James Straker, 51, was adopted to the US from Korea at age five. He doesn't remember much during the time of his adoption. It's taken him decades to unpack all the trauma from his adoption and dysfunctional adoptive family upbringing, including a suicide attempt, monastery training, moving back to Korea and marrying a Korean woman and having a family of his own. Today, he's done a lot of healing, but knows there is much more ahead.
Jenny Dargren, 46, is a Korean adoptee in Sweden. She opens up about her struggles with bulimia and how she finally understood the disorder to be linked to low self-esteem from her abandonment and adoption. She hid from her Korean roots for many years until traveling back to Korea for the first time in her 40s.
Heather Schultz, 36, was adopted from Korea at four months old by a couple in Long Island, New York. At a young age, Heather lost her mother to a terminal disease and had to survive the rest of her childhood adjusting to a stepmother and stepsisters, who moved into the home she shared with her father. Seeking refuge for her grief, she found support and love from her paternal grandmother. After learning to love and accept herself, she began facing her deep grief and loss and past troubled family relationships. Today, she is an educator, public speaker and healer, who helps others to survive and move past pain and trauma. She has held leadership positions within the adoptee community, including as a board member of Also Known As NYC.
Thomas Juncker, 21, was adopted to Denmark from Korea as an infant and grew up always having a keen interest in his birth country. In 2019, he decided to move to Korea during a gap year in his education. There he was able to explore his Korean roots, make new friends and ponder his life and how adoption shaped it. This interview took place earlier this year, just days after his return to Denmark after nine months working in Seoul.
First Lieutenant Benjamin White, 26, is a Korean adoptee commissioned in the US Army and stationed back in his birth country of Korea. He's also gay. Listen to his story as he talks about navigating all of these identities as a military officer and as en ethnic Korean, trying to build ties with other Koreans in a country where society does not easily embrace everything about him.
Chinese adoptee Grace Newton, 26, shares her story of coming of age and learning about international adoption as a social, political and industrial practice. An only child, Newton shared a close relationship with her parents, but delving into the history of transnational and transracial adoption created some challenging discussions. Her curiosity and desire to uncover truths have taken her back to China several times, each time imparting new perspectives. Newton has regularly shared some of this sharp and critical commentary with readers of her adoption blog, and as a leader within the adoptee community.
Korean adoptee and Canadian Jenny Heijun Wills, 39, talks about her 2019 acclaimed memoir, Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. It's about her relationships with her first family after being reunited in a form of a letter to an older biological half-sister, separated by time, language, boundaries, child removal and international closed adoption. and parental failings. The book also bravely addresses inter-adoptee harm, ways marginalized communities protect and hide sexual assault amongst their own kin, and the fears that come with breaking that code.
Daniel Jeremiah Persson, 27, was adopted from Korea at age two to white parents in Sweden and grew up in the countryside where he faced bullies and racism. It wasn't until he left to attend dance school in London when he found his voice to express himself through words and movement. When he went to Korea to explore his ethnic roots, Persson both found joy and disappointment. Utlimately, discovering his own connections to Korea helped him look at his Swedish life with fresh eyes.
American Rachel Rostad, 26, is a Korean adoptee who reunited with her biological family only to find that her eomma was suffering from a chronic illness that only added more questions than answered any. But while she would come to feel a sense of belonging with her Korean family, her belonging in Korea was another matter.
Shaun Seo, 33, is an Australian Korean adoptee whose childhood was marked with multiple tragedies. Living with his family as expats in Papua New Guinea and Fiji, he also was thrown into the politics of poverty and privilege at a young age. But a family rupture changed Seo's life yet again and sent him back to the Australian countryside and its racially white homogeneity. Seo recently attended the IKAA Gathering in 2019 and found community with other adoptees, especially others from Australia. This is his story.
Korean adoptee Kara Bos talked with Adapted Podcast in a zoom event on June 27, 2020 about her ordeal trying to find her find her biological mother and having to resort to pursuing a court case in order to get official acknowledgement of her relationship to her biological father. The groundbreaking paternity case may pave the way for other adoptees to find their parents.
Kaomi Goetz, 49, was adopted from Korea to the United States at the age of six months old. She grew up in rural Minnesota and was sexually abused by her adoptive father as a young girl. After producing more than 60 episodes of this podcast, Goetz has decided to share her story of how being an incest survivor has affected her and why freeing adoptee voices to frame their own adoption narrative has become so important to her.
This is the final episode of Season 3.
Jae Hyun Shim, 38, was adopted from Korea and grew up the youngest and only daughter and adopted child in their Minnesota family. But there were plenty of other adoptees in Shim's life from an early age and their parents took unusual steps to secure access to Korean-ness for Shim. That close relationship with their parents helped Shim to develop into the person they are. And meeting their biological family has also given Shim a perspective about the meaning of family.
This week, we'll hear from Daniel Kang Yoon Nørregaard, 33, adopted from Korea to Denmark at three months old, he talks about growing up in a predominately racially white environment, leaving his adoptive country to study design and eventually settling down in London. Though his career has been his focus, lately he's realized there are parts of himself that he's been disconnected from. And through his life experiences to date, he's been able to learn and explore his roots in a way that is meaningful for him right now.
Growing up in the English countryside in a middle class family and attending private schools and later a boarding school, already would have set Saschia Ryder, 48, apart from many others with less-privileged backgrounds in the U.K. But she was also adopted from Korea --and like many transracially-adopted Koreans -- grew up in predominately white environments where she began to feel increasingly uncomfortable and invalidated through the years. Ryder talks about how she's been able to do some healing and come to terms with her own story, and the revelations that have followed.
Kurt RuKim [he/him], 34, was adopted from Korea and raised in the suburbs of Minneapolis, Minnesota. His identity has evolved over time, from living in predominately white spaces to embracing his authentic self as an Asian male and claiming his own body, being a dancer and racial equity activist and ally for others. RuKim also shares some of his experiences and observances being part of an interracial couple (Asian man and black woman), and resisting stereotypes and assumptions.
Sooki Jalali, 56, was adopted from Korea at the age of 12 or 14. She's not sure, and her paperwork gave her a different name and birth date, making her at least several years younger. Jun Sukja would take on a new name and identity in the U.S., but her new life often didn't seem like an escape from her old one in the orphanage. As a first wave internationally adopted Korean, she grew up in a small town in the Midwest where no one had seen a family like hers before. Ultimately, she learned to rely on herself and her own determination and self-care to help her find the path she is on today.
Cameron Lee Small, 39, originally named He Seong Lee, was adopted from Korea at the age of two by white parents and grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. But he was never interested in knowing more about his native country or exploring his own feelings about being transracially adopted. But that changed in his 20s. Today, Small is a licensed therapist who specializes in helping transracially adopted adults and children, their parents and families, to grow in their journey and to acknowledge the complexities inherent in transracial and transnational adoption.
Korean adoptee Wayne Kangas, 34, grew up in a small town in remote and rural northern Minnesota. He spent his childhood trying to fit in -- by excelling in sports and trying not to draw too much attention to himself academically. Kangas got a chance to experience Korea right before graduating from college more than 10 years ago and how he found a family there that helped root him to his native country. But it was to northern MInnesota and his Finnish-American family where Kangas would return and raise a family of his own.
Jon F. Gee Schill, 33, has been helping to build and sustain the Korean adoptee and Asian-American communities in the Twin Cities for several years. But it might surprise you to learn a little more about his back story, growing up in Oregon and Idaho, and his feelings towards Korea and his adoptee identity.
Navigating multiple identities like being queer and a Korean adoptee has been interesting, says Shawyn Lee, 41. "We're quick to throw people in boxes," says the Duluth, Minn., resident. But the labels aren't always accurate and don't allow people full visibility. In this episode, Lee talks about the complexity of identity, relationships, owning up to your truths and why adoptee voices matter.
Emma Wexler, 22, is a Vietnamese adoptee who grew up influenced by the experiences and writings of Korean adoptees, who dominate many transracial adoptee-focused spaces. This college senior has had to do a lot thinking about identity and race, intercountry adoption and privilege, religion, socio-economics, race and child displacement. Wexler explains that she's always felt her family was different from others and has learned how to navigate stigma and judgment to form an identity that is all her own. Wexler has learned and taken inspiration from Korean adoptees but now also wants to make a case for strengthening inclusion within the overall adoptee community.