Attending the Second Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (KAAN) Conference
By Kari Lane (Adult Adoptee)

Heracultis of the Universe once said, "One cannot step into the same river twice." Since attending the first KAAN conference, my hope was to have a better understanding of my cultural identity and to be able to hear echoes of peer Korean adoptees having similar struggles and hardships. For example, having mixed feelings of being bicultural and what part of myself should I keep and what parts of myself should I disown that is either Korean or White. And so, I have learned, as an adoptee, that it is taking a littler longer time to be the person I want to be and wish to become. And I can say honestly stepping into the next KAAN 2000 conference was a whole new experience taking me to the next level of higher understanding of adoptive parent's perspective and personal struggles with adoptee children.

A year's journey has passed and I have new questions that have emerged in my being that I have personally repressed for so many years. Firstly, mixed feelings in dealing with prejudice within the small community I was raised for 20 years and the shame of my orphan life in Korean for seven years. And it was only through the KAAN 2000 conference that I was able to find someone who was on the same page as I was. With much admiration, I meet Jane Brown, MSW who spoke last year and this year's conference. Her topic she spoke on was "Sibling Relationships" and she provided teaching tools to adoptive parents to have open communication with adoptee children in unpleasant situations and problems. In this particular group of adoptive parents who attended the conference were a selected group of people who were open to learning and sharing their struggles and issues with their adoptee children. However, most of the adoptive parents did not understand the self-image of adoptee children facing with their peers and even their adoptive family. I spoke about that self-image is equal to self-esteem. For instance, when I was in elementary school, I came home sobbing and crying that someone was teasing me about how small my eyes were. My adoptive mom stroked my hair and said, "I love your small shaped eyes. They are beautiful to me." And of course I stopped crying momentarily. Then the next day, I heard my mother and sister talking to each other in the bathroom saying, "I need to put more mascara on to make my eyes look bigger." When I overhead them talking, I became ashamed of my eye shape from that day forward. As an adult reflecting back at that situation, what would I do differently and what should my mother have said. Well, I believe that adoptive parent's should not invalidate a child's negative experience. It is better to be honest with the child saying, "Well, yes your eyes are small but that doesn't mean that your eyes are ugly or that there is something wrong with you." But on the other hand, adoptive parents may give mixed messages of saying one thing and acting in another way. Adoptive parents make honest mistakes themselves and should express to their adoptive child their own inadequacies as a person in dealing with their own self-image issues as well.

In regards to my shameful past in the orphanage has now become my platform for inspiration for at-risk youth population. And mostly, because I am breaking the barriers of the model minority stereotype of being a excellent student and so on. I am 1.5 generation coming to America at age 7 and I struggled in school until 7th grade receiving my first "A" in English because I wrote an autobiography of my life in the orphanage in Korea. And throughout high school, I was an average student. It was only until I went to college that I excelled in all subjects having 3.8 GPA. In college, I took a Psychology class and learned Erickson's theory model of "Who am I." And at the KAAN 2000 conference, one of the panel speakers spoke about Erickson's model in general in comparing adoptee's journey of "Who am I" would be their teenage years. However, I would give special consideration to adoptees, because I believe it is more of "emotional age" versus chronological age of adoptees. So if adoptive parents are forcing their adoptee children to find their biological parents too soon, it may do more harm than good. One way could be to accumulate information and begin the search for the biological parents ahead of time. And when the adoptee who may be in age range from 17, 25, or 30 is ready to question or probe about his or her biological parents, then provide the biological search information. Another possibility, is to present information to the adoptee rather than questions. For instance, one parent told me that she had asked her 10 year old son, "Do you want me to find your biological parents?" The boy responded, "No." And yet the adoptive parent was torn inside thinking, "This is so important for my son to find his biological mother. Why is he so reluctant?" I told the adoptive mother, "Let's imagine I am a stranger and I asked you directly 'What is your age?' "How would you respond?" The adoptive mother said, "I would be set back by your boldness." I replied, "Correct, as the same way you are asking your adoptive son very direct questions either "yes" or "no" answers. It sounds like you are asking him to chose you, as the adoptive mother, over the biological mother in your son's mind. There are many other ways of introducing the biological mother into your son's world without feeling threatened that he has to pick one over the other.

At the Adult Adoptee meeting, what an amazing sight to be among my peers with similar journeys at various stages. I was so profoundly moved by the poignant stories of each adoptee. After leaving the three hour adoptee meeting, I came to the conclusion that even though we as adoptees have started our life beginning with a loss, it means that we have the opportunity to work on our losses much sooner. Instead of waiting for loss to happen in our life, for example, a significant other passing away after 30 years of marriage. I am now in my thirties and I have went through the valleys of my personal loss and learned to graciously accept it. And now when I look at my close friends and family who are dealing with loss for the first time, they are struggling with "Who am I" without this person in my life. So in a way, I am honored that I started out in life with a painful loss and have surrendered to it and now I can help others who are struggling with this very same issue in their adult life. Moreover, I had the same similar struggle of deciding to bring inner peace or discord that flows within my being and how I would I be viewed if I did not find some closure in my personal losses. I know for myself that I can radiate the feelings and thoughts that I hold inside, whether I speak them or not.

As an adoptee, I feel that the KAAN 2000 conference has helped me to become a whole person in accepting parts of myself that I once denied and ashamed of. I would like to share a cake analogy. A cake represents an adoptee and he/she is encouraged to re-own the parts of oneself which he/she has considered noxious or otherwise unacceptable. Just as the oil, or flower or baking powder, etc., by themselves can be distasteful, as part of the whole cake he/she is indispensable to assure its success. So, by having the opportunity to dine with the adoptive parents for two days and being able to answer some of their questions, meeting with my adoptee peers, and attending the workshops have transcended cultural beauty and creating harmony in my life.

Reflections on the KAAN 2000 Conference and Hosting Experience Pre-Conference
Rochelle A. Stackhouse and P.Gavin Ferriby (adoptive parents of Luke, 6 and Leah, 4, and awaiting the arrival of Benjamin, 2, all born in South Korea).

When a call came asking if we could host two Korean women for three days preceding the KAAN Conference, we hesitated. With one of us working full time and the other part time, and two kids, it seemed a lot to take on with less than a week’s notice. But we have discovered that these kinds of opportunities always bring gifts which are worth last minute schedule changes. Su Young and Ae Duck brought us gifts: han boks and a statue of Stone Grandfather, a jewelry box and Korean mask. They brought us new food and additions to our Korean vocabulary. More than anything else, though, they brought us and our children a deeper tie to Korea and appreciation of our oneness with the people of Korea as an adoptive family.

Our guests are volunteers with an organization which assists adoptees who return to Korea in birthfamily searches among other things (INKAS). They wanted to have a chance to stay with an adoptive family before the KAAN conference to experience the American piece of the adoption picture. In hosting them, we shared our home with them and introduced them to New York City and numerous American customs. We were not really prepared, however, for how profoundly this would impact our children, young as they are. This was the first time adult Koreans had stayed overnight in our home, and our children responded to them as family members from the first moment of their arrival. We worked around language barriers to discover that hugs and kisses translate love in any language, and the affection shared between our guests and our children humbled us. Our son has just begun asking many identity questions and seeking to learn more about Korea. Our visitors gave him the chance to put flesh on his birth country in a way even the numerous Korean Americans we have contact with could not. In an odd way, I think their presence in our home assured him that in many ways Koreans are like us as human beings. It took a piece of mystery and made it real for him. He also had the chance at the conference to meet a Korean American who shared his name and the director of the Korean agency through which he was adopted. From his comments after the conference, we think he has begun the life-long process of connection crucial to all adoptive children, connection with the homeland as well as to the adoptive family and country.

For us as adoptive parents, we found much to stimulate our thinking at the conference. Just being with so many adult adoptees and hearing their stories – most especially in the film “First Person Plural”—gave us much food for thought about how we help our own children navigate their pasts and futures. Being with other adoptive families and so many children helped us to find new connections with families who are like us. The presentation “Justice For All” reaffirmed our understanding that, through our children, we are also part of the Korean community and need to be proactive to ensure justice for all races in this country.

Perhaps most valuable of all were the hallway and break time conversations with people we had not met before the conference where we shared ideas, parenting hints, funny and poignant stories about our journeys as adoptive families, and support for each other as human beings. We were particularly grateful for the significant participation by guests from Korea and Korean Americans who were not adoptees. In our past contacts with the Korean American community, we have sometimes felt some awkward feelings on both parts about ethnically Korean children being adopted and raised by Caucasian Americans. At the KAAN conference there was clearly welcome and a hope for stronger ties between our families and the Korean community, both in Korea and in the US. That encouraged us to reach out more to the Korean American community around us.

As we await the arrival of our third adopted child, the KAAN Conference confirmed for us the importance of networking with adoptees and adoptive families, both for ourselves as parents and for our children as Korean American adoptees.