When Fleur Pellerin became a prominent member of newly-elect Francois Hollande’s cabinet in 2012, headlines in South Korea started buzzing about how she was the “flower” that made South Korea known to the world. Pellerin was a Korean adoptee; a few days after her birth in
Perhaps the world’s best-known Korean adoptee today is Adam Crapser. After living in the U.S. for almost four decades, Crapser was deported to South Korea late last year because his adoptive parents had never filed for his American citizenship. The twists and turns of
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;