JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
For the first time, the South Korean government is admitting that for decades the country's adoption agencies were responsible for widespread fraud, malpractice and even human rights abuses. A Truth and Reconciliation Commission released their initial findings after a years-long investigation into the cases of hundreds of adoptees who were sent to live with families abroad. That report confirms what many of those adoptees, including filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem, already knew - that they were lied to about who they are. Liem submitted her own case to the commission for review and has also made multiple films about Korean adoptions. Deann, thank you for joining us.
DEANN BORSHAY LIEM: Thank you for having me.
SUMMERS: I want to start, if we can, by just asking you to tell us a little bit about your own adoption experience. At what point did you start to suspect that things weren't what they seemed to be?
LIEM: I was adopted in 1966 at the age of 8 and was adopted by an American family in California, grew up in Fremont, California. And it wasn't really until college that I started having flashbacks of my life in Korea, these brief images of a little home in the hills, scenes from an orphanage. You know, children running around, shoes on a rack. Those kinds of images. And at first, I thought they were dreams, but then I realized that maybe they were actual memories.
And so I asked my adoptive mother if I could have my adoption records. And as I looked through them, I discovered that there were two pictures, one that was of me and one that was of another girl. And yet on the back of both pictures was the same name, the name that I was adopted with, which was Cha Jung Hee. It was just a transformative moment in my life to know that I had been switched with another child - my adoptive parents knew nothing about it - and that it took, you know, all these years to kind of come to terms with the truth.
SUMMERS: I'm wondering what you can tell us, based on your own experience and the experience of other Korean adoptees that you have spoken with, about how the turbulent beginnings that we've been talking about, how they've affected the lives of these adoptees as well as their families.
LIEM: You know, it's really difficult. I think we all want to know where we come from, and we have a right to know. Who were our parents? Where were we born? We have a right to our identities. Even though, you know, I myself, for example, I was adopted into a very loving, caring family, I wanted to know who I was, you know? And so I think it's an existential need that we all have.
SUMMERS: The commission has only just begun to look into a few hundred cases. That's out of hundreds of thousands of children who were adopted abroad. And I'm just curious, what is your initial reaction to this official admission from the government?
LIEM: You know, on the one hand, I felt relief that what we as adopted Koreans have known for many years has been affirmed by a governmental entity. At the same time, I think I just felt a lot of anger, you know, that this was allowed to happen on such a mass scale, and just a tremendous amount of grief for families who have lost children to adoption, for the adopted people, you know, ourselves and even to the adoptive families. So just - to be honest, sometimes I just feel numb about it because it's just so overwhelming. Yeah. Just a lot of grief, yeah.
SUMMERS: I know that several countries that received children from South Korea, they've opened their own investigations. The U.S. is not among them. Would you like to see that happen here?
LIEM: Absolutely. You know, I think there are hundreds of thousands of people who have been adopted from Korea, Guatemala, China, Colombia, India, etc. You know, how many of these children have similar experiences, falsified documents or were trafficked? How many of us are searching?
SUMMERS: So we have this report now, but I wonder, for you personally, what would you want to see? What would you need to feel a sense of justice, to feel that things are being done right by you?
LIEM: You know, I think a truth and reconciliation process isn't binding. I know one of the recommendations is to issue a formal apology. I think an apology would be fine, but I think it needs to be followed through concrete action. Adoption agencies are currently transferring records to the government agency called the National Center for the Rights of the Child. That process needs to be better funded and better staffed. I think policy-wise, there still needs to be better financial support and social support for families that are headed by single parents. And I think it's time to end international adoptions from Korea.
SUMMERS: That is filmmaker Deann Borshay Liem. Thank you so much.
LIEM: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
