My past legally erased
Thu, 2008-07-03 21:16 - kimette
While the adoptees have to fight to access to their adoption records, I had access to mine at 11 years, only two years after my arrival. My adopters never tried to hide it from me, there was nothing to hide. My adoption record is only a piece of shit filled with falsehoods made up (legally) by an adoption agency and my birth certificate is also a piece of shit made up legally in the country of my purchasers.
My initial social history:
According to this document, I was born Nov 20, 1966, in an unknown place and was admitted to Holt from Saint-Paul’s Orphanage Jan 29, 1975. It says that I was abandoned but it doesn’t say when. Since there is no other information, it could have been at anytime between my birth and Jan. 29, 1975. By the way, my birthday is not Nov 20, 1966; I’m few months older and I was born in Seoul.
Actually, I arrived at the orphanage at the end of Jan 1975 (at 8 years old). What happened between 1966 and 1975? Holt erased my past.
My hojuk deung bon (family registration): In Korea, a hojuk is a family registry, which records births, deaths, marriages, etc.
In my hojuk, there is no information about my family. This is an "orphan hojuk" made by the adoption agency (and the Korean government) to make me adoptable.
It is a legal document. "Legal" doesn’t mean true. Legal doesn't mean ethical either but everyone involved in adoption has a different definition of ethical.
“Legal” only means permitted by laws. My birth date is a false birth date made up by the adoption industry. My past between 1966 and 1975 has been legally erased to make me adoptable.
At the time my orphan hojuk was made, I knew the names of the names of my parents and my father was still alive.
At age 11, I didn’t know anything about “hojuk” or “orphan hojuk”; I didn’t even know about Holt or adoption agency. I read “Father: no record”, “Mother: no record”, “Birth place: unknown” with a false birth date and I cried. I felt a void in me, then I felt anger towards
While crying, I tried to explain to my A-father that I had a brother and two sisters; I told him everything that was written was a lie except my name. He yelled at me saying that there was no reason for me to cry. I stopped crying immediately. Later, we contacted the orphanage. The nun replied: “we are not involved in the adoptions; we only take care of children. Holt is responsible for adoptions.” Holt replied: “we have no other information.”
Then, I was called a liar for inventing a family or having too much of imagination about my past.
I had a family before being adopted. I became an orphan the day Holt put me up for adoption.
Bookmark/Search this post with:
- kimette's blog
- Login or register to post comments
- 229 reads
Comments
Korean Culture
Every word you write is the truth. I have seen the same thing happen to many Korean children that I have known since the beginning of their adoptions. Holt Korea knows more about you, but Korean culture only allows them to "save face" by telling you only what they think you want to hear. Do they lie? In a way that is the culture.
Have you paid Holt for the information they can get from Korea when an adoptee turns 18? Have you put your name on their list of adoptees who wish to contact their biological family, to be matched up with the list of biological parents who have put their names on a list to be matched with their bio child/children who were adopted?
Korea also took my children's past. Holt/Korea also changed my children's past and made my children adoptable when they NEVER should have been. They were covering up the shame that Korea felt for the children being abused by Korean people.
I have been to Korea several times and studied the people and their culture. They teach manners and respect, no matter what the price. Some believe America is the answer for their family problems such as no money, physical disabilities, shame, etc.
You were adopted at the age of 'almost' puberty. You were raised Korean, with all its ways and beliefs, which is so different than American ways and beliefs. It was abuse by Korea and Holt Korea to rip you from everything you were and throw you into America as if you were not a feeling human being who deserved the respect Korea teaches and lives.
You have every right to feel the way you do! You are a very precious woman who has faced the worst: human beings treated you as if you were not human. I mourn for what you have lost. You remember the truth of who you are while most younger adopted children did not have the chance to remember. The lost part of you is ever real, ever a part of you and can not be denied.
Your af was an evil man who used the evilness of adoption to practice his evil. Just as my evil husband did.... You may despise me and what I stand for in your mind, but you can not stop me from understanding where your pain is coming from.
I am NOT like the rest, now. I was... but through the truth of this forum, I know what part I played in the continuing of child abuse through adoption.
Americans are NOT able to handle the adoption of children just like most children are NOT able to handle their adoption!
I truly feel the pain in your words and shudder at the thought of how many there are like you. Until more adopted children grow up and voice their first hand knowledge of adoptions' sinful abuse of them, the ones like you must speak louder. I am ashamed of being an adoptive parent who furthered this adoption scandal. I beg of you to forgive me for my part in adoption that devastated not only you, but my own adopted children.
IN A WORLD OF WHY,
Teddy
Forgiveness
Teddy,
I had to think before responding to your comment which made me cry. I was touched because nobody ever asked me to forgive as you did without justifying (and I believe with sincerity).
My adoptive father once told me: “Forgive me if I am a bad father. I fed you, I drove you to school, I drove you to your piano lessons,…” In 1989, the president of Korea asked us (to the adoptees) to forgive them because they had no other choice than sending us since Korea was a poor country but today; in2003, a Korean pastor also asked me to forgive them but they are still exporting their babies today.
I was going to answer you that I have nothing to forgive you since you are not responsible of my adoption but I think I wouldn’t be honest to say that. To say that I have nothing to forgive you would be like saying that I’m not angry at adoptive parents. To be honest, since I learned more about adoption, I am angry at adoptive parents and prospective adoptive parents for their parts in adoption. Having said that, I must say I feel my anger at adoptive parents is fading out since I know some A-parents like you, Desiree Smolin and others are speaking out in their own way.
Until a year ago, I was not aware that I had so much hatred and anger in my heart towards industry adoption andKorea. I believe that when I was a child, it was easy for me to prentend everything was fine and ignore my feelings.
kimette
I just now saw your response! I don't know how I missed this, but I did. You do not have to speak words of forgiveness, but I needed to say the words I said to help me go on.
We can not forgive on our own; we always need help to do this. God shows the way by His own forgiveness but we are not
God. Forgiveness is a process for humans to learn. I, too, find myself having to go back and forgive again and again.
I really do believe this is part of the process.
I only have to put myself in your place to see that anger is what I would feel, too. I do hope the anger will get smaller
as your peace grows bigger.
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy
Conditional forgiveness
I attended a church, the same church where my afather used to go, because I believed in God no matter what happened to me. During all these years, I received the message that if I want to be saved, then I must forgive. "if you don't forgive then God will not forgive you. No place in the heaven for people who don't forgive" etc.
The last time I was at the chuch, I learned that my aftather's son went there to sell life insurance to the pastors and he took this opportunity to tell the pastor that my accusation of sexual abuse were false.
The pastor said he believed me but he didn't see a problem to continue dealing with a person accusing me of lying. He also said that I need to forgive them (my afather and his son), it was important if I wanted to be saved.
Nobody there cared about my feelings, they only cared about my soul.
I left that church ( and I don't go to church since then) and I called a therapist. For the first time of my life, someone cared more about my feelings and my healing than my soul. My process of healing started with the point that I don't need to forgive.
My afather had several years to ask me forgiveness but he never did. I didn't forgive him.
Since I don't go to church anymore, I'm unbrainwashed. I believe now in conditional forgiveness, just like God will forgive me if and only if...
Conditions for forgiveness
I can't imagine any effective healing taking place UNLESS deeply felt (but hidden feelings) are recognized and acknowledged. Some call that "therapy", I call that soul-searching, with a mission to forgive, (or at least live without the raging anger always getting in the way).
Without feelings, how can there be any form of true forgiveness? [Any programmed robot or trained parrot can repeat words... I can't STAND words of comfort that are completely insincere or forced.]
I agree with the condition needed for forgiveness: it has to be asked for , with sincerity, otherwise, what's the point? If we get what we give, that should include sincerity as well as forgiveness. [I think this is what a certain group of women meant when they were telling me God always knows what's in our hearts. I attended a bible-study for women when my oldest was first born; at that study, the women taught me how to pray. They told me not to follow words written or scripted by another, but to speak to God with a pure and open heart, asking for what I needed, having faith that when the time was right, I would receive. Believe it or not, that's how I finally learned "patience".... which is yet another tough issue for me!!]
The other problem I have with "forgiveness" is, does it mean once I forgive, I can forget enough of the past to build a new relationship? [Am I obligated to make forgiveness a stepping stone towards a "better relationship"?]
In many cases, I have decided I can forgive someone, with the condition that I want the person I'm forgiving to leave me alone, and get out of my life. Some relationships, are just so toxic... I learned am much better (and happier) without them.
Fuck forgiveness
seeing red again...
forgiveness is the most heinous excuse the judeo-christian world has come up with to allow themselves to continue raping the planet and its women. by creating a god that absolves you of all your sins in the afterlife, people can act with impunity and go on
sinningscrewing others knowing that they can get away with it. no wonder it's such a popular religion.my father begged me for forgiveness every time i saw him as an adult. NO FUCKING WAY. i figured if his wrongs tortured his conscience, then TOUGH SHIT. that's the price he had to pay. if HIS god wants to forgive him, then that's up to his god. but on this earth, he needed to be held accountable. if not by a court of law, then in the prison of his own mind. without my knowledge of what he did, this abuse, for all intensive purposes, NEVER HAPPENED. we are the only ones party to this abuse. i am the only one who held him accountable. i am PROUD i never forgave him.
i am the same person as an adult that i was when i was a little child suffering. if i am to go to eternal damnation for not forgiving my abuser while he enters the gates of heaven because he asks god for forgiveness, then so be it. i don't want to sit at the right hand of a god that has such a warped sense of justice.
the god of religion is not my god. the god of religion is an invention of convenience. my god is above religion.
god of religion....
The God that I believe in is also above religion and man's ideas of right and wrong. I am truly in pain over your anger; you
must have suffered hideously and all alone. No one should experience such horrendous abuse that produces so much
deep pain and anger. I am so sorry for what happened to you. You have every right to feel as you do; but I do hope there
is a time coming when you will feel justice has been served for all who suffer as you do. May it be sooner than later.
"I can be changed by what happens to me, I refuse to be reduced by it." M.A.
One Step Up From Bottom
Teddy
How do we forgive?
I, personally, know "absence", "letting go" and "control" are huge issues for me. This all makes my ability to forgive someone very difficult, especially if I'm not given an apology, first. [I'm very slow and quirky with certain rules like "ask and then you can receive".] I think due to death or distance, many adoptees are left with no human face asking for personal forgiveness, so who are we supposed to forgive, besides ourselves? I know there were lots of times I got mad because I felt even my Heavenly Father forgot me when I was most scared and lonely, so for a very long time I was really angry with God. In that sense, I think asking for strength and forgiveness from a spiritual higher-power is uh.... <lacking a better word....> empowering.
In the meantime, I think it helps a lot to know you're not alone when it comes to having conflicting feelings between anger and resentment, and the willingness to forgive and find peace. I think ambiguity is perfectly normal, so there should be no shame in taking all the time you need to make peace with your own self. There's a poem written by another adoptee who was abused I think you would like: it's called "Permission to Forgive", you can find it here: http://poundpuplegacy.org/node/9957. I think Tina does an excellent job pointing-out the difference between a woman and a child, and how forgiveness has to come from inside.
you are not alone
read Jane Jeong Trenka's adoption history file
it was botched so bad they are using it as one of the test cases to change Korean legislature