Adopted Territory 2

Part II of Adopted Territories continues the idea of the Korean adoptee who is fractured.  Kim gives several examples of ways adoptees are viewed as outsiders regardless of what atmosphere they are in.  If they are in their western, adopted country then they are on the outside, because they look different.  If they are in Korea, they are seen as an other, because they possibly have a mixed heritage and they were not raised in Korean culture.  In Part I, Kim talks about the female student who went to college and took a class on oppression, only to learn that her white adopted parents would be considered oppressive, and that was too much for her.  In Part II, there is the example of the adopted man whose birth mother had organized an anti-adoption rally.  He wanted to participate, but then worried he would be negating a part of himself by being part of an anti-adoption rally.  Both of these speak to a splintering of self that adoptees face.

Another theme that comes in the second half of the book is one of loss.  Chapter 5 talks about how adoptees might be viewed as lucky because they get a western education.  One adoptee importantly points out that what they get is not just an education and then they can come back to Korea.  What the adoptees receive is permanent and irreversible (205).  Some feel the loss of culture and kinship ties.  Although different situations, the children in Children of Global Migration also felt a loss when their mothers left the home in order to provide a better (sometimes western) education for them.  In both conditions, the sacrifices made in order to give children something perceived as “better” is rooted in a sense of loss that follows the children into adulthood.  Through a western lens of globalization policies, in both instances, what the children have lost should be a fair trade for gains in the western world.  This also comes into play as adoptees go to Korean adoption agencies, only to have trouble getting records.

An interesting aspect was how neocolonial politics was viewed through the eyes of adoptees as they played out sexually.  The male Korean adoptee finds himself ranked beneath a white man in the dating world in his adopted country as well as his native country.  This shows the entrenchment of idealized, western social, political, and economic power relations.  It also adds to the sense of not fully belonging.