My name is Elisabeth Royce Small, my birth name is Kim Hyeon Joo. I am in school currently majoring in political science with a minor in Asian-American studies. My intention is to become a lobbyist to fight the injustice and inhumane treatment against transcontinental and transracial adoptees.
I have been given the opportunity to make my first return trip to South Korea. I am a transcontinental adoptee and started my search last summer. The program I am working with is the Adoptive Family Travel by The Ties Program. They have countless stories of successful reconnection trips and have already found my birthplace and the city I was transferred to before I came to the states. The program provides housing, travel within the country, translators, and emotional support. I will be traveling with other adoptees and will be rooming with one myself. She is a 44 year old adoptee from Illinois making her second trip to Korea.
We will not only be reconnecting to our roots, eating traditional foods, and traveling the entire span of the country, but are able to travel to the island of Jeju and the DMZ. While the group makes their way from Seoul to Busan, they plan on dropping me off with a translator to my birthplace. I need to fill this void. I need to know there is a chance I could reunite with my family and not feel so lost.
The trip is over the summer for about two weeks. Coincidentally it falls on my Airplane Day, which is the day I arrived in the States. I feel very fortunate to have found this program and be able to connect with a part of me I didn’t think was possible.
The Ties Program also works with The Gift of Identity Fund which has awarded me their full grant towards the trip, but while this was extremely helpful, the trip is very costly as well as further investigations of my origin story.
It would mean so much if you could donate anything. This is a life changing occurrence and I hope you find that your donation, big or small, is now a part of this story.
Thank you so much in advance.
Below is the essay I sent to The Gift of Identity Fund.
I was adopted at four months from Eastern Child Welfare and was born in Yeongju. I was adopted into a family in Upstate NY with two boys of their own. The town I grew up in was predominantly upper to upper-middle class and white. My mother is a quarter Korean and shared a bit about the food culture. However, considering the environment I grew up in and realizing I was adopted as a doll rather than their child, I shunned from my heritage and any thought of finding my biological parents. My parents instilled my obvious differences from everyone else and regaled on how I should consider myself lucky because I was a child of rape and half-Japanese. I wasn’t allowed to go outside in fear that I would tan and if I was, she would bleach my skin. I was forced to grow my hair till middle school in order to resemble a classic look of an Asian woman. My mother found logic in her racism because I was her token race card. The few adoptees in my class seemed to be clumped together, but confused as to which one we were. It made me want to try my best to assimilate and in doing so, I tore myself apart.
When I was 18, I received my adoption papers from Love the Children and found out I was not half Japanese nor a child of rape. There was little information, but I started to feel like I reclaimed something I didn’t realize I had lost. I didn’t know how to proceed from there and was too scared of what could happen. I’ve heard too many horror stories and feared for my own.
It wasn’t until this past year, when I was engaged, that I started to search for the heritage I had lost and the heritage we, as Asian-Americans, are trying to find. As I began educating myself on the history of Asian-Americans, I also sent in a DNA test to 23&Me and contacted Bucks County Orphans Court to inquire about any information on my medical history. What I had received was life shattering.
It was not the paperwork I had received from Love the Children when I was 18. It was my first paperwork. When I was collected as it seemed. There was no information about my birth to a month and six days later. And my birthdate had, “presumed,” next to it.
I felt dehumanized and lost. I felt like a stray cat someone had found.
Thankfully, since I had seen previous paperwork, I contacted the court again to inquire about further documentation. Eventually they found another packet. It still was not the paperwork I had received previously. This was post-adoption, from the social worker observing the love and care my new parents provided. I contacted them again. I am still waiting on my third and hopefully final packet.
In all of this, my mother contacted me, not knowing that I started this search, and told me she had sent some things to me. Included with those things were my adoption papers, the names of my parents, their age, where they lived, what my father did, where I was born, my birthdate and time, and the story, from my mother, “she was worried about her unborn child’s future a great deal.” The story was simple and understandable. It was the model story every adopted child hears. She loved you. She wanted to keep you. She couldn’t and wanted to give you a better life.
I had already wanted to go back to Korea before this information in order to fill the void that is lost here. A part of me feels stolen when I was sent here and I just want to be able to touch the ground of where I was meant to be. I have been homesick since I came here at 4 months, saying “eomma,” and “appa,” as my first words.
After reading what my mother wrote, it only strengthens my need to go home. Whether or not I am ever physically reconnected to her, I feel that just being back there will fill that deafening void. I want to be lost in a sea of those that remind me of me.
https://www.adoptivefamilytravel.com/about-us
https://www.adoptivefamilytravel.com/financialhelp
