Read more stories here.
Seeking Adoption Justice
Yong Chan Miller, Generative Fellowship alum
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 24, 2015)
(This story originally appeared on the CoreAlign blog, Feb. 24, 2015)
Seven years ago, I stood in the yard of Heemang Orphanage looking out over the fields that surround it, watching the crops gently swaying in the wind, and wondered what the hell I was doing there. I had just traveled several hours from Seoul with a social worker from the agency that handled my adoption, and a couple of friends. I had left them all in the office while I came out for some air. I’m not sure what I expected when I returned to the orphanage where I lived before I was adopted, but I know I wanted more than the single entry in a huge leather binder recording hundreds and hundreds of children’s lives in 1 or 2 incomplete sentences and this blankness. If there was ever a time to cry, now was it, and I couldn’t even muster up one lousy tear.
I was just empty.
When I came back to the States, after I gained some inner peace – and yes, there were finally tears, lots and lots of messy tears – I turned away from my own personal story of adoption and started thinking about the story of adoption. It is a story about love and loss, unification and separation, war and militarism, choices and non-choices, lies and truths, suffering and joy, race and class, colonialism and imperialism, capitalism and profits, social services and charity, power and privilege, stigma and poverty, immigration and citizenship, reproduction and religion, desperation and hope. And because of that, each of our stories is also a political story, a personal reflection of the historical seen and unseen intersecting forces that govern the destiny of our world’s children. There is a lot of excellent scholarship about these intersections and critique about transnational/transracial adoption, and it forms a solid base for activism and policy change. So I looked for a movement home for these issues.
I came up empty.
Progressive social movements have largely ignored transnational/transracial adoption despite its broad implications for economic, racial, and reproductive justice. The reproductive justice movement is the right home for us. It makes sense logically, and I also feel that rightness in my gut. Yet, we’ve ceded adoption to the religious right and allowed a singular perspective from some adoptive parents to shape the dominant narrative. We need new ways to think about adoption. Which is exactly what the Generative Fellowship is designed for.
Throughout the fellowship, I talked with lots of people and had lots of ideas, many of which were considered, then discarded, and then sometimes picked back up again. But no matter what, I continued to circle back to the same question of, “What does justice look like?” This is the question we need to answer, and the answers are what we need to fight for.
The question of justice is a something we all struggle with. Is there such a thing as universal justice? When I reflect on my own personal story, what I consider justice for myself may be in direct conflict with my adoptive parents’ idea of justice. And it’s even harder for me to speculate what justice might be for my birth parents/first family. Additional complications are added by way of social conditions and political forces. Efforts towards justice must be able to hold and address this complexity and yet, when we think about who should be at the center, it almost becomes simple. Adoptive parents should not be at the center. And not even adult adoptees should be at the center.
One of the three tenets of reproductive justice is: the ability to raise the children we have with dignity. In remembering this, I am reminded about who should be at the center and where our struggle for justice must begin.
Adoption Justice. It’s time to fill up.
Yong Chan Miller is a transnational and transracial adoptee social justice activist working at the intersections of racial, economic and reproductive justice.
I was just empty.
When I came back to the States, after I gained some inner peace – and yes, there were finally tears, lots and lots of messy tears – I turned away from my own personal story of adoption and started thinking about the story of adoption. It is a story about love and loss, unification and separation, war and militarism, choices and non-choices, lies and truths, suffering and joy, race and class, colonialism and imperialism, capitalism and profits, social services and charity, power and privilege, stigma and poverty, immigration and citizenship, reproduction and religion, desperation and hope. And because of that, each of our stories is also a political story, a personal reflection of the historical seen and unseen intersecting forces that govern the destiny of our world’s children. There is a lot of excellent scholarship about these intersections and critique about transnational/transracial adoption, and it forms a solid base for activism and policy change. So I looked for a movement home for these issues.
I came up empty.
Progressive social movements have largely ignored transnational/transracial adoption despite its broad implications for economic, racial, and reproductive justice. The reproductive justice movement is the right home for us. It makes sense logically, and I also feel that rightness in my gut. Yet, we’ve ceded adoption to the religious right and allowed a singular perspective from some adoptive parents to shape the dominant narrative. We need new ways to think about adoption. Which is exactly what the Generative Fellowship is designed for.
Throughout the fellowship, I talked with lots of people and had lots of ideas, many of which were considered, then discarded, and then sometimes picked back up again. But no matter what, I continued to circle back to the same question of, “What does justice look like?” This is the question we need to answer, and the answers are what we need to fight for.
The question of justice is a something we all struggle with. Is there such a thing as universal justice? When I reflect on my own personal story, what I consider justice for myself may be in direct conflict with my adoptive parents’ idea of justice. And it’s even harder for me to speculate what justice might be for my birth parents/first family. Additional complications are added by way of social conditions and political forces. Efforts towards justice must be able to hold and address this complexity and yet, when we think about who should be at the center, it almost becomes simple. Adoptive parents should not be at the center. And not even adult adoptees should be at the center.
One of the three tenets of reproductive justice is: the ability to raise the children we have with dignity. In remembering this, I am reminded about who should be at the center and where our struggle for justice must begin.
Adoption Justice. It’s time to fill up.
Yong Chan Miller is a transnational and transracial adoptee social justice activist working at the intersections of racial, economic and reproductive justice.
