Adoptee Reunions: A Happy Ending Can Be Elusive

When I tell South Korean nationals that I’m a Korean-American adoptee, their reactions vary from a kind of backhanded recognition (“Oh, so that’s why you can’t speak Korean”) to profuse apologies (“I’m so sorry that happened to you”) to expressions of jealousy (“You’re so lucky; I want to go to America, too”). There’s one question, though, that they almost always ask: “Do you know your Korean family?” The follow-up to that question often includes eager suggestions of how to find my birth family