Korean Adoption and its Global Legacies
a one book one northwestern conference
Saturday, April 13, 2024, 8:30 AM - 5:50 PM
Harris Hall 107, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus, 1881 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60201
Saturday, April 13, 2024, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM, Between Goodbyes Film Program
Fisk Hall 217, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus, 1845 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60201
Sunday, April 14, 2024, 8:30 AM - 1:30 PM
Harris Hall 107, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus, 1881 Sheridan Rd, Evanston, IL 60201
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
Korean Adoption and Its Global Legacies: 70 Years and Beyond is a two-day conference that reflects on the origin and legacies of the world’s largest transnational adoption program seventy years after its inception. Bringing together scholars, activists, adopted individuals, first families, journalists, and filmmakers, it offers new perspectives that challenge and expand our understanding of adoption’s beginnings in the context of war and militarism, while exploring present-day consequences of South Korea’s industrialized adoption practices on adopted Koreans and their first families.
Day 1 features a keynote by Dr. Yuri Doolan, Assistant Professor of History at Brandeis University. He will discuss his new book, The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans From Camptowns to America, which examines how the concept of the “Amerasian” was used to remove thousands of mixed race children from their Korean mothers and place them into adoptive homes in the United States. Additional perspectives will be offered by Dr. Kori Graves, Author of War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War; Dr. Catherine H. Nguyen, whose current project, Children Born of War, Adoptees Made by War, focuses on the mixed race child and transracial adoptees from Vietnam; Dr. Rosemarie H. Peña, President of Black German Heritage & Research Association; Dr. Patti Duncan, Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University; and veteran Korean photographer and journalist Yong Nam Lee, who has dedicated his career to documenting the people living and working in U.S. military camptowns along the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). Mixed race Korean adoptees will be highlighted in a panel focusing on their experiences building community, organizing around DNA testing, and charting new paths to recuperate their Korean histories and identities.
The evening cultural program will feature a presentation with film clips from Korean adoptee filmmaker Jota Mun, Director of the new documentary Between Goodbyes, and the film’s participant and Producer, Mieke Murkes, followed by a discussion and Q&A (www.betweengoodbyes.com).
Day 2 considers the long arc of Korean adoption and its impacts through the lens of birth family search. It will spotlight three panels: Stories Unfolding: a Conversation with Adoptees in Reunion, introduced and moderated by Dr. Sara Docan-Morgan, author of In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family; Korean Parents in Runion, moderated by Minyoung Kim; and Processing the Search: Birth Family Search Over Time, introduced and moderated by Dr. Oh Myo Kim, Associate Professor, Dept of Counseling, Development and Educational Psychology, Boston College. Our aim is to shed light on the long-term emotional aspects of search/reunion and offer fresh insights about the role of patriarchy, gender preference, population control policies, and other factors in adoption decisions.
The conference will close with a performance by Chicago Korean Dance Company.
HONORING DR. SUE-JE LEE GAGE
This conference is being held in honor of anthropologist Dr. Sue-Je Lee Gage, pioneering scholar of Amerasians in South Korea, change maker, and beloved teacher and mentor, whose talents and interests spanned the fine arts, the humanities, and the social sciences. Scholars, artists, writers, and activists are invited to apply for short-term residencies in her former home to pursue projects related to the passions and interests that motivated Dr. Gage’s work for social justice, human rights, and the arts. For more information about the Sue-Je Lee Gage Sunlit Residency, please visit www.sunlitresidency.com.
sCHEDULE
Saturday, April 13, 2024, Harris Hall 107, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus
TIME
TOPICS & PRESENTERS
8:30 – 9:00
9:00 – 9:15
9:15 – 10:00
10:00 – 10:30
10:30 – 10:50
10:50 – 12:10
12:10 – 1:10
1:10 – 2:30
2:30 – 2:50
2:50 – 3:10
3:10 – 4:40
4:40 – 4:50
Thanks & Announcements: Prof. Jeong Eun Annabel We
4:50 – 5:50
Registration, coffee + continental breakfast
Welcoming Remarks: Prof. Ji-Yeon Yuh, Northwestern University
Sue-Je Lee Gage Dedication: Prof. Annette Levine, Ithaca College
Acknowledgements: Minyoung Kim, Me & Korea; Deann Borshay Liem, Mu Films
Keynote Address: Prof. Yuri Doolan, Brandeis University, author of The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans from Camptowns to America
Q&A with Prof. Yuri Doolan
Break
From War to Adoption: Transnational Journeys Panel (mod. by Prof. Ji-Yeon Yuh)
Dr. Rosemarie Peña, Founder/Executive Director, Black German Heritage and Research Association (via Zoom): Rekinning & Reculturation: Transcultural Adoption and the Black Diaspora
Dr. Kori Graves, University at Albany, SUNY; Author, A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War: Forgotten Adoptions of the Forgotten War: African Americans and the Origins of Transnational Adoptions
Dr. Catherine Nguyen, Emerson College; Author of Children Born of War, Adoptees Made by War (work in progress): Tracing the Lifeline of the Métis and the Amerasian in Kim Thúy's Em
Lunch
Afternoon Welcome & Introductions: Prof. Jeong Eun Annabel We, Northwestern University
Documenting U.S. Military Camptowns along the DMZ: Yong Nam Lee, Activist/Photographer, Paju, Republic of Korea; translation by Eunice Oh
Break
Tracing Erasures of Belonging for Mixed Race Koreans and Korean Adoptees:
Prof. Patti Duncan, Oregon State University
Building Community, Charting New Paths Panel (mod. by Prof. Patti Duncan)
Panlists: Sarah Harris, Lisa Jackson, Linda Papi Rounds, and Eileen Thompson.
Dinner
Book signing with Prof. Yuri Doolan and Prof. Sara Docan-Morga
6:00 – 8:00
Location: FISK HALL 217
Between Goodbyes Special Film Presentation & Conversation (Introduced by Deann Borshay Liem, and mod. by Viola Bao, Northwestern University)
Jota Mun, Director of the new documentary, Between Goodbyes
Mieke Murkes, film participant and Producer
Sunday, April 14, 2024, Harris Hall 107, Northwestern University, Evanston Campus
TIME
TOPICS & PRESENTERS
8:30 – 9:00
9:00 – 9:05
9:05 – 9:15
9:15 – 10:25
10:25 – 11:35
11:35 – 11:55
11:55 – 12:05
12:05 – 1:15
1:15 – 1:25
1:25 – 1:30
Coffee/tea + continental breakfast. Book signing with Prof. Yuri Doolan and Prof. Sara Docan-Morgan
Welcome: Prof. Ji-Yeon Yuh
Stories Unfolding: A Conversation with Adoptees in Reunion Panel
Introduction by Prof. Sara Docan-Morgan, University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, author of In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family
Panelists: Nancy Bason, Kim Hanauska, Stephen Hill, and Anna Holmes
Korean Parents In Reunion Panel (mod. by Minyoung Kim, Me & Korea)
Panelists: Boksook Kim and Bong Ae Kim; translation by Eunice Oh
Break
Processing the Search: Birth Family Search Over Time Panel
Introduction by Prof. Oh Myo Kim, Boston College
Panelists: Myriam Kroll, Vanessa Emerson & Jonessa Dobbs, Amy Winter
Performance: Chicago Korean Dance Company
Thanks and Closing Remarks: Minyoung Kim, Me & Korea
Deann Borshay Liem, Mu Films
meet the speakers
Jonessa Dobbs was adopted when she was an infant to Michigan. She was adopted with her sister. They were born as triplets and are still searching. She still lives in Michigan with her husband and three kids.
Sara Docan-Morgan, Ph.D. (she/her), is Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. Her book, In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family, details her research on adult Korean adoptees’ communication in long-term relationships with their birth families. Her work has been published in Adoption Quarterly, the Journal of Family Communication, the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Communication Quarterly, Family Relations, and the Journal of Korean Adoption Studies, among others. She is a former Fulbright Scholar to South Korea, an award-winning educator, an adult adoptee, and a mother of three.
Yuri W. Doolan, Ph.D. (Northwestern University 2019), is Assistant Professor of History and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and inaugural Chair of Asian American and Pacific Islander Studies at Brandeis University. He is an award-winning historian whose work explores the anti-Asian racism and structural violence of U.S. militarism and empire.
Patti Duncan, Ph.D., is Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University, where she specializes in women of color feminisms, transnational feminisms, and queer studies. She is author of Tell This Silence: Asian American Women Writers and the Politics of Speech; co-editor of Mothering in East Asian Communities: Politics and Practices; co-editor of Women’s Lives Around the World: A Global Encyclopedia, and co-editor of Women Worldwide: Transnational Feminist Perspectives. Her work has appeared in Women’s Studies Quarterly; Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies; Qualitative Inquiry; Atlantis: Critical Studies in Gender, Culture, & Social Justice; The Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, and many book collections. Since 2016, she has served as editor-in-chief of Feminist Formations.
Vanessa Emerson was adopted from Korea in 1985, along with her twin sister Jonessa, to Michigan. They found out later in life they are triplets. She currently lives in South Carolina with her two kids and husband.
Kori A. Graves, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of History at the University at Albany, SUNY. Dr. Graves’s research interests allow her to pursue questions that evaluate the significance of political and popular representations of gender, race, nation, and family. Her book, A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War, tells the story of the first African Americans who adopted Korean children and the ways their efforts revealed the contested nature of adoptive family formation across national boundaries and color lines. She teaches courses about gender and women’s history, the history of marriage and family, and histories of the body, beauty, and identity politics in the U.S. A dedicated educator, Dr. Graves has also won awards for teaching excellence.
Kim Hanauska was adopted in 1971, grew up in Central Minnesota, and currently lives outside Minneapolis, MN, with her husband and two daughters. She is a bi-racial Korean adoptee who reunited with her Korean mother in 2009 and her American father in 2019. Kim visited Seoul for the first time last December as a participant in the inaugural 2023 OKA Gathering. During this trip she also had the privilege of meeting more of her extended Korean family.
Sarah Harris (권도영/Kwon, Do-Yung) was probably born in Daegu or Busan, South Korea, was not found in the street by a policeman (despite what her file form letters say), and was adopted by her family in 1971 at the age of 8 months. After taking a DNA test in 2015 for her daughter’s class project on ethnicity, she slowly began her journey wandering back in time to solve the mystery of her history. She credits her 2018 first trip back to Korea with finally helping her feel her place in both U.S. and Korean history, and she is now dedicated to sharing this history with others. She shares a lot of her life on her blog www.makesmewander.com and has just begun developing a story focusing on life in camptowns that she hopes to turn into a film or TV series.
Stephen Hill (he/him) currently lives in Washington, D.C., and was adopted as an infant in 1985 to his parents in Ohio. He primarily grew up in Indiana and first made contact with his birth mother in 2013, and met her in 2015. One year later, he met his birth father. Stephen is able to stay in contact with his biological family despite the cultural challenges and facts surrounding his adoption. Since 2016, Stephen has volunteered as a board member of
Me & Korea.
Anna Holmes (Han-Areum) was born in Jeongup (about 20 miles south of Jeonju) and adopted in 1986 through Holt International. She grew up in Vacaville, CA, and currently lives in Sacramento, CA. She first returned to Korea in 2017 with Me & Korea's Mosaic Tour. She found her birth family in 2021 and reunited with her birth mother and father separately in May 2023. She was also able to meet two half-brothers, a cousin, and two aunts during this trip. Anna was able to find her birth family because of locating a cousin through 23&Me.
Lisa Jackson (Han Jung Ja) was born in Sam Song Dong, Seoul, Korea. She was adopted by a military family and arrived in the U.S. in March 1969. Although she had a happy upbringing, she always wanted to know more about her birth family. In 2017, she was finally able to go back to Korea and meet some of her birth family. Lisa currently lives in Miami, Florida, with her husband, and is a mom of 6 and a grandmother and great grandmother. She owns a catering and event planning business. Her hobbies are making floral arrangements, furniture refurbishing, and needlepoint.
Oh Myo Kim, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Dept. of Counseling, Development and Educational Psychology at Boston College. Dr. Kim will discuss her research on Korean adoptees through the lifespan, including her work on identity development and the search process, intergenerational themes, and Korean adoptees who have searched, but have not reunited, with their first families. Dr. Kim will moderate a panel of adoptees who are still searching, highlighting various challenges facing adoptees.
Myriam Kroll was adopted at age 6 months and raised in Germany. She lived, worked, and traveled around the globe before settling in Paris, France. When her son was born, she realized that he was (and still is) her only known blood relative. This triggered the exploration of her Korean roots starting with K-food. After a few kimchi explosions, Myriam turned her attention to less edible matters. She is currently serving her second term as Board Member of Racines Coréennes, the French Korean Adoptee Association, and she enjoys her role as "international hub," connecting the French and German
adoptee communities.
Yong Nam Lee is an activist and photographer who grew up in Paju, Korea. Through video and still photographs, he has documented much about the people who worked in the camptowns along the DMZ. He actively promotes the rights of women who formerly worked in the sex industry in
the camptowns.
Annette Levine is the Executive Director of the Sue-Je Lee Gage Sunlit Residency and Professor and Jewish Studies Coordinator, World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at Ithaca College. Professor Levine was a colleague and close friend of Dr. Sue-Je Lee Gage, in whose honor the conference is being held. At Ithaca College, Professor Levine teaches Spanish and Latin American Studies in the Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Her main research, teaching, and professional interests are Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Latin American Literature, Latino/a Literature, and Translation studies. She devotes much of her scholarship to human rights and cultural production (literature, film, monuments, music, and theatre) in the aftermath of dictatorships in Latin America. She teaches courses in Latin American Studies, Latina/o Studies, Jewish Studies, and the Spanish language.
Jota Mun (they/them) is an emerging director with a passion for supporting social justice through film. They edited the Emmy-nominated Netflix series "Who Killed Malcolm X?" (2019) and most recently edited episode 1 of a PBS series about the history of Gospel music hosted by Henry Louis Gates, which is set to premiere in February 2024. Jota was selected by Firelight Media to be a 2021-2023 Doc Lab Fellow for directing Between Goodbyes. As a queer Korean adoptee, this film is very close to their heart.
Mieke Murkes is a queer adoptee from the Netherlands. Mieke is excited to share her family’s story and passionate about representing her community in a new light. She hopes Between Goodbyes can complicate the narrative of birth family reunions, queer adoptees, and non-extractive filmmaking. Mieke is currently based in Utrecht.
Catherine H. Nguyen, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor of Asian Diasporic Literatures at Emerson College. A comparative literary scholar of the Vietnamese diaspora, she is working on the book project Children Born of War, Adoptees Made by War that examines the Vietnamese mixed-race child and the transracial adoptee from the longue durée of the Indochina Wars to their refugee aftermaths. Her publications can be found in Adoption & Culture and L’Esprit Créateur as well as in the edited collections Redrawing the Historical Past and Post-Migratory Cultures in Postcolonial France.
Eunice Oh is a volunteer for Me & Korea. Originally from the Bay Area, California, she is a sophomore at Yale University studying Global Affairs. Each summer, Eunice interprets for Me & Korea’s Mosaic Tours and has continuously worked as an interpreter and translator for the Korean adoptee community.
Linda Papi Rounds was born in 1964 in Nopae-dong, a rural village located north of Paju, South Korea, near the DMZ. She was then adopted privately by an interracial couple around the age of two. Linda pursued a B.S. in Business Management from Pepperdine University and earned a certificate in Human Resources Management from Phoenix University. During her career in human resources, she initiated several businesses. Linda has always been an active community and church member. She volunteers and serves on the board of multiple nonprofit organizations. Linda serves as the President of 325KAMRA, an organization that helps individuals adopted from Korea connect with their biological families through DNA testing. Thanks to the help of the "search angels" at 325KAMRA and DNA testing, Linda successfully met her biological father in 2018. This reunion introduced her not only to her father but also to a loving new family that includes a mother, half-siblings, nieces, and a nephew.
Dr. Rosemarie Peña, is Founder and President of the Black German Heritage and Research Association (BGHRA). Her research explores displaced childhoods, particularly the historical and contemporary intersections of adoption and child migration from the standpoint of her personal journey as a member of the postwar cohort of dual heritage Black transnational adoptees from Germany to the U.S. She is a devoted mother of two adult children and is in reunion with both her maternal and paternal first families residing in the U.S., Germany, France, Sweden, and Senegal.
Eileen Thompson is an LICSW who worked at Boston College as a clinical social worker (now retired). Prior to that she was the Counseling Center Director at Wheelock College and worked for many years as a clinical social worker at Wheelock, Tufts University, and other educational institutions, as well as in private practice in the Boston area. Over the years, Eileen has been very active in the Korean adoptee community and was a founding member of Boston Korean Adoptees. She was the advisor to the Tufts University Korean Student Association Big Brother Big Sister program for Korean adopted children and their families for many years.
Amy Winter was adopted from Korea in 1978 and grew up in Minnesota with a younger brother, who was also adopted separately from Korea. Amy still resides in Minnesota on a hobby farm with her family.
meet the organizers
Nancy Bason was adopted from South Korea in 1970 when she was three years old. She reunited with her birth family in 2015 and maintains a close relationship with them. She currently lives in Chicago and is very active in the Korean community. She is a board member of KAtCH (Korean Adoptees of Chicago), a board member of HANA Center, a Chicago-based Korean immigrant rights and services organization, and a volunteer for Me & Korea.
Viola Tianyue Bao is a Ph.D. student in Comparative Literary Studies and English at Northwestern University, writing a dissertation on Asian and Asian diasporic cultural production, Cold War politics, and the family form in neoliberalism, including a chapter on Scandinavian and U.S. adoptee narratives and experimental artworks. She/they are also a literary translator from Swedish and Chinese, and a literary critic at Scandinavia’s largest daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Viola is originally from Stockholm and has been involved in adoptee organizing in Scandinavia.
Minyoung Kim is the Founder and Executive Director of Me & Korea. Minyoung is a strong advocate for post-adoption services for Korean adoptees. Her volunteer experience began when she was in college at an adoption agency, working as a translator to help adoptees communicate with their birth families. During this time, Minyoung discovered adoptees’ desire to learn about Korea and their personal origins, which is what led her to start Me & Korea. Under Minyoung’s leadership, Me & Korea has grown to serve many people in the Korean adoption community through tours to Korea, academic conferences with scholars who research the origins of international adoption, an online Korean language program, and ongoing sponsorship of children, elders, and single parent families in Korea.
Deann Borshay Liem (she/her) is an Emmy Award-winning documentarian known for films that explore adoption, war, and memory. Her films include First Person Plural, In the Matter of Cha Jung Hee, Geographies of Kinship, Memory of Forgotten War, Crossings, and the oral history project, Legacies of the Korean War. She is currently producing the Sundance-supported film, Vivien’s Wild Ride, and is directing a new project that follows mixed race adopted Koreans on their journey of loss, discovery, and renewal. She is Founder and Executive Director of Mu Films, a nonprofit documentary production company based in Berkeley, CA.
Jill Pfenning has been on the Board of Me & Korea since its inception in 2013, and has served as a volunteer to the organization in many capacities over the past ten years. Jill was born in Korea and adopted to Vermont in 1974. After living in New York City, Korea, Washington, DC, and California, Jill has returned to Vermont where she currently lives with her husband. Jill is a lawyer by training and works as in-house counsel. Jill also serves on the Board of the Sue-Je Lee Gage Sunlit Residency.
Jeong Eun Annabel We, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Asian languages and cultures at Northwestern University. Her current book project engages questions of decolonization and immobility in Korean and diasporic literature and culture through a transpacific framework. Her work appears in the journals ACTA Koreana, Bandung: The Journal of the Global South, Cultural Dynamics, GLQ, Journal of Korean Studies, and American Quarterly and in the anthologies Decolonising the University (Pluto Press 2018) and Routledge Companion to Postcolonial and Decolonial Literature (Routledge 2024).
Ji-Yeon Yuh, Ph.D., is the founding faculty member of the Asian American Studies Program at Northwestern University, where she teaches Asian American history, Asian diasporas, race and gender, and oral history. Her book, Beyond the Shadow of Camptown: Korean Military Brides in America, was the first substantive work to examine the consequences of U.S. militarism for Korean migration and diaspora. Her current projects include a digital oral history repository focused on Asian diasporas, an oral history project on the Midwest as an Asian American space, a book on Korean diaspora in China, Japan, and the United States, and a study of reunification and Korea peace activism in the Korean diaspora.
conference sponsors
ONE BOOK ONE NORTHWESTERN with support from the following Northwestern University units:
Council for Race and Ethnic Studies
Initiative for Comparative Race and Diaspora
N. W. Harris Lecture Fund
Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences
Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities
Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Gender & Sexuality Studies Program
Program in Critical Theory
Department of Anthropology
Department of Sociology
Department of Political Science
Program in Comparative Literary Studies
Department of Asian Languages and Cultures
Asian American Studies Program
ME & KOREA is a California-based nonprofit that serves Korean adoptees and their families. Me & Korea strives to forge connections between the Korean community and Korean adoptees to help adoptees develop their Korean identity, and raise awareness about adoption in the Korean community. Me & Korea runs annual tours to Korea for adult Korean adoptees and a Korean language program for adult Korean adoptees. Me & Korea is an all-volunteer organization that receives the majority of its funding from individual donors. www.meandkorea.org.
MU FILMS is a nonprofit documentary production studio based in Berkeley, California. The mission of Mu Films is to produce and distribute documentaries and educational media about social, historical, and cultural issues with a focus on untold stories from under-represented communities. Our goal is to use media to bring about social justice, promote cultural understanding and encourage positive social change. www.mufilms.org.
SPECIAL THANKS
Our heartfelt gratitude to KOREAN ADOPTEES OF CHICAGO (KAtCH) for supporting this conference. Founded in January 2008, KAtCH is a volunteer-run organization BY and FOR adult Korean adoptees in the Chicagoland area. KAtCH aims to build positive connections among adult Korean adoptees and with the larger transracial adoptee and API communities. The organization hosts monthly social, cultural, and educational events, and offers volunteer and mentoring opportunities throughout the year. For more information, please visit www.katchicago.com.
And tremendous thanks and appreciation to the following volunteers and supporters who made this conference possible:
Meeja Fortie, Soyoung Kim, Sunny Marshall, Victoria McGinley, Christine Oh, Daniela Barajas, Yiju Choi, Jaeson Kim, Carlos Octavio Ballinas, Emily Mun, and April Li.
Thank you!
