Adoptee justice is about social justice

Thirty years ago I was born in the middle of one of the most significant developmental projects the world has ever seen: The transformation of South Korea from a poor agricultural society devastated by war to one of the wealthiest economies. In my family money and food were scarce. Due to economic hardships I was temporarily placed in an orphanage.

By Anders Riel Muller

Thirty years ago I was born in the middle of one of the most significant developmental projects the world has ever seen: The transformation of South Korea from a poor agricultural society devastated by war to one of the wealthiest economies. In my family money and food were scarce. Due to economic hardships I was temporarily placed in an orphanage.

However, when my father showed up to claim me back, I had been adopted by a family in a far off country. My father had no way to get in touch with me and I was too young to tell anyone that I was not an orphan who needed another family. I was not the only one who experienced this sort of displacement. Around 200,000 children from Korea were adopted by families overseas, most of them during the 1970s and 80s.

The conventional narrative surrounding adoption is one of poverty but as I began to dig into Korean economic history I started to question the conventional narrative of a poor country who had no other option to sending children overseas. Rather, my understanding of overseas adoption has now come to the point where I see adoption as a political choice to address the social problems that came from rapid economic transformation. The highest numbers of overseas adoptions occurred during a time of radical and accelerated economic transformation.

By 1980, when I was sent overseas for adoption, Korea no longer belonged to the poorest countries in the world. But by then overseas adoption had become a very effective tool for population control and limiting social welfare expenses by the government. For each adoption, Korea received several thousand dollars in good hard foreign currency. Foreign currency was tightly controlled by the state, because in order to industrialize, the government took loans from overseas and they had to be paid back in U.S. dollars.

Every dollar earned was vital to the continued ability to industrialize. It is estimated that overseas adoption contributed between $20 and 40 million in hard currency every year in the 1970s and 80s. At that time, if any Korean company exported even $1 million in goods, they were acknowledged by the government. Also, by sending children from marginalized groups overseas, the government saved a lot on social welfare that could instead be reinvested in economic development.

This understanding of history leads me to the conviction that adoptees contributed to the economic miracle and that we have a place in the history of Korean development and hence to be critical of it. We contributed to the economy in line with farmers and laborers in Korea who toiled in the factories and fields. Or the nurses, miners, farmers, soldiers and construction workers sent overseas to serve the Korean nation’s development agenda. We continue to contribute to Korean society economically through our multiple trips back to visit our places of birth. We spend money earned overseas in hotels, restaurants and so on. Some adoptees decide to return to Korea to live either for a period of time or permanently and they contribute to the society as by working in various sectors.

Many adoptees first come to visit Korea through government-supported cultural trips. We are presented with beautified and idealized images of Korean traditions, culture and economic success. We visit temples, palaces and shopping malls. We are told about the difficult past and glorious present. We are put in high-end hotels and treated to lavish dinners. Representatives from government and adoption agencies greet us and tell us how proud they are of us and sometimes they ask us to once again help Korea by becoming ‘good ambassadors.’’

We should be proud of being “global Koreans’’ and ‘bridge builders’’ that can help Korea even more. This kind of “appreciation’’ can seem flattering, but the palaces, luxury hotels and shopping malls do not fit well with where many of us came from: marginalized families whose struggles have been silenced by shame, guilt and a lack of political voice. We are not invited to this part of Korea on homeland tours. Imagine if these government tours showed our history?

Then they would take us to orphanages, factory floors, single mothers and dilapidated neighborhoods and villages. In this way, for many of us, our history is still hidden. Korea has become richer, partly due to our contribution, but today’s Korea remains rife with economic inequalities, social stigmatization and racism. Many of the structural injustices that led to our adoptions are still well and alive. Single women are still encouraged to give up their children for adoption and live in shame and silence.

Migrant workers who come to this country to work and support their families back home are treated with disrespect and racism. Mixed race children are being treated as second-class citizens. The rich are getting richer and the majority is getting poorer. Today, Korea has one of the highest levels of income inequality among all OECD countries and the lowest spending on social welfare. For me, adoption justice is not only a struggle for justice for adoptees. It is connected to all the other struggles of marginalized groups in this country.

As an adoptee, who now has a better understanding of how my adoption history relates to Korean development, my duty to Korea is to get involved in changing the system and work for a more just and equitable society. Many adoptees are doing the same. They are actively engaged in different kinds of political activism such as supporting single mothers, migrant workers and adoptee justice. Hopefully adoptees will continue their involvement with other groups working for justice and equality in Korea. But it is a two-way exchange. Progressive Koreans also have to recognize our place in their society and history. We may be outsiders in terms of language and culture but our place in history as laborers for Korean development should be acknowledged. Hopefully this can lead to new alliances, new networks of solidarity and ultimately a more just society for all.

Anders Riel Muller was born in South Korea and adopted in Denmark. He is a Ph.D. candidate at the Danish Institute for International Studies. He can be reached at anders.muller@gmail.com.