Week #9- Adopted Territory Part II

      The ideas of paternalism and globalization are the main means of which the book begins to expound upon in the presence of the U.S., its former colonialism, and now neo-colonialism with Korea. Korea is a country where these children (adoptees) were born by a woman who were forced to give up their children based on the mere persuasion that their mothers could not support them financially, nor ever allow them the opportunity of education; therefore these children were sent to live with close family members which in turn shipped them to the nearest orphanage. These women were not given the choice to have their children as their “own”. Instead, these boys and girls were shipped across the globe as objects of financial commercialism. The evidence of trying to allow these now adult children a sense of belonging to their native country is viewed in many different lights. Adopted Territory’ s second half was more focused on the upward mobility of the Korean adoptees, the separation between their personal and political perspectives upon becoming “Americanized”, and the idea of culture, rootedness, and their ideas of self, a “knowing self” to which they would like to relate; more so, becoming or not becoming “Korean.”

            Kim introduces a greater sense of feeling and emotion in the second half of the book, in my opinion; she allows a different idea of the actual human beings to which she prefers. In the beginning, these adoptees were being viewed as objects of financial gain that only became acquainted with other individuals like themselves through conferences held in Seoul. At the conferences, these now adult adoptees were only surrounded by an atmosphere of reflection. There were no variety to allow these men and women to search for a deeper rootedness within their biological heritage. Later, some of the individuals visited Korea to help find their “missing” mothers, or through simple conversations from a cab driver. These people were placed in a very difficult position in trying to discover their identity. Yes, there grew up in a different country with adopted parents, well created futures and friends, but something was still missing. These men and women were in an unfamiliar world, but also very peculiar set familiar at the same time.

            Throughout the ways in which the adoptees searched for their familiar yet “unfamiliar” territory was very challenging to both their conditioned mindsets about their adoption, and the longing to want to know their past. The ideology of belongingness is linked into a category of time and space. People are a product of their environment; therefore, one literally becomes their environment especially with Western influences established from birth. Space confines the images around you, your locale, and the locality of your mindset of presence and future. Time consists of past, present, and future and these adoptees longed to configure their space and time into an equal atmosphere of discovery as well as happiness. These individuals were given life while at the same time had it stolen from them. They were just children, but those memories still lie within the time and space compression of being Korean or Asian American (human beings not objects), living in the West, and knowledge of a true “home.”