Adoptees United Podcast on the Uncertainty & Collective Power of the First TRC

Have you ever wondered what it was like to submit to Korea's First Truth & Reconciliation Commission? Two scholars and KADs from the US and Australia talk about the experience of filing, the fragility of the original TRC, and what truth and reconciliation may look like. This recording was created in September of 2024 and the original podcast article can be found here.

Notes

00:00

Introductions

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

Advocate, Policy Analyst, Researcher, Founder of TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea), was there for the beginnings of KUMFA

Ryan Gustafsson 

Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne, Podcaster, Writer, Researcher, Founder of KAARN (Korean Adoptee Adoption Research Network), Founder of AUSKRG (Australian Korean Rights Group)

"What I think is powerful about the TRC is that its investigations are nationally recognized and its truths then become the bases for processes, other levers, that can be utilized in order to seek reconciliation. It's one thing for an individual to conduct their own investigation, or even a scholar to publish in a peer reviewed journal. It's a completely other matter when the nation state recognizes, through its own investigations, truths that maybe society has been trying to avoid." -Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

7:00 

The History of TRC as a pathway for Investigation and Accountability 

• The concept of TRC first emerged to address human rights cases in Japanese colonization and move toward accountability using the levers of government 

• KRG leaders were interested in TRC as a means of establishing frameworks for investigation and accountability, but there was uncertainty around whether TRC would be a viable avenue to illuminate adoption issues or if this was the type case TRC would take on

• Case submission was rushed due to a rising need to represent all 4 adoption agencies

• Human relationships and stories were the foundations of the investigation

14:00 

Fragile TRC for Inter-Country Adoption Formed

• "Let's try it": TRC was determined to be a viable route, as just one potential strategy among many to seek truth, justice, etc.

• It wasn't a clean line, it's been a fragile process. Much of the struggle has been to get Korean society to see why they should care about overseas adoptees, rather than as a "foreigner issue"; "We're not outside of history; we're a part of history"

• AUSKRG, SKAN and US cases were submitted on the last day. Jennifer watched on as papers were being filed. The banal moments of paperwork being filed was very meaningful

"We're not outside of history; we're a part of history." - Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

20:00 

The Experience of Filing

• AUSKRG maintained a space of care

• Each filer put together a narrative of their orphanization (Jennifer put together 7-8 pages with 100 pages of attachments) 

• Adoptees have a way of gaining literacy for deciphering "irregularities" and reading their own paperwork, cross-checking it with other paperwork to create a story 

Collective Power & Power of stories

• One of the things they were doing is convincing TRC to happen. Part of application was saying "we have strong reasons to suspect xyz" and we think you should investigate

• If you just look at your paperwork, and not other peoples' documents you might not recognize irregularities or copy/paste in your paperwork

• Adoptees look to our paperwork for shreds of information about our origins and that's not the purpose the documents were meant to serve, which was to orphanize us

• Knowledge developed in the adoptee community; Knowing when your 'patchy' paperwork and application sits aside others' patchy paperwork, it will tell a larger story

"I think it was the knowledge that had been generated in the adoptee community that made me feel more confident about putting in my very patchy narrative to the TRC. Just knowing that if mine sits alongside hundreds of others, it's going to tell a larger story, even if my own story is super patchy and I can't prove much. I felt like I couldn't have done this without the others." - Ryan Gustafsson

27:00 

Why is TRC Important?

• TRC is powerful because the investigations are nationally recognized. It's one thing for an individual to conduct their own investigation or a scholar to publish research, its another matter for a nation state to recognize, through its own investigations, truths that society may not recognize. 

• TRC is a starting place for an amplification and a transnational set of conversations that an individual would not be able to enact.

• TRC is not just about the individual adoptee, but about corruption and larger structural legal processes; mechanisms (eg paperwork, processes) used as a template to remove children

• TRC uncovers adoptees' histories, but TRC is also Korean society deciding to look at itself

• There is a possibility of accountability

What truth would you like to see?

• Truth would be answering "What enabled the mass movement of over 200,000 of us?"  

• Filers are pushing hard for transparency from private adoption institutions: financial information, links with the government, release and acknowledgement for how decisions were made such as why ESWS only adopted to Australia and US 

• Hoping for the recognition of the violence of adoption in the triad, extended family, unwed mothers, children of adoptees, society

• Examination of financial entanglements: not just about extracting maximum fees; adoptions helped a military dictatorship through work camps

38:00

What does the reconciliation look like to folks who submitted to the TRC?

Some of the specific asks (with the caveat they submitted in a rushed manner)

• All adoptee documents be transferred to NCRC

• Investigate the filed cases

• Resources and data sets to be made publicly available

• There is uncertainty of what reconciliation looks like for the broader community

40:00

Reparation is different from Reconciliation

• State mandated apology is not the end goal because state apologies can be performative/utilized as an "end point"

• FYI, KADS have already received an apology from Kim Dae-jung

42:00

What does reconciliation and restoration look like?

• It is deeply personal and individualized. Ideations:

  • Can children of adoptees pursue birth family search?

  • Can adoptees be 'restored' in our ancestral documentation?

  • Can adoptees pursue citizenship through your original identity and not adoptee identity?

• We should look to other forms such as art and literature

45:00

Developing Potential Remedies

• Will adoptees be able to be involved in TRC findings solutions/remedies? Who decides?

• Underway: receiving countries are shutting down Korean Adoption Programs  as a consequence of international pressure

• Domestic adoption practices have likely also been affected by the adoption agencies, so there may be further internal reckoning, as Korea would be the "receiving" country

• Using some historical framework from previous TRCs could be insightful

48:00

Why has the US been "untouchable" in their international adoption practices as compared to Europe?

• There is no mechanism other than submitting an individual complaint under the Hague Convention

• Perhaps a congressional hearing in support of a law could be a mechanism?

50:00

AUSKRG has met with Australian government

• to pressure them to launch investigations into international adoption

• Perhaps, when the results of the TRC are published, there will be more pressure on the US and Australian governments to investigate international adoption (potentially due to embarrassment or shame)

54:00

The power of Storytelling

• Adoptees should keep telling their stories, so younger adoptees are aware of the history of international adoption

About Podcast Guests

Ryan Gustafsson

Ryan Gustafsson is a researcher in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne. Trained in continental philosophy (phenomenology) and social theory, they conduct research on Korean overseas adoption, transracial adoptee lived experiences, migration, and diaspora. Ryan is the co-founder of the Philosophies of Difference (PoD) group and the Korean Adoptee Adoption Research Network (KAARN), which organize open-to-public seminars and symposia. Their nonfiction writing has appeared in literary outlets including Sydney Review of Books, Liminal Magazine, Peril Magazine, Island Magazine, and others.

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

Born in Wonju, Republic of Korea, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs is the author of Interrogation Room (White Pine Press, 2018); Paper Pavilion (White Pine, 2007), winner of the White Pine Press Poetry Prize; and the chapbooks Notes from a Missing Person (Essay Press, 2015) and Necro Citizens (German/English edition, hochroth Verlag, 2019). Interrogation Room received mention in The New York Times, was praised by World Literature Today for “a vigorous restlessness,” and won the Association of Asian American Studies Award in Creative Writing: Poetry. She also co-translates Sámi poetry with poet-scholar Johanna Domokos, and their translation of Niillas Holmberg’s Juolgevuođđu, published as Underfoot (White Pine Press, 2022), received the American-Scandinavian Foundation’s Lief and Inger Sjöberg Prize. She is professor of English and Race, Ethnic, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at St. Olaf College and lives in Minnesota.

Additional Links & Resources

• The Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission

• Recent AP Report and Frontline Documentary: South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning

• Danish Korean Rights Group (DKRG)

• Reports from the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland on Intercountry Adoption

Like what you hear? Support Adoptees United's work and conversations on the podcast by contributing to Adoptees United, a national nonprofit organization working to educate and empower adopted people and to challenge and change the dominant narrative of adoption.