“The Geographies of Kinship Pre-Broadcast Conversation” Hosted Saturday, May 15 at 9pm EST

African American soldiers stationed in South Korea during and after the Korean War were among the first U.S. citizens to adopt Korean children. Please join us for a conversation exploring this little-known history and the eventual adoption of approximately 200,000 Korean children worldwide. The event features Professor Kori Graves, whose book, “A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War,” explores how Black American soldiers came to adopt Black Korean children, in conversation with Korean adoptees Dr. Estelle Cooke-Sampson, Lisa Jackson, and filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem.

This event precedes the national broadcast premiere of Geographies of Kinship, the award-winning documentary by Deann Borshay Liem, as part of America Reframed on public television's WORLD Channel on May 19, 2022, 8:00 PM ET.

Korean Adoption Occurred Since the End of the Korean War

• 200,000+ Korean adoptees, around 100,000 in US alone
• placed in orphanage for “undesirable children”
• African American soldiers allowed to interact with children in orphanage - give them candy/gum, take them out on walks
  • immediate ways as addressing children who needed care
  • many African American soldiers adopted many mixed race children (not just Black) early on starting in the 1960s
• Korean mothers sometimes walked children to airplane to leave for US with adoptive family
• Korea + US’ goal was to reduce any kind of opportunity for interracial marriages, creation of multiracial families, mixed race children (Kori A. Graves)
  • efforts by US government to limit potential for interracial marriages - prevent issues concerning identity, citizenship, belonging)
  • US + Korean governments reinforced rigid racial binary, “police lines of race as efficiently as they could” - determined that adoptees’ racial identity was their biological father’s

majority of adoption agencies were not prepared or inclined to work with Black adoptive families (Kori A. Graves)

• policies designed to replicate an idealized [white] family
  • some working class white families applied to adopt but were not preferred over middle/upper class white families due to large volume of applicants
  • even the “best” Black families were unable to meet requirements
    • ex. younger than 40, own home, have separate bedroom for child, husband had to have income + savings, mothers had to stay home
• rampant institutional racism + economic inequality in child welfare agencies
  • Black families would adopt via “independent” agencies in US and abroad → turn to transnational adoptions
  • non-military Black families chose transnational adoption because they were prohibited from adopting in the US - Black families told US adoption agencies that if their adoption was not approved they would go to other agencies (ex. Holt International)

Experiences of Black-Korean Adoptees Adopted into African American Families

Estelle Cooke-Sampson - adopted to US by Black serviceman at 6 years old

• came from institutional sterile environment in Korea → did not speak any language
• grew up in housing projects in Washington state - students + other African American community members knew “I had to come from someplace else”
  • focused on developing language skills
• late 1960s-1970s: affirmations in African American community identifying with cultures - “didn’t look Black enough for my community”
  • experienced colorism + notions about not being “Black enough”
• interested in learning more about Korea in college - not accepted by other Korean Americans
  • could not speak Korean
  • realized importance of education
• now there are many mixed children it is more acceptable - “now the fashion of the day; I fit right in now”

Lisa Jackson - born in 1962, adopted to US in 1969 by Black couple

Black families adopting Black-Korean children “was very well-meaning ... but it wasn’t an easy road, it wasn’t an easy life because as a child you need to fit in”

• biological father father was in love with Korean mother but moved off the base immediately when mother was found to be pregnant - father wanted to bring her to the US, wanted to go to Korea for Lisa
  • father moved to Germany in 1964 and had bi-racial daughter, could adopt her to bring to US
  • father went to Vietnam in 1971 and had bi-racial son, Lisa connected with him in 2019
• mother and father adopted Lisa and her sister because they could not have children - difficult for Black couples to adopt children in US
  • “little orphans for you” advertised in Korea
  • taught to be Black by Black adoptive family - ate southern food, “did typical Black family things”
    • “we was not Black babies,” “we was little Korean babies” to her grandma
    • could not speak Korean so she was seen as “just Black”
  • “not Black enough” around Black friends, “not Asian enough” around Asian friends - “you just have to be the best person that you can be”
    • delved into education in order to “fit in somewhere”
• few mixed race people in 1960s
  • could speak Korean and some English - could not speak English at playdates, first word in English was “stupid” but did not know what it meant (called stupid by girl on playdate)