“Could I see your driver’s license, please?”
My debit card at Wendy’s had been declined, and the cashier asked to see my license. As he peered over it, he looked up at me, then back down to my driver’s license.
“You don’t have a funny sounding immigrant name, do you?”
Stunned at first, embarrassed seconds later, I mumbled something quickly about being adopted, grabbed my receipt, and headed to the drink stations.
The Adoption Dilemma
Time and time again, I’ve had conversations that range from the awkward to the awful:
“Where are you from?”
“Why don’t you look like your parents?”
“Why did your mom give you up?”
“Why can’t you speak Korean?”
“Do you want to meet your birth parents?”
“I’m going to hire you to prove I’m not racist against Asian people!”
Now, I want to say that most of the time, the questions were and are borne out of curiosity and not malice, confusion, or meanness. And yet, therein lies a dilemma for those of us who are adopted. Consistent questions asked out of concern (or ignorance) ultimately lead to a dissonance in the heart and mind of the adoptee. The message is clear—you are not like us.
I do not presume to speak for all Korean American adoptees. But the more I listen, learn, and speak with other adoptees, the more I hear echoes of my stories in theirs. The experiences of never truly fitting into a majority white culture and yet quite disconnected from your own. The experience of desperately trying to fit in as a young child, only to realize that to some degree you’ll never fully be accepted as one of them. Looking for someone in life who looks like you, and finding that when you do, even that’s not always a guarantee of acceptance.
Even more, it is realizing that fitting in brings with it its own set of problems (see: the model minority myth). So you press into seeking to reconnect with your heritage and culture—but there are few guides for such a task.
For a long time in Christian circles, stories of adoption were compared to the believer’s adoption in Christ. While I concur that the soteriological aspects of our adoption in Christ are wonderful (see J.I. Packer in Knowing God), the sociological aspects of our adoption are filled with grief, trauma, sorrow, and loss. For every person who has told me, “You’re so lucky that you were adopted!” a voice deep inside replies, “I’m not sure I feel so lucky though.”
My Adoption Story
In my own story, I know very little that surrounds my adoption. I came over to America as an infant with a flight attendant from Delta Airlines. My parents picked me up from Atlanta International Airport, and that was that. No trips to Korea to learn the culture. No visits to ensure the match was a fit. It was a transaction as simple as picking out a piece of clothing from a catalogue and having it shipped over. (In fact this is how my adopted mother has described the process to me.)
Part of my trouble as an adoptee now is reconciling my childhood as a Korean American adoptee growing up in the deep South with a family, who I do believe loved me, but had little interest or ability to do anything to connect me to my culture. All of the insensitive statements that are taboo today were repeated to me by my parents:
“God knew we couldn’t have children, and so he gave us to you!”
“We don’t think of you being Korean, you’re just like us!”
“You’re not different!”
Reflecting back over my childhood and adolescence, it is deeply difficult for me to process the dynamics surrounding my adopted family. My parents are now divorced, and the relationship with both is estranged. Another grief. Another loss. It’s a loss that becomes acute at the oddest of moments—like filling out my health history at the doctor or my children asking me about my real parents. If you are a parent of an adopted child, I’d encourage you to seek out counsel and help in navigating this terrain with your adoptee.
Known and Loved
Well, someone might say, “Where is God in the midst of all this?” Good question. That’s one I have asked many times over the past few years. As a biblical counselor, it’s one I ask somewhat frequently, and yet it’s one I also have felt puzzled by. Yes, I know all things happen for a reason, but still questions persist in my heart:
“Why was I given up?”
“Do I have brothers and sisters?”
“When will I get to go back to Korea?”
“Do my birth parents ever think of me?”
“Is something so wrong with me that I have lost two sets of parents now?”
At times like this, I lean on what I know to be true, even though I often desperately do not feel it to be true. I lean on the fact that I am known and loved by my Heavenly Father. The Apostle John writes, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18). So, in Christ I see a reflection of the Father’s love and care for me. I take to heart that any reflection of godly, Christlike love then is a reflection of the Father.
That is helpful and comforting to my soul. That means I see the Father’s love for me in my loving and patient wife, the guileless joy of my children, the friendship of dear brothers and sisters in Christ, and the fatherhood of godly mentors and disciplers in my life.
I know the journey of myself and many adoptees is ongoing as we seek to reclaim and reconnect with our cultural heritage and reconcile our narratives with what we know to be true of our loving, Heavenly Father. What I have yet to fully experience this side of heaven, I know will soon be a reality as I add my voice to the chorus of thousands of adoptees everywhere saying, “This I know, that God is for me.” (Ps. 56:9b)