Sunah M Laybourn’s new book explores Korean adoptee identity
“Although I am a Korean adoptee, my entry into the Korean adoptee community did not begin until this project,” Sunah M Laybourn writes in the acknowledgments to “Out of Place: The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.” It’s a notable entry. And if it’s a reader’s entry into this subject area as well, “Out of Place” is a valuable guide. Over the course of the book, Laybourn, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Memphis, talks to Korean American adoptees about their experiences, their sense of identity and, importantly, their sense of belonging — or lack thereof, as suggested by the book’s title.
Laybourn also skillfully weaves a fair amount of history, policy and organizing context around the personal narratives. Because adoptees are often rendered invisible, this chorus of voices, carefully recorded and analyzed, is a necessary addition to the literature, allowing adoptees to tell their own sometimes confounding truths. Laybourn answered questions from Chapter 16 by email.
Chapter 16: In the acknowledgements you say that, while you are a Korean adoptee, you were not part of the community until you began this book. Can you talk about what that experience was like for you?
Laybourn: In terms of growing up without a Korean adoptee community, it was isolating in a way that is difficult for non-transnational transracial adoptees to fathom. It’s just so outside of their realm of understanding. Because, while it’s true that I was a part of a family, a part of a church, a part of various extracurricular activities and friend groups and many other groups, there is something about not sharing DNA with your family and also not being part of a same race, same ethnicity community that can feel very isolating. Society tells us that “real” family is defined by shared blood, and in U.S. society, race is such an organizing feature that without having an anchoring in either, it can be easy to feel adrift despite the many other connections one may have.
Q: How do you see the importance of representation when it comes to Korean adoptees?
A: When I was a child, I thought being an adoptee — and I don’t think I even thought of myself as an “adoptee” but rather “adopted” — I thought that meant I was deficient, less than, unwanted, unlovable. I very much identified with or looked to media to help me make sense of being adopted or more specifically being abandoned. There weren’t many representations, and the ones that stick out were animated movies; “An American Tail” comes to mind and “The Land Before Time.” As an impressionable child, these movies emphasized a variety of harmful beliefs about what it meant to be adopted, or rather what it meant to be separated from biological family. While I don’t think it’s possible to have one singular form of media that captures the intricacies of the adoptee experience — and I think that’s an unfair expectation to put on one media — having media that expands portrayals of adoption beyond the Hallmark conceptions of “forever family” or “love is thicker than blood” would have been so beneficial.
Q: Over the course of these interviews, and putting the book together, did you feel like anything changed in your understanding of the overall Korean adoptee experience — or your own?
A: Something that I continue to think about is the common experience of adoptees not feeling like they are part of the adoptee community even as they are actively participating in it. For example, I would often hear folks with a “positive” adoptee experience say they felt like the community was defined by those with a “negative” experience. And folks with a “negative” experience felt like the community was defined by those with a “positive” experience. I can’t help but wonder if that is the adoptee experience — to not be able to see yourself as part of a community or to be so used to not being a part that you’re always looking for the way you don’t belong.
For me, being able to connect with other Korean adoptees has been life changing, and I’m careful to not put unrealistic expectations on the community. What I mean is that the adoptee community is imperfect, it’s messy, it’s complicated, and it kinda has to be … because all communities are. To truly belong is to be able to be in the messiness and complexities of it all.
To read the full version of this interview — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.