Fleas Biting: On Dandelions and Thorns by a Flea

Monday, August 06, 2007

On Dandelions and Thorns by a Flea

Several hundred Korean adoptees met for the fourth International Korean Adoptee Association Gathering was recently held in Korea. Coinciding with the Gathering is a petition drive to collection 1 million signatures calling for an end to international adoption in favor of better solutions for single mothers.

What’s unusual about this petition drive is that it was launched by a group of mothers whose children were adopted abroad.

The mothers call their group Mindeuelae – Dandelions – as in dandelions whose seeds may have been blown far away, but who won’t be done away with.

Their children who return as grown adults, “a thorn piercing Korea’s conscience,” says this editorial.

I appreciated this quote by Jae Ran Kim who joined the Dandelions in protest:

It is not a matter of whether you had a good experience or bad experience as an adoptee. The adoption system goes way beyond that. It works within a political, institutional structure of society.

This sentiment is very similar to differentiating between individual acts of racism and the deeply entrenched, yet more difficult to identify aspects of institutional racism. It’s the need to recognize that problems in adoption do not rest in how “successful” an individual’s adoption is, but that the problems are part of a larger system that trades children for dollars, favors the wealthy over the poor and preys upon the vulnerable.

Jane Jeong Trenka was a leading organizer of the protest and has a moving video about the Dandelion group on her blog.

May this event of the Dandelion mothers signal the door opening to the voices of mothers the world over.

Usha

Adoptee seeks end to overseas adoption, JoongAng Daily, August 4, 2007

Jane’s Blog, Korean birthparents against intl adoption, August 6, 2007

[Editorial] Stop intercountry adoption, The Hankyoreh, August 4, 2007

Korean adoptees from abroad and birth mothers protest overseas adoption, Yonhap News Agency, August 5, 2007

1 comment:

Third MomWed Aug 15, 01:07:00 PM CDT
I'm the adoptive mothers of two Korean children. My family has had first-hand experience with unethical adoption practices. It's incredibly painful to acknowledge that this has been the case for my family, and overwhelming extrapolated across the hundreds of thousands of transnational adoptions that have taken place in this century.

I hope to meet David Smolin at the adoption ethics conference in DC in October. Glad I found your blog - will link, and will be checking back to read more.
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Why These Fleas Bite

Desiree: In 1998 my husband David and I adopted a sibling group of two older girls from India.

Within six weeks of their arrival, our new daughters, who were severely emotionally traumatized, told us they had been stolen from their birthfamily.

For six long and difficult years, our agency, though asked to do so repeatedly, failed to investigate our daughters allegations.

Finally, on our own with the help of an Indian activist for the poor, we found our daughters' birthfamily and confirmed their disturbing story.

Despite all this there has yet to be so much as an apology from our agency, and certainly no justice. Not for our daughters. Not for our daughters' first parents. Not for ourselves.

It seems that NO ONE CARES about this crime.

Our US agency--which has not disputed the facts of the case--says that it bears no legal responsibility even if, like we say, they helped place stolen children in our home.

Our pleas to both the Indian and US governments have fallen on what appears to be deaf ears, and therefore, we assume, uncaring ears. The state office which licenses our agency has a phone machine for complaints; apparently they do not return phone calls--at least ours was never returned.

Meanwhile, the Indian orphanage director has been jailed three times on child trafficking related charges. He is currently trying to be relicensed yet again.

We have been left to ask the questions:

1) How could this have happened? Was our case simply a rare happenstance or could there be specific flaws--specific or systemic--in the system that have allowed/caused it to happen?

2) Why is it that no one cares about this kind of crime?

This blog represents some of the answers we've found to these questions. It also is shares the ongoing answers as we continue to learn.

Flea bites are simply individual incidents of exposing the reality of international adoption practices--one example, one practice, one analysis, one real-life experience, one proposed remedy, and one "big picture" at a time.

If our insignificant flea bites can save other families the extreme pain that our daughters, our daughters' first family, and our own family have endured, these flea bites will not be in vain.

To find out more about Desiree's family's adoption follow the following link. NPR's" Adoption in America Series: An Adoption Gone Wrong, July 24, 2007

Usha: When I adopted from India not that many years ago, I was ignorant about the adoption landscape.

I believed the adoption myth that adoption agencies are basically trustworthy and that with all the hoops adopters must jump through, there are sufficient checks and balances to ensure that adoptions are ethical.

After adopting, I began participating in the adoption community.

My eyes were opened by the racist attitudes and beliefs I observed in fellow adopters from India. I couldn't believe the dim view I saw many take of my children's country of birth, my own country of origin.

Where were the checks to ensure that children were adopted into non-racist families? Later, my eyes opened wider when I learned about scndal after scandal with the recurrent themes of: getting children "out," agencies willing to look the other way, laws that are good on paper, but that are not enforced and individuals advocating for reform simplistically painted as evil and "anti-adoption."

First, I thought adoption corruption was primarily specific to India. It didn't take long, however, to become aware of how pervasive adoption corruption is.

With that knowledge came a sense of obligation that as a participant in the system: no matter how unwitting, I owe it to my children to advocate for reform

Favorite Corruption Quotes

"It takes a certain level of arrogance, greed, and defiance to deal children for money"

--indirect quote attributed (by a reporter) to officials investigating the FOC Samoan case

"Smuggling human beings into the US for money is one of the most egreigious exploitations of our nation's immigration system."

--an official at the press conference announcing the indictment of FOC on Samoan adoption related charges

"What begins as fraudulent rarely can be legitimized."

--the US attorney speaking of the Samoan adoption cases

"We all have an intense need to know. And the strongest human force on Earth is a parent searching for their disappeared child."

--Eric Stover, director, Berkeley's Human Rights Center, speaking on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, 02/15/07

“Justice will not come to Athens until those who are not injured are as indignant as those who are injured”

--Thucydides, Ancient Greek historians and author, 460-404bc

“The more I learn, the more race, culture, and class stand out as the key issues behind ethical problems in adoption, domestically and internationally—the same issues are at play in both"
”

--Tesi Kohlenberg, Adoptive Parent

"Sending" Country Parent and Community Voices

Books by Adult Adoptees

A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots by Katy Robinson
Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison by Deborah Jiang Stein
Fugitive Visions, An Adoptee's Return to Korea by Jane Jeong Trenka
Identical Strangers, A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited by Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein
Lucky Girl by Mei-Ling Hopgood
Outer Search, Inner Journey: An Orphan and Adoptee's Quest by Peter Dodds
Outsiders Within, Writing on Transracial Adoption edited by Jane Jeong Trenka, Julia Chinyere Oparah, and Sun Yung Shin
The Language of Blood by Jane Jeong Trenka
The Unforgotten War: Dust of the Streets by Thomas Park Clement
Twice Born: Memoirs of an Adopted Daughter by Betty Jean Lifton