233 Patrick Armstrong
/Transcript
Full Show Notes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/233
Haley: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
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Haley: You are listening to adoptees on the podcast for adoptees, discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. We are so excited to welcome Patrick Armstrong to the podcast today. Patrick is a fellow adoptee community builder, and today he shares his experiences growing up as a Korean adoptee in all white spaces.
He's moved from rejecting his Asian identity to a period of reclamation of identity, language, and culture, and now feels that he's in a place of fully accepting himself. We hope this conversation will be encouraging, especially to those of you who have struggled to affirm your own unique identity in the.
Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on adoptees on.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world. We wrap up with some recommended resources and as always links to everything we'll be talking about today, our on the website, adopteeson.com.
Let's listen in.
(upbeat music)
Haley: I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptee on Patrick Armstrong. Welcome Patrick.
Patrick: Hi Haley. Thanks for having me.
Haley: Fellow podcaster. Some my favorites. I, I said this before we started, but I'm just gonna say I am unwell and so if I sound lower, it's not to match you. It is just... Tis the season.
Patrick: I've already tweeted that you are trying to match me in vocal tone, so mm-hmm.
Haley: Okay. Good. Good. Let's get me canceled. Let's go. No. You have such a great voice for podcasting. I love listening to you. So how about we start with, would you share some of your story with.
Patrick: Absolutely. First I wanna say thank you for saying that. I do really appreciate it, but I am a transracial international intercountry Korean American adoptee. I was born in Seoul in 1990 and then adopted, I believe, nine months later.
I think it was November of '90 to a white family in rural Indiana, and that is where I spent the bulk of my, or that's where I spent all of my childhood growing up. My family did not have any children of their own, but they did adopt another Korean child in '92. My younger sister, Rebecca, she's not biologically related to me, but we are both Korean adoptees and the community we grew up in was predominantly white, again, rural Indiana, exactly what you might think It is.
Very small. 5,000 people .Cornfields at every turn. Everywhere you look, there's a field of some sort and not a lot to do. Definitely not a lot of racial mirrors, not a lot of diversity at all. Within the community and that goes for the things that we learned in school and stuff like that. So, grew up very typical Midwestern childhood.
I played a lot of sports, tried to be as social as possible. Struggled a lot growing up with my identity. And so I did a lot of internalizing of whiteness and of racism towards kind of being Asian and identified as white growing up and continued to do so for a really long time. Once I left my, the place that I grew up, I went to college at Purdue University and there I started to explore a little bit.
It was more diversity of thought than diversity of community, and I was really just trying to find my way in the world, trying to figure out who I was because all of that internalization I did growing up carried over into what I was doing in college and how I was trying to find my way through the world.
And so in college was just kind of doing what everybody does. Not really going to, well, not everybody, but what I was doing, not going to class really, just again, lost wandering, ended up dropping out and just went straight into the workforce. Worked a ton of different jobs and a bunch of different industries.
Never settling down for any one specific thing in particular. and then eventually found myself bouncing around city to city. Lived in San Diego, lived in Houston, and then with my now wife, ended up moving to Chicago in 2018. Spent a few years up there and in 2020, right as the pandemic kicked off and right as we were, as a society, going through the murders, or experiencing the aftermath of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahau Arbery, ended up moving back to Indianapolis where we now are located. And really that was when I started my whole journey of unpacking my identity as an adoptee, unpacking my identity as an Asian American, as a Korean American, self racializing, and really starting to go through what would eventually lead me to sitting down with you, Hailey.
A lot of that. Started with the podcast, Dear Asian Americans, which I'm sure we'll talk about. But it's been a really accelerated journey. You recently had Tiffany Henness on, and she talked about when she started to do a lot of her unpacking, it was like drinking from a fire hose. A hundred percent resonate with that metaphor because that's exactly what I was doing.
It felt like I couldn't get enough, but at the same time, it felt like it was too much and it was really a struggle to find the balance where it wasn't also affecting everything outside of my, or everything that I was involved with outside of just this very new, very intense, but very necessary journey that I was on.
And so that podcast led to starting my own podcast, The Janchi Show, with two other Korean American adoptees. It led to facilitating community, not only on Instagram, but on clubhouse, when that was a thing. I think we shared a couple spaces on Clubhouse. I know I saw you pop into a few rooms for sure when it, especially when it came to podcasting, but really finding ways to connect with the Asian adoptee community.
And then from there, just continuing to work on myself, but also trying to find ways to uplift and amplify the voices of those who really aren't heard within our community. And a lot of that has to do with navigating the narrative, reframing, shifting, balancing, whatever you want to call it, but, taking a critical look at the narrative of adoption and finding not only my place within it, but how can we actually change the way that we talk about these things.
And so that's what a lot of my personal work is built on now, not only with The Janchi Show, but with the podcast that I do on my own, with the work that I do as a producer on Dear Asian Americans. A lot of different things, but generally, that's my story in a nutshell. Like, it's kind of bits, little bits and pieces, but I know we'll get into it. .
Haley: Thank you. Thank you for flagging Clubhouse for me. Those were some good few months. I absolutely remember being in rooms with you and I remember coming to a few of the rooms you hosted for Asian adoptees as a listener cuz I just wanted to listen and, and learn from people who have a different experience. For me, I continued to do that over the years. It's been very enriching in my life. And I really, I value the emotional labor people were doing in Clubhouse. And I remember in particular several moments where I heard adoptees, in real time, discovering the impact adoption had on their lives.
And it's like the mind blown emoji, you know you like to say the Great Awakening, Betty Jean Lifton's phrase. Yes. . Can you talk about witnessing some of those things and how that was for you in that time period? Because I think you've had a shift even to this day from a couple years ago on what you think about adoption.
Patrick: Absolutely. I'm really glad that you brought that up because it was one of those moments in particular that really affirmed to me or made me see the importance of our stories in storytelling and why it matters that we facilitate these spaces. Cause I'd been doing the podcast for a little bit at that time and we were having guests on sharing their stories and we were learning a lot through that.
And I was learning a lot through that personally. But in Clubhouse, being able to see somebody go, in real time, start to - at that time I was using the "coming out of the fog" language - but like start to wake up and think critically about adoption, in real time, was wild.
So there was one person, they were from a European country actually, so not somebody in America, but also a transracial Korean adoptee. And this was one of our earlier rooms. And so there wasn't a ton of people in there. I think it might have been 10. And they came up on stage and they were like, thanks for holding the space. It's been really incredible to hear these stories. And then they just started. and they started to list out examples of how they had felt isolated racially and as just an adoptee.
How they had felt really unheard and invalidated, not only from their own family but their community and just started to talk about these things. Shed a few tears, but really I remember cuz there were six of us that kind of started this club or this specific room, and I remember we have this text chain going and we're just texting each other.
Oh my gosh. This is, I, I think we're hearing somebody figure this out in real time and it was just, it was absolutely jaw dropping. Honestly, to think that we had created a space where somebody, a stranger, felt safe enough to do that, like I didn't really understand. , I didn't think I really, truly understand what it meant or understood what it meant to create a safe space in that way until that particular moment.
And I'll never forget it because I ended up meeting that person in our country of origin when I was able to go to Korea in October. And they are just on this wild, wild journey of embracing not only their the adoptee community that they've been able to find, but their. Their koreanness, their asianness and really leaning into it even sometimes even more than myself.
And it's just, I think they've been back to Korea like five or six times in this past year. I don't even know how they've been doing that. But that moment was definitely a moment of of realization for me to see the power in storytelling and in the fact of. Oh, people in our community need and are clamoring for spaces like this, not just on a, not just on like on a podcast, like on like yours or ours, but.
In a space where you can kind of do that in real time. And that's the unfortunate thing about Clubhouse is like people are still doing it, but it's just ha it didn't have the, or hasn't had the staying power, especially in like Twitter spaces. LinkedIn was doing something similar and it just kind of, this market got saturated.
But for those probably four months, between January and April of 2021 now, I guess we, we saw some beautiful things happen and we saw some beautiful community. grow out of that.
Haley: In listening to multiple episodes of the Janchi Show from before , when you were just getting started to now, I feel like people can also in real time see your perspective shift of both you and your co-hosts.
What's that like for you? Knowing the progression is out there.
Patrick: It's, I think it's equal parts scary, but really empowering. When we started the Janchi Show, I was very, very new, and so the idea for the Janchi Show happened two months after I started to wake up from this great sleep, from this deep sleep that I've been in around adoption, and it all started because I found that podcast, Dear Asian Americans, and then had the audacity to reach out to the first guest and say, Hey, I'm a Korean adoptee and I don't know anything about being Korean or being Asian, and I really loved your podcast is Can you help me, can you, can you point me in the right direction?
How do I get started? And he sent me a study called Two Korean to be White, too White to be Korean. He was super kind person and sent me that, and that was the first time I ever read anybody who had shared a similar experience to myself. And I say that with knowing that I grew up with another adoptee in the same house as me, but that never registered cuz we weren't thinking about that when we were growing up.
And that whole thing, like kick started, so this is in June of 2020, kickstarted this idea that I need to understand these parts of myself because there's something missing. There's something wrong, maybe not something wrong, but there's something missing that I need to explore. And so two months later, not only am I being invited to be a guest on Dear Asian Americans to share my story, but Jerry Won, the host of that show is suggesting that we start a podcast with two other Korean adoptee guests that he's had on the show, whom I've never met. The only knowledge I have of them is that they've been on the show, and that in itself was daunting and scary. But the amazing part of it was after we got over the initial awkwardness of our first meeting was that we were all coming to this space with fresh eyes and, and eagerness to explore this, but also from different points in our respective journeys. One of us had been in reunion, one of us was younger, but had been back to Korea. My, and then there was myself who was like the infant baby who had no clearly no knowledge.
Not to infantilize myself again, as adopts or want to be, but, just like have, have with nothing. And I used to say use this metaphor a lot, but like I went from running in the opposite direction of myself and who I was as an adoptee, as as an Asian American to full on sprinting, hopping on the jet plane, going in the opposite direction to try and catch up for the 30 years of.
I wanna say ignorance, but it's not ignorance. The 30 years of just no knowledge of, of rejection. I'll say I talk about those first 30 years of my life as the rejection phase that I was in and I was having to make up so much ground and so to have, I've, I've no doubt that if you listen from episode one to episode 111, which was released recently, , you'll definitely see that shift because I really was developing the language and learning the language.
A episode to episode because there was books that were being presented to me. Then we're talking to these guests who are sharing stories that I'm like, . Wow. Like I just, I'm like, I have to sit in this now and I have to like process everything that you just said, and then, oh wait, we have to go record another episode this next week.
And it's like, it was just a nonstop intake of information, of learning and then unlearning and unpacking everything that I had internalized from before, from those first 30 years. And so the Janchi Show, what it's been up until may of 2022 was the reclamation phase, and so you're seeing me go through reclamation and then you're seeing that development and then post May, 2022, you're seeing me in the phase of acceptance, and so that's how I talk about my story generally is in three parts for rejection, reclamation, acceptance and acceptance.
I think you can even see a shift in the language that I'm using, in the way that I'm thinking about not just adoption, but specifically adoptee experiences. The privilege, what I call the privilege of storytelling and sharing someone's story. And so to know that people are able to see that is nice because one, if somebody's willing to listen to a hundred, I mean you, I'm sure you know this, having way more episodes than us, but somebody's willing to listen to that many episodes.
Thank you. I mean, that means a whole lot to me, but also, from an adoptee's perspective, I think it's nice to see someone, and whether it's me or someone else, go through that progression because it also gives, I think, realistic examples and milestones of both the triumphs and the pitfalls that you can go through as you go on this journey for people to be able to look at or lean on or take in.
Because at the end of the day, All of our experiences are unique. No one, no two people have the same experience, but the themes that happen within our experiences can be similar. And so if there's a record of that and there's a record of someone going through something like that, you know, I think it, it means a lot.
It's, it's a huge privilege to be able to have done a hundred plus episodes and continue on and have that live in the ether. And while it is scary to think, oh, what are people gonna think as they hear me become more vocal, especially about anti-racism or just racial aggressions in general and just the state of our world and thinking about how do we, how do we talk about these things?
Or why are we not talking about specific things? You know, that's, it's scary to think about my friends and my family reacting to that and what they might think, but at the same time, it is empowering because not only is it, not only can I go back and look and see the growth that I've made but I know that it's out there for other people who, like me in June of 2020 had no idea what they were doing.
And there's a, there's a place you can go to catch up on that.
Haley: What is it like for you to have friends and family listening ? Has it impacted your conversations with them, your sister, anyone else? Like, that's one of the things about being a public figure being critical of a system that everyone else around us has praised and rejoiced in.
Flipping the narrative on them is tough.
Patrick: It is very tough. So with my sister, she was a guest on the show. I think she was episode 10. And that was great because we had never really talked about any of this ever. And we didn't really have a, so we're two years apart in age, year and a half apart in age, but we were four years apart in high school.
So we didn't have, we never developed like that super close sibling relationship. And now that I think about that, and I say that out loud, I'm like, I bet adoption played a big role in that. have an unpack that, that's for another time, but we when she came on the show. It was nice to have that conversation.
And you know, we talk about those things a little bit more now and we've developed a closer relationship through that. My parents definitely a different story, and so when I started all of this, it was , I think it was probably just treated as like, oh, here's another thing that you're doing, another project, you know?
And I don't think they really understood what it was until they started to listen to it. My mom, I know, has listened to every episode of our show, and this is the anecdote I always use, but, in March of 2021, March 16th, there was a shooting in Atlanta at three separate spas that resulted in the death of eight people, six of them being Korean women.
And it was really, it was a, it was a flashpoint in America, but I think in, in a lot of places and, at that time, you know, we had seen, it was, it was kind of like the boy, the tipping point of a lot of the anti-Asian sentiment we had been seeing since the pandemic started. And I felt like Atlanta was just this, it all came to a head and I, that night I was on clubhouse actually, and I went to an Asian American room and because I was just lost, I felt despondent.
I didn't know what to think. I, I. Like if, if at at the same time I felt super disconnected, but also felt, this is real. This is impacting me in ways that I don't understand. And so I went to this room and for the first time in an Asian American space, I felt like I had been heard and validated in my story.
And because of that, I think there was just this renewed resolve to talk about this. But one of the things that got me thinking about was like, why haven't I heard from my friends or family about this? Like why haven't people been checking in on me? And I realize cuz they don't see me as Asian, because I did not see myself as Asian for 30 years. I'd never identified as that way. The joke was, you're not really, oh, but you're not really Asian. You know what I mean? Like it was, that was what it was. But even with that realization, I was still very upset and I could not shake the devastation. that that shooting had left in its wake on myself, personally, in our community as a whole.
And I told my co-host, KJ and Nathan, I was just like, Hey, I gotta talk about this. And so on one of our episodes, I just kind of let it all out. I just stream of consciousness said, Everything that I had been withholding and laid it all out, talked about how upset I was, that nobody was reaching out, explained how I felt, not only in, not only not valid, but invisible.
In my own family, in my own community's eyes, and especially because I hadn't heard from my parents. Like you think those would be the first people that would reach out to you. And for all intents and purposes I grew up in with a positive adoption experience. I have a great relationship with my family.
I know that's not the case for every adoptee, but that was, that was my experience. But this had just really drawn up on all of those different times that I felt that, and I just kinda let all of that emotion out. About five days later knowing, and I, okay, so I did that knowing that my mom would eventually hear this probably.
So five days later I'm sitting at work and I get a text from my mom and she said, because in the episode I talked about, one of the things I talked about was like the colorblind way. White adoptive parents will raise transracial adoptees in because it's all about assimilation. It's all about lose the heritage, lose the culture.
Let's get you in here and make you feel seen or like you belong in this space. And my mom texted me and I looked down at this message and it said, she said, Hi, I just wanna say I'm sorry that we raised you in a colorblind way. She's like, I didn't realize we were doing that, but we did that. And she goes, I'm also wanted to say that I know that I will, I understand now that I will never understand what it's like to be. A person of color, essentially, she said Asian American, but like a person of color is what she was getting at. And I've, sitting at my cubicle, I just started bawling. And I turned to my boss and I'm like, Hey, I gotta go. I just had this, this moment and I've gotta leave.
And so I left and I'm just sobbing and we're, I'm just texting my mom back and forth, like thanking her for that. And like, just talking about, just reiterating kind of the things that I'd said on the episode. You know why I was feeling that way. And that moment was the first true step that we had taken to healing.
Truly. Not that we'd never, not that I realized that we had ever really needed to heal, but that was the first point in our lives together that it was like we've taken a step forward instead of just running in this parallel line towards a horizon, we'll never reach. We're actually going to, we can, we're taking steps to reach that horizon now, and it's been amazing and my mom and I have had wonderful conversations since then about this.
And she has become more of an advocate for adoptees being heard, adoptees, having their voices heard and amplified. She's also become more of a critical thinker about the industry of adoption and ask the question of why, like, why are we asking people to give up their children in the first place? Because when I was growing up, the story was your parents couldn't take care of you.
So they gave you up for adoption to give you a better life. And while that's still the story I have that we now know that that might not be the case for, especially for Korean adoptees, but just any adoptee from another country and actually any. Could be domestic, could be anything we don't know, because we're usually not given that information.
So to have my friends and family listen and know that and, and think these things, it's scary. But in the small and in those few moments of healing, it's been worth every moment of anxiety, every moment of fear that somebody might think differently of me or think worse of me. Like to have that moment with my.
Like it, it was worth, it's worth every lost friendship. It's worth every lost relationship because of that. Because at the end of the day, I don't wanna go through another loss of family like, and ruin the relationship with my adoptive parents because of this. But at the same time, I'm also not, I'm at a point where I'm not gonna give up this.
And work, and not only the work I do publicly, but the work I do on myself just to appease their minds and how they feel about what I'm doing. So, Yeah, it's that, It's the both end. It's the both end. It's scary, but it's empowering. It, it's, it's incredible. But it's also, it's, it can be tenuous. I guess that's another way to think about it.
It can be tenuous because at any point the bottom could fall out and you know, we might have to start over again, which would suck. But, you know, I hope, I hope we continue to move forward and take steps forward to that horizon.
Haley: It's amazing to me though, that your vulnerability has created this ally in your mom.
You know, like as she does her work and learns more about anti-racism and adoptee issues, and then when she's out in the world, she can speak up for those things as well.
Patrick: Exactly.
Haley: Because she's showing up for you who she loves though.
Patrick: Exactly.
Haley: Oh, I love that . Aw . You were talking about it and I was like tearing up when you were, you know, reliving the, receiving this text from her. Cuz it is. I don't know, but I, I grew up with people that would never admit wrong or say sorry, ever. And I'm a parent to two young boys. And I can't even count, count the number of times I've apologized to them for messing up because I'm a human and try be a good mom, but I super mess up all the time.
And that builds this deeper relationship. Right? And so for her to like, oh, that's, I'm so happy for you. Oh good.
Patrick: Thank you.
Haley: Okay. I don't wanna miss what happened in May, 2022, so I gotta go back to that. What's May, 2022? What? What led you into the acceptance?
Patrick: I appreciate you asking. So in May of 2022, may is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month or Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month?
I was working my job, but Jerry Won, the host of Dear Asian Americans. I work with him pretty closely on his show and he does professional speaking on the side where he talks about the Asian American experience specifically in the corporate setting, but in a lot of different contexts. And he was going on a week long speaking tour that would be in Chicago, in southern Indiana and then out east.
And he asked me if I wanted to go and so, talked to my wife, worked it out with my work, and was able to go with him on this trip and. So two things happened when we were in the Indiana area. We spoke at Rose Holman. He invited me to come up and speak with him, and this was the first time I shared my story outside of the podcast medium, but in a professional setting.
And it was to a group of students, but also staff. And he was like, I think it's a good connection because you grew up in Indiana. This school is located in rural Indiana, so. They might have, they might kind of understand it a little bit more. And I did that and it went really well. But I was super nervous.
And normally for the first 31, 32 years of my life, I was, when I got nervous or did something like that, when I was done doing it, my stomach would not, there would be no butterflies, it would just be in knots and I'd be in physical pain like it would be. It's like, ugh. And after I got done speaking there, I was in that physical pain and I was telling him that as we were walking back to the car, I'm like, oh man, I'm hurting.
And he goes, well, if you're gonna speak professionally, that can't happen . He's like, we gotta, we gotta fix that. And so that stuck in my mind cause I was like, I think it was like a mental thing that was causing that physical stuff because it felt, cause I think for a long time I felt like I wasn't worthy of.
Sharing for any reason, whatever it was. But especially publicly, especially in real time. And then, so we do that and then we fly out east and the last part of the tour was a night market event. And so essentially what this was, was we found a, a space to have a bunch of Asian American vendors that were in New York City come and we had, we were raising money for a nonprofit heart of dinner, and generally just a, a, a time to build community, build relationships and support local businesses, local Asian American businesses.
And as we were going out there, he asked me if I wanted to host or mc this event. And so I was, Let's do it. I'm like, I'm gonna say yes because I think this is great opportunity. Had not hosted an event like this before. Done a little mc work, but nothing like this. And so we're prepping and we're, we're there and we're doing everything.
I'm meeting everybody and it's going really, really great. Events starts and I'm just like getting in my element, you know, I'm like walking around talking to everybody, introducing, I'm really, I love the, I love Heart of Dinner as an organization and what they do. They feed the older Asian American, but specifically Chinese American community in New York City with meals, they prep and prepare and deliver these meals to the, to these families.
And I just love that mission and I love the people who behind it. And so I was really hype about that. I'm like, You gotta, we were decorating bags for them. So that was my goal, was to get an X amount of bags decorated. So I was really getting into that, but then it came time to like really introduce the whole event, talk about the vendors a little bit, and just truly kick the event off.
And so I was up there spotlights on me on the mic, just talking about it. And I share a little bit of my story, like what led me to this point. And as I was in the middle of sharing, I felt the weight of all of that rejection, all of that just internalized self-loathing, leave my body like in the, I was literally on the mic holding it and like speaking like, oh yeah, and then like, you know, I'm an adopted and like, I was like, you never really thought of myself as Asian.
And now here I am doing, hosting an Asian American event with all of you with everybody here. And I felt this. the burden I, I guess is what I normally call it, the burden lift or leave my body. And at that exact moment I was like, I'm good with who I am. And it was, I was good with not only, not only being Asian American, Korean American and adopted, but all the combination of all three of those things.
And being good with who I am as a person, who I am as an Asian American, who I am as an Asian adoptee, and how I fit into the tapestry of all these things. I felt for the very first time, like I fully accepted myself and it was wild because I, very few times have I had an experience like that, and none of the, the other times are they related to this journey that I've been on.
And it was just, and it just went away. And like obviously those things still, those things don't go away forever. But in that moment, like I found again, acceptance and I entered, I moved from reclamation to acceptance. And so May 22, like that was, that was that moment. And ever since then, like I feel like at the trajectory I was on was like, it was for the listener, I'm using my hands to show a chart of how it was going, was like this, it was going up at an angle and then it just went almost to 90 degrees up. Like it ch it changed everything. Finding myself in that space.
Haley: That's amazing. I have heard your voice literally change over the years and growing in confidence, as a speaker and as a leader in the adoptee community. And you know, some of the ways you post, you just post with authority now on Instagram. You're like, this is how it is people. So get on board. No, I really appreciate that. I really do. I know how much personal work it takes to get to a point of confidence like that and the weight of responsibility.
So can you talk about that? Because you know, we, you know, you shared this moment earlier, like watching somebody come out of the fog in real time. And as people listen to my show, as people read the things you're writing in your newsletter or on Instagram or listen to one of your podcast. We are leading people into this new place for a lot of folks about being critical of adoption and understanding the impact it's had on their lives, and it can be upending for people.
Patrick: Absolutely.
Haley: So do you feel that weight?
Patrick: I I do feel that weight, I think that, so the way I've been sharing this and the way I've been thinking about it, especially recently, but what's just listening to podcasts, but then also being a part of one and bringing people on every week or week after week, and having them share the most intimate details of their lives.
Some people, for the very first time, it made me realize that not only is it a great opportunity for us, but it is an absolute privilege for any one person to tell you anything about themselves, like we are not entitled to any knowledge of anything else about anybody and the fact that people feel one, safe enough to share that with us, but two, empowered and brave and courageous to take that step.
It has made me understand why it's such a privilege and why I can't take that for granted or take that lightly in any sense, whether it's writing or podcasting or speaking. It's made me understand the significance of not generalizing our experiences, because I think when I first started in this space, It felt very much like it was all Korean adoptees and it was all Korean adoption, and it felt like that was all adoption was, was our collective experience.
And it took me a minute, but to get to get out of that. But once I did that was part of what kickstarted this realization of there's more to it than just the Korean adoptee experience. I don't care that we're the largest international group of adoptees. Like that doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, it's still affecting all of the other people who've been adopted from any other country. Or who have been adopted domestically within the United States or domestically within their own countries, like it doesn't matter. It's still affecting them in some way or another. And when we try to generalize that or try to take on an experience and claim it as our own, we are now perpetuating the invalidation.
Of the existence, the identity, the experience of other adoptees, and so understand learning to understand that and learning to sit not only in the privilege, but also the, again, the responsibility of not only sharing individual's story, but how I talk about and act as a representation of the community, the weight of that responsibility is that when I talk about the community or act as a representation of the community specifically, it has to be with that care, the kindness, the grace, and the nuance of this is my own experience and I can only represent the community from my own lens. I can't be the answer or the example of this is what an adoptee's experience is, or this is how an adoptee should be. Because at the end of the day, once we start doing that, we lose people from our community, and then that makes people not want to share. It makes people afraid to step into this because it feels like that's not my experience, so now my experience doesn't matter. And so especially when I write and especially when I speak, like that's what I want to impress upon people.
It's, particularly the people outside of our community, is that when you hear these stories or when you hear my story, it's one. Like I can, I can share again that there are common themes, but at the end of the day, you can't get everything from adoption or about adoption or the experience of an, of an adoptee from one single person.
You have to go out, and I hate the word diversify, but you have to go out and diversify those experiences that you're listening to and you're learning from, and you're hearing, because if you don't do that , then again, you're leaving people out and we don't, we as a society, I feel like have been conditioned not to ask who's missing.
We are conditioned to ask what we are missing personally, and so that allows us to pick and choose who we listen to, why we're listening to them, and then how we then reiterate or regurgitate that information. We have to be able to step beyond that. And that's the responsibility that I take in all of my work is that we have to be able to, and I have to be able to walk that line, but also be very firm.
And this is my experience and I don't sit here and say all these things to say this is how it is for everybody.
Haley: One of the things I've really appreciated about listening to The Janchi Show, and I haven't listened to all hundred plus episodes. . But I've listened to, I don't know, maybe 15, 20%. So that's a pretty good, pretty good.
Patrick: That's a pretty good number. I mean, even one. That's great. One. You know how it is,
Haley: I do. I do know how it is. I really do. One of the things I really appreciate is hearing men talk about deep things, and there's this stereotype where maybe there's less male adoptees actually diving deep into identity issues, or they're more likely to wait till their adoptive parents pass before even ever thinking about a birth mother, which I think are false, but can you talk a little bit about that, how important it is to have more representation? Talking about like, snacks. Yes. And. You have to explain that joke now for folks who have a nerdier show.
Patrick: Okay, I'm gonna work backwards. So the snack thing is for the Janchi show. Janchi and Korean means to feast.
And so at the end of our, each of our episodes, we try a Korean snack, drink food item with the guests, or if we have no guests with our. And we do that because a Janchi specifically taken from like a dol Janachi, which is like a first birthday celebration. We really wanna celebrate those aspects of ourselves and then our shared culture, heritage identities, whatever it might be.
And so that's where the snack thing comes in. But I really appreciate you asking me this because when we first started this, our number one hesitation was, what do three cis straight men have to add to this conversation? And we did not go out and get, do the market research to realize, okay, we should do this.
We just said, we don't have an answer. We're gonna do it anyways. And it wasn't until we had JaeRan Kim on, where she's the first person who told us, it's really refreshing to hear three men talking about this because I guess I, I knew, but I wasn't like really aware of the fact that it is very female dominated when it comes to the discourse or the public discussion of the adoptee experience, or it has been for a while.
Not that there haven't been men that do this work. Like Tobias Hübinette is a, is somebody who comes to my mind in instantly, but it just seems to be more skewed towards the a female's perspective. And we, after JaeRan told us that, it's like, okay, it makes us feel like, okay, we are doing the right things. Maybe that validation makes us push deeper into talking about masculinity, talking about things like that.
Something actually though that I've been thinking about, Recently, because I think we're gonna do a panel about this exact topic. So it's nice, I think to bring maybe a different perspective. I think something that we're really wanting to be even more intentional about is again, bringing even more diverse perspectives to our.
To continue to push forward. And again, that's not just other men, but specifically like queer and trans representation and biracial or mixed race, Korean adoptee representation. You know, reaching out to find other voices specifically and hopefully maybe specifically getting away from the gendered ideas of male /female from an adoptee lens.
I guess that's something that I've really been thinking about a lot, but I will say that, so JaeRan was the first person to tell us that Joy Lieberthal Rho multiple episodes later told us the same thing, . And I guess like those little affirmations I think help us to realize that what we do is important, especially from our particular lens or the way in the format of our show because we've kicked around.
The idea of bringing on a female or another host of the show were one of us to step away. How do we change? How does that change what we do? And I do think that hearing those things from other people to who tell us who have been doing this much longer than we have to say, you know, it's, it's nice to hear this particular type of conversation because it's not one that we've heard a whole lot of, does make it not easier to do the job, but it makes it, I don't know, fulfilling, I don't know if that's the right word either.
I think it pushes us, but specifically pushes me. To make sure that I am respecting the conversation and diving deeper. It drives me to dig into what that means to approach adoption in the adopt experience from a masculine perspective. And also, how can I get away from that? How do I get away from the binary, I guess?
Because when I hear about masculinity, that makes me think the binary or just binary in general. And one of the things I think that we've talked about on the show is pushing out away from that, pushing to multiplicity, pushing away from duality and realizing that it's not either or, but both and and more.
And so I guess when I think about being three men talking about this, you know, the fear of, are we doing this right, has went away and it's been more replaced by kind of the weight of responsibility that we talked about, the responsibility of we, if we do happen to get it wrong, that we can also model the behavior of either being apologetic or being accountable. Maybe not apologetic, but accountable to how we talk about things and how we go about maybe representing the male, a male's perspective from adoption because it would be really easy for us to get it wrong a bunch and then continue to get it wrong and not accept criticism or critical or constructive criticism or anything like that.
It would be very easy for us to do that, and I think one of the things that falls under that weight of responsibility is being willing to be accountable and then modeling what that accountability looks likea as a man.
Haley: Absolutely. I, one of your co-hosts, I can't remember who said it, but was like, oh, you know, wouldn't have that have been funny if we were just sitting around in the garage drinking beers and talking about these things. And I thought, I was like, would that be the thing, , like, I feel like you're, you have to talk about adoption every week at some point. Right? And so you sort of alluded to this earlier, but you were forced, on a semi-regular basis, have conversations that at some point refer to you being adopted, all three of you.
And I think modeling that for the community, and I absolutely agree should stay away from the, the binary, but modeling, having those deeper conversations with our friends and building community, for some folks, like they don't have any adoptee friends. And so when they listen to your show, they're, they're sitting there with you , right?
And you are their community. So opening those doors for them is a huge gift, and I hope that you guys do continue to do that. I love that you guys call it this. Okay. What's the apocalypse to you?
Patrick: Oh, the adoption apocalypse. That is, I cannot take any credit. That is all KJ. KJ Roelke came outta nowhere with that, and it was, it's great language, I think because, so for me, the adoption apocalypse is, I can't even, I'm, I'm definitely not gonna articulate it as well as him, but it's that post consciousness situation. And so the way he explains the apocalypse is, I'm pretty sure he ties it to like the book of Revelations and how that talks about the apocalypse. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that things are different now. And so for me, the apocalypse is that difference. Like the apocalypse specifically for me started when I got that study and I read about that study and like the landscape shifted like, I won't say everything was burned away, but things were markedly different than they were even 24 hours before reading that study. And so the apocalypse is, it's massive change, but it's also change that it's massive change that you unfortunately can't go back from like here's, and so here's the difference between I think like the apocalypse and the fog.
I like the apocalypse because you go into the apocalypse and there it, there is no going back. Essentially with the fog, we talk about the fog, like you come out of the fog, but you can go back into the fog and I feel like that can be too ambiguous. And so I like the apocalypse for the simple fact that when you start to think about these things differently, it doesn't matter what you do after that, whether you not, whether you don't talk about it again, your life has changed in a significant way and you, no matter if you never, ever talk about it again, you're gonna be thinking about it internally.
And not to say that I'm a mind reader, know what everybody thinks. And not to say that I will tell everybody how they should be thinking, but it's like with the apocalypse it's like, you know, for a fact that something is now different. That can never be the same. Whether or not I go further out into the, the, the wasteland, or I stay here in the same spot that I was when the apocalypse happened.
That is such a good
Haley: metaphor. Our props to KJ. Okay. I absolutely want to recommend that folks listen to the Janchi Show, but you also started a new podcast, just you, Conversation Piece, and you've guests as well. I really liked your conversation with Laura. We'll link to that, but I just, I love what you are all adding to the conversation.
I love that you have a focus on highlighting adoptive voices, which is of course my number one, number one goal. But you've heard Patrick share today, like you know that he is a skilled communicator and your co-hosts are too, and some of the conversation, I like, I love the balance. Okay, so you have these really deep conversations about identity, and you shared recently about your first trip back to Korea and how impactful that was on you and how hard it was and, and all of those things. And, and your co-hosts are able to draw these questions out, these answers out of you about that experience in a very skilled way. And it feels like friends, you try a snack, a lot of them are different.
I couldn't believe the descriptions of some of the foods you've tried. Oh my gosh. That's not my vibe, but I love it for you .
Patrick: There have been plenty that have not been my vibe for sure.
Haley: Okay. Okay. Anyway, so. I'm not a Korean adoptee, but I really enjoy listening and I really appreciate your leadership of the community. So I hope people also follow your work on Instagram and your newsletter. You've got all kinds of places for people to connect with you. But what do you wanna recommend to us or tell us more about your podcast or the Janchi Show, whatever you'd like.
Patrick: Sure. So definitely go check out my new podcast Conversation Piece. That would be great. But the person. Somebody who I really look up to in this space and who I've had the privilege of being able to work on some things behind the scenes recently with is Cam Lee Small. So he's at therapy redeemed on Instagram, but he's a Korean adoptee and he does a lot of work on the mental health side, but also working with like younger adoptees who want to go through this process.
But the number one thing that I love about Cam that I think everybody should, who I would recommend everybody. Whether you're adopted or not, is that the way that he responds to comments, particularly ones that are super negative and directed at him? So Cam is the most empathetic, kindest person I have ever seen, respond to what would probably be considered a troll on Instagram, and he does it in a way that I believe I've seen a few who have left them those comments, like reply apologetically after he's responded to them, because I don't know how, it's just the, the, a testament to the work that he's done, but also like just who he is as a person, how he's able to navigate the negativity that comes out of these, some of these conversations, because he has tough conversations.
He does not shy away from talking about the difficult things and our adoptee realities, but when he is faced with what many of us would consider to be adversity from adoptive parents, even other adoptees, he navigates it with such grace and skill that I just, I cannot recommend him enough as a person to like learn how.
Learn and watch what vulnerable empathy looks like and and self-accountability. I think the way he does it is just incredible, and I've told him this on a number of occasions, but he is the person I look to when I am trying to navigate one of those situations myself. So if I'm dealing with a negative commenter or received like a real nasty dm, like I will go back and look at some of Cam's posts and find where he's responded to comments and just see how he navigates that situation.
And so as much as he has, he has a go find him on, I think it's therapy redeemed on WordPress. That's his website. But. Seek him out specifically for the way he interacts on the every on, on a day-to-day basis. I think that is why I wanted to highlight him as a resource, but also just truly why I am glad to be in the same community as him, because I've learned so much from him and also continue to do so.
And I think anybody could take away some really incredible lessons from the work that he does.
Haley: High praise for Cam. I totally agree and I appreciate anyone that is not me who can spend their time and energy educating adoptive parents. Good job team. Go . Good job.
Okay, Patrick, where can we connect with you online and find all the things?
Patrick: You can find me mostly on Instagram at PatrickInTheWorld, but you can find everywhere that I'm doing anything, including my newsletter at my website, PatrickInTheWorld (dot) me.,
Haley: And we'll link to your podcasts and everything of course. Thank you so much for sharing with us today. I really enjoyed our conversation.
Patrick: Absolutely. I, I will not lie to you. This was a bucket list item of mine ever since I found your show was to come on here and have this conversation with you. And it's, it's really been a pleasure and a treat, and congratulations on a million downloads. That is a huge, huge feat.
Haley: Thank you.
Oh my gosh. He, Patrick is a stellar human. Just have to say, I hope you do go check out his podcasts and it, there's so many amazing adoptees doing fantastic advocacy work. It's just incredible to be working alongside these tremendous humans. So thank you so much, Patrick, for all the ways you serve the adoptee community, and also to thank you to all of my other guests and supporters and other adoptees who are doing their very best to make a huge difference in the world and sharing adoptee voices.
We are going to be going on a little holiday break here right away. So next week's episode is our last episode until mid-January we'll be back with new episodes. So make sure you tune in next Friday for a really amazing healing series episode also about identity reclamation. And I'm really, really excited to share that with you.
As always, you are invited to join our Patreon community, adopteesOn.com/community has details. If you were like, oh my gosh, the show's going on a break. No, I need more adoptee talk. There is another weekly podcast I do for Patreon supporters called Adoptees Off Script, and so we're not going on a break over there.
You can hear us every Monday, and we'd love to have you join us to support the show, which helps support more adoptees by keeping the show free and available for all. Thank you so much for listening, and let's talk again next Friday.
