Testimonials

Explore interesting personal stories from YangJu Adoptees

Korean-American story

LEGACY PROJECT // 2018 // “I was in shock when I met people who were connected with their Korean families. How would that work?” Adopted at the age of two by a white family on Long Island, she grew up with her non-biological, adopted Korean sister as the only Koreans in her neighborhood. Hanham shares her journey of self-discovery as a Korean adoptee and the reasons why she chose not to connect with her biological family. Now a mother of two, Hanham talks about what it means for her as an adoptee to raise her own biological children.

Personal Podcast

ADAPTED™ PODCAST // SEASON 3, EPISODE 16 // 2020 // Sooki Jalali, 56, was adopted at the age of 12 or 14. She’s not exactly sure, and her paperwork was falsified, making her at least several years younger. Jun Sukja moved to the U.S., but her new life often didn’t seem like an escape from her old one in the orphanage in Korea. She grew up in a small town in the Midwest where she had to adapt quickly. But Jalali was able to find her way, despite all the circuitous turns. Ultimately, she learned to rely on herself and her own determination to help her find the path she is on today.

Personal Podcast

ADAPTED™ PODCAST // SEASON 4, EPISODE 19 // 2021 // Korean adoptee Darcy Mitttelstaedt, 49, has overcome so much. And yet her faith and her work helping others have given her so much hope. She was adopted at the age of two from Korea and raised in a farming community in Nebraska amidst abuse and dysfunction. Despite it all and the emotional scars, Mittelstaedt has found her calling in life and has learned to form her own family and find some peace.

Personal Podcast

THE JANCHI SHOW // EPISODE 102 // 2022 // In this week’s episode of your favorite Korean Adoptee podcast, the Janchi Boys sit down with Darcy Mittelstaedt and talk about growing up in the Midwest, how she discovered a whole new world (cue music) in college as she navigated whiteness and Asianness, and how she continues to navigate those intersections today.

Transracial Adoption

UNRAVELING ADOPTION: A TRANSRACIAL ADOPTION STORY // EPISODE 60 // 2022 // Darcy Mittelstaedt, an adult adoptee originally from Korea, and adopted into a dysfunctional family in Nebraska at age 2. Once she came out of the fog, as they say in adoption-land, and came to terms with her relinquishment trauma and chaotic adoptive family life, she now helps families about relinquishment trauma and the struggles that interculturally adopted people have.

Adopted in America

FOSTER ADOPT MINNESOTA // Korean Adoptees in America // 2023 // Please join us for a conversation between four Korean Adoptees from YangJu Orphanage who found each other after 50 years. They will candidly discuss transitioning from squalor to growing up as minorities within their own families while their subconscious and conscious memories still haunt them. Link may not work in the EU for GDPR reasons.

Personal Podcast

Has a Story // SEASON 6, EPISODE 12 // 2023 // Reunion with biological parents can be complicated for adoptees. Especially because relinquishment or losing a child or parent, language, culture can be traumatic and represent lifelong grief. But whose story is it? Aneyah Elmore, 56, is a Black and Korean adoptee who is balancing the need to tell her own story and the desire of her biological mother not to.

Seoul Uniforms

Korean Quarterly (summer 2024). Comforting conformity meets uncomfortable truths for one Korean adoptee traveling incognito in Seoul

First visit

Yonhap News (summer 2024). "My adoptive parents didn't want me to find my biological family. As a military child, I had to move around a lot, and I rarely met Asians. I often felt lonely." 출처 : 한민족센터