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Loading... A Single Square Pictureby Katy Robinson
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. 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. no reviews | add a review
Nominated for the Suze Orman First Book Award of 2002 One day she was Kim Ji-yun, growing up in Seoul, Korea. The next day she was Catherine Jeanne Robinson, living with her new American family in Salt Lake City, Utah. Twenty years later, Katy Robinson returned to Seoul in search of her birth mother-and found herself an American outsider in her native land. What transpired in this world-at once familiar and strange, comforting and sad-left Katy conflicted, shattered, exhilarated, and moved in ways she never imagined. A Single Square Picture is a personal odyssey that ascends to the universal, a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever questioned their place in the world-and had the courage to find the answers. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)973.04957History and Geography North America United States United States Ethnic And National Groups Other Groups Asian Americans Korean AmericansLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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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 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. ( )