one of them. Local adoption agencies that facilitate Korean transnational adoptions estimate that more than ten thousand Korean adoptees currently live in Minnesota (more than in any other state), and the possibility of transnational adoption through LSS or CHS is certainly at least a contributing factor. For these reasons, any survey of Korean adoption in the United States would have to include Minnesota. I myself was adopted though LSS and attribute my Minnesota upbringing partly to this fact. I considered myself lucky to be among so many other Korean adoptees, and to have preeminent access to the local Korean adoptee community.

Partly because of my own interest as a Korean adoptee, and partly in anticipation of my research interests, I had become more active in the Korean adoptee community in the years before I formally began my research; I attended and eventually helped to plan national and international Korean adoptee conferences, frequented Korean adoptee social and educational events, and served on the board of the local adult Korean adoptee nonprofit organization, AK Connection (AK is an abbreviation for “Adopted Korean”). My personal and professional relationships with a recognizable community of Korean adoptees (and, for this research, especially Korean American adoptees) has been instrumental in securing access to adoptee interview subjects, information about organizational history and conflict, and knowledge of community events, all of which I have utilized heavily in my research process.

Perhaps contrary to conventional wisdom, this relationship has been neither lifelong nor innate for me; though I am a Korean American adoptee, I did not seek to develop personal or professional relationships with other adoptees until well into my adult life. Although I well understood the experiences of growing up transracially and transnationally adopted in America, I learned, like many other adoptees of my age group, what it meant to be part of a community and a generation of Korean adoptees not from my adoptive parents and the White community in which I was raised, but from other adoptees, whom I only found through my own initiative, as an adult. That said, it was not difficult for me to get involved once I decided to do so. Adult Korean adoptee organizations are constantly welcoming new members, including some who are very young adults taking their first steps toward exploring adult identities as transracial adoptees, and others who are older and seeking community around their adoptee identities for the first time.

In many ways, the four years I served on the board of AK Connection paved the way for my research. When I joined the board in 2001, social events organized by AK Connection were well attended by adoptees from the Twin Cities and the surrounding region, thanks in part to the organization’s strong web presence. I initially saw my volunteer work with the group’s board as a way to contribute to the community of adoptees with whom I had begun to identify, but my tenure also enabled me to develop relationships that established my credibility within this community, one to which I had been an outsider for most of my life, even though technically been a member since infancy. By the time I began my formal research, a few years later, I had met most of those Korean adoptees in and around the Twin Cities active in Korean adoptee networking efforts, as well as many adoptees around the country who were doing similar work in their own regions. This organizational volunteer work, and the friendships an...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Text
• Introduction: A History of Korean American Adoption in Print
• Chapter 1. A Korean American Adoption Ethnography: Method, Theory, and Experience
• Chapter 2. “Eligible Alien Orphan”: The Cold War Korean Adoptee
• Chapter 3. Adoption Research Discourse and the Rise of Transnational Adoption, 1974–1987
• Chapter 4. An Adoptee for Every Lake: Multiculturalism, Minnesota, and the Korean Transracial Adoptee
• Chapter 5. Adoptees as White Koreans: Identity, Racial Visibility, and the Politics of Passing among Korean American Adoptees
• Chapter 6. Uri Nara, Our Country: Korean American Adoptees in the Global Age
• Conclusion: The Ends of Korean Adoption
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author