Out of Place

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Sunah M. Laybourn shows how Korean adoptees reconcile numerous citizenship and ethnic and racial membership requirements and actively redefine belonging individually and socially.

Image courtesy of interviewee. January 30, 2024

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This video video discusses the author's journey and motivations behind writing their book, "Out of Place," which explores the lives of Korean adoptee immigrants. The author, a Korean adoptee immigrant themselves, reflects on their feelings of isolation while growing up in Memphis, where they lacked connections to other adoptee or Asian American communities. This video video personal experience shaped their research and writing, leading them to question their own identity and belonging.

The book incorporates various sociological methods, including interviews, participant observations, and surveys, to provide a nuanced representation of the experiences of Korean adoptees. It examines the historical context of Korean adoption in the United States, beginning post-Korean War, and discusses the racial dynamics involved, including how white adoptive families often perceived their Korean children as racially flexible or benign.

The author argues that love alone does not suffice for the complexities of race and identity in interracial families. They highlight how many adoptees grapple with their racial and cultural identities, especially when confronted with their adoptive parents’ possibly racist attitudes toward other Asians.

Key takeaways from the text include the need to expand definitions of belonging and to appreciate adoptees as complex individuals, not merely as children who never grow up. The work aims to illuminate the adult experiences of adoptees and their efforts to build community among themselves. Ultimately, the book challenges readers to rethink traditional views of race, family, and identity in a multicultural context.

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With this book in particular,

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it's not that I had a choice.

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You know, sometimes as researchers we set out

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with a particular question in mind and,

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and we are pursuing that topic.

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But in many ways, this topic

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and this research really pursued me.

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Um, the book is out of place, the lives

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of Korean adoptee immigrants,

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and I myself am a Korean adoptee immigrant.

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And so while the book isn't an autobiography

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and it's not a memoir, it is still my experience

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because my experience is part of

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and patterned by the experiences

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of other Korean adoptees as well.

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And so for me, it was

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partly a journey into my own story, into understanding,

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you know, are there people like me out there?

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Um, of course we know that there are over 150,000 Korean

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adoptees in the us so there are certainly thousands

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of other adoptees just like me,

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if we're only talking about Korean transnational adoptees.

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But for me, growing up in Memphis, I wasn't connected

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to a Korean adoptee community or an adoptee community.

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So there was a big feeling of,

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is there anyone else out there like me?

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And I think that's a common feeling for all of us, right?

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As humans, we wanna know, are people like me?

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Where's my community?

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And so that's really

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what motivated the book at its origins was my own questions

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about myself and how I fit into the world around me.

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And then of course, as I pursued graduate studies

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and got more of a sociological training, then the shape

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of those questions changed over time.

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But the original impetus was, again,

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just questioning my own place in the world.

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I felt isolated as an adopted person

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because like I said, I didn't know any other adoptees.

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And throughout our US history, there have been, you know,

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silence and shame around adoption.

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So that's not an uncommon feeling.

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And then I also felt quite isolated as an Asian American

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because in Memphis, our Asian American population,

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when I was growing up with less than 1%,

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and again, a common experience among Korean, transnational,

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transracial adoptees,

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largely adopted into white families, into white communities,

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oftentimes not being connected to other Asian Americans,

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not connected to other Korean Americans in particular,

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not connected to other immigrant communities.

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And so for me, there were multiple layers of learning about,

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okay, where is my place in this world?

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And how do I kind of figure out not just personal identity,

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but also these social identities, these group identities?

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When it seemed like, okay, where, where is my group?

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Sociology is all about understanding the world we live in

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all about understanding groups.

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And sociology really gave me the language

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and the, the tools to start to dig into these questions.

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And as an undergrad, I really thought,

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sociology has all the answers.

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Of course it does not.

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But it gave me a good foundation to start analyzing

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what was happening around me.

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And again, that language

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and skillset to really investigate further.

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I could not thank sociology enough.

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Um, it was really getting to all the questions I had about,

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okay, why, why is my neighborhood like this?

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Or why are there different social

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institutions I'm encountering?

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Why are they set up in this way?

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And then of course, from a sociological perspective,

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social, psychological questions around identity

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and community and, and belonging as well.

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So for this book, I used a few different methods

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because I wanted a really well-rounded explanation

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of the social processes that I was seeing.

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So I talked to adoptees, both formal interviews

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and informal conversations.

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I also conducted participant observation

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with Korean adoptee groups across the US and also in Korea.

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And then I also had an online survey so

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that I could capture the voices

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and experiences of more adoptees.

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And so those are some of the methods that I use.

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And then in addition,

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because the book is also talking about media

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representations, I looked at different Korean

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adoptee created media.

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And because the book is also focusing on the Adoptee

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Citizenship Act

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and advocacy, then I was also looking at these different

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versions of the legislation.

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And then I was also looking at

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how different elected officials were thinking about talking

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about and representing themselves

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and their interests

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with supporting the Adoptee citizenship Act.

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So I really wanted to be able to draw from a variety

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of different data points in order

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to provide a very nuanced representation

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of the adoptee experience.

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So when we think about Korean adoption to the United States,

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it's a very unique, unique case of adoption.

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Korean adoption starts in the 1950s after the Korean War,

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and really in response to the Korean War.

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And so if we think back to that time period in US history,

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transracial adoption isn't really happening.

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Um, we do have some instances of it, of course,

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but as an institutionalized systematic adoption

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practice, particularly international adoption

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is not in existence yet.

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So when Korean adoption begins, this is very new,

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this is also very groundbreaking and also rule bending

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because in this instance, we have white families,

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primarily white families adopting children

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who are not white, right?

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And so there's also this transgression

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of the, the race line.

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Um, and so this is happening also at a time when in America

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we have very strong anti-Asian attitudes,

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anti-Asian legislation.

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So it becomes a curious question of

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how are white American families making sense

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of adopting Korean children into their families?

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And we see a lot of different mental gymnastics

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to make sense of this.

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So the United States government is framing Korean children

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as these orphans that are in need in re in need of rescue.

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We also see Korean adoption being framed as a way, for

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American couples, white American couples

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to display their patriotism.

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So there's this idea that Korean children are susceptible

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to being communists.

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And again, thinking about that timeframe

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of when Korean adoption is beginning,

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there is this very strong attitude towards we have

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to combat the evils of communism.

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So all of this is happening in the earliest years,

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earliest decades of Korean adoption.

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And we see that Korean children are being framed as

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that they're raised kind of is negligible,

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that they can assimilate, that it will be easy

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for white families to raise Korean children,

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that you won't have to think about their race

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or you won't have to think about their ethnicity.

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And so this is really laying the framework

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for Korean adoption in particular, which becomes a first

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institutionalized international adoption

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or adoption program to the United States.

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So we have these ideas about Korean children as being,

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you know, racially benign, racially flexible,

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and that they will assimilate.

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And the assumption is that you can just treat Korean

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children as if their race and culture won't matter.

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And that's really the foundation

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and framework that Korean children continue

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to be adopted under even for decades

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after that, even though I'm experiencing my adoption as,

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you know, an individual Korean adoptee,

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what we see throughout the United States also throughout

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time, and what I find in the research is

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that Korean adoptees are having these same experiences

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of being raised regardless

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of if they're being adopted in the sixties, seventies,

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eighties, even in the nineties, where their parents, again,

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primarily white adoptive parents, are treating them

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as if their race doesn't matter, as if it won't matter

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that the world perceives them as Asian,

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and that Asian is being constructed as being different.

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And that was certainly my experience as well.

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Um, you know, parents, they adopt

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and they think that love is going to be enough.

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And I think that's a beautiful sentiment,

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but we do live in a racialized society.

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So race does matter.

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And while love is very important, it's not enough on its own

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to prepare children for what they're going

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to experience out in the world,

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but also often in their own homes, right?

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Uh, families are not exempt from having racialized ideas

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and beliefs and even racist ideas and beliefs.

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And so in the book, I also share experiences of adoptees

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who are wrestling with understanding

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that their parents love them,

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but their parents also hold racist attitudes

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and beliefs about other Asian Americans, about other,

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racialized minorities.

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And so in the book, I'm able to share some

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of those experiences

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and really interrogate, all right, how does this form

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of family making both expand ideas of race,

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but also play within the lines

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of these traditional beliefs about differences

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between racial groups

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and of course about also that those differences are bad

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because Korean adoptees are again, primarily being adopted

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by white families, though not exclusively,

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but generally that is the trend.

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Um, some of my, adoptees that I spoke with,

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they talked about these moments when their adoptive parents

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were talking very negatively about Asian Americans,

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as if, you know, they themselves weren't Asian American,

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as if they hadn't adopted an Asian American

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child into their family.

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And so you hear the voices of the adoptees that I spoke

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with really questioning, okay, am I one of them, right?

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An Asian American, someone who's other than

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and seemingly separate from what it means to be family,

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or am I white?

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How am I making sense of my belonging?

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And that's one of the main questions of the book is

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how are you making sense of ideas of family when we have

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interracial families,

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but also these longstanding ideas

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that family members must share racial group membership.

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And so that's what's what adoptees

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and their, adoptive family members are bumping up

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against these conflicting ideas that say, all right,

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to be a family, that means you have shared blood

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and that means shared race, right?

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This very essentialist view of race and family,

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but yet here are Korean children in white families.

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So what does that then mean?

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Are we able to change the way we think of family?

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Are we able to change the way we think of race?

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Or are we still trying to hold these conflicting views

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to together simultaneously after reading out of place?

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What I hope readers take from this book is understanding

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that we have to expand what it means to belong,

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and we have to really interrogate within ourselves the

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limited views of both race, family,

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citizenship, and belonging.

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Also, the other key point that I'd love for readers

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to be able to take away from out of place is understanding

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that adoptees aren't just children.

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That's a very common view,

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that adoptees are these cute innocent children

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and then somehow they never grow up.

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Or if they grow up, they don't matter anymore.

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And this book is about the experiences of adult adoptees

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and how adult adoptees are coming

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to understand their own sense of place

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and space in Bel in belonging,

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and very importantly, building community among one another.

Exploring Identity and Community as Adoptees

00:00:00 - With this book in particular, it's not that I had a choice. You know, sometimes as researchers we set out with a particular question in mind and, and we are pursuing that topic. But in many ways, this topic and this research really pursued me. the book is out of place, the lives of Korean adoptee immigrants, and I myself am a Korean adoptee immigrant. And so while the book isn't an autobiography and it's not a memoir, it is still my experience
00:00:33 - and patterned by the experiences of other Korean adoptees as well. And so for me, it was partly a journey into my own story, into understanding, you know, are there people like me out there? of course we know that there are over 150,000 Korean adoptees in the us so there are certainly thousands of other adoptees just like me, if we're only talking about Korean transnational adoptees.
00:01:05 - to a Korean adoptee community or an adoptee community. So there was a big feeling of, is there anyone else out there like me? And I think that's a common feeling for all of us, right? As humans, we wanna know, are people like me? Where's my community? And so that's really what motivated the book at its origins was my own questions about myself and how I fit into the world around me. And then of course, as I pursued graduate studies
00:01:37 - of those questions changed over time. But the original impetus was, again, just questioning my own place in the world. I felt isolated as an adopted person because like I said, I didn't know any other adoptees. And throughout our US history, there have been, you know, silence and shame around adoption. So that's not an uncommon feeling. And then I also felt quite isolated as an Asian American because in Memphis, our Asian American population,
00:02:07 - and again, a common experience among Korean, transnational, transracial adoptees, largely adopted into white families, into white communities, oftentimes not being connected to other Asian Americans, not connected to other Korean Americans in particular, not connected to other immigrant communities. And so for me, there were multiple layers of learning about, okay, where is my place in this world? And how do I kind of figure out not just personal identity,
00:02:38 - When it seemed like, okay, where, where is my group? Sociology is all about understanding the world we live in all about understanding groups. And sociology really gave me the language and the, the tools to start to dig into these questions. And as an undergrad, I really thought, sociology has all the answers. Of course it does not. But it gave me a good foundation to start analyzing what was happening around me.

Sociological Insights on Korean Adoption Experiences

00:03:09 - and skillset to really investigate further. I could not thank sociology enough. it was really getting to all the questions I had about, okay, why, why is my neighborhood like this? Or why are there different social institutions I'm encountering? Why are they set up in this way? And then of course, from a sociological perspective, social, psychological questions around identity and community and, and belonging as well. So for this book, I used a few different methods because I wanted a really well-rounded explanation
00:03:43 - So I talked to adoptees, both formal interviews and informal conversations. I also conducted participant observation with Korean adoptee groups across the US and also in Korea. And then I also had an online survey so that I could capture the voices and experiences of more adoptees. And so those are some of the methods that I use. And then in addition, because the book is also talking about media representations, I looked at different Korean
00:04:13 - And because the book is also focusing on the Adoptee Citizenship Act and advocacy, then I was also looking at these different versions of the legislation. And then I was also looking at how different elected officials were thinking about talking about and representing themselves and their interests with supporting the Adoptee citizenship Act. So I really wanted to be able to draw from a variety of different data points in order to provide a very nuanced representation of the adoptee experience.
00:04:45 - it's a very unique, unique case of adoption. Korean adoption starts in the 1950s after the Korean War, and really in response to the Korean War. And so if we think back to that time period in US history, transracial adoption isn't really happening. we do have some instances of it, of course, but as an institutionalized systematic adoption practice, particularly international adoption
00:05:14 - So when Korean adoption begins, this is very new, this is also very groundbreaking and also rule bending because in this instance, we have white families, primarily white families adopting children who are not white, right? And so there's also this transgression of the, the race line. and so this is happening also at a time when in America we have very strong anti-Asian attitudes, anti-Asian legislation. So it becomes a curious question of
00:05:46 - of adopting Korean children into their families? And we see a lot of different mental gymnastics to make sense of this. So the United States government is framing Korean children as these orphans that are in need in re in need of rescue. We also see Korean adoption being framed as a way, for American couples, white American couples to display their patriotism. So there's this idea that Korean children are susceptible

Exploring Korean Adoption and Racial Dynamics

00:06:15 - And again, thinking about that timeframe of when Korean adoption is beginning, there is this very strong attitude towards we have to combat the evils of communism. So all of this is happening in the earliest years, earliest decades of Korean adoption. And we see that Korean children are being framed as that they're raised kind of is negligible, that they can assimilate, that it will be easy for white families to raise Korean children, that you won't have to think about their race or you won't have to think about their ethnicity.
00:06:47 - for Korean adoption in particular, which becomes a first institutionalized international adoption or adoption program to the United States. So we have these ideas about Korean children as being, you know, racially benign, racially flexible, and that they will assimilate. And the assumption is that you can just treat Korean children as if their race and culture won't matter. And that's really the foundation and framework that Korean children continue to be adopted under even for decades
00:07:20 - you know, an individual Korean adoptee, what we see throughout the United States also throughout time, and what I find in the research is that Korean adoptees are having these same experiences of being raised regardless of if they're being adopted in the sixties, seventies, eighties, even in the nineties, where their parents, again, primarily white adoptive parents, are treating them as if their race doesn't matter, as if it won't matter that the world perceives them as Asian,
00:07:52 - And that was certainly my experience as well. you know, parents, they adopt and they think that love is going to be enough. And I think that's a beautiful sentiment, but we do live in a racialized society. So race does matter. And while love is very important, it's not enough on its own to prepare children for what they're going to experience out in the world, but also often in their own homes, right? families are not exempt from having racialized ideas
00:08:23 - And so in the book, I also share experiences of adoptees who are wrestling with understanding that their parents love them, but their parents also hold racist attitudes and beliefs about other Asian Americans, about other, racialized minorities. And so in the book, I'm able to share some of those experiences and really interrogate, all right, how does this form of family making both expand ideas of race, but also play within the lines of these traditional beliefs about differences
00:08:54 - and of course about also that those differences are bad because Korean adoptees are again, primarily being adopted by white families, though not exclusively, but generally that is the trend. some of my, adoptees that I spoke with, they talked about these moments when their adoptive parents were talking very negatively about Asian Americans, as if, you know, they themselves weren't Asian American, as if they hadn't adopted an Asian American child into their family. And so you hear the voices of the adoptees that I spoke

Redefining Family and Belonging in Adoption

00:09:30 - An Asian American, someone who's other than and seemingly separate from what it means to be family, or am I white? How am I making sense of my belonging? And that's one of the main questions of the book is how are you making sense of ideas of family when we have interracial families, but also these longstanding ideas that family members must share racial group membership.
00:10:00 - and their, adoptive family members are bumping up against these conflicting ideas that say, all right, to be a family, that means you have shared blood and that means shared race, right? This very essentialist view of race and family, but yet here are Korean children in white families. So what does that then mean? Are we able to change the way we think of family? Are we able to change the way we think of race? Or are we still trying to hold these conflicting views to together simultaneously after reading out of place?
00:10:31 - that we have to expand what it means to belong, and we have to really interrogate within ourselves the limited views of both race, family, citizenship, and belonging. Also, the other key point that I'd love for readers to be able to take away from out of place is understanding that adoptees aren't just children. That's a very common view, that adoptees are these cute innocent children and then somehow they never grow up.
00:11:13 - And this book is about the experiences of adult adoptees and how adult adoptees are coming to understand their own sense of place and space in Bel in belonging, and very importantly, building community among one another.

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