Don't Revise the CCA2000; Stop Deportations

Removal of non-citizen adoptees has gotten a lot of attention again in the U.S. because of Adam Crasper's impending removal hearing. The CCA's main problem is that it limited the protection to those who were younger than 18 at the time when the act became effective and to those whose adoptions were finalized. Many are now calling for automatic citizenship for all adoptees, regardless of age.

Action to prevent his removal is necessary, and fortunately his case is getting a ton of press, but the answer is not a revision of the CCA2000. The answer is to work for fair and just comprehensive immigration reform in line with all other immigrant rights organizations and activists. In the meantime, advocates and activists should be asking for the quicker blanket deferred action for adoptees, modeled after the actions the DREAMers got the Obama administration to enact.

There are many problems with just amending the CCA2000. First, an amendment will not pass through both houses of Congress in time to save Adam. Second, I don't think that goes far enough, leaving too many still vulnerable to deportation, and lastly it takes away our choice about naturalizing.

Here's my proposal:

• Automatic immunity from deportation for all who were sent to the US to be adopted, including those whose adoptions were not finalized, and those who were not adopted like the babylift cases.
• The choice to naturalize without the criminal background and health checks
• Naturalization processing fees waived, including the biometrics and medical exam fees
• Return of deported people who had been sent to the US to be adopted

Of course the first and most pressing concern is protecting those who were sent to the US to be adopted from removal. We must remember that it is not only Koreans who will be affected by an amendment or change to intercountry adoption laws. This becomes even more pressing as the Guatemalan wave comes of age, as they will be most vulnerable to profiling as immigrants. Fortunately, the majority were admitted to the US on IR-3 visas, and they are covered under the current CCA, but there are some who will not be covered, as the rampant mishandling of the Guatemalan adoptions gives me little hope that they were all processed legally and fully. As Kathryn Joyce pointed out, a lot of the adoption happening from Latin America (including Haiti) and Africa were instigated by fundamental Christians with megafamilies, and in many cases little sophistication regarding immigration matters. 

Furthermore, the Babylifts of Vietnam, Korea, Haiti, Cuba, etc. resulted in many children being sent to the US, ostensibly to be adopted, but many were left in foster care instead, and unnaturalized. These people need to be protected as well. Finally children and babies sent to be adopted but whose adoptions weren't finalized for any reason are not currently mentioned in either the original CCA2000 or amendment proposals. 

Removing the choice of citizenship was one of the reasons cited when adoptees campaigned for dual citizenship with their adoptive countries and South Korea. They acknowledged that removing this choice was an injustice. Let's not advocate for the same injustice. Making U.S. citizenship automatic probably removes the choice for adoptees from other countries, not only those from ROK. However, we should advocate for removing the blocks impeding naturalization from those who do wish to change their citizenship. Many adoptees struggle financially or with medical conditions.

The current fees to naturalize include the naturalization application, biometrics (to prove identity), health screening, and other things like shipping, photos, and notaries. There are several medical conditions which could make a person inadmissible or disqualify her or him from naturalization such as communicable diseases, mental illnesses, and addiction. 

The current laws also require anyone who has committed various misdemeanors or felonies from being ineligible for naturalization and can send them into removal proceedings. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA1996) makes some offenses especially likely for adoptees deportable offenses, including voting without citizenship and claiming to be a citizen by applying for a US passport without being a citizen. 

Like us, many DREAMers, adults who were brought to the US when they were children but who are now undocumented, got the right to stay in the US with work permission. They can get social security numbers and driver's licenses and join American society for the most part. Although this measure is volatile (the next administration can cancel it just as easily as Obama enacted it) it would "save" Adam. The experience that the DREAMers and immigrant rights' organizers have should be an asset to the adoption community, but we've repeatedly refused to support them or ask them for help. 

Any legislative action should also allow those who already have been deported to return to the US. Currently about 30 publicized cases or so have resulted in people who were adopted or who were sent to the US to be adopted being removed. Let's not forget them.

SOURCES:
http://poundpuplegacy.org/deportation_cases

http://www.uscis.gov/iframe/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0-10948.html

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/what-expect-green-card-medical-exam.html

http://swampland.time.com/2013/07/09/explainer-why-it-costs-immigrants-680-to-apply-for-naturalization/

Korea’s History is My History

On the first ever overnight trip organized for adoptees by KoRoot, about 15 of us were relaxing by the bay in Suncheon, Jeollanam-do. We sat singing Jindo Arirang after a day visiting the municipal cemetery in Kwangju where the martyrs were buried from the 5.18 uprising before many of them were re-interred in the nearby National Cemetery, and where more of their comrades subsequently joined them as the decades passed. I feel a profound sense of gratitude and connection to those young democracy fighters, many of whom died at the same age of my smartphone-addicted university students. Their school photos show them clad in school uniforms, and I recognize the artifacts left behind as almost identical to the same school supplies I used 6000 miles away in the USA. I tried to convey these feelings in inadequate words to the other trip participants while our hosts relayed the basic facts of the uprising to us.

I get the impression that the connection that I feel to these events and people of the 1980 come as a surprise to many people I meet in Korea. These people often try to educate adoptees and other dongpos about the intricacies of Korean customs, history, and manners, assuming we know nothing. Of these three elements of culture, the very easiest to grasp is history, even if it’s difficult to unravel the truth from nation-building myths and propaganda. Non-Korean western scholars are often called on to interpret current events for global audiences in the news media, so why couldn't those of us who are Korean-born, with more insider access to Korean communities, also be entrusted to have a basic grasp of history?

Although as a discrete population, we adoptees may seem to be the least connected by family histories from which to learn, but as a part of the farthest-flung national diaspora on earth [“World’s widest diaspora born over 100 years ago.” Korea Joong Daily. 2 October 2013] , adoptees are profoundly affected by history [Mueller, Ander R. “Adoptee justice is about social justice.” The Korea Times. 9 October 2012.] which often prompts us to learn on our own. In fact, since I have no personal history, the nation’s history is a substitute personal narrative for me, and integral to my critical understanding of intercountry adoption as part of the history of Korea.

1970s Factory worker
with her baby

For example, when I met three women who worked in garment factories in the 1970s [Song, Dae-Han. “70s Women Workers.” Solidarity Stories. 8 May 2014.]  to create the “Miracle on the Han,” I imagined that perhaps my own mother had been a part of this cohort of teenagers who worked bent over for 14 hours a day. I can easily see them in my mind these young women who migrated to Seoul or Incheon where I was presumably born, being forced to choose between mothering their children and continuing to work for incomes, ultimately relinquishing their children to the intercountry adoption industry. This part of the peoples’ history runs parallel with the history of many diasporic Koreans who were was also funding the transformation of South Korea with overseas remittances after the government encouraged emigration and tried to control population growth. In Kwangju those photos of rebellious citizens were also contemporaries of my parents. The Yushin system and Chung Doo Hwan’s martial law rule certainly affected my mother and father, as it touched everyone in South Korea. Of course I do not know my parents’ opinions about these issues, but I as I turned 4 in May 1980, I’m sure they must have witnessed the uprising and talked about it.

But the history of Korea is not only a substitute for my own personal history. Historic events created a system for intercountry adoption out of South Korea and a mythology about its necessity based on humanitarian grounds. Although the current system of intercountry adoption is usually said to have started about 60 years ago, I think the forced opening of the Hermit Kingdom, the partial Christianization of Korea, colonization and independence, the American influence on South Korea are all pertinent parts of the whole picture. This national history is as equally important as the substitute personal history in relation to intercountry adoption and adoptees are also a part of the history of South Korea.

Women in Chosun Korea selling produce in a market

Some of this national history has been obscured to facilitate the adoption industry. Take, for example, unwed single mothers. While Chosun-era society usually is depicted with “respectable” women as being “inside people,” strictly held to prescribed gender roles, what about women who had lower status? After all, they were the majority of the population. What about the peasants who certainly worked outdoors in the fields? Or female merchants with businesses? Or itinerant groups such as the Namsadang entertainers who, despite their name, had female members later in their history? What about mudang? kisaeng? What about slaves and their children? Single parenting is as old as parenting and a part of every society. This reality is not mentioned in histories of Korea, but I have no doubt it existed. This history ought to be uncovered.

Some history, however, is well known yet still counters the dominant narrative about the reasons for intercountry adoption. The story of the beginning of adoption out of Korea conventionally begins with the mixed-race children who would not be accepted by Korean society which also does not adopt non-relatives. Yet, even official Korean history is peppered with marriages of Koreans to non-Koreans and adoption. In early history the legendary Queen Heo Hwang Ok, wife of King Suro, was a foreigner, maybe from India. Later the Mongolian-Koryo alliance was supported by marriage. Finally, the creator of modern “Korean culture”, the Yi dynasty of Chosun, also had marriages to Japanese and white American women [“[HISTORY] The last prince of Korea” Life in Korea blog 26 October 2013.], plus acknowledged adoptions. During the Yi rule, too, thousands of marriages between Koreans and Japanese existed in both lands. Yet, despite this, we are told that Korea deeply values its “pure” bloodlines and has no tradition of adoption due to conservative Confucian values.

Korea’s recent and ancient history holds importance to me personally and as a way to understand the place adoption holds in this country. It connects me to an imagined past rooted in plausible reality. Exposing and publicizing the real history of Korean society, especially of women, allows for pointed questions about the justifications for adoption.

Returnees Organizing Korea Out of the Intercountry Adoption Industry

Originally written and posted to ISC Solidarity Stories


By Kristin R. Pak


The intercountry adoption (ICA) market is driven by demand from rich countries and commodifies the most vulnerable people. It’s unsustainable as child welfare, and does great harm wherever the market emerges. Realpolitik policies that trade in humans for leverage are unconscionable, but dress them in fateful red thread narratives and a savior aura, and they are not just palatable, but seem magnanimous and altruistic. The marketing and branding of poor children as orphans with no past and no hope for the future started here in South Korea, and has been replicated again and again throughout the (former) second and third worlds. The justifications for UN-regulated human trafficking range from discrimination to poverty to evangelism. Ignored is how little ICA does to address the systemic problems that created poverty, the legal and institutionalized discrimination that force people to the margins of society, and the failed government programs that restrict families to one child. Furthermore, the continuing interference that the west (particularly the United States) perpetrates in the developing world, disrupts traditional communities and livelihoods.





South Korea is still among the top suppliers of children for the ICA industry. SOURCE: http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/policy/adoptionstatsintl.html


Babies and children are traded in return for money– profits for adoption agencies, hard currency for poor countries, fees for lawyers, revenue for hospitals, and “donation” income for orphanages while at the same time releasing a bit of pressure that these rather-be-forgotten troubles put on a society. Poor families, biracial babies, unwed mothers, addicts and mentally ill patients all should be hidden or gotten rid of in the speediest, most profitable way possible, but only a limited amount can be sent away. We can’t be kept out. Thousands of us are returning every year, demanding the truth. We’re joining in solidarity with others who have stayed to change laws, provide services, and reform society.


Why have some of the 200,000 of us who were sent away to be adopted returning?* Why do we come to visit South Korea in the thousands every year? Why are we in solidarity with unwed and single mothers and families who have lost their children to adoption? We don’t (necessarily) come back to South Korea because our childhoods were bad (although many were horrendous). We come back to learn the truth about what Korea is in a way that only a visit can. We come to find our families and the truth because the adoption agencies constantly lie to us. We choose to live here for extended times to reclaim our mother tongue. We settle here to change Korean society so no more children are separated from their mothers, fathers, histories and personal truths.


And we organize. Adoption Solidarity Korea (ASK), Truth and Reconciliation Truth and Reconciliation for the Adoption Community of Korea (TRACK), and Global Overseas Adoptee Link (GOA’L) were founded by adoptees living in Korea so the thousands who come back every year have a community and support to find their way in Korea and their place in history. We work in solidarity with unwed mothers so families can stay together, despite unjust policies driven by stigmas against the women and their children. We identify as migrants who were forced away from Korea and perhaps compelled to return again as economic refugees or deported Americans, along with the other new face of Korea which is multilingual, multicultural, and more diverse. We hope to transform Korea, and we have the right to do so as Koreans.





Back in the late 1990s the government tried to use us as bridges between our adoptive countries and South Korea. Although I disagree with the assumption that we would automatically feel any obligation to do so, it was clear from the First Lady’s address to us in 1999 that the Blue House was including us in the great Korean diaspora. In our quasi-Korean/foreigner hybridity, we learned tolerance was the least a society owes to its most maligned, even if the right to equality is ignored. We are claiming our birthright as born ROK citizens and making statements about justice and human rights here. Our experiences as foreigners in our adoptive countries and the racism and discrimination that goes along with it has equipped us to fight as citizens even if we have foreigner status on our ARCs.


We had to change laws to get those, too. Although we’re now eligible for F4 visas, which allow us to live in Korea and work (as long as it’s not as a laborer), we had to convince Immigration that we were also overseas Koreans because there was no category for us. You see, we weren’t supposed to return. The marketing worked so well that it became the Truth: we were saved from growing up in a poor country, in poor families. That was the story from the end of the war and continues until 2014. South Korea is now a highly developed country economically, thanks in part to the hard currency we brought in. We were supposed to be fully assimilated into white Christian families and forget we were Korean, grateful for all the West would give to us. Instead, we commit political acts just by living in Korea, by making waves and demanding a change in the laws.


Perhaps because of the returnees like me, Korea will create a template for closing its intercountry adoption program like it has repeatedly promised to do since it was shamed1 as a baby-exporting country. I hope it does, because intercountry adoption is a demand driven industry that hurts Korea. It has retarded the growth of an adequate social welfare state, a major characteristic of a developed society. (We still have childcare facilities, because adoption does not solve child welfare problems.) ICA makes Korea complicit in human trafficking for hard currency it no longer needs. Just as the rest of the world followed Korea’s example into selling away its children, Korea can lead the way out of the ICA industry.


*I use the passive voice here deliberately because the people who were sent for adoption were not the protagonists, but the object of the action.


1”The year 1988 was a turning point in South Korea’s adoption history. The Seoul International Olympics attracted the attention of journalists worldwide about many aspects of Korean culture, and much of thisattention focused on Korea’s primary export: its babies. Journalists like Bryant Gumbel of NBC commented that Korea’s primary export commodity was its babies, and articles like “Babies for Export” (The New York Times) and “Babies for Sale: South Koreans Make Them, Americans Buy Them” (The Progressive), embarrassed the South Korean government. North Korea also criticized South Korea’s adoption program, pointing out that selling its children to Western countries was the ultimate form of capitalism. As a result, the South Korean government delayed the scheduled departure of adopted children before and during the Olympics. And the number of Korean children adopted by American families began to decrease, from over 6,200 in 1986 to just over 1,700 in 1993.”http://www.pbs.org/pov/firstpersonplural/history_southkorea.php

Foreign Koreans in South Korea

When we are abroad, Koreans of the diaspora are seen as assets and opportunity for South Korea. When we return we're liabilities.

South Korea seems to be particularly disconnected from its role in creating the diaspora, and often discriminates against its "foreign" Korean population.

For example, 200,000 of us who live(d) in diaspora were mocked by Saturday Night Live  because of our poor Korean language skills and shallow understanding of Korean "culture." (Which is basically the one that ROK promotes abroad: taekwondo, kimchi, Korean Wave are the extent of Korean culture according to what it promotes overseas.) They of course take no responsibility after sending us out of the country to be adopted to raise hard currency after exploiting and coercing our mothers during the rapid industrialization Yushin period of 1961-1979 through their reproductive and industrial labor.

There's also the 100,000 military wives who are connected to over half of the 1.7 million Korean Americans as the community's immigration as sponsors. However, they're barely mentioned or still a whispered family story, even as the ROK sanctioned and promoted camptowns and keeps renewing the military agreements that keeps US forces in Korea. Their mixed race children are coming back to Korea as ethnic Koreans with foreign passports. Like with almost all populations of Koreans, some of those included in this group were also adopted.

What rights and protections are returning Koreans entitled to as humans and as Koreans? Chinese Koreans, Chosun-jok, are generally looked on warily as illegal workers. Refugees from DPRK are fascinating, but mostly exoticized. Koreans from the former Soviet Union, Koryo-saram, are barely acknowledged. How many Korean Americans are dismissed as Kyopos who don't understand really, Korea? Korean Japanese, the largest overseas Korean community is largely invisible here.

South Korea now has more ethnic Koreans with foreign passports residing in its country than ever before, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Justice.

The data reveals that the number of ethnic Koreans with non-Korean citizenship increased by 24 percent in 2013 as more than 233,000 such people have now found a home on the Korean peninsula. Among the 1.57 million foreigners residing legally in South Korea, 15 percent of them are of Korean descent, according to the Ministry of Justice.

The hike in numbers was driven largely by a steady influx of Korean Chinese immigrants due to the amendment of immigration laws in 2008, which gave Korean Chinese more benefits and rights.

Just four years ago, Korean Americans residing in Korea outnumbered other ethnic Koreans at approximately 31,700 compared to only about 4,800 Korean Chinese. But the Korean Chinese community is now by far larger than the other ethnic Korean segment, with a population of over 150,000.

In fact, a staggering two-thirds of ethnic Koreans residing in South Korea are Korean Chinese. Korean Americans now only make up 19 percent of the ethnic Korean population followed by Koreans from Canada, Australia, Uzbekistan and Russia.

More ethnic Korean immigrants have been relocating to their motherland at a significantly higher rate in recent years as there were only about 50,000 in the country only in 2009. The number rose to 83,825 in 2010, 135,020 in 2011 and 187,616 in 2012 before eclipsing the 200,000-mark for the first time ever.

The other migrants

This article, Rights for Migrant Workers in Korea-NOW!, writes about the Migrant Worker's struggles here in the ROK. It focuses on the poorest, most pathetic segment of the migrants in Korea. Just as in the US no one focuses on the migrants working in Silicon Valley, foreign professors who fill STEM jobs that cannot be filled with native-born talent, or the doctors and nurses from the Global South, pity is used to appeal for human and worker rights here in Korea. There is exploitation among the educated and skilled, and transferred labor is not just the domain of the unskilled. If we can work together we could be much more effective.

English teachers in Korea should also be included in this struggle. They are often exploited, forced to work more without compensation, expected to work injured or sick, and exposed to sexual harassment, etc.

For many adoptees (if they were adopted to one of the approved former British colonies: the US, Canada, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand) or the UK itself, teaching English is their only option, locking them into the mercy of the ETI (English teaching industry). 

Although English teachers come from the global north, and presumably have more agency, many of the teachers here in ROK are here because they can't find teaching jobs in their home countries. Another large portion are here to pay off their student loans, so they're essentially in debt bondage to jobs they contractually cannot leave. The Migrant Trade Union has said that English teachers are the #2 filers of complaints with them.

[In-depth interview] adopted, twice abandoned 'ghost man' fall ... International Mia

This MBC story (With video. The quotes from adoptees are subtitled in Korean if you want to hear the originals) is about adoptees who are now living in Korea because they were deported from the US.

Since I can't use the language that was my birthright, I've pasted the (edited) Google Translate transcript below.

China is number one, followed by Ethiopia and Russia. Our country is astonishingly ranked number six. We sent 160,000 babies abroad to be adopted. Among them are a few cases of those twice discard. Anh Da Go reports.

Reporter: Dressed in ragged clothes, the men can be seen roaming the streets. "It's really terrible. Their arms and legs are cut, and their clothes are torn." Most people pass by, ignoring these "living ghosts." "I'm alone. No one knows [me]. Mossi was adopted when he was 2 years old, and returned when he was deported back to Korea at 34 years old. His parents could do nothing because he was not naturalized."If everything is going well, and there had been no adoption, I don't think I would have had no problems." Two years ago a deported adoptee was caught robbing a bank.

The government doesn't know about the immigration status of 20,004 people who were sent to be adopted. Pastor Kim Do Hyun of KoRoot "[the government] should track these cases better. These children had no family..." Adoptees often suffer from identity confusion, the suicide rate and drug addiction is four times higher than average. Laura Klunder "They said we didn't your sister to be lonely. I think they wanted me to be their pet." The government passed new laws about international adoption a year ago. Hwang Pil Gyu, a lawyer at a family law firm says, "Biological parents should raise their own children, but it they can't how can those children be protected? How to ensure the protection of children is a vital question. Of the OECD countries six send children to be adopted. In 2012 only 750 children got children from South Korea.

A Soldier's Last Flight

From Human's of New York's Facebook page:

"I was on a commercial flight yesterday, heading back from a visit to Atlanta, when the captain announced that the plane was transporting the body of a slain serviceman. I was sitting at the back of the plane, so when we finally arrived at LaGuardia, I had to wait several minutes for my turn to exit. When I finally stood up from my seat, the scene was surreal. The entire left side of the plane was empty. But everyone on the right side of the plane was still in their seats-- faces pressed against the window. I walked past thirty rows of seats before I finally found an open window, and could see what everyone was looking at. The soldier's name was Ibraham Torres. UPDATE: I'd encourage everyone to look at the top comment from Ibraham's friend."

Ibraham was born in Mexico. He immigrated to New York with his mother, with whom I worked with for six years. His life is among the thousands that inspire and motivate my interest and work regarding immigration (along with ICA-related immigration, including my own).

I last saw him with his son at that job just before I left for Korea. I'm not a fan of the "all soldiers are heroes" meme that came about after the Vietnam War era vets were so badly mistreated. Here in Korea nearly all men must do military service, and a lot of them would've loved to have gotten pardoned from that duty. So, to me Ibraham was much more than a soldier. He was his mother's baby, his baby's father, his little sisters' brother, and of course his father's son. For those reasons he should be honored. That he was a soldier is important, but a fact beside the main point.

Ibraham Torres 1988-2013

International Migrants Day 2013

"There are 232 million people living outside their country of birth, including myself."~

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

Whether we choose to migrate, or it was imposed on us by other people, economics, climate change, or politics, we all deserve to live with dignity, in safety, and in peace. As a migrant across international borders, I especially urge both countries I have lived in to uphold the letter and spirit of the UN Declaration on International Migration.

Getting Documented

Migrating back  to Korea has given me firsthand experience with going through the documentation process. Because, even though I was born here, I am treated legally as a foreigner.  Just like in the US.

When I first arrived in Korea, I only had a tourist visa. I had to wait about a month to get my work visa. Without the work visa (or another valid resident visa) I was unable to get most things done. Foreigners in Korea need an Alien Registration Card (ARC). You can’t get one without a visa. Without the ARC I couldn’t get a cell phone. I couldn’t open a bank account. Because I didn’t have a phone, I couldn’t get anything delivered because the apartment building I lived in at that time had no door buzzer/intercom system (delivery men telephone recipients to open the door). I broke the cheap chair my apartment came with, but I couldn’t buy a new one at the first two stores I went to because they only display chairs. Then they order them for delivery to your house. I could use my US-issued credit card or ATM card to get cash, but I couldn’t get a credit card that would work with the Korean websites (and then there was the delivery issue again.)

Things are different in the US. There you can open bank accounts with a foreign passport and proof of address, like a bill. You can buy a phone and get an account without a bank account, credit card, or even ID. It’s not so difficult to spend money in the US.

All this and I should have an F4 visa which is for overseas Koreans. You have to prove that you gave up your Korean citizenship by showing an original naturalization certificate. When I left my adopter’s house back when I was 18, I didn’t take my certificate. I have a US Passport, which in my ignorable opinion, proves my US citizenship, but the government of the Republic of Korea doesn’t seem to agree with that logic.

Before I left the US (even before I got a job offer in ROK) I started the procedure to get a replacement certificate. I had no information about it. No certificate number, no date of issuance; I didn’t know which court swore me. I made an appointment at a USCIS service center in Suffolk County, NY. It would have been a 2-3 hour trip by subway, commuter train, and taxi, to ask what my “A” number was. That’s the file number that identifies you with USCIS, or their processor INS. I kept trying and got another appointment just 15 minutes away by subway. The agent there jotted it down on a notepad slip and handed my TWO A numbers to me. Plus the date that was on my naturalization certificate: 01/00/1980. Yes, that’s right January 00. Do you remember where you were on January 0, 1980?

I sent them the form and payment $345 and passport photos for the new certificate. They sent me a receipt for it and then I moved to Korea. I changed my address with them before I left. My friend who would be receiving the mail from them got a notice that I changed my address. Then I got a notice that they needed further documentation from me. I receive this notification via email. I didn’t know what kind of documentation they wanted. I waited. And waited. And called. And waited. They re-issued the letter and re-sent it. My friend received the letter, finally. They had sent the first letter to my address in New York after I received the change of address acknowledgement. Hrmph! They wanted proof that my name changed legally and they needed it 80 days after the first letter was issued. That gave me two weeks to get my marriage certificate, or an official copy, to them. Since I didn’t know how to get an official copy from Brooklyn to Korea to send to Texas, I just sent the original one to them via Korean express post and my Maine friend and USPS first class mail.

They acknowledged receipt and issued the decision that they will re-issue the certificate. I’m still waiting for the certificate. Hopefully in January 2014 I can apply for an F4 visa. To be continued…

PS People who were adopted away from the ROK can reclaim their citizenship, but that has advantages and disadvantages, particularly for adoptees. I probably will not be getting dual citizenship after getting an F4.

Returning Home

I haven't updated this blog in forever. There are thousands of "My Year-Long Teaching Adventure In the Land of the Morning Calm" blogs written by Americans and other foreigners. They gripe about the shower/bathrooms, lament about the scarcity of cheese, and make fun of the Engrish. There are scores of "Adoptees Return Home/Search/Reunite" blogs, too, so I'm not going to do any of those things. I have found Korea to be confounding in the practicalities, but easy to adjust to culturally, if you can divorce language from culture.

Since my last post I have returned to the country in which I was born. I'm no longer an immigrant, and again, I'm just part of a larger social trend. Korea is changing from a country of 'one blood' to a 'multicultural' one. Half of the children in the rural areas will be half (not fully) Korean soon. Migrants are coming from South and Southeast Asia to work on farms and in factories. There are Turkish entrepreneurs in Itaewon and West Africans selling the same stuff in the same way as in New York. There are the military personnel and contractors who live in the American bubble as they have since the middle of the last century. Then there are the English teachers and other westerners who are usually called 'ex-pats' rather than 'migrants.' Somewhere in this mix are the Koreans who come from the US, Australia, Europe, China, the former USSR and other countries as the children of emmigrants, refugees, settlers, and adoptees.

Although I'm not an immigrant anymore, I am here in Korea on a visa. I have no right to live and work here; I have to ask permission. To get that permission, I have to prove that I am a naturalized citizen of the US, the country to which I involuntarily immigrated. Ironically, though, in the US, I had a lot of privileges, while here I have very few: I am fortunate to look like a typical Korean person physically so I attract no unwanted attention in public. My other privileges include being a female-bodied straight woman, educated, earning a substantial income, speaking English with native fluency, and legal immigration status. I lack privilege because I am not a man, not thin, not married, not a mother, not rich, not a citizen, not a native Korean speaker, and not white.

Yes, one of the most difficult things about living in Korea is all the white men here. Because I'm living in Daejeon, not Seoul, I have only co-workers to socialize with, and at the university where I teach, more than 80% of the foreign professors are white men. In New York City, my friends and associates were mostly non-white. Being thrust back into white society is a culture shock I was not prepared for.

So, hopefully, after a long hiatus, I hope to be exploring the legalities of migrating to Korea; the non-Korean communities of migrants, especially in comparison to the ex-pat community; ex-diasporic Koreans; and the effects of colonialism and forced migration.

American Concentration Camps

This review was written in 2010, but this story about another concentration camp reminded me of the film, so I decided to post it here. 

I watched Passing Poston at the Brooklyn Public Library at 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon. The audience was small, about 25 people, including some people who were friends of the directors who were there to give a post-screening Q&A session, along with Dr. Gary Okihiro. About half of the audience was Asian or Asian American, and the rest of the people appeared to be white or Black.

The film raised several interesting points by interspersing recent interviews with former concentration camp residents, archival footage, and footage from the Indian reservation that was the site of the Poston Concentration Camp. The former residents of the camp had very different ways of reacting to their imprisonment: one woman was inspired by her experiences to produce visual art; another found her faith; and the only Japanese-American man in the film concluded that his Americaness was conditional. The representatives of the reservation where the camp had been situated saw the continuity of the disempowerment of minority groups by the U.S. government and although they did not speak about their individual responses, spoke of the benefits the Indians on the reservation gained as a result of camp residents’ work.

As the subject of concentration camps inevitably brings up comparisons with the more notoriously well-known Nazi camps employed during the Holocaust, I wondered why there were so few films about American concentration camps. I contemplated the disparity between the ubiquitousness of the Holocaust in Americans’ collective consciousness in contrast to the relative obscurity of American’s imprisonment of Japanese-Americans. I asked myself why the audience for a documentary like this was so small, yet films and lectures about the Holocaust I have attended had much larger audiences despite being in less accessible venues like the CUNY Graduate Center compared to the Brooklyn Public Library.

I asked the panel after the screening why this was the case, and offered the guess that Americans were reluctant to counter the myth of the benevolent U.S. government and of the infallibility of ‘Greatest Generation’ while the Nazis were iconic representatives of pure evil in American popular imagination. Director Joe Fox responded with the answer about a similar experience he has had getting the film distributed. He theorized that distributors assumed that the audience would be a small niche of Japanese Americans. Professor Okihiro forwarded that scholars have generally framed study of the era as an anomaly in American history and an interesting case of Constitutional law rather than as crime against humanity. This response led me to conclude that the publicity surrounding the concentration camps needs to be repackaged for it to enter into the American lexicon and become a touchstone just as the terms “Holocaust”, “Nazi”, “Jim Crow”, and “September 11th” have.

Trailer

As the subject of concentration camps inevitably brings up comparisons with the more notoriously well-known Nazi camps employed during the Holocaust, I wondered why there were so few films on this subject. I contemplated the disparity between the ubiquitousness of the Holocaust in Americans’ collective unconsciousness in contrast to the relative obscurity of American’s imprisonment of Japanese-Americans. I asked myself why the audience for a documentary like this was so small yet films and lectures about the Holocaust I have attended had much larger audiences despite being in less accessible venues like the

While waiting to suggest this to Professor Okihiro, a man approached me to suggest that the reason the concentration camps have failed to capture the attention of the public was that Americans are just generally ignorant of history. He supported this idea by saying that many Americans who “watch American Idol and not people like you and me, educated, who watch PBS, and read” confuse the Korean and Vietnam Wars. I countered that while the public may not be able to distinguish between the Gulf of Tonkin Incident and the Pusan Perimeter, everyone knows the word for the Nazi genocide of the Jews; a lot even know two: the Holocaust and the Shoah. (Shoah is Hebrew for conflagration and Stephen Spielberg’s foundation to preserve personal histories of the Holocaust is named “the Shoah Foundation”.) The man replied, “Well, maybe in New York.”

Professor Okihiro’s reply to my suggestion was that we should use the term 'concentration camp' rather than ;relocation center,' 'detention center,' or 'internment camp.' "Relocation" and "internment" were euphemisms meant to paint a more benign picture for the benefit of America and for the protection of Japanese-Americans against hostile non-Japanese Americans. A detention center is for prisoners or criminals. Since the idea was to collect and contain people, the most apt term is concentration camp, despite its current association with the Nazi camps which should more accurately be referred to as death camps. Clearly by this point in the review, it is obvious I have adopted this point of view.

Again and again, I am struck by the ruthlessness of American colonialism and its treatment of people that it subjects to its self-serving rules. Passing Poston clearly demonstrates once again that the government changes the rules at will, and calculates moves that justify conspiracy theorists' claims about the hidden motives behind seemingly valid or reasonable actions and explanations. While American Indians and US-born people of Japanese descent are both Americans, the government carefully executed an old plan, according to Professor Okihiro, to relocate West Coast Japanese, while simultaneously building up the infrastructure of the reservation in order to be able to later force other Indian tribes into the area. The colonization of Indian lands by Europeans is indisputable fact, but more Americans would dispute that the Japanese-Americans are colonized as well, since they migrated to the U.S. The parallel excuses, though, illustrate how similarly these two disparate groups threaten American interests and therefore were treated the same.

 “one day I went to bed American, and the next day I woke up an alien.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs that has ruled over the reservations since the mid-nineteenth century also claimed that they were protecting the Indians, civilizing them, and assimilating them. The Japanese Americans were likewise assimilated and taught about American freedoms, protected, and contained on the same land as the Indians. It is often argued now that Roosevelt wanted to provoke war with the Japanese and further American interests in the Pacific. The very reason that there was a significant Japanese population on the west coast and Hawai’i is that American corporations needed labor. Again the government exploited that labor to fulfill its own needs and schemes. Between the similar stories presented to the public about why it was necessary to move and confine Americans of Indian and Japanese ancestry, a clear colonial relationship can be drawn. A further comparison between the similarities of experiences is captured up by the Japanese-American man who said that “one day I went to bed American, and the next day I woke up an alien.” He stated this in front of a mostly Indian and Latino audience on the reservation in Arizona that Poston was situated on. The audience applauded, easily identifying with it, according to James Nubile who related the story to us.

Passing Poston draws the lines connecting Japanese Americans and American Indians as disempowered groups unfairly treated and compelled by the government to be relocated. The story is nearly unknown and needs to be publicized so that Americans can move beyond the myth of a benevolent government and honorable history (with small anomalies that can be discounted as exceptions in a generally good and progressive path) to ensure that such an injustice never be repeated. This may require coining a different term or reclaiming "concentration camp." Since the USA PATRIOT Act was passed, and the detainment of thousands of innocents on suspicion of terrorism, it is critical to preventing the need for future apologies and reparations.

Involuntary Adoptee Immigrant

I am not second generation.
I was torn from my mother land.
Whether abortion or miscarriage,
I was not born American.

Maybe torn from legs forced apart
Or broken hearts
Or a nation knuckling under
Or shameful nonbrides
maybe anything
but I am of another land.

I am an immigrant.
A wetback, a wanderer
an interloper, a foreigner
with skin too dark and hair too long
missing my native tongue
playing a two-sided drum
in New York

learning from other immigrants' stories of love,
and triumph, and pain, and anger, and service,
and fear and hope

Watching Star-spangled banners whipping in defiance
against the foreign threat.
Knowing I'm 'Other,'
a problem

I can't sing "God Bless America"
or pledge allegiance to a flag-- (What a strange idea!)
because I know with a pen stroke I would not be here, American.

it's not fate or love or justice or mercy that brought me here
it was a greedy industry and a fluke
I could have been Dutch, a Swede, a Kiwi.
So it's not so special
I'm an immigrant. American.
I am not second generation.

Intercountry Adoption: Orphan Rescue or Child Trafficking at Pepperdine University’s Law School

Intercountry Adoption: Orphan Rescue or Child Trafficking at Pepperdine University’s Law School

February 8-9, 2013

The two-day conference was held at a Christian university and reflected its hosts’ religious affiliation throughout. The opinions offered were setup to seem to opposing points of view, but were in reality they ranged from center to right-wing without really posing real challenges to the audience. The audience itself was mostly adoptive parents (who also were adoption professionals) with a small contingent of adoptees, some of whom were also adopters themselves. Other stake-holders who attended or spoke were policy makers from the Department of State and adoption practitioners. Everyone claimed to be concerned with the welfare of orphan children, but with differing ideas about how best to help them. That was the starting point. Natural families were not present nor represented.

It began with Elizabeth Bartholet against David Smolin in a plenary with the same title as the conference, “Orphan Rescue or Child Trafficking?” Despite her claim that she was the oppressed radical in the room during the first plenary session, Bartholet advocated for the most conventional and popular position: adoption saves poor orphans who are destined to languish unloved in institutions for their entire lives unless more married American heterosexual couples adopt them. Therefore, she argued, the system should be opened and liberated from regulation so more children could be saved. All the problems one hears about intercountry adoption, from loss of culture to scandals like the Artyom case, are really unimportant and happen so rarely (but are unfairly highlighted in the media) that they should not be allowed to stop ICA. Smolin, who presented first, argued that ICA is a system which must be reformed and preserved by regulation, transparency, and checks to cure it of the corruption, child-laundering, and exploitation due to the huge profits involved. As it is currently practiced, ICA is unsustainable, he argued. He also pointed out that some human rights are violated-- such as natural families’ rights to make decisions for their children. Finally he gently tried to point out that cultural arrogance can motivate people with good intentions to act unethically. Bartholet tried to paint Smolin as anti-adoption and part of the dominant voice in ICA, although he clearly is in favor of the practice, and is virtually the only prominent voice calling for more stringent regulation.

I wished a truly opposing voice were also heard in this debate. The real opposite of Bartholet’s mainstream view is not Smolin’s but that families are entitled to remain intact with a shared fate, regardless of the desires of outsiders, and despite their motives. I hoped that someone would point out that not only is ICA unsustainable in its current form, but also an unsustainable form of child welfare. Throughout the conference there were references to orphans, abandoned children, and poor/neglected/unwanted kids who needed families or whose parents “chose” adoption. No one talked about the role that colonialism, racism, capitalism, and (American-sanctioned) genocide has had in creating orphans and children living in dire circumstances, and what could be done to address these fundamental causes of children in need of families. Not one mention was made in the first presentation or in any of the sessions about how to prevent unwanted pregnancies through contraception or abortion, or how the US defunded family planning programs throughout the Global South during the Bush administration at the urging of right-wing Christians. Although Smolin hinted at women’s rights, the word “feminist” was not uttered.

And what about those families that children need? Those families better be two-parent heterosexual, legally married families. Grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles, adult siblings, none of them count as families. Children are regarded as orphans if one parent is unpresent (not dead, just not around). Although one panelist, Jenna Cook, bravely pointed out that her parents are a couple who are both women, the assumption was that only a conventional nuclear family was legitimate in all the other presentations. This was made very clear by Whitney Reitz who works on Capitol Hill. She told a story which was meant to pull on the heartstrings: A 16 year-old mother had “chosen” adoption for her son, but he was "trapped" in Guatemala because its ICA program was closed after rampant corruption was finally unignorable. Why did no one point out that the argument that the interest in child welfare ought to extend to the mother of the pre-adoptee as well as the boy? Is she not entitled to a blissful life in the USA as much as her son? After all, she's also still a child. As Sara Darrow points out, though, only small children and babies are desirable imports to the US (or Canada), not their older racialized families. No, the reality is that the concern for child welfare is an excuse to separate young children and babies from their families, raise them as Christians, and make them into Americans. That boy's mother would not be truly American; she would be an immigrant. And because adopted children are supposed to be considered the natural issue of their parents, they are not to be treated as immigrants. 

The fact that the adopted children have a personal and national history is irrelevant. The session regarding adoptees' documented US citizenship traced the reasoning behind the Child Citizenship Act authored by adopter Mclane Layton. Although some adoptees, including American Indian Natives like Leland Morril, aka Leland Kirk, pointed out adoptees' connections to their first families and how such logic is harmful, the proposed amendment to the CCA of 2000 is based on the jus saguinis argument. Although the majority of the conference was debating (or not debating in Whitney's case, which went completely unchallenged) philosophical points of view, this was one breakout session that could have concrete consequences. The other was also about citizenship rights and adoption, but of those rights as they pertain to children prior to adoption.  

Jennifer Kwon Dobbs presented on recognizing the citizenship of children, or rather not recognizing it in order to facilitate adoption. The North Korean Orphan Refugee Act ostensibly helps 'stateless' children of mixed Chinese and Korean descent living in Jilin Province, China. The justification for the Act is that these children are stateless and unprotected while in fact they are Chinese citizens. The NKORA is a legislative tool to make more children adoptable by not recognizing the citizenship that children have as sufficient or legitimate. The nature of citizenship was also examined by Kathleen Bergquist who drew the same parallels I have between DREAMers and intercountry adoptees, especially concerning the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. (It was good to see my thoughts and reasoning validated by Dr. Bergquist!) 

 Drs. Kwon and Bergquists' presentations were the last I attended. I skipped many of the other sessions since they just didn't appeal to me. After sitting through one particularly bad presentation, "Meeting Biological Family," that was presented like Christian testimony about coming to Jesus that proclaimed the righteousness of adoption, I could not stomach "How Religion Informs Adoption Law: A Christian Perspective" and "The Christian Intercountry Adoption Movement."  However, because Bert Ballard, a friend and adoptee who I respect spoke on "A Christian Perspective", I did listen to his critique of the adoption institution's relationship with Christians.He offered a good list of questions that they ought to ask themselves. I tuned out his predecessor on the program though, and watched Louis C.K. instead. It was a good decision on my part. 

Almost anything can be justified by Christianity or religion in general. Mix in adoption, and I have little patience. In fact, after seeing where the conference was, I bought a tshirt to wear just for the occasion. It reads, "Secular Humanism: Saving the World from Religion." While skipping out on the most emetic sessions, I wore it proudly around the strange Twilight Zone of Pepperdine U. It's a world in which students don't congregate to smoke cigarettes, there are no undergraduate hippies or punks, and everyone looks like they've just stepped out of a J. Crew or Benetton catalog. I can imagine these squeaky clean kids going on mission trips to Uganda to volunteer at orphanages and later adopting a dozen of them to "save" the orphans, discussing with each other their calling by Jesus, and growing up to be one of the people attending a future conference, asking the same non-questions. 

Food Sovereignty

Food Sovereignty Tours gave me the opportunity to learn about the agricultural and culinary history of Oaxaca from indigenous experts. Learning directly from a Zapotec professor, a local dairy farmer, and a community leader whose qualifications came solely from working the land, could never be equaled by reading book or in a classroom. Travel is education that should be accessible for everyone.

When I applied for the program, I was worried about the cost. It seemed so extravagant to spend so much on just two weeks. That was also two weeks and a day of work I had to give up, in addition to the tuition fee of the trip, and airfare from New York to Oaxaca. I decided to do it in lieu of a school program which would have also been in Mexico, and started fundraising. Part of the cost was covered by funds provided by the school where I’m studying public policy, and another portion was covered by Food First’s scholarship. It all worked out, and I got to spend one of my most memorable Christmases in the Sierra Norte in a temazcal.

My interest in Mexico comes from working with indigenous immigrants. Many students of the program where I work are from Oaxaca and neighboring Puebla. After visiting Mexico, I have a better understanding of the forces which have compelled so many to migrate from the south to the north. A big part of that story is that of the trade agreements between the US and Mexico, and the encroachment of the global business policies on food sovereignty.  It explains why some of these students whose mother tongues are Mixe, Mixteco, or Nahuatl are studying English as their third language as adults in New York City.

For me, one of the most profound points made during the trip was by the Zapotec professor of anthropology. He pointed out that organic food and GMOs are culturally important. The mainstream media never focuses this. Instead, they talk about environmental impact or nutrition, but these seem remote and abstract when we’re talking about daily survival. Sitting next to a lake in Benito Juarez’s hometown, and hearing how invasive strains of corn are endangering cultural practices, made the matter one of containing the attempt at cultural genocide that the people have been resisting for 500 years. He was able to link indigenous food sovereignty and cultural preservation because he is a part of that culture.

While there are many reasons that food sovereignty is an important issue, none have resonated with me as much. As an immigrant to the US, and as someone who is very sensitive to the value of lost language and culture since I lost both, Professor Ramos’ point made the entire trip and issue more relevant for me. If I hadn’t traveled to Mexico, I never would have heard this point. As a result, while continuing to work with indigenous immigrants, the fight for food sovereignty has become mine as well. It is a part of their struggle for empowerment and social justice both here in the US and in Mexico.

Well, no wonder!

While doing some research about the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 and it's author, McLane Layton, I found Equality for Adopted Children which is the organization that McLane is the founder and president of. Her bio page says,

It was during the adoption process that McLane began her quest for equal citizenship rights for internationally adopted children. In 1995, as she was going through the adoption process, she discovered that her children would not be automatic U.S. citizens even though both she and Rusty were U.S. citizens. “Every time I would sit down to fill out my children’s naturalization paperwork, I would get offended,” she recalls. It was not right that her children needed to be naturalized. They were not immigrants, but children of American citizens!

Really, I'm not surprised. This is just one more way that adopters try to make believe that the children they adopted are "natural issue" of their bodies, with no history before being adopted. But, it shows why so many adoptees refuse to believe they are immigrants; their adopters tell them they're not!

Infuriating!

PS Notice, too, that the offense is about the adopter, not the child.

Exceptionalism Revisited

I'm glad that the issue about adopted people being deported is being discussed more, but I really hate the rhetoric around the issue focusing on 'legal' or adoptee exceptionalism. Making exceptions for adoptees or for certain other involuntary immigrants like DREAMers, isn't the answer. We need a comprehensive change in the immigration and citizenship laws that reflect justice and human rights.

In this entry from Land of a Gazillion Adoptees, this quote really bothers me:

 “I would say that the US should change and amend the Child Citizenship Act of 2000 and make citizenship retroactive for all foreign born adoptees, regardless of age.  We adoptees never asked to be adopted and sent to the US.  However, since we had no choice and we were brought to the US legally by US citizens, then we should all be granted the same rights as biological children.” — Matthew Scherer, 3/4/2012

Why is this the argument? Whether you were brought to the US legally or not, or adopted by US citizens or not should be entirely beside the point. It's only by chance, random chance, that adoptees were brought to the US and not another country. It's random who gets chosen to stay in Korea and who is imported into the US. It's political decision who the US says is worthy and eligible for citizenship, visas, asylum,  refugee status, and who is not.

Furthermore, those decisions are far from just and fair. I have said this many times, but legal does not equal moral. The moral reason for allowing adoptees and other unwilling immigrants to remain in the US are:

1. We are culturally American
2. We had no choice about our immigration 
3. Most of us have no ties, no support system in our birth countries now and few resources to survive there, including a lack of language skills
4. The US created, facilitated, and encourage people from our countries to come to the US through legal and extra-legal means
5. The US has colonized our countries and exploits them for natural resources, including labor and adoptable children
6. In the case of adopted adults, there was an implicit agreement that we would be at least minimally taken care of in our new country by the adoption system which includes the various agencies and adoptive parents. 

So, while I appreciate the support that we are beginning to get from Korea and other sending countries for automatic retroactive US citizenship, I think we should aim higher and advocate for justice for all immigrants because adoptees aren't exceptional.

MARKET WATCH: Adoption IPO

Well, not quite, but today the opening bell at the NASDAQ was rung by representatives from the National Council for Adoption. 

I guess as the 'authoritative voice for adoption' they are acknowledging the adoption industry is indeed controlled by market dynamics of supply and demand. How nice to finally some honesty from the self-appointed experts! 

Soon we may just see a return to literally putting children up for adoption and having outright bidding on orphans again. Of course, this being the NASDAQ, the auction would probably be on EBay.

The National Council For Adoption to Ring The NASDAQ Stock Market Opening Bell

ADVISORY, Feb 29, 2012 (GlobeNewswire via COMTEX) What: The National Council For Adoption, an adoption advocacy non-profit that serves children, birthparents, and adoptive families as the authoritative voice for adoption, will visit the NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City's Times Square. In honor of the occasion, Chuck Johnson, President and CEO, Lauren Koch, Director of Development and Communications, and Donna D. Conway, Board Member of the National Council For Adoption, will ring the Opening Bell.

Some more numbers: International Adoptees and African slaves

Some adoptees assert that intercountry adoption is the largest migration of unwilling immigrants since the transatlantic slave trade. In fact, that premise gave me the idea for this blog. 

The numbers are comparable: About 500,000 Africans were brought to the U.S.* (and the colonies that would become the US). If we accept that this website is correct, from 1970 to 1999, then 265,677 people were brought to the US for adoption. Then, to bring the numbers to include the boom years of 1999 to 2011 another 233,934 must be added, for a total of 499, 611. Now, if 1999 is included twice since we’re combining sources here, then we have to subtract 15,719 (all of these figures are from the State Department) we’re down to 483,892. But, of course, intercountry adoption in its current form started in 1954, which these numbers don’t capture. Additionally, some of these adoptions were not intercountry adoptions in the sense that most think of; they were relative adoptions. So, if we take out the relative adoptions, but add in the adoptions before 1970, I estimate we would still be in the same ballpark as 500,000. 

Now, of course the numbers of Africans who were brought to the US does not include the great number of humans who were captured but died on their way to the western hemisphere. It also should be noted, too, that the transatlantic slave trade to the US existed from 1675 to 1866, about 200 years. Intercountry adoption in its current form has been around for just about 55 years.

I’m not arguing that the experience of Black slavery is comparable to what intercountry adoptees experience. I'm just pointing out that the two groups are similar in two ways: we are unwilling immigrants (forced migrants) and we have similar numbers, currently. Adoptees will mostly likely soon surpass the number African slaves who were brought to the US. Interestingly, the source of the post-500,000 will also come from Africa, at least in part. 

Will adoptees also impact the demographics of the US in the same way that Black slavery has? 

*This website, however shows 305,326 Africans slaves coming to the US.

Our families cannot come to the USA

Most families separated by adoption are never reunited. The few that are are reunited customarily verify their relationship with a DNA test. Usually adoptees travel to their motherlands to search for, visit, and find their families. Their families usually have no legal way to even visit their daughters and sons in the US because obtaining a tourist visa is nearly impossible, as is being granted an immigration visa because we are no longer legal relatives of our natural families.

We adoptees cannot sponsor our DNA test-proven relatives for immigration. We cannot have our long-lost parents visit to attend our weddings, graduations, or births of their grandchildren. The US-CIS says we're not family. Not immediate relatives. We are denied our right to reunite our families although adopters are constantly given special consideration and insist on special privileges for 'their' [adopted] children. Men are allowed to sponsor their not-yet related fiancées from mail order bride catalogs, adopters sponsor their not-yet related babies, but adoptees cannot sponsor their parents or their siblings. How is this logical? just? legal?

Before 1965 it was nearly impossible for Asians to legally enter the US due to the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Gentleman's Agreement. (*The US Border Patrol was established to keep Chinese people from crossing the US-Mexican border.) The Civil Rights movement inspired change in the immigration laws that abolished blatantly racist policies that only allowed immigration from northern and western Europe, to one that was flawed but somewhat fairer. Quotas still limit immigration from many countries, so people who want to immigrate from them can only can do so if they have relatives sponsor them.

Even visitors from countries that source international adoption are mostly excluded. To secure a tourist visa, one must prove sufficient ties to the home country (job, owning a business and/or a house), adequate money to visit without working (and to not be working during the visit in the home country), and pay high application fees without any guarantee of those applications being approved. This is usually impossible for people from China, Guatemala, Central and South America, Eastern Europe, and until 2008, Korea. (The Republic of Korea, aka South Korea, is now part of the Visa Waiver program which allows visits of up to 90 days without a visa for tourism or business reasons. All of the countries in the program are rich, and produce low numbers of perceived visa-overstays or other irregular immigrants.)

Adoption cuts all legal ties between the adoptees and their natural families. Because adoption is a zero-sum game, we must lose one family if we are to gain another. Sometimes (rarely) families separated by adoption are reunited. Usually this happens after years in the US., after names, identities, histories, records, and citizenship have been changed. Once DNA tests establish an undeniable relationship between child and parent or between brother and sister, we still are separated by miles, language, customs, and laws. While distance and culture are formidable barriers, it is only the law that is insurmountable and unjust.

US Citizens and permanent residents are allowed to sponsor immediate relatives and fiancé(es) to immigrate. In the US, an immediate relative is a parent, sibling (does not specify full/step/half), spouse, and of course, child. In fact, adoptees are permitted to immigrate to the US as immediate relatives of their adopters, despite most not being finalized adoptions, therefore not legal relatives of the parent(s) sponsoring their immigration, on IR visas. The reverse right is not afforded to adoptees' natural families.

*From Customs and Border Patrol's website: "Although these inspectors had broader arrest authority, they still largely pursued Chinese immigrants trying to avoid the Chinese exclusion laws."

International Migrants Day December 18

To all who left their home countries, peace.

http://www.un.org/en/events/migrantsday/

"When their rights are violated, when they are marginalized and excluded, migrants will be unable to contribute either economically or socially to the societies they have left behind or those they enter. However, when supported by the right policies and human rights protections, migration can be a force for good for individuals as well as for countries of origin, transit and destination. "

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
Message for International Migrants Day
18 December 2011

As the sun sets, hundreds of refugees from Libya line up for food at a transit camp near the Tunisia-Libya border. More than three quarters of a million people became refugees, following upheaval and conflict in Africa and the Middle East.
UN Photo/OCHA/David Ohana

On 4 December 2000, the UN General Assembly, taking into account the large and increasing number of migrants in the world, proclaimed 18 December as International Migrants Day. On 18 December 1990, the General Assembly had adopted the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families.

UN Member States and intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations are invited to observe International Migrants Day through the dissemination of information on the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants, and through the sharing of experiences and the design of actions to ensure their protection.

The 132 Member States that participated in the General Assembly's High-level Dialogue on International Migration and Development on 14-15 September 2006 reaffirmed a number of key messages. First, they underscored that international migration was a growing phenomenon and that it could make a positive contribution to development in countries of origin and countries of destination provided it was supported by the right policies. Secondly, they emphasized that respect for the fundamental rights and freedoms of all migrants was essential to reap the benefits of international migration. Thirdly, they recognized the importance of strengthening international cooperation on international migration bilaterally, regionally and globally.