I was born in Uijeongbu, South Korea. I came to the U.S. at six months and moved to a small, rural town in Tennessee.
My dad was a pastor from an even smaller farming town in the state. My mother was an advocate for people with special needs from Memphis. My older brother was a blonde-hair, blue-eyed domestic adoptee three years older than me. My younger brother would be adopted seven years later from Hong Kong.
We were the only Asians for a few counties, minus the small Chinese family who ran a local restaurant in the next town.
My family was pretty conservative in thought and beliefs.
Growing up, there never seemed to be room for error in academics, morals, or our public actions. Not only did I stand out because of my ethnicity, but also because I was the daughter of the main Southern Baptist church's pastor.
All I really cared about doing was pleasing my dad and representing the family well. I never wanted to acknowledge that I was different.
To me, different was deficient. I never talked about it.
Occasionally, though, someone would tell me to go back where I came from or ask me how much I cost, and the thought of being different just kept coming back.
Adoptees are masters of balance and fluidity. We learn how to move in and out of situations like chameleons, constantly shifting. For me, I stopped caring what others thought when I realized I didn't care. It's been rough between my entire adoptive family and I for about five years now.
During my sophomore year of college, I started becoming more and more interested in my adoptive parents. As I hung out with my Korean friends and their families, a deep longing for something stirred.
December of junior year, I began the search for my biological family. By that August, I had heard about the death of my birth mother ten years ago. My father didn't want any contact, and my mother's younger sister had been looking for me since.
The grieving process has been long, and I want to just call it quits. Right now, it's the only connection I have to my birth family.
I try to compartmentalize a lot of my life, and it has hurt a lot of people. As much as I want everything to flow together like a lot of people's, I don't know if people are as ready as they think to make room. I'm also just growing up, and I need some kind of space to call my own. That is such a luxury that I have been able to afford the past four years. I live in a town about an hour away from my adoptive family and I’m working to move across the country one day.
I'm proud of the fact I'm still here and thriving.
I'm proud of the fact that things haven't turned out as well as I wanted, but I am still hopeful that everything will be okay.
My story isn't the only one out here, and perspective is more beautiful when it comes full circle.
I just want people to find their voice and share their story.
We are all like a body. We need each other to survive. Sure, a limb can be severed. It will die on its own and the rest of the body will not function at 100%, but the body will still function.
I'm not proud of everything I've said or done concerning my adoption experience, but we haven't seen a lot of open international transracial adoption experiences that went well. I know that we are strong people who have gone through more than we let on.