Adapted

Robert Holloway, 34, and Menzeba Hasati, 40, are siblings who are adult children of a Black Korean adoptee. Their mother is a first-wave adoptee, whose mother was Korean and father an American G.I. She was adopted to Alaska in the 1960s by a Black couple. Her children forged their own identities; one in spite of their mother's strong influence towards Korean culture, and the other, embraced it.  Now as adults, Robert and Menzeba talk about the intergenerational trauma in their family, and how separation, abandonment, longing and love all embody their lives and experience with adoption. 

Korean adoptee Matthew Rodriguez, 43, is trying to make sense of his adoption story. For years, it's been clouded by stories told to him and those he told himself, even if they weren't accurate. It was a means to survive. But Rodriguez, whose adoptive parents are white and Mexican American, has his own memories. And now in his 40s, he's learning how to feel comfortable being himself and with the truth. 

Korean adoptee Jenna Antoniewicz, 40, has been on a whirlwind over the past 24 months since beginning to reckon her adoption history and adoptee identity. While a mayor of a town in Pennsylvania, she found herself speaking for Asian America during the coronavirus pandemic about anti-Asian hate. But it triggered an imposter syndrome for Antoniewicz, who hadn't previously reflected much on her adoption from Korea or what it meant to be Korean-American. Fast forward two years,  and this wife and mother of two is now living on Jeju-do, off of mainland Korea, not far from her biological father, making sense of her experience by connecting to others and blending her past with her future. 

Hollee McGinnis, 51, is a Korean adoptee and founder of Also Known As, one of the longest continuously running international adoptee community organization and based in the New York Tri-State area. In this episode, she discusses her new project, Mapping the Life Course of Adoption, and provides some insights from some of the preliminary findings. 

Lee Herrick, 52, is a poet, author, educator and adoptee. He was adopted from South Korea to the San Francisco Bay area in 1971. Herrick discusses how he uses his lens as an adoptee to observe and write verse about life. He also reads from his 2019 acclaimed collection of poems, “Scar and Flower.”

Dr. Kimberly McKee, 39, currently a visiting Fulbright scholar at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea, is a critical adoption studies researcher. This November, her latest book, "Adoption Fantasies: Fetishization of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to Womanhood" (The Ohio State University Press) will come out. We'll talk about her latest monograph as well as her 2019 book, "Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States."   

Imagine a story told to you from childhood, that your biological mother died and your biological father decided to relinquish you? And the people who adopted you rehomed you to another couple, where you found abuse and neglect? Randy Walker, 48, has lived such a life and re-examines his trauma and discusses how negative family experiences can shape one’s future relationships.

Sara Jones isn't sure whether she's 48 or 49. That's because the circumstances surrounding her relinquishment are still a bit unclear. What she does know for certain, is that her father never wanted her to be separated from her family or be adopted overseas. But his worst fears happened anyway, and against most all odds she was able to find her way back. Now, she's using her voice to help other Korean adoptees whom the system disenfranchised and left vulnerable. 

Eric Poole, 55, continues his conversation in this second-part of a two-part interview. In this episode, we follow his adoption to the U.S. and adjustment in New Hope, Minnesota, where as a Black Korean boy, he felt like he traded one outsider life for another.    CW: N word

Eric Poole, 55, is a transracially adopted Black Korean who has come a long way from his early days as a mixed-race Korean child in a US military camptown in Korea. He's now a father to three kids, husband, and one of the few Black pilots in the commercial flight industry. But his success story is built on the complicated foundation of being orphaned, outcast, alone and othered. He also shares his experiences being at the Holt orphanage, including being sexually abused by other kids and being groomed for a new life in the US.  (Part 1 of 2 part interview). 

Karen Lechelt, 50, is a mother, wife and a returned East coaster after two decades in the San Francisco Bay area and a few years in Amsterdam in between. Their childhood in New Jersey was marked with feeling not quite fitting wherever she was, and having to always adapt themself. Because of the loss of their first family, Karen says there's always been a feeling of not being anchored. That changed with the birth of their daughter.

Megan Nyberg, 37, was adopted as an infant from South Korea to parents in Minnesota. But ever since her premature birth, she has struggled with medical conditions that have been constant reminders of the mystery surrounding her origins. Now a licensed therapist, Nyberg gives other grace and more recently, has started to give it to herself too. 

Queer Korean adoptee Midnite Townsend, 38, is many things. A large part of her/their past has been as a performer; first training to enter the world of musical theater to realizing her/their real desires were better applied to the art of burlesque and drag king performance. Midnite's throughline has been a quest for authenticity - and the test of whether loved ones around her/them would see her.  Theme music: Jae Jin Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions    

Korean-born French adoptee Laure Badufle's story and search for idenity is now the subject of a new Sony Pictures film, "Return to Seoul." In December of 2021, Badufle, then 37, shared some of that story, including meeting her birth parents in her 20s. The film is now opening to more international audiences this month and is already winning accolades. This is a re-broadcast. 

Michael Jessup of Mountain View, California is a father, coach and adopted Korean. But it's only been in the last six years that the 46-year old has explored his feelings about his adoption and faced his pain about being abandoned and given up by presumably his first family at 13 months of age. He opens up about his life, how tennis has carried him through the years, and shares a touching letter to his eomma. 

Reunion with biological parents can be complicated for adoptees. Relinquishment or losing a child or parent, language, and culture can be traumatic and represent lifelong grief. But whose story is it? Aneyah Elmore, 56, is a Black and Korean adoptee who is balancing the need to tell her own story and the desire of her biological mother not to.  CW****Child killings, racial genocide, suicide, emotional abuse of a child 

Lisa Woolrim Sjöblom, 45, is a Swedish Korean who was adopted at a young age from Korea and grew up in Sweden. The illustrator, comic book artist and adoptee and first families activist shares some deep personal insights about motherhood, attachment and the trauma and grief that is brought up with these life events. 

Samantha Kim Lyons, 41, grew up with racial mirrors unlike many other transrcial adoptees. Her late father was white; her mom is a third-generation Japanese-American. Her childhood was spent in Hawai'i and later southern California. But like other Korean adoptees, Lyons finds herself searching for deeper connection to Korea and to her adoptee identity later in life, for the first time. 

Edward Pokropski, 39, of New York, NY is an adopted Korean-American who has a new one-man show out unpacking that experience. He talks about why not all audiences are comfortable laughing at jokes about adoption and how he approaches the topic while staying true to himself. 

This is the second-half of a recent conversation with Peter Møller of the Danish Korean Rights Group.  The discussion takes place on Dec. 11, 2022 (KST), just days after the Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission decided to start an investigation on Korean adoption by examining an initial 34 cases of the more than 300 submissions.  We also discuss privacy in regards to the Special Adoption Law and threats made by Holt to Møller and other adoptees if they don't  abandon this complaint.