Upon identifying as a Korean international adoptee, my only ties to my homeland were my DNA, and the ‘blue bag’ which was sent with me when I was adopted into a white, American household. What non-adoptees don’t fully realize is the scope of trauma contained within our adoption narrative, wherein reclaiming that story is a life-long journey. Reclaiming a lost heritage, includes the adoption traumas which adoption presents itself onto adoptees – generation after generation. We are put into a new home and left to scavenge our remaining identity to our first culture and adapt and call this new one our own. International adoptees have an event wider confliction of identity because of the already governing perspective non-adoptees only know and is their only tool for understanding adoptees.

For this and many other misconceptions that are misbelieved, I wanted a project that would speak out on the issues and concerns of particular conversations that only we, the international adoptees, can really identify as a misgiving. This endeavor began after becoming more of an activist within the community of other adoptees, and from making my first series of self-portraits on re-absorbing how to bring back my lost birth culture. In 2018, I took my first look into what it meant to be adopted and how we navigate through the adoptee identity.

This has been my main style of work. Creating in response to considerations of homeland, culture, racism, mental health, history, and family. The adoption experience is widely complex, and continually being re-contextualized. If not discussed, non-adoptees might never fully comprehend the challenges they can unknowingly present, through their choice of words and phrases, which can so deeply penetrate us as adoptees.

My most current work, “Voicing Adoption Diaspora” is a project which educate people on adoption trauma, and what that can look like from an adoptee’s perspective. This 30-minute documentary sheds light onto some of the hardships which adoptees encounter daily. By integrating important issues reflected in my autobiographical projects, I aim to be an advocate for our marginalized adoptee voices, to thrive in spaces which are often left untouched by us.