Korean and Vietnamese adoptees on the intimate racialized politics of transracial adoption

The dynamics of adoptee communities have shifted in the decades since the first edition of OUTSIDERS WITHIN was published in 2006, yet the volume continues to provide critical perspectives that have gained renewed relevance during contemporary crises. Here, three writers and artists (Jane Jeong Trenka, Indigo Willing, and kimura byol-nathalie lemoine), Korean and Vietnamese adoptees who were adopted across geographic borders in the 1970s, talk isolation, racism, identity struggle, adoption policy, and how the Internet has changed the ways connection can be found.

Show Notes

The dynamics of adoptee communities have shifted in the decades since the first edition of OUTSIDERS WITHIN was published in 2006, yet the volume continues to provide critical perspectives that have gained renewed relevance during contemporary crises. Here, three writers and artists, Korean and Vietnamese adoptees who were adopted across geographic borders in the 1970s, talk isolation, racism, identity struggle, adoption policy, and how the Internet has changed the ways connection can be found. This conversation was recorded in May 2021.

Jane Jeong Trenka is an activist and award-winning writer who was adopted from South Korea to Minnesota in 1972. She has a master of public administration from Seoul National University and was instrumental in revising Korea’s adoption law in 2011. She is author of the memoir ‘The Language of Blood’ and co-editor of ‘Outsiders Within,’ published in a new edition by University of Minnesota Press.

Dr. Indigo Willing is a sociologist, lecturer, and creator of the Adopted Vietnamese International (AVI) network for adoptees from the Vietnamese community and war refugee generation. She lives in Australia.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine is an artist, activist, and archivist, and a Korean-born adoptee who grew up in Belgium and currently resides in Montreal. kimura*lemoine is co-founder of Euro-Korean League and an active member and archivist for the interracial adoptee community.

Outsiders Within: z.umn.edu/outsiderswithin

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Dr. Indigo Willing: 00:07

You know, adoption isn't just from a childhood or, you know, twenty years ago or ten years ago when the book came out or whenever, it's like we have to understand it across our life course.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 00:18

I think every human being has something. If they are they can find, support from just one fan, one person that is very special to them, they can keep both.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 00:32

I didn't know all this stuff happened. And then we put the call out, and I think none of us had any idea.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 00:42

My name is Indigo Willing. I have a PhD in sociology. My pronouns are sheher. I live in Australia on the land of the Turrbal and Jagera peoples, on unceded land, recognizing that their sovereignty was never ceded. And I'm a Vietnamese adoptee and one of the chapter authors in outsiders within.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:00

My name is, Timo Hakior Natalie Le Moi, also known as, Cho Mi He or Natalie Le Moi. I'm a Korean adoptee from the first wave in Belgium. And, I am I was a returnee from 1993 to 02/2006, to Korea, and now I live in Montreal.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:23

Hello. My name is Jane Tranca. I'm a Korean adoptee. I live in Seoul. I was adopted to Minnesota in 1972.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:31

In Korea, right now, I'm an insurance agent. It's great fun. Okay. How many people in the chat room? And that's Julia.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:40

She's my daughter that I'm raising here. I just wanna say thank you, Kamira, for laying the so much groundwork in Korea for adoptees to be here. So I remember you were telling me the earliest some of the earliest, adoptees who returned to Korea when you were here in 'ninety three experienced so much hardship because you had to go back and forth because there wasn't a proper visa for us. And I remember you telling me that at that time you you guys had no money and you were using paper plates and eating huangopang, eating like fried street food, like this bread with, beans inside of it. Can can you tell tell us more about, like, kinda like the early days?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 02:27

The early days were, like, as a as a European Korean adoptee, which is very different from, I think, American or Australian Korean adoptees, because most of us who've been adopted in Europe were in a non English speaking, country except England, but not many English Korean adoptses were coming back at the time. And also the the British accent was not well received in Korea because, I think Korea is colonized by, by America. For me as a Francophone, at the team not knowing English at the time, not being good in language anyway, having to learn Korean again. I met the first Korean adoptee from Sweden when I was taking class at the IYIWA University or Sogang University, which where adoptees would need to learn the language to be able to function in the Korean society. So that's how we first met.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 03:30

In the beginning, I met more European adoptees. So we were all kind of speaking English, but for me, as a non English speaker and not being good in language only, I went by and in the same time I was learning Korean. I had to learn English to learn Korean also, so it was two language in the same time. People who were returning at a time knew that we could have only three months as a normal tourist visa. So, we had to plan studying.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 04:01

I mean, we were not all adopted in rich families. And even if we were, we were not especially supported by our adoptive parents. Not many Korean people knew that we want to return to our birth country. What the heck do you wanna come back to Korea? It's a poor country.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 04:21

Are you so lucky to be adopted by white people in the western society? So they didn't understand why we want to return and connect with our birth land. As I think it was a different between female and male and the kids coming back to Korea, knowing that Korea is not very feminist country. So it's like also being a woman in Korea where kind of, we were losing our, freedom from the West versus Korean adult male were, like, embracing Korea because for the first time they were sexualized. They were like upgrade in the society because they were the king of the society.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 05:05

So so I think the experience of being a different also like not the majority after I think in the mid nineties, like '96, '90 '7, Many more adoptees first from Minnesota came because, Crystal Chapel were, like, advertising that it was an association in Korea, which was my first association in Korea. I was the connection. So I would start to meet more Korean American who were coming in Korea to teach English, often to pay their school debt or university debt, which European don't have debt. So it was a very different motivation to come, in Korea. I didn't know the different the cultural difference, so I learned a lot about America because of Korean adoptees from America.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 05:54

And it was for me, very interesting to see the tendency from one culture, how much adoptees from Korea absorb so well their adaptive culture, of course, and the differences and mentalities. And so it start to be some little fight between adoptees from France versus Belgium, Francophone, Anglophone, and it's like a little micro work with all the from coming back to Korea. So the platform and the, reuniting land was sold of, often. And so that's where we we had our first meeting, our first fight, our first acknowledgment that we need more right, not only for sport but also to stay in Korea.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 06:41

Thank you, Kimura. That's really so fascinating and, it's like little little micro microcosm. This fascinating place to be I think. So you did so much work in community and Indigo I think you've also done a lot of work in community as well. Would you like to add to that?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 07:01

So the Vietnamese adoptee community really began to come together as a collective, across oceans around 2,000 because it was the, anniversary, the twenty fifth anniversary of the Vietnam War, and people were holding quite a lot of reunions. And this included adoption agencies who, have not always been very supportive of adoptees, and we can talk about maybe the relationship to adoption agencies later. But because there were these reunions happening to celebrate or commemorate, depending on how you look at it, the end of the Vietnam War and these waves of Vietnamese children being moved from Vietnam to various Western countries, it was very easy in some ways to find each other on the Internet. Prior to that, it was sort of like we were doing our own thing, and a lot of people were isolated, and there are a lot of struggles with identity or, you know, how to find relatives and so on. But But just having the Internet grow the way that it had and having these reunions that were happening, we found each other across oceans.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 08:09

So whether you're in France or you were in The United States, Canada, Eritreux, New Zealand, or Australia, it was quite a movement to connect and a really revelatory moment, like, a real revelation that was so much cathartic for many of us because of the nature of how we'd been raised, isolated from other Vietnamese people and other Vietnamese adoptees often. There was this really deep, deep need to just see be seen be seen and feel normalized, you know, sort of not being the different one in your family, in society, and within Vietnamese communities even. So around February was when we started, I guess, connecting. And then over the years, it's been, an interesting journey, maybe following a lot in the footsteps of the things that Korean adoptees have set up, and we're very grateful for the pathways that the Korean adoptee organizers, activists, writers, and so on have been paving to give us examples of how to adapt that to our own communities. We'll never be like Korean adoptees identically.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 09:15

We've got similar military histories, similar, you know, sort of diasporas and experiences of racism, but of course, we've also got our unique our uniqueness about our communities. So it's been such a lovely way connecting say with outsiders within with the book to not just Korean adoptees but other transracial and transnational adoptees to try and find out what's possible to do with our voices. You know, we've got a lot to say. We've got a lot of stories to tell. We've got a lot of brainpower now.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 09:42

You know? We're no longer just, you know, being invited to talk about our lived experiences. We have people that are in research and authors and filmmakers, but really just knowing what the potential is for our community to give voice and, again, you know, make make space and share resources with other adoptee communities.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 09:59

So I realized when we're recording this, we're talking about the years, like, from the nineties until the early two thousands, which doesn't to me seem very long ago. It doesn't seem that long ago, but I'm teaching some university students right now in Korea and I realize so they kind of complained to me about their other classes and how the professors have chosen texts from like the 1990s. Like they they like they can't believe they have to read anything so old or they have to view anything so old. So like I kind of had a shock. I mean you you're teaching, right Indigo?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 10:35

Yeah. So the students of this, I mean like it's really ancient history like what we're talking about like to them. This is ancient.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 10:43

Yeah. My my students were born after February mostly they make jokes about 2010 like that's so 2010 because they were

Jane Jeong Trenka: 10:50

10. So I feel like maybe this kind of kind of underscores the importance of archiving and doing this because, you know, maybe maybe we've lost our coolness now, but a hundred years from now, maybe somebody will think it's cool.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 11:04

Yeah. I think, maybe, your children will think about, your history and how you came to, Atlanta. And I think it's a dense, next generation who wanna take care of our memory and bring along the in the future.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 11:23

Yeah. Perhaps. Also, do you know you know Alice and Sunggyap from The Netherlands? Did you meet them, Kimura? No.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 11:32

So they lived in Korea. They were both adopted to The Netherlands and they lived in Korea for some years and they had three children already when they came to Korea. And so the children all spent some time in Korea and then they went back. And I knew them when they were little kids. And recently their eldest son came back to Korea because, he did an exchange program at Korea University and then after that he's he was studying at a Dutch university.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 12:05

But COVID, so he was taking all his classes online anyway, so he just decided to stay in Korea and enjoy the food and take his classes Korean language. So he went to school here, took public school in Korea for a while, and then he went back to The Netherlands and he he continued watching Korean media and so forth, and he kept up his language. And then he comes to Korea and he can completely go to Korean University in Korean language. It's so amazing.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 12:45

I think also like I would I mean, your children because I don't have. But, your children don't have the trauma that you had. Maybe you pass on in some ways, but also they don't have this trauma that we had and how, we cannot be just, neutral on the history. It's like something that is I think whether we want to, admit or not is kind of emotional. And, I think what is maybe more specific to Korea, which I think is a bit different with Vietnamese, if I wanted to discuss with a different background, it's like many, adoptees from Korea were, how do you say, panier?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 13:24

Adepts from panier, fully adopted, like, with the secret and lies. But Vietnamese, maybe had more open adoption. You had some information sometime from your background. Some had, some not. The adoptees from Vietnam had more information than Korean adoptees.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 13:45

Yeah. I mean, Viet Vietnam is a very different socially and culturally, very different place to some of the other places where they have adoption. It was at a time where there wasn't much infrastructure. The majority of, adoptions that I can speak about being in the Vietnam War adoptions. A lot of the documents are questionable because of the rush of trying to evacuate people, not just adoptees, but trying to evacuate, South Vietnamese citizens from the South during what was essentially a, like, a, you know, a civil conflict as well as an international one.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 14:15

There are bits and pieces of information that some people had, and then they're finding out sometimes that that information might have been manufactured by the, people that, oversaw their evacuations and their adoptions. There's only been one case where an adoptee Vietnamese adoptee successfully been reunited with their parents who found them and said that their adoption was illegal from the war generation. But after that, yeah, the information is beginning to be a an obligation through The Hague. Vietnam is signed to The Hague, and, at the same time, we know that the laws around that can be very, very tricky. So for instance, having assigned signed consent from the parents, and we don't know what sort of coercion might exist behind that.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 15:01

Once the parents decide to give the child, over to adoption processes, they have thirty days to change their mind, but we also know in in, a Western context that, you know, one month to get over post maternal, you know, sort of issues and depression may be very, very much longer than that. So There's all sorts of questions we need to ask. And if a child goes for adoption, the police are obligated to search for the parents for a certain amount of time. But if they can't be found, then it's up to the adoption the orphanage, people that are running the orphanage to decide that. And again, you know, it's it's I think it starts at $30,000 to adopt a child through The US, which is a, you know, an enormous amount of money, in comparison to Vietnamese, you know, the Vietnamese economy.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 15:43

So there's all sorts of questions that we we cover in the book, of course, but, you know, adoption's open to a lot of complications, including trafficking and including just, mistakes being made over children's identities during the war as well. I think that's something that we all connect within that outsiders within book though is that that search for identity, which is now, you know, it's a legal expectation. So it really is a search for justice, migration, identity, all these sorts of things. And I think with, at least with Vietnamese adoptees now, something that's been very interesting is this, connection to Vietnamese adoptees to the Vietnamese diaspora of refugees has been becoming stronger and stronger over the years, particularly in terms of citizenship and Vietnamese adoptees and Vietnamese citizens Americans being deported in really ways that would just make your jaw drop, and connecting with people that are doing adoptee citizenship rights. And also over the the spay or the the wave of, racism towards Asians in Western countries.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 16:46

It's in Australia, but it's it's very intensified over in America right now. And that, yeah, the Vietnamese diaspora and the Vietnamese adoptees are realizing that, you know, they they share a lot of challenges that by connecting with each other, it's, both strengthening and healing at the same time. Yeah. Increasingly, I think Vietnamese adoptions are shaped by a war experience because it's it's almost fifty years ago now, but that was the main event of adoptions there. And the the younger generation, there's some really important conversations that we're yet to have and hear more about about what their experience is as younger adoptees leaving, not in wartime, but leaving when it's peace time in Vietnam.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 17:29

But the war lingers very strongly for Vietnamese in the West that it sort of shapes all relationships with them as an adoptee or whoever you are. If you wanna connect with Vietnamese community overseas, it will still be shaped heavily by their feelings towards the war, if that makes sense. So really interesting dynamics and community shifts over the years since we did that book as well

Jane Jeong Trenka: 17:52

even. Indigo, did you see that the Al Jazeera film? You can probably describe it better than I can, but she did she has that moment with the guy who the American guy who was in Saigon at the time Saigon fell, And he talks about how the the babies from Operation Babylift were used, as he says, a fig leaf to get out the, the Vietnamese people that The United States wanted to get out. You you saw that. Can can you talk about that?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 18:22

No. I can't actually. I haven't I haven't seen that film. I know that Kathleen Turner, a Vietnamese adoptee, made that, and she's in a there are a lot of Vietnamese adoptees now that are cultural producers of our knowledge in films, in books, and so on. But there's very interesting politics around the Vietnamese adoptions.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 18:41

For instance, at the time in Australia where I'm from, the leader of the country, the prime minister who's similar to a president, was very anti refugees. He was very racist and he actually is quoted in newspaper saying, I don't want these slanty eyed bastards coming to our shores. But having the photo opportunity to be photographed with incoming baby lift children, the cute, sitting on his lap. He agreed to that. So it's a very sort of, interesting way to look at the selective relationship that a white colonized nation has with adoptees, you know, they they are very easily used in particular agendas in ways that, you know, adults aren't.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 19:20

So it always raises some really interesting questions about why it was approved, these massive evacuations of children. And we know in The UK, for instance, the Daily Mail, actually a newspaper arranged to have they wanted a hundred children for a newspaper story and they took some children that were not orphans in that airlift. So if we look from country to country with Vietnamese adoptees, and their removal from Vietnam, in some cases, it's genuine evacuation and they are all part of the refugee generation, whether forced migration or or or voluntary, they're still refugees, but, the situations of how they're removed and sometimes is very manipulated for media or for politics, which is, again, just raises interesting questions on what we can learn from that. For instance, if we look at countries like Haiti and, you know, events like that, again, where you have, you know, a lot of media attention towards the so called rescue of these children and then really, enormous questions we have to ask about the ethics of that. I look forward to seeing more documentaries made by Vietnamese adoptees about our history.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 20:24

You're such a good scholar that way. You're like, oh, that raises interesting questions. Whereas, like, I'm just, like, ready to start day drinking right now when you talk about like, it's, like, makes me so angry.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 20:34

Is it is it similar to I mean, my one of my greatest awaken awakening moments, it was a really good moment anyway, was watching first person plural with a Vietnamese family who had adopted a Vietnamese child. And, they said, you know, really, you should see this. And at the time, I was like, why would I wanna read something about Korean adoptees and Vietnamese? And we're not all the same, you know, because you gotta let racism, you know, like Asia is a big place with different nations. But then upon being exposed to that kind of documentary making about the adoption experience regardless of where from Asia or wherever you're from, it was it was very influential and just made a huge impact on me and then seeing films like Temi choose resilience again, sort of understanding that, it's not just an intellectual or political phenomenon that we're thinking about, it's deeply emotional.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 21:29

It's deeply felt at the micro level, you know, it's felt through our bodies, it's felt through our health, like the number of, you know, medical conditions and all sorts of traumas that we could link, psychological conditions that, you know, we're carrying the burden from that sort of experience is, beautifully explored in documentaries. It's stunningly explored that it really reaches us and thinks, okay. It's, at a political level, and you can fix the laws maybe. You can put on these safeguards, but then there's also there's the lived experience of being an adoptee as well. And, the the need to create spaces for healing and for voice is critical.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 22:08

When you watch these sort of films, you think, my gosh, you know, like, event you know, adoption is not a singular event. It's goes across your life course. And so watching those films and the sequels that people make to those films is amazing. And that's, I think, what outsiders within does. It opens up that conversation to say, you know, adoption isn't just from a childhood or, you know, twenty years ago or ten years ago when the book came out or whenever.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 22:32

It's like we have to understand it across our life course, and it's very, very important to look at those, contributions from the book and think my gosh, you know, like at that time now this is how people were experiencing it and we have the beauty now of also catching up and thinking okay this is what, has manifested since then both positive and negative for those people and those communities as well.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 22:54

Thank you for saying that, Bill. I I feel very, validated in having emotions about it. Thank you. Kamira, you have done so much work and so much of it has been about exploring identity. Yeah.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 23:06

So I felt I felt like that was a good segue to talk about all of your artistic output.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 23:13

But but for me, it was interesting because, I think I had two, two images to, artwork. And, I thought, and because maybe I'm a Francophone or something that my poetry was not taken in the book, but because my my poetry, in French translated into English, it's maybe not the same. I don't know. But, anyways, for me, it was interesting. And, I made my first film, thirty two years ago now when I was 20, and it was about adoption.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 23:47

And I I don't know why, but I keep continuing doing art in relation to adoption, interracial adoption, feminism, force displacement, diaspora, identities with the s. Like, but I think I unlayered my own identity, and it helped me to go through my body of work. I will not say especially art because for me, it's more I I really enjoy making my my work even maybe people don't care a shit, but it's okay for me. It's like as long as I can do it and I'm very privileged, and I know that that, I I I chose this voice over not being in academic because I think my neuro differences can, not make me study properly. But I I found my my own path, and I think, I'm happy with that.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 24:39

And in different ways, I can share what I think about adoption, what I think about race, what I think about colorism, what I think about gender. Some, art critic will say, oh, but you talk about you. I say, yeah. Talk about me and 200,000 people also, at least. Not counting at these, adoptive parents, adverse families who are connected with that.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 25:03

So it's about a million people. And I think that kind of public is already big for me. It's enough for me, I think. And I I of course, I don't, reach everyone on everything, but I think some people who see some part of my work can relate to that because it's not just about adoption. And it's just about, human experience.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 25:23

And, I think everybody get trauma in different level, different ways. The loss of a land, of a language, of food, or something. It's like everybody can relate it in some ways. And I grew up in the eighties. So eighties is like video clip, you know, MTV.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 25:44

And, everything has to be so fast, and it was no Internet. So it was a different way to communicate. And I think my artwork is all about that. It's to communicate within one minute. You need to understand the concept when it's video.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 25:57

There is a say in French. This they say, means the the shortest joke at the best. So for me, it's it's not especially a joke, but sometimes, I use a Belgian humor, which is very specific to Belgian and not French, not other. And it's a kind of a sarcastic humor that I use in my work. And, of course, maybe some translation cannot translate it, with the cultural references.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 26:28

Also, the fact that my adoptive model was Flemish and with Francophone, living in Belgium, being from a a divided country, South Korea and North Korea, then Belgium divided by language, Flemish, Francophone, and then, moving to, Canada with Anglophone Francophone. I think I'm just, so, glued to that to that kind of trauma of separation of differences. And I guess now I'm 50, and so more than half a century, and I'm still there. So I I guess it's something there. And, I wonder what is just to make art without the label of being POC, being LGBT, being adulte, being overseas adulte, being diaspora.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 27:16

What what is left anyways? Like, I think the time would would sell, I guess. For me, it's just, it's just a way to survive, I think, within art. It's like and, of course, we can decide to commit suicide or not live. There is no reason to live, but I think every human being has something.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 27:35

If they are they can find, support from just one friend, one person that is very special to them, they can keep the light, they can keep hope, and I think it's very important. And I think that would can talk to so many people also and the fact that it's different voices and not just Korean adoptees, I think that's very important and people can relate the same kind of trauma to that book or like question or, like, experience. So I think anthologies are very important for the memory of the community or communities.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 28:12

And I I just wanna sort of, like, fawn a little bit over Camira because I I appreciate you so much. And just, like, the things that you have mentioned about, like, the joy that you have in your artwork, I feel like you've just seen everything. Like, in Korea, you just saw everything. And you've gone through so much trauma in your life. I remember that you ran away from home when you were 14?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 28:37

13. 13.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 28:39

And you had the experience of being more diverse in school and having people look down on you, right, for not studying well?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 28:47

Yeah. But at the time, you don't know if it's because you are just stupid or it's because you're Asian or because you're too tall or because of this or, you know, the result or because I had a Flemish accent or because I was not using the proper French word. You know, you never know why.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 29:03

Right. Right. So and yet, despite all of these things, you have brought so much joy into your work. I just love the way that you're you know, you mentioned that you wanna take the shortest route, you know, to show people. And your work is so powerful, which is why we want to include it in the book.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 29:21

And also just such generosity living in Korea, like I remember you, you would just host people, like if people needed a place to be, you would just let them be.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 29:30

So many times that we had to pick up adulties so drunk in the street.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 29:35

Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think I remember like one of the first times that I I met you, you just brought me some socks. Like, you just gave me socks, which is so nice. And I I just feel like through through all of this hardship, your spirit just shines through, and you just keep giving to people on a personal level and also with your artwork that we can see and we can relate to and we can understand the situation instantly.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 30:00

And I saw also your your writing is great. I really appreciate your writing. I saw last year for, adoption day. There was another conference in Korea, and you contributed to that. And I just appreciate so much how we just get to the point.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 30:15

You guys had asked about, like, how how this book came together. So I wrote Language of Blood, I guess I was let's see, it was published in 02/2003. And at that time, my publisher sent me on a book tour. And so, everywhere I would go, I would see these faces in the audience of these book readings, and some of them were Korean, I was like, okay, I understand why you're here. And then I see some white people, it's like, okay, I get why you're here.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 30:39

And then there would be all of these other people, and I didn't really I would be confused. And then after after the reading, like, people, you know, like, you open up like a little corner of your heart, and then other people feel like, oh, it's okay to open up this corner of my heart too, and so they would start talking and these book readings, I swear, so this is almost twenty years ago. And it was a new thing to talk, like twenty years ago, and I feel like I'm talking to my students, hey, So Gong students, it was twenty years ago.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 31:06

It was

Jane Jeong Trenka: 31:07

at the time. They They would open up a corner of their heart, and these bookings would go on for hours. I think, like, the longest one, it was like four hours because people would, like, testify, and they would do this in the greetings, and they would do it at the table when I was signing books. And I find out that there were all of these other people who are transracially adopted either internationally or domestically, and despite how we looked, we were all raised by white people. And I thought, well, isn't this interesting?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 31:35

Why don't we get something together? So I you know, the first thing that you would do back in the day is search on Yahoo to find out, like, who else might be doing a similar project. And so at that time, Julia Chinyere Opara had a similar call for submissions out. And I was like, oh, well, she's already doing this. I better contact her and see what's up because it looked like the project hadn't reached completion yet.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 32:00

And so she I contacted her and she said, yeah. I wanna do this project, except for most of the people who are giving me submissions are Korean, and I can't edit them because she was raised in The UK. And her her father was from Nigeria, and her mother was from The UK. So she's like, I have all these Korean submissions. I don't know what to do with it.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 32:23

So that's that's how that happened. And then Sunyoung Shin was a friend of mine from Minneapolis. And so we kind of I mean, like, I'm I'm not as well or well, but Sun Young leans towards that. She's a poet. And, Julia Chenery Oberai, definitely, she's a respected scholar.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 32:40

So, yeah, that's how it all came together. And what what we really appreciated about the artwork so, Kimira, yours is right before, Jeyron Kim's piece, was that we felt like you could just look at the artwork that precedes the scholarly paper and kind of instantly get a feeling for what the paper was gonna be about, you know, because not all of us have long attention spans. So so it's like, okay, let's, you know, like, get to the emotion first, and then and then we understand why this scholarly piece needs to be here so we can understand it in two different ways. So, you guys, I have to run out quick, and I'll be back in about five minutes.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 33:26

Okay. Let's see.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 33:28

I I have presents from you when we met in Washington.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 33:32

Was it, in Modisia?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 33:34

Yeah. Yep. Where the, the Vietnam War war war is actually for the veterans. I was so stoked to see that. I'd seen documentaries on it because it was, it's for the Vietnam Veterans, and it has everybody's name that lost their lives, that were American soldiers during the war.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 33:51

And the architect it was open to a competition. The architect who won it was an Asian American, and the amount of racism that came out from that was, very shocking and very sad. And, so it's the the fact that the piece itself stands there is such an interesting, symbolism of the tensions that exist between white America and every, you know, the and migrant America, First nations I'm really, you know, interested as well and, like, you know, their relationship to settlers, like Vietnamese refugees and adoptees as well, and what sort of connections, and conversations are happening in The United States. And certainly with the the Veteran Memorial, I was just so excited to go and see it in person, and it was such an emotional time for me because you know, there are there are veterans that visit there, there are the families of people, they've lost people. Everyone's very solemn and emotional, but it's also a very, there's not many Vietnamese people there, so you kinda feel like, am I allowed to be in this space, or am I upsetting and traumatizing people by my presence?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 34:57

Are they hostile towards me? Do they even notice that I'm here? So such an intense, experience, and I've heard from a lot of other Vietnamese adoptees as well when they go there that they they have so many emotions because on the one hand, a lot of them are Amerasians. So, you know, their fathers were American soldiers, and they feel a connection to this wall very, very personally and for others because, you know, some are legitimately, lost family during the war and they have this tension between, you know, forgiveness, I guess. Forgiveness and compassion and the anguish of losing family through, the American, you know, conflict.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 35:37

You know, there's there's so many stories that we could tell from so many angles about the Vietnam War, and it's important to understand all of them to understand what it is to be a Vietnamese person overseas and also an adoptee. But yeah, I remember seeing this wall and just being so moved and just feeling really quite, you know, when you you know when you see something and you almost go silent like you can't speak for the rest of the day because it's just sort of knocks the air out of you and then just having a really cool time with the adoptees and everybody in the hotel afterwards like whoo, you know like it's a safe space again. It's like, Oh my gosh. I'm with my people So that was a I'm sure it's the same for everybody when you go to see memorials. I don't know.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 36:18

Are they, like, Korean war memorials and stuff in the places where you've lived? Is it a thing? People really love, the American war had so many movies as well, like the Vietnam war. It's very hard to get away from it in a sense. They're still making them now.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 36:33

You know? Every year, there's some big documentary, like the Kevin Burns one and, Spike Lee had one.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 36:39

I think, Belkan veteran from the Korean war, and they became extra in my film.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 36:47

Oh. And

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 36:48

then, my actress and I, we was in the Kill Our Mother movie.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 36:52

Yeah.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 36:53

You know? And they were smiling and all they said, we know your people and so on. We were like we were mixed feeling because, they were so nice to us because they recognize every face, and maybe that's, kind of nostalgic for them. But in the same time, we we I mean, for me, I was adopted as a mixed race person even I'm not white Asian, but I'm Japanese Korean. But it's like it was really a weird feeling to but I filmed them, and they became part of my film anyways.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 37:23

So but, there there is a once a year, commemoration of, the Korean War, but I don't know if in DC they have also a Korean War. But also we we are, kind of part from the Korean War also, like, you know, 5053. After six, seventy years, we still, I mean, more now. Yeah. Seventy years.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 37:48

Yeah. I'm really I'm I'm just looking at the list of authors that we have from that book. There's so many friends and amazing amazingly impressive people like, Kim Pac Nelson, Sandra White Hawk, Brian Tarwara. Like, you know, a lot of friends too. Like, Brian sends me cute animal videos and pictures once a week.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 38:07

You know? Like Wow. Like, you know, he's, La thing for cute animals or something. But it's also laughing or we'll cry because we're, you know, we're all sort of, like, joined by, you know, heavy heavy circumstances. Shannon Gibney, Jiran Kim, of course, and Al Colby.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 38:27

Laura Briggs is a really interesting scholar. She's not an adoptee, but definitely an amazingly, subversive pivotal voice in adoption studies. Tracy Moffat's an indigenous first nation.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 38:38

Oh, yeah. Of course. I love her.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 38:41

Oh, yeah. But, yeah, there's, John Raybel, Suna, Sunny Jo. Sunny Jo.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 38:46

Andu Okolg, also?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 38:48

Yeah. Amazing. Always really striking work. They're they're really, interesting artists. They take a lot of photographs of, community, the, people of color in The United States just living their lives as well.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 39:02

So I think for all of us, we do it we do write about and do artwork about adoption, but we're we do more than that. Yeah. It's really nice to reflect on both our adoption work and work beyond that.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 39:13

Now I'm, I'm part of the Korean adoptee group for AdopteesRide and trying to, have a conversation with domestic Korean adoptees. But I'm, I think I'm more of an observer than really, being, active because I'm, like, dislocated. I'm I'm in I'm in Montreal alone here. But I like to listen to conversation they have so I keep informed about the situations and the changes. But I think for me, I mean, I did my my activist work with the visa and, the right to search for birth mother for women to get the family register of their own.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 39:56

So it was three thing that we really work hard at the time when I was there. But then I I think, I mean, I had to pass on the new generation with new like, I think the next generation, worked on this double citizenship, Korean adoptees, and also, birth mother rights. Because Korea didn't sign the The Hague, convention, or they didn't, respect the the the rules of international adoption. But I think Vietnam signed before.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 40:29

Only recently.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 40:31

Yeah. And I think the the fact that they didn't wanna sign is because they wanna do trafficking.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 40:36

It may yeah. It's sort of, they did sign it actually, but it's effective from December 2020.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 40:44

Oh, wow. Only. Oh my god.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 40:47

There's been a lot of times that adoption's been halted in Vietnam because of trafficking accusations, and, various countries will engage and not engage.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 40:58

Is there also movement in Australia about that? Because in France, they have an organization, a group of adoptees, accusing, illegal addiction. And more and more case are in in The Netherlands also.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 41:13

Yeah. I think there's a lot of energy increasingly towards umbrella organizations like Adoptee Rights, Adoptee Citizen Rights in The US to support sort of more of a blanket approach to, looking at, say, issues of deportation. Yeah. I think there's literally only been one successful case of Vietnamese parents legally challenging adoption and getting their child back. So that was in a a different book chapter that I I co wrote with, Patricia Frohnick and Denise Cuthbert, in 2015.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 41:46

So things might have changed since then, but it's it's very complicated. And adoptions from Vietnam halted they stopped completely from Australia after 1975.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 41:57

Oh, okay. So

Dr. Indigo Willing: 41:58

you have to live in Vietnam for two years before you can adopt a child from Vietnam, and very few people are gonna do that. So it's it's very, very rare. And, to burst, he almost he wrote about this saying that there's a generations of adoptees that are, like, going to that they're the experience once they die. Their culture and legacies, you know going with them so, in Australia Vietnamese adoptees as a population Australian Vietnamese adoptees. Yeah, you know we we're it.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 42:29

We don't have elders and we don't have a next generation in a in this country to, pass out history to, but we do overseas. So in America and France and, you know, the Nordic countries, yes, you know, there are new generations of Vietnamese adoptees. So there there's not much political movement because of that, and the numbers are quite small for mobilization. It's, it's not gonna be as, you know, easy to gather numbers to make it a significant protest or civil action or whatever they decide, but, you know, things come around in circles and different cases inspire other people to do things. And definitely with, the use of agent orange in Vietnam and the health effects of that, you know, we're very carefully watching what the Vietnamese community doing about that because it affects our community too.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 43:18

You know, the the chemicals that they use during the Vietnam War can't discern between adoptees and people that aren't adopted. So always just trying to look broadly in our community. But such a good question.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 43:38

Yeah. I didn't I didn't know all this stuff happened. Like all I saw was the faces and met the people who came to those book readings, and then we put the call out, and I think none of us had any idea that all of this was happening, and, it was it was like the most depressing year of my life editing this book. I had a I had a folding table out in my house, and it was just piled full of all these submissions, and it was just like a table full of trauma. It was so hard.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 44:07

And there were some pieces that, I read that it was just I mean, like, I knew about Tobias already, but then he submitted that piece, and it was just like all of history piling in piling on top of you at the same time, because like he talks about like the whole history of, like, first child migration. Actually, it was in his thesis, he talked about Korea's sort of habit of giving human gifts to greater countries, which was just devastating. He was just like, you know that little piece, and it's just devastating to find out about and, you know, then I was searching around and I found the the pictures of the Indian boarding schools. And and you could we could just like see how everything was all related and the humans keep doing this to children, and I was just like so filled with a grief and anger. But like we have to know these things, otherwise we keep we keep repeating it.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 44:58

But that's, I guess, you know, like for people who are working with the community, there's still so much work that needs to be done. Still so much. And it's really important, and the emotional toll is high, right, of doing that work.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 45:16

Yeah. I mean, it's, something that somebody said to me in various way was that, we can all make a difference and change will happen, but it doesn't have it won't all happen at once. It's like the hair ad or something like, you know, but, like, that rush to have everything done and be productive all the time, again, is a structural thing. You You know, we come from different cultures, but I think there's this emphasis that you've always gotta be at it twenty four seven and on the grind and doing things where in fact rest is political, you know, and particularly for people of color and various, marginalized people, we have to struggle for that time out to rest because we have to work twice as hard. We always have to be 10 times better than, you know, the mainstream societies that we're placed in.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 45:59

So I think it's really important to have these conversations about needing time out, needing to pause, knowing that that's actually strengthening your commitments to what you do in the long run. And also that we owe nothing. We we shouldn't feel obligated in the sense to perform the way that other people can that have had less trauma. We have our own cultures, we're adoptees, we have particular traumas, and we have sensitivities that we hopefully can safely have these conversations with, but also approach in our work. I remember doing this book, I've literally just had a baby and I remember declining saying I can't do it like II don't have the capacity and II don't sleep at night and it's such a you know and I was doing a PHD and working on all these things And, Sun Yoon Shin really saying, like, you know, like, it's something that we can work with and that your voice, you know, if you can do this, you know, it'd be really great, but, you know, see what how you feel.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 46:57

And but somehow she convinced me that there was a space to do this and we could do this. So I'm really always very grateful to even be in this book because of how much I was gonna I was really gonna turn it down and say, no, I just can't do it. And, you know, it it it was only through community and the power of community that I was able to do it and, cope with what was going through because I just had a child myself. And for an adoptee, having a child brings back so many deep questions yourself. It was nice to not nice, but it's it's very healing and very important to hear about how this book took you off your feet, and it wasn't a nice experience.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 47:37

It wasn't a joyful experience. We're not writing about joy. We can do that too in another book maybe, but, you know, you're literally trying to make that door open to have these really, really complex, difficult, traumatic conversations and that we are good at compartmentalizing, but we're not superhuman and we don't need to be. So thank you for opening that conversation and letting us remember that what we're doing is a lot of emotional labor, a lot of trauma, and a lot of other things as well as, being for community.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 48:06

Wow, Indigo. It's so super validating to talk with you. Can I pay you for therapy?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 48:11

Yep. I'm available. Not not in the same time zone, but why not?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 48:16

Yeah. I guess that's that's kind of the thing, like, adoptees say about this book is that, like, they can see themselves reflected in it. Although we're talking about really horrible things, that in itself is really validating.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 48:30

What what I mean, maybe the process for artists is different because for writers, we we project onto a screen normally, and we can edit and delete and save, and we have various processes to feel distance from our work. Like, I can close my laptop and walk away for the day, or put away my book, but, I'm not sure, with an artist how you can walk away. What's the process of taking a break, that self care zone or time out zone? Like, how do you pause if you're, you know, always creatively thinking about things? Is there a turn off point or is that too hard?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 49:07

And how do you how do you arrest, Kimura? How do you how do you take a a rest from thinking about what you're thinking when you are a visual artist?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 49:15

I watch, a lot of thing, different kind of thing. I don't like horror movie. I like to watch documentaries. But for me, it's like I, as maybe as for her, I take a lot of picture, and and and I take a lot of, element that can, be used for my work later. It's often during the night that I have a vision, and then I say, oh, I can put the recording that I did in in the market and, I heard that woman talking about gender with her daughter.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 49:49

And then I have this, waterfall from Niagara, and I think it's gonna be look good with that if I put the, filter or whatever and then dramatize with the background background sound of my cat. And this is all puzzle images and sound that I I put in my thing. Because I think with the anti Asian sentiment that we we did for the last year and a half, for me as, androgyn androgyn, Andre Jean is, looking, being queer. I I stay home a lot, and I didn't have to go out because I'm an artist and I got grants from Canada Council. So I didn't have to work.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 50:35

I I, don't work normally. I mean, I don't I don't work. I don't go to an office. I don't teach. I have no, gallery representing me, so I have no attachment.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 50:47

I'm a pure Buddhist. I have no kids. I have no wife. I have no husband. I have just a cat.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 50:54

And the cat can go away. It's okay. It's fine. We'd be adopted by someone else or something. But, I mean, I don't have much attachment and, so I really I'm really free to just I have few friends, but I can meet them through Facebook.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 51:11

I don't need to meet them. But in Canada, there is something that kind of bug me. They like to hug. People like to hug here and and that's why the confinement confinement was very good because I say, I cannot be because of it. So it it was really good.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 51:31

But, the thing is that I could stay home the whole time because I I went few time outside, and then I get attacked. I get spit on. So it's like and, of course, it's not because I'm an adoptee. It's because I'm Asian, and there is really clear. And also they are Francophone often, like, either mental health or, like, the maybe lower level of education.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 51:55

I don't know. It's like a combo. But, so more you go east in Montreal, more is poor in in francophone. More you go west is anglophone. So for me, I now try to go more on the anglophone part because the francophone are maybe too, for me, edgy and aggressive.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 52:16

It's like all this kind of situation bring me to new kind of reflection and idea to work on art. And I I made some performances through Zoom about racism using all archive from French, media from the sixties about racism, toward Asians. So I I I look a lot of information to, nourish my purpose. During the pandemic, I was very much more, involved with the interracial adoptees in Montreal. There is a group called, ICE.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 52:55

So, network for, interracial adoptees in Montreal for Francophone, and then there is another one called LibriDay, and they combine for once to make some Zoom meetings with adoptees talking about their issues. And many Asian adoptees realized they were Asian because of this pandemic, and they couldn't deny anymore. And then so many trauma came back to them. So I I gave some speech about that and talking that it was ingrained, or it was, maybe many microaggression they had, growing up, they couldn't really express it and now it's come back to them and it become harder to deal with that as an adult. And so it's those kind of stuff I did during the pandemic and I try to have a balance between art and community and also queer community.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 53:54

But then I have very little sleep, but it's good because I'm always, like, something is in my head, but not negative.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 54:02

I I just wanted to first say, like, you're you're such you're so amazing because you have all these different identities that you carry. And I was really hoping that I mean, like, I know that you were just, like, sick of Korea when you left.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 54:17

No. I was not sick of Korea. I was not safe in Korea because I've been attacked because I was lesbian officially, but I think I'm more queer than really lesbian because for me, I think at the end, the body doesn't really matter, but it's more like sexual sexual or something we call that. But, and but I think because I look like too much like a man in Korea and it was a very, you know, Korean can drink so much and they don't care. They don't take responsibility.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 54:47

So that's why after this, the third time I have been attacked in in Korea, I think I got enough. And I lost the job because of, the new hours where because I wrote my book in February, you know, 45% Korean. They called 55% Korean. I said, I'm not 55% Korean. I'm 45 maybe, but no more.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 55:09

And then it changed in the last minute. They said, what the heck? Yeah. And, because for me, it's like I would stay in Korea. I mean, it's my home.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 55:18

For me, I think it's my home, and if I can go to Japan, like, it's it's closer to go to Japan. So when I was a bit tired of Korea, I could go to Japan and it's I I missed to be around whatever my people can do, but I think my people is more adaptivism. So racial abductiveness is like people who think people from the diaspora also.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 55:40

Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. I mean, like, where wherever you go, you're attacked.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 55:45

Yeah. And I think because that body is, like, what can I change? It's, like, pretend that I don't wanna be a travestite because dressing like a girl, because it's really not me, and I look funny, like, I look like a clown. And, you know, so I I mean, my body is politic. Being outside, being however I am, and they don't mind, okay, but now I learn how to navigate in in society.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 56:13

So, like, example, when I go in the subway, I always know where is the exit. I I put my back against a wall so I know that no nobody will go behind me the way that I walk. And and so many thing that I think many people who who live, like, in danger kind of like, I heard many, autotone in First Nation in in in Canada. They talk about this kind of safety measure to survive in society. And I think that is also in some ways it's like your your body is not like, as people want.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 56:49

There is always a source of attack or that energy that people you put on you. Microaggression that piles up and then you get so tired of it.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 57:00

It's been yeah. It's very hard in Australia with the anti Asianness, like, people spitting on us and yelling at us. And when I was teaching, some people walking by and yeah. They some people yelled at coronavirus through the door at me while I was teaching students. And then I said, did you call me coronavirus?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 57:19

And they said, yeah. Coronavirus at me. Like, they had to confirm it and laugh. So, there's all kinds of, like, levels of discrimination as an adopter that must, you know, I'm I'm not in your shoes, Kimura, but, like, just the the layers upon layers of things that you have to process as well as adoption, you know, is, just something we all need to be, you know, caring about amongst each other as well. I noticed there was, like, a panel recently, the intersectional lives of transgender adoptees that had,

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 57:51

I was there.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 57:52

Yeah. Yeah. So, is it Pauline Park and Ryan Gustafsson, who's in Australia. The conversation's there and how we create harm in our own communities as well as adoptees. So they're moving through these conversations is really, really vital.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 58:11

I'm just, I mean like, I I read in the news that this kind of, hate against Asian people is happening because of the pandemic, but you know, I live in Korea so I haven't experienced it firsthand and it's just so shocking and it makes me so sad to hear that you are experiencing that firsthand.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 58:29

But, you know, I wonder, you know, it's like, in Korea, because it's all Asian, but, like, if there is the Indian, variant, and then how Korean will react to South Asian people. Maybe it's gonna be that same racism that we live as Asian here, you know. So racism is everywhere. So

Jane Jeong Trenka: 58:54

Right. Exactly. University students, it's really interesting. Like, the Korean university students are interested in racism, and they think about racism as something that happens in Western countries against Asian people. And they're like, well, I've never experienced racism, but they're very interested in what's happening with Asian people in the West right now because of the pandemic.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 59:16

And they view it as kind of like, because they're Asian, they feel sort of like personally offended by it, I think. But also they many of them have only lived in Korea and they are ethnic Korean and they've never experienced racism themselves, which is like really interesting to me. So I've been trying to encourage them because we do also have international students in our class to actually talk with the international students about the racism that they experience because they do. Because of the pandemic, right? It's also hard for them to connect because we're all doing classes over Zoom.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 59:53

Yeah. It's it's hard for them to do and I think sort of hard for them to conceptualize Korea as a racist place. And for sure, it's like the most white supremacist place I've ever been in. Like, for having so few white people, it's still mega white supremacist.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:00:08

Yeah. I wasn't sure how Korean society deals with street harassment or just anti discrimination in general. Is it is it put it under the carpet or is it confront and have laws?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:00:21

Well, there is an anti discrimination law. People have advocated for this law for a long time, but it keeps getting slapped down by the Protestants. It's a law that would benefit everybody. So like the anti discrimination law, in which you should not be able to do discriminate against anybody for any reason, would help everybody, but the conservative protestants in Korea are, like, super anti gay, anti queer, and they just they wanna continue discriminating. So whenever this law comes up for a vote, they block it.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:00:56

That's the power, I guess, of the Protestant church in Korea. They are more Christian than The United States is.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:01:04

But in Korea, they are very extremist for either way, one way or the other.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:01:09

In the book, Indigo, you talk a little bit about connecting with Vietnamese community and about language being a hardship. Right?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:01:17

It was more like the language around identities in The United States, I think, has changed and the inclusion of, say, Latinx and, you know, the evolution of language for, you know, various political purposes. With the Vietnamese language, there are adoptees that go and return to live in Vietnam and become fluent in Vietnamese language, which is really great. It's particularly difficult language for me to learn and some others. It's got five different tones. So you can say the same word in five different tones, and it can mean five different things.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:01:54

So, even when I went over for a return trip, one of my single friends was trying to learn how to say to women, you have a beautiful smile, and he was saying you have a beautiful ox cart. So

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:02:09

and he

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:02:10

thought he was really charming and all of that, but, like, you know, what not successful. So, you know, there's there's a there's various hurdles through colonialism that strip you of your culture and your language, and there's a lot of solace in talking to, other communities that, you know, language is something that's hard. So it's great that, you know, we're just aware that you don't necessarily become, you know, you you may not be fluent in the language immediately. You might need to work on it. But, yeah, language is a a a really important thing for younger adoptees, and I I really hope that the generation coming through are more fluent and exposed and, pick up the language faster.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:02:52

But the ones that are joining Adopted Vietnamese International, the community group that I've run since 2020, seem to have the same kind of issues around language. So, eventually, we'll hopefully catch up with, like, the Korean adoptee movement that seems to, you know, have, lessons for adoptees and so on and resources for them to connect with their original language. I can say I can't speak Vietnamese in Vietnamese. So that's what I know as well.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:03:21

So is is there any, government support for adoptees who are returning to Vietnam to learn Vietnamese?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:03:30

I'm really glad that you asked that question about what the Vietnamese government how it's trying to reach out to the Vietnamese adoptees, and we can the only reason I'm glad that you asked that is that there's not much there, but I can highlight the work of a colleague of mine or appear, Lynell Long, who runs she used to run it was called the, intercountry adoptee support network. It's now known as ICAV, intercountry adoptee perspectives and voices. And Lynelle's work in adoption has been for the past at least three years making incredible steps for us. She's gone to The U not the UN. She's gone to, like, the United Nations and the, the convention.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:04:17

She's gone to all these places to try and look at the structural things that hold us back, and she's also written letters and met with Vietnamese officials to talk about the kind of things that I think Korean adoptees can take for granted, but that we haven't got yet. So I think, anyone interested in sort of listening to this and wanting to know where Vietnamese government is in terms of helping adoptee search and returning and all that, the work that's posted up by ICAB, by Lanell is really invaluable. And she's been doing this work since 1998, but really in the past, few years, you know, that's when I think it's been possible for the Vietnamese government to wanna have these conversations with us. So it's a long journey to get the steps that we need.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:05:01

Is there any kind of feeling of collective guilt or anything on the Vietnamese side about the adoptions?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:05:09

So the the Vietnamese societies, got very political. So the Vietnamese society and Vietnamese government is you know, they've got various narratives and histories and things that they, have from their perspectives that can be quite different from overseas perspectives. And for adoptees, that's one of the biggest challenges for us is to translate and reconcile with the various perspectives on what happened during the war and the adoptees. You know, the the narratives are evolving to who's Vietnamese, what kind of citizenship obligations do you have, what kinds of loyalties to the state and to Vietnam do you have. So, Vietnam is a very collective society.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:05:54

It's not individualistic. It sort of, is very much focused on a collective experience of healing as well. So, you know, sort of reuniting and and what you can bring and give to Vietnam as opposed to the other way around, I think, for the most part. So different psychology around adoption, and I don't think that, I I can't say I can't speak because I haven't read many Vietnamese translated writings on adoption, but I think that the encouragement there to come back and give to Vietnamese society and give back to the Vietnamese people is the emphasis, and that's that's really interesting angle and understanding understandable.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:06:32

Yeah. I have a question, because I know that Korean adoptees have this group, about the DNA, for adoptees. And do you have also this sense of an awareness for Vietnamese in the homeland to, maybe share the DNA for to find, adoptees?

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:06:54

Yes. So this, such a great question. Thank you for raising it, Kamira. Is that the DNA is a game changer in Vietnamese adoption and searches, and there's an amazing Vietnamese American adoptee called Trista Goldberg who originally set up a DNA project for us for mainly for Amerasians as well. She does amazing work just trying to look at Amerasian connections and rights as well as adoptees.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:07:19

She's a Vietnamese adoptee too, and we do have a DNA project. And also people are just using private companies as well to do DNA tests and get matches, and, the funding for Vietnamese mothers is the biggest challenge that that project has because most of the people, in America and Australia and France and so on that are, putting their DNA in can afford it from their side. But trying to get the swabs and collect the DNA from Vietnamese mothers and, surviving relatives is the real challenge, and that's something that Trista has been working on as well. The other thing is privacy and culture. So not everybody wants to and I'm sure that that we could look at the work of, Jane's work in particular around single mothers as well.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:08:06

There's another layer of complexity with that. So, there is the momentum there, but it's not at a state level or at a national level where there's sort of, you know, big awareness campaigns over the DNA. It's very grassroots at this at this stage, but it definitely exists, the DNA searching databases and projects. Are they are they supported by the Korean government for Korean adoptees?

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:08:29

No. No. I think we we have to do.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:08:32

So it's unlikely that Korean mothers would, you know, necessarily be in the in the database. It's more Korean adoptee searching?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:08:40

Well, well, so there's a police database, which is for missing children. If you're an adoptee, you can put your DNA in there. And in the embassies of Western countries where the pre and adoptees went, you may also submit your DNA to that database. So I'm not the authority on this, so I just please, listeners, forgive me for for the mistakes that I will make. So they can they can put their DNA there, and then it can go into the police database.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:09:14

And the problem is that I think there is some restriction in Korea about who may put their DNA there on the searching side. I think for for a lot of adoptees, it says that, like, you're abandoned outside the police station, you're you're abandoned outside the city hall, whatever. And so for those people who have no trace, they can directly put their DNA there. For people who seem to have something on their record that links them to a person, an actual person, it's not okay. For people like the birth mother who is searching, it's okay for her to submit to this database if she says that she had a missing child.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:09:55

But if they sort of confessed to like I actually gave up my child for adoption through an adoption agency, that would not be okay. Separately, there is the organization three twenty five camera, which is doing incredible work and they are using private DNA databases. And the way that they connect them so they they use some different kits. They they have used twenty three and me. They've used, Family Tree.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:10:21

I think it's called Family Tree. And then there is sort of like a third party database where you can put in your raw data and it gets mixed around and they can match you and that one's called GEDmatch. The the kits are funded by Thomas Park Clement who is one of the first adoptees and who has been so generous to the adoptee community. He's really like a big brother in so many ways to so many of us. So that is happening and I have my own little dream for TNA in Korea.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:10:52

And I I'm kind of having a problem convincing everybody that this should happen, but, what my dream would be is that it would all go to the government. Okay. So here's the thing. In Korea, is that, like, there's a lot of old people. Right?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:11:06

And old people living on islands and remote places, and how are they ever gonna get their DNA in there? How are they ever gonna know about this? So I would really like it so that the DNA would be open for all people who are searching for a person who is, say, up to three degrees of relation from them, so like up to aunt and aunt or uncle level. And then because we have this like really centralized government and and Korea is a small country, If at every, police station or better yet every community health center where every old person goes for their health checks, if they install a place for them to get to know about this program and then also do the DNA swab, then we have reached everybody in Korea. Yay.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:11:51

And then that would be their consent as well because the problem with records, like, where do I even start? But so, like, if your spit is in there, you must have consented. Right? So one of the problems that we have is, you know, like, maybe an adoptee can find a relative through the records, but then there's this extra step with the search process now where they have to get their consent. And usually what happens is they don't get a flat out no.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:12:16

They don't get a flat out yes. They get a no answer. And so this is interpreted as no. And then the problem is is, like, who did you get when they send the so called telegram? Who did they even find at the end of this telegram?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:12:29

We don't even know who that is because the last step for all search is the DNA test anyway. So what can happen is that somebody can receive a no answer, which is no, or they can receive a no answer, a non answer interpreted also as no. But this person might not even be the person they're looking for. So what that means is that person's search is blocked. They don't even know that their genetic mother is out there and might still want to be reunited reunited with them because they think that this other person who never consented to anything is actually their genetic mother.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:13:04

This is not to say that all forms of search should be blocked except for the DNA, But if you wanted to just get to the point, you would just do the DNA. We as international adoptees actually have a huge amount of privilege because we have come out and we've said things and we don't feel the stigma and shame I think that domestic adoptees feel about, birth family search. And a lot of domestic adoptees are not even officially adopted because there was no paperwork, there was only trafficking. They cannot prove that they're adopted. And so how can they go to the police station and say I'm an adoptee?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:13:42

They can't. And that they would be able to show, hey, I'm not related to anybody else on my family tree, on my family register this official paper. And there are many people who were, like my child's father was put in an orphanage. And of course, not everybody in the orphanage was adopted, most of them weren't. But these people also don't know their roots.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:14:02

Why? Because the owner of this orphanage views all of this information as her property. I went with my child's father when we were there together. I went to J Town and lived there for a year because we're like I was like, okay, I'm pregnant right now. I'm gonna have a baby.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:14:18

I'm not gonna be running around from Seoul to J Town all the time to do your family search, so let's just go live there. So we lived there, and at the time, the mayor was so touched by the story that he requested his staff to ask her for these records. And guess what? She still won't give them. Why?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:14:35

Okay. So and then we met some of the orphans who grew up there because there was a, petition that they made to the National Human Rights Commission because they were horribly abused there. And they had, filed a petition against her or against that orphanage. So, we met some of them and they also can't get their records. The reason she gives is because she doesn't want them to resent their parents.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:15:00

So, like, at this time I realized there's so many people in Korea, not just adopt international adoptees, domestic adoptees, people who have just been abandoned, like people like my biological sister whose mother just left the family. She has no idea about her her own mom. So many people who are separated, the only path is DNA. And so this, again, is like the the ramp and elevator path. So I was like, I can't convince everybody about this or or really anybody.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:15:28

So I guess I'll just go back to selling insurance. But you know what? It's interesting. There's a microcosm of adoptees who live in Korea. Right?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:15:37

There's this microcosm, and I kind of thought, if I'm ever going to go out of this microcosm, I need to learn Korean. That's the only way out. So, I learned enough to do some other things. But then I found out, wow, okay. So, within the microcosm of foreigners, right, there's a microcosm of adoptees.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:15:55

But there's all kinds of very interesting stuff going on with all kinds of foreigners in Korea. And I sort of found this out through insurance. And there's so many, ways to connect people and to be of service to people who are not just adopted in Korea too. So I I find that exciting. So I'm kind of getting energy out there and then, like, maybe later on I'll try to convince people about my grand DNA idea again.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:16:21

Kimura, I did wanna ask you about the agencies and what you did with Hagen Sun, if you can share that, and how you learn to read this code on the records. I think you you were like, well, if they wrote this, then it must mean this. You know, because it's not like a real code, but sort of like a way of speaking that you or way of writing the records that you understand.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:16:42

For the search? Yeah. Okay. For me, it's like, obviously, I'm from Belgium, and I know the whole files. But because I get requests from all different kind of people from, from Sweden, which is SWS, and then I get some from the state, which is a KSS or HALT.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:17:03

I I think the fact that I work on so many different cases, as you could see some of my file, I think you had them in hand for some time. So with that, I could analyze all this kind of file and how different they were sometime, and they had, like, some same tendency. Some were, like, relinquish, which is easier, but some were abandoned. But then the abandoned is like also when it's written RC, it's a reception center, but an adoptee will not know that it's a reception center even though it's written abandoned. But it's not abandoned because reception center means it's relinquished, but not report.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:17:46

So it's all this kind of stuff that I learned. It's like if someone said they were abandoned in a police station and then we see, example, Namdaemun, and then it was Dongdaemun Police Station, which is very far away. So you have to know also that it was maybe a lie or the the kid was displaced. The the layers of information we have in an adoption file is very important to read the whole thing, in a documentary with KSS. I think they were at KSS office, and they say, oh, we don't wanna give you the Korean translation of, your adoption paper in the adoption agency in Korea.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:18:29

And why? Because they write something else from what they translate and give to the, adoptee, families. So it's like, for me, it's always good to have the Korean translation and to be sure that it's the same translation. If not, sometimes they write different things and ask someone else to sometimes I I went to an adoption agency with an adoptee. They had the file.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:18:53

It was, the other way around. Like, the social worker had in front of her, but she put on the desk. And then I could see the name of the birth mother, but they said we have nothing. But because the other kid cannot read Korean, they don't know that. They have just write down the name and, the, the the name of ID card.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:19:13

So the birthday, the year, the month, the day. And so for me, I just said, oh, okay. We don't have it. Then I wrote everything discreetly, and then we found the mother. And the mother wrote, like, for more than five years to OKS to try to have information of her kids.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:19:31

And they say, no. We cannot because we don't wanna disturb the adoptive family. And the adoptive never get the information from the Korean adoption agency. Searching is so much I mean, for me, I think it is a challenge, of course, but it's also I wanna go as far as you can. Most of adoptees, when they come to me, they say I have nothing.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:19:52

And I say no, you don't have nothing. You have stopped. Your whole adoption file is not everything. It's like, okay. It's the star for search.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:20:02

And so as you know, it's like then, you go it's like a police report and, like, you have to go to the closest date to your birthday, the date that you were abandoned officially, and not when you were taken by the the adoption agency. And many people think about the adoption agency, but they don't think when they were really abandoned. Sometime it takes two years, sometime it's few months. I always want to see the file they have, and then from there, say what I believe, what we can go further, in what kind of search we can do, where to go with your adoption code, number. You can know sometime what other than I've been seeing you from or also.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:20:46

So this kind of stuff of knowledge I get from searching for more than, I would say, twenty years. You know? Because they're still helping other kids now over Internet, over email. Some some people, through Facebook, they ask me.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:21:03

So at the time that you showed me your boxes of files, you had done 600 searches,

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:21:09

I think.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:21:10

More than, yeah.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:21:11

Wow. And at the time you were in Seoul, you showed me the spreadsheet that that you had where you would make gray the names of the people who had committed suicide.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:21:25

Yeah. There are so many. It's not young people who commit suicide often. It's like people who are like 25, 30. It's like the time that they book for job or, like, when they have maybe start a relationship or they get rejected or you don't know how to do in the society.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:21:42

It's not just when you student. It's it's later.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:21:46

Tobias Hubinet, looked at the statistics in Sweden, and he said that it's happening often during the holiday times.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:21:53

It's maybe when they feel lonely. Yeah. For me, it's like I I always remember when I was maybe, 10 years old, even not, maybe seven. It's like in in my school, there were, like, a family of two other piece in a normal family, and they all commit suicide. The the father, then the son, then after the mother and after the daughter.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:22:17

And, in my neighborhood, it was so many people, adopted to commit suicide. I think my hometown, the city where I was adopted is where, the adoption start, from Korea. The first, normally, they were Vietnamese. And because the Vietnamese children didn't come from Vietnam, they replaced with Korean. But the the mother still have your your Vietnamese baby will come and she got a Korean baby.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:22:46

It's crazy. It's like, they replaced, like and it was the other financial agency in, Belgium, Ter Des Homme. You have Ter des Homme, in Belgium. You have in Swiss. You have in Germany.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:23:00

Maybe in France. You know? And, they were like I mean, the Belgian, TerDazam branch was the worst one. They had a bank, bank account in Switzerland. So they had to close many from dead adoption in Sikkimis, Tucson.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:23:16

But my generation of young, you know, John Yeah. The we we live so much hardship. Most of us, we we as I I mean, from people I know of my generation. I mean, when we meet, and it was that's why I think the first Korean adoptee association was really very healing for for us to talk about all these, abuse issues. But after the generation who were adopted in the eighties or nineties were, like, better adopted.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:23:48

So we knew it was about screening the right parents and not just the money. I think that the generation of the eighties, later eighties and nineties, have a very different experience about the adoption. It's it's so weird. And, for me, I I still, am very close to two adoptees who were the first adoptees in Belgium, and we are all fifties. You know, we were all born in '68.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:24:16

And, it's like we are harmony, like, you know, it's so weird.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:24:20

So I kind of wonder what you think about death. You know, as as we talked about, we're kind of a a dying species. And the the people of our generation, I think, who who grew up so, isolated and abused, Hopefully hopefully I mean, like, hopefully, we're a dying species. And then we've also been surrounded by death of all these suicides. So, like, how how do you feel about it?

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:24:48

Like, your own death.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:24:50

For me, I thought I would die, this year anyway. So, not because of suicide, but I don't know. It's like I went to Fortune Taylor, and they said that I'm gonna die at 53. I'm 52 now, western age. I mean, like, 53 Korean age.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:25:07

So I have only one month to to think about. So, but maybe the the idea or the concept of dying is maybe I'm gonna finally find my body as a trans person. So this maybe that's the way that I can interpret that. I I thought a lot about, reproducing myself or not, but also because I'm an artist and financially not stable, I chose to not. For adoptees who have kids, it's like it's a continuation.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:25:40

It's like, the the kids will bring the memory of your existence. I hope that, the next generation adoptees who maybe would like also to adopt from overseas, hopefully, they will be better parents or, like, thinking about their parentality as perial and not just so monogam or, like, poly, mono parental or, like, just one couple, one set, you know, to explode, to enlarge the idea of, raising a kid and not being so, Christian or not so heteronormative. Because, like, example in, Africa or other, like, communities, for this and then when they have a kiss, that the mother is not they they just take over in the cousin, and they don't say they do a great job. They just it's natural. They will take care of their kids, and they don't need to adopt, like, the fact to process something as an object.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:26:44

And so that that mentality of, savior and it's not only to white people. I mean, white people brought that concept, but I think is you can be Asian and especially Korean adoptees and have this white savior mentality also. You know? They said, do they need their help? Do they ask for help from you, especially is is for your own sanity sometimes also is to for you to make feel better.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:27:09

And for me, it's like I prepare my debt, and that's why I wanted to become a Canadian because I didn't wanna die in Belgium. For me, it will be the worst ever failure in my life. So that's why I spent so much time to become Canadian. It took, fifteen years. So last year, I became Canadian.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:27:29

But now I'm sure that I can, if I die and that's why I didn't wanna commit suicide before or die before because I I wanted to be sure if I can and I realized maybe five years ago, ten years ago that I couldn't die in Korea. I couldn't be buried in Korea as a Korean adoptee foreigner, not having the citizenship. That's what they told me. So I say, oh, I have to become Canadian, and I will take all my energy to become Canadian because at least Canada is a neutral place that has nothing with my birth family or birth, ancestor. So I can be free in Canada and die free.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:28:09

It's not like dramatic. It's like, I had a good life. I I experienced a lot. I wanna share. I wanna leave some stuff, archive and stuff, and then, you know, we're gonna serve the community.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:28:21

And, so that I had my time and it's it's not bad. You know? It's like that's the way it is.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:28:33

It's been a pleasure to speak with you and, yeah, thank you for all of the work that you have done in your life to lay the groundwork that makes my life here possible and for connecting so many adoptees and doing so much work for search that has made so many people's reunion possible in our community. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

kimura byol-nathalie lemoine: 01:28:54

Yeah. But you too. You did a great job. So it's like you continue your work, and thank you for the the second edition of, outside our reunions. Thank you.

Jane Jeong Trenka: 01:29:05

Yeah. Thank you so much for your contribution to that. And Indigo, you contributed even while you were a new mother, which is like a crazy time also of no sleep.

Dr. Indigo Willing: 01:29:15

So good to have all these voices together. Let me say thank you in Korean. Is it?