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JoongAng Daily
October 29, 2008
Searching for the holy grail amid the ruins of war
[Perspective]
With the won’s tailspin causing much expat distress these days, and with the “worst of the panic” clearly not over (despite what you may have read in my last column), I decided to stick to a good, old-fashioned inspirational story this week.
As such, it was very lucky that I happened to meet Misty Ann Edgecomb, a journalist from Maine in the United States. She came here in late September on a Fulbright grant to research just such a story - an account of what she says is the first international adoption of a Korean child by a single parent.
It begins when Edgecomb’s then 24-year-old grandfather-in-law, Paul Raynor, arrives in Seoul during the Korean War as a U.S. soldier.

Adoption Mosaic
The Constellation, Fall 2008 Newsletter
In the Shadow of My Family Tree
by Jae Ran Kim
It all began with Martha Stewart. Yes, the same domestic diva whose
recent decorating consisted of contemplating paint swatches for a jail
cell; a few years back, I was taken with an issue of her eponymous selftitled

Adoption Mosaic
The Constellation
Fall 2008 Newsletter
Kim Park Nelson
Interview by Livia Montana
Livia Montana: You’re working on an oral history project with Korean adopted adults. How did you get interested in the project?
Kim Park Nelson: I’d been thinking about it for quite a long time, but I actually started it in 2002 as my Ph.D. dissertation project. I’d seen research that was supposed to be about adoptees but that didn’t really take adoptees’ voices into account. For instance, there’s a lot of adoption-related social work research where researchers would ask parents about their kids. Those answers were then used to represent the point of view of adoptees. Of course that’s not actually the point of view of adoptees, that’s the point of view of adoptive parents. So my initial intent was to work on a project that focused on the experiences of Korean adoptees.

A Channel NewsAsia
November 1, 2008

Korean adoptees meet birthparents at homecoming
By Channel NewsAsia's Korea Bureau Chief Lim Yun Suk | Posted: 20 August 2008 0056 hrs

SEOUL : In recent years, South Korea has been promoting domestic adoption - partly to downplay the "baby exporting country" label.

Chosun Ilbo
October 21, 2008
Korean-American Academics to Throw Light on Adoption
Korean-born academics who were adopted by Americans will attend a symposium titled “From Global to Glocal: The Future of American Studies” by the American Studies Association of Korea at Seoul National University to discuss adoption, still something of a taboo subject in Korea.
In a session titled “Korean Adoptee” on Friday, Eleana Kim (University of Rochester) will give a talk under the heading “Beyond Motherlands and Mother Love: Figuring Korean Adoptees in Global Korea,” and Kim Park Nelson (Minnesota State University) under the heading “Uri Nara, Our Country: Global and Translocal Communities of Korean American Adoptees”. They will describe how, based on their own experience, foreign adoptees who return to their motherland experience identity transformations through their new daily life.
ASAK president Kim Seong-kon said adoption, along with globalization, diaspora and immigration, has emerged as key topics in the culture review and theory field for the last three or four years.
The ASAK is a nationwide academic society whose members include American specialists in politics, economics, history, and culture.

The Twin Cities Community Newswire
2008.11.01
Dialogue with lawmakers: Minnesota Korean adoptees meet with National Assembly members to discuss rights and roles of adoptees
BY MARTHA VICKERY , KOREAN QUARTERLY
October 05, 2008
Whether some strategic legislation would make the way easier for the hundreds of Korean adoptees who return to their birth country to live and work, or the thousands who visit there annually, was the topic of a meeting at the University of Minnesota of nine South Korean legislators with representatives of three Minnesota organizations of adult Korean adoptees.
The legislators are members of the Grand National Party, one of South Korea’s more conservative parties, sent as a delegation to observe the Republican National Convention, held in St. Paul the first weekend of September.

JoongAng Daily
Information fair a success despite rain
October 27, 2008
Despite the chilly weather and light rain on Saturday, about 2,000 expatriates took part in the 2008 Information Fair and Flea Market held at Seoul City Hall Plaza.
Organized by the Seoul Global Center, a Seoul Metropolitan Government-run help center for people who are new to the capital, this is the event’s fifth year.
Through events like the fair, the city aims to help expatriates adjust to life in Korea.
During the five-hour fair, a total of 50 organizations and companies - including the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea, the National Museum of Korea, Global Overseas Adoptee’s Link, Asiana Airlines and Woori Bank - set up booths to provide information on topics such as education, medical insurance and the city’s foreign community.

The Korea Herald
2008.1029
Calls for understanding Korean adoptees
A lack of public information that could alleviate stereotypes that have antagonize overseas Korean adoptees is an issue yet to be given a solution.
Speaking at the 43rd American Studies Association of Korea International Conference at Seoul National University last week, Eleana Kim, anthropology professor at the University of Rochester, said that she feels that the Korean government-sponsored organizations guiding overseas adoptees who are searching for their biological parents or aiding them in adjusting to life here have not provided services that are sufficiently comprehensive.
Kim's presentation, titled "Motherlands and Mother Love: Figuring Korean Adoptees in Global Korea," was one of the 10 sessions that was conducted at the conference which explored various issues pertaining to the globalization of Korea.
Kim said that instead of efficiently providing the proper information through literature or other forms of communication, "the Korean government has used overseas adoptees simply as emblems of globalization who could bridge the east and the west," Kim said.

Joongang Daily
October 20, 2008
Abandoned Korean girl finds home in Hong Kong
HONG KONG - A Korean girl called Jade who was adopted by a high-ranking Dutch diplomat in Korea in 2000 and then abandoned six years later in Hong Kong has found a new family.
The nine-year-old has been adopted by an expatriate family in Hong Kong and currently lives a normal life, an official at the Hong Kong Social Welfare Department said Saturday.
For reasons of privacy, further details about the adoptive parents cannot be disclosed, the official added.
Jade was adopted in January 2000 when she was four months old by Dutch diplomat Raymond Poeteray and his wife, who were stationed in Korea.

The New York Times
Opinion

Published: October 17, 2008
To the Editor:
Re “Korea Aims to End the Stigma of Adoption and Stop ‘Exporting’ Babies” (news article, Oct. 9):
That South Korea is working to encourage adoption within its own country is laudable. But even if South Koreans become more accepting of adoptive families, that will not address the underlying issue: the societal prejudice against unwed mothers and their children.