Adoption: The Fairytale

Fairytales. Everyone has one. Mine has changed and morphed over time. In its current form, it haunts me.

During the last four years, mine has focused solely on developing my origin story. If you have followed me for a while, you know it has changed with every visit to Seoul.

This year, I invited you all on my journey via my facebook page. I posted live videos that show my raw emotions as I walked the streets that I now want to call home.

My trips to Seoul, always include a visit to my agency, Holt Korea. Every time, they reiterate that they only have my two sheets of paper. They tell me over and over that they have no record of my foster mother, and yet they send this to donors …

They boast 4,481 foster mothers since 1966, yet no record of mine. These donors are funding not only Holt Korea’s shiny multilevel building, but also the cost of placing their name on subway stop signs (at a cost of around $186,584 over three years). Enter our hotel, the Somerset Palace, one could find a collection box for my agency.

Now, I can no longer enjoy even a short visit. The reminders of the secrets that surround my beginnings are everywhere … hotels and Hapjeong Station. In all this time searching, the main emotion I have felt has been utter sorrow … perhaps the closest thing to Korean Han.

But my sadness is turning into something very destructive. The injustice of being denied my identity … well, it consumes me right now.

So, if you read my last post, you know I chose to stay in Seoul, baptizing myself in all that is Korean … the food, the drink and sparkling contact lenses.

My new eye color. Wicked. #eyecontacts #coloredcontacts #Korean #cutieeyes

A post shared by mothermade (@mothermade) on Feb 10, 2018 at 11:16am PST

After a little blooming jasmine tea and a massive waffle at The Nature Cafe (sheep cafe) near Hongik University, my friend and I walked up toward the university campus. Just up the hill, we found Cutie Eyes, a contact store.

Once inside, I chose a few sets and as the owner accepted my credit card, he said, “Rosita Gonzalez?”

In the US, this is always followed by so much explanation. I did not anticipate this in Korea as I am often anonymous, safely blending in. I looked to my friend and asked, “Should I?” In a split second decision, I blurted out, “I am adopted.”

His face lit up. He said, “My older brother is adopted!” The other side of the fairytale unfolded … in Grimm style.

When his brother was four, his mother lost him in a train station; she was traveling with four small children. By the time they tracked him down, he had been sent to Belgium as a Holt adoptee.

Since that time, the family has queried Holt Korea for information. His mother is still stricken with grief of the loss of her son. He said his mother is getting older and would love the closure of seeing her lost son. Holt told the family that the adoptee was contacted and refused contact.

The shopkeeper, Bo Gyeol Kim, still searches via Facebook and other means to find his brother. He wants him to know that he has two older brothers and an older sister who also miss him and want to see him.

Bo Gyeol then asked me what I knew of my past. I showed him my photographs of my foster mother and me.

His words would change my fairytale …

“This is not your foster mother; this is your mother. You look just like her.”

All these years, I have stared at her photograph. Never did I see my own face looking back. How could I know? I was surrounded by faces they did not reflect mine. Now, I look at my past pictures, and I see her. This would also lend some truth to Holt Korea’s claim that they have no record of my foster mother.

Bo Gyeol has offered his help to try and garner attention to my search in South Korea. I am so thankful for this time and connection with him. He told me more … based on the photographs and the time (1968), my mother was well-off. She wore a ring and a watch. Photographs were hanging on the walls of the home.

So, on this the US Seollol, I hold my hanbok, and I know she chose it for me. She wore hers to help me celebrate that very important birthday, the last we would spend together. Our happily ever after will be her touching this hanbok once more and allowing me to hold her as she so tenderly held me once. 

Unmoored

A week ago, I collected lots of Puerto Rican music to remind me of my father.

His loss permeates my soul. He was my anchor in much of my life as a person of color. His love and caring sustained me in my darkest moments … because he understood my sorrows. He gently told me his stories of discrimination and then brushed them off. That is how he survived, and I learned to do the same.

Since his death, I feel so very lost. I need him now. His love surrounded me when I struggled with my role as a mother. He reminded me how very proud he was of me. As much as anyone else said it, I needed him or my mother to say it. As an adoptee, the love and approval from our elders is everything. In most cases, the only people who fill that space are our adoptive parents.

I have searched for the other parents … my original family and my foster family. They hold the key to many of my beginnings. They are unknowns in the crowded subway system in Seoul. In Seoul, I felt their presence in the biological resemblance that surrounded me.

In Wisconsin, I am left to create a space of safety and love. That is our home. So, a few days ago, as I listened to salsa music and did my cleaning, my daughter stopped me to take my picture in the old way … with a Polaroid camera.

There he was. My father was dancing with me as a light. I posted it, and some explained that it must have been a light somewhere or that the camera had something on the lens. But no other photograph she took that night had the same light.

Self-doubt is a terrible thing. But it sank in … the idea that there was a perfectly good explanation for the light.

Then, one of my favorite authors, Sherman Alexie, released a letter about his own loss and his encounters with his late mother. Well, now, I know my father is with me still, and we salsa through the house at all hours!

The Fragility of Return

Home.

That word conjures so many emotions. Some feel the warmth of a family quilt, smell homemade baked goods or hear the consoling purr of a kitten.

Since returning to my home in Wisconsin after our life in Seoul, I feel more lost. Our mid-century modern house is my home. It is filled with the things that remind me of who I am.

All the art by friends and potters surrounds me. I have foster kittens demanding my care. I even installed two Korean conveniences … the water cooler and a bidet.

But I still feel that void. I try to shake it. Inside my head, I repeat “THIS is your home; YOU belong here.”

Yet, as I begin to feel more at ease, the gun violence, Brock Turner, Pulse Nightclub, Black men dying, Black women assaulted by police … and Donald Trump flood my life. I cannot hide from these injustices, nor the cold glare of a man in the red “Make America Great Again” cap. I fight them as best I can. Then, I retreat. I stay at home, out of sight.

When I do venture out, the usual question by those who haven’t seen me in a while … “How was Korea?!” The questioner is excited. Yes, I love my country … but which one? How do I respond? The best I can do? Take all the emotions you have ever experienced in your entire life … and roll them into five months.

My quiet longing and safe life in Seoul beckons. Ambivalence.

Winter in Wisconsin was kind. A newborn niece was born in April. There is joy.

I can leave you with this recent performance. Only a few months after returning, I was given the opportunity to perform a blog post I never intended to read aloud. Luckily, the crew of Listen to Your Mother recognized the importance of my words. They encouraged and supported me. Now, I give you me as a blubbering mess, but perfectly authentic.

Korea: I’m shattered.

Dated January 23, 2016, on flight KE037 …

I am fragments.
The First maternal fragment,
Is my flesh and blood —
A round ass, dark hair —
Slant eyes.

I imagine her now as an “Ajumma”
Peeling chestnuts for sale in the streets
Of Cheongnyangni in Seoul.

The Second recorded my firsts.
Steps, words and that crucial first birthday.
She was a photography professor’s wife.
I was attached to her, they said.
But that is all I’m allowed to know.

The Third called me hers.
She was love wrapped
In the sweet smell of perfume.
She believed I would grow
To bear a red-headed child —
With the auburn curls of her youth.

She took insults like
“Big Fat Hippopotamus”
As she rescued me
From my third grade racist tormentors.

She would lay a dark chocolate almond bar
On my pillow in anticipation
Of her college girl’s return.

When it came my time to be mother,
I realized my flaws.
I felt my first’s tiny hand trace mine
Through my hot, stretched belly bump.

I shut my eyes,
Imagining my small hand doing the same
In Post Korean War Seoul.

And here I realized the significance of my First
Somewhat forgotten
Pushed to the recesses of my mind —
Mom, Omma.

Just as the Third watched this new
“Oriental” baby reach a stage she knew …
She was gone.

I was left to ponder.
Wonder again what it was like to be mother,
Without the guidance of another.

In my son’s development,
I noticed the crucial stages left to my imagination.
Solids at six months —
A time when my breastmilk could no longer
Keep up with a growing child’s insatiable appetite.

I have an insatiable appetite.
Did I need too much?
I was left at six months …
Somewhere …
A police station?
Yes, of course. Like all the others.

Let the records show —
But not too much.
They cannot.
They are hidden, trashed,
lost in the shame of a country that sent me away.

That shame is mine.
I rejected Korea for so long.
My son’s questions prompting more.
Our five-month stay was a gift.
A hope to show them their country.

But I realize it is no longer mine,
And they cannot claim it.
We are 미국 … American.

What mother takes her children
To a place she says they belong,
While she uses silence to blend in?

In crowds, they panic when they cannot find her.
She is not yellow in a sea of white like home.
What wrong is she trying to right?
What mother fragments her children?
I do.

Korean Kin, Part 2

Sadness. Overwhelming sadness is the only way I can describe how I feel about learning nothing new about my history before my adoption. I lost my adoptive mother in 2001, I lost my biological family in 1968, and I lost them again this year.

Loss seems to be a pervasive thing in my life. I accept that. The biggest blows in my life have been the loss of the women … my mother, my Grandma in Tennessee and my Abuelita in Puerto Rico. Losing them was like losing my compass. However, now, I understand the loss more. I knew loss long before I lost them.

Before these mothers, I had an original one. I know nothing about her except that she cared well for me until I was six months old. After I lost her, I found another woman, my foster mother, who would love me and build a bond with me. But then, I lost her too.

I had hoped that my interview with the Korean news agency, SBS, would allow me to find this second mother. But alas, that would not be. The only clues I was given came from the adoption agency social worker. She seemed surprised that I owned photographs of my foster mother. “In those days, only the wealthy could afford photographs such as these taken at home.” I have stared at these images since early childhood. They were sent to my parents after my first birthday by the adoption agency, but today, the agency has no record of who they are. I hold on to these words from my papers:

“Is attached to her foster mother, and not shy of strangers. …” — Progress Report dated August 23, 1968. 

“Sook Hyun is a happy and healthy girl, who enjoys a normal progress. When she came at first, she had a little herdship [sic] adjusting herself, but now she is a different girl, who is always cheerful and in good shape. She is loved a lot by her foster family and is expected to be a nice addition to her would-be adoptive parents.” — Progress Report dated December 11, 1968.

A piece of me remains in Korea, in the corners of my foster mother’s mind.

The moment my feet hit Korean soil, I felt at home. Comfortable and reassured. Included and content. No more wondering how I would cope with Korea.

If you haven’t read Part 1, you can find it here. Stay tuned for Part 3 … the silver lining.

Only two pieces of paper

Forty-five years ago in Japan, my parents began and finished their adoption experience while living in Tokyo.

Today, I finally received word back from Holt. A couple of months ago,  I received a few pages from my American Holt file. Since that time, I have waited to hear from Korea. The email today said this:

“Attached is a copy of all the information about you from your file in Korea.  A copy will remain in our files for future reference.  Let me know if you have any questions about these documents.  

Unfortunately, the staff of Holt Children’s Services of Korea was unable to locate enough information regarding your background to begin a search for your birth family.  We regret that Holt Children’s Services Korea and Holt International Children’s Services cannot assist you in a search but will be happy to help you plan an independent search.  We received the following email: 

According the child report from you, and also the release paper in the file, the adoptee was placed in CBH from the Chong Yang ri police station on May 24, 1968.  She was later referred to Holt adoption program by CBH on the same day which was in cases of abandonment.  

I am afraid that there is no addition information to learn more about the background. Cheongyang ni is the correct spelling now, and it is a neighborhood located in Dongdae mun gu, Seoul city. 

Once admitted to Holt, 숙현 was placed in the care of a foster home, but there is no information about the foster mother in the record. 

The attached is a copy of the adoption file (only 2 pages). The adoptee’s current contact information will be updated in our file, and she may feel free to leave photos in the file for the future reference. 

I’m so sorry that we aren’t able to assist you with your search.  Because we want to support you any way we can, please feel free to contact us to talk about this assessment with one of our post adoption counselors.  Having a good support system, through friends and family, as well as Holt, is very important.  There may be many terms or references that are unfamiliar to you within the assessment, so please don't hesitate to contact us with questions or if you’d like additional information regarding the history, culture, or record keeping practices of the time.”

While Holt may have some sympathy for how I am feeling, I am baffled by an adoption that occurred primarily overseas but leaves only two small sheets of paper. See for yourself.

How can an agency place a baby with a foster family and have no record of said foster family? I like to think Holt vetted its foster families, and if so, that they had a record of what babies lived with which foster families. They had an address and names, because the couple who kept me those months before my adoption, took photographs of me, fed me and loved me. They cared enough to take photographs of my first birthday and portraits of me in my hanbok. They sent these photographs via the adoption agency to my parents … and yet, there is no record.

I am saddened by Holt’s response (and that I paid $25 for so little information), but I am determined now to seek more answers without Holt’s assistance.