A Single Square Picture: A Korean Adoptee's Search for Her Roots

I have just been invited to join an adoptive parents book group and this is the first book that I have read with them. I am looking forward to the discussion on it next week. Although I did not feel that the author explored the larger ramifications of her own experience quite fully enough, I do think that this book is a fairly good introduction (particularly for adoptive parents) to the very complicated life experience of the adopted child.

The author came to the United States from Korea at the age of seven and her memories of this period convey well the chilling transition that internationally adopted children have to make when entering even the most loving of families. Katy's first months in America are confusing and frightening (and I show more think that in her kindness to her adoptive mother, she vastly underplays the trauma of that period). The book captures the complex cultural clashes that she runs into as a child adjusting to life in Utah and then again experiences as an adult when she attempts to reconnect with her Korean family of origin. She is straightforward and honest about the difficulties of growing up Asian in a completely white community, but also pragmatic about the life she would have led had she stayed in Korea, the daughter of a young unmarried woman.

Robinson ends up learning very little about her birth mother and is told a number of conflicting stories, all seemingly designed to keep her in the dark. This is probably the most insidious problem with adoption and with adoption agencies throughout the world. There is a shared attitude among many otherwise well-meaning people that an adoptive child's narrative is supposed to be neat and tidy and sometimes lies are told to supposedly save a child (and sometimes the adoptive parents as well) from what is seen as unnecessary grief. In fact, any adoption is messy and usually rooted in pain and avoiding or ignoring that fact seems to lead to more grief rather than less down the line. This book presents a look at one young woman's attempt to unravel her own story. show less

Although Korean and Chinese adoption are rather different, I find a lot of value in reading the writings of Korean Adoptees. This is the story of a Korean Adoptee that returns to Korea to find her parents. She does find her father and other half-siblings, but the crazy chase to find her mother is just strange. The pain of growing up in Utah and the search as an adult is hard to read about. The questions, the pain and the growth are all important to read about for the adoption community.

The story of a girl adopted from Korea by a family in Utah who searches for her roots when she grows up. There's pain aplenty but also growth and joy and peace.

A Korean woman, who was adopted by an American family, goes back to Korea in search of her roots, aided by the photo of two women.

A moving account of an Korean-American adoptee's search for her birth family.

Robinson, Katy/Korean American women > Biography/Korean Americans > Biography/Adopted children > United States > Biography/Seoul (Korea) > Biography