Adoption | Adoptee | International Adoption
May 9th: Coming to America Day.
May 9th is when I arrived in the United States, my Coming to America Day.
I was adopted from South Korea when I was 11 months old. Throughout my lifetime, this date has meant different things to me. When I was young, I resented that my mom always celebrated it. It was another reminder that I was different and my story was different. That unlike my siblings and all of the people I knew, my story was blurry and had missing chapters and people. I felt separate during a time when I was desperately trying to erase and minimize differences and fit in.
On that day, we always looked back through the things that I arrived with. The small teddy bear backpack, the bottle with Korean writing on it, the rattle, and all the photos from my arrival.
My mom would recount how excited everyone was to meet me. She would urge me to take time to think about and thank my birth mom for loving me enough to give birth to me, breastfeed me, and ultimately for giving me up for adoption and providing me with an opportunity for a better life. I never followed through on this mental exercise. Not out of defiance, I just never connected with it.
Up until the past 10 years, I hadn’t thought about my birth mom apart from wondering if she looked like me. The idea of her made me feel separate, so I pushed any thoughts of her aside. As an adult, I’ve begun to think more about what my mom urged me to consider on May 9th.
I now recognize that my birth mom had no idea when I left South Korea or where I went. She probably could not have terminated her pregnancy if she wanted to. She had no money to do anything but breastfeed me.
Even though I am safe and have a great support network now, that was far from the case for much of my childhood.
Over the past few years, my birth mom has occupied a lot more space in my mind. My feelings about her are much stronger, oscillating between apathy and empathy, resentment and dismissal. More than anything, I feel abandoned by her. I have tried to piece together fragmented pieces of her story that may or may not be true. All I know with certainty is that she left me.
Maybe it was excruciating for her, a last resort after fighting for months to make it work. Maybe she thinks of me on the days that I don’t think of her. Maybe that is the story I need to believe because the alternatives are too painful.
Maybe part of me wants her to know that I’m still working to heal from the abuse, racism, and trauma I’ve experienced. I want her to know it wasn’t easy for me either. Growing up in a small, rural midwestern community where no one looked like me, like us, forced me into hiding, just like she has always felt hidden from me.
I still have no idea what she looks like, and nearly 38 years later, we are languages, continents, and cultures apart. Yet somehow I have never felt closer to her.
Recently, J and I have immersed ourselves in Korean cooking as a means to learn about Korean culture, customs, traditions, and language. It makes me feel close to her. It makes me feel closer to myself.
A few months ago, I started the search for my birth mom. “Just to see what she looks like, that’s all I want,” I promised myself. I won’t bother her or disrupt her life. I just want to see her. I just want to recognize her. I want to know if her hair has red highlights in the sun like mine and if her skin turns a deep tan in the summer months. I want to know if I have her eyes, her nose, her smile, and her laugh. Is she sarcastic, an empath, and an introvert who loves to be in the mountains?
I have spent hours searching adoptee groups, scrolling through hundreds of posts and bulletins, studying all of the photos, willing recognition and resemblance. Every time I come across so much as a shared birth year, my breath would catch in my chest. There are so many others with (incomplete) stories similar to mine. All adoptees, with only a few pieces of information, desperate to find anything that will help fill the gaps in their story.
I felt less alone knowing there were so many in my situation, and also crushed by the sheer number of us.
Over the past few months, I have learned new information about my story.
She was 19 years-old.
He was 37 years-old, a taxi driver. He was sick. He had three other children.
She breastfed me for three months. I bonded with her for three months.
She could not afford to keep me.
He could not support her.
I became an orphan, left with a note from her to “please raise her healthy and well.”
The orphanage notes about me say, “she had a hard adjustment, she is limp and listless coming from a breastfeeding mother.”
In addition, I learned that 19 years ago she looked for me. She left her name and phone number with my guardian from the orphanage. I was overwhelmed with relief that she wanted to find me, that she thought of me, that I was wanted by her in any way. I was also upset because I had spoken to my guardian from the orphanage when she had this information and the information was withheld. The phone number she left was no longer connected. My mind immediately raced to the worst-case scenario, that she is gone, along with any chance to connect with her.
I will continue my search, and continue to wait. Things will work out the way they are supposed to.
As May 9th and Mother’s Day approach, I feel overwhelmed by grief. This time last year, my mom was alive. This time last year, I was not consumed with thoughts of my birth mom. Both circumstances have changed and I am left feeling alone, with unanswered questions.
Simultaneously, I have never been more proud to be Korean as I am today.
Regardless of what happens with my search, I am eager to continue learning about my origins and writing my own story from this point forward.
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