268 Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/268
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] 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.
You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. Today, I'm so excited to host critical adoption studies scholar, Dr. Kimberly McKee. She's the author of the impactful book, Disrupting Kinship, and her brand new release is Adoption Fantasies, the fetishization of Asian adoptees from girlhood to womanhood.
We talk about Kim's reunion with her family in Korea, where she's currently living with her young son, and what it's like parenting through reunification and reculturation. We talk about adoption in pop culture, and how preserving adoptee history and acknowledging the work of those who've come before us is vital to community building.
Before we get started, I want to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on [00:01:00] adopteeson.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 are on the website, adopteeson. com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Kimberly McKee, welcome Kim.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited about being here today.
Haley Radke: I'm embarrassed. It's taken me seven years to get to you, Kim. I mean, you're prolific. I have read your writing. I have attended conferences and learned from you.
I'm just, I'm so excited that finally we get to connect in this way.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: You know, I've listened to so many of my friend colleagues on your show, and I was like, Oh my gosh, I really want to do this. And so I was just, I'm super happy we were able to get connected.
Haley Radke: Great. I'd love it if you would start and share a little of your story with us.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I Was adopted [00:02:00] from South Korea when I was five months old and I grew up in Western New York. Actually, if you're interested in reading about that journey, from my perspective, when I was about 15, I was, I believe I was like 17 when it was published. I have an essay in the volume, Yellow Girls the edited collection.
And so Yellow Girls was edited by Vicki Nam and it came out in 2001. So it just celebrated. It's 20 year history and in that I spend about two and a half pages reflecting on what it was like for me growing up in a primarily white community. And so that's just like one snippet about kind of my life. But I think currently I'm living in South Korea.
I've lived here before when I was studying language through a state department, critical language scholarship. Currently I'm a U. S. Fulbright Scholar at Sogong University for academic year [00:03:00] 2023-2024. And what's been a privilege for me this time, as I'm making Seoul my home, is that my young son is with me and he's a toddler, and so I'm thinking about parenting in different kinds of ways now that we're in Korea and one of the things I've spent a long time thinking about is how he is so articulate at telling me about his own adjustment being here, and I honestly, and I've probably said this somewhere else, too. It takes my breath away thinking about that in relation to international adoption.
I've read so many adoptees talking about how they would call out saying they want to go back and they want to go home and they were speaking Korean and everything else. And I think about my son who's here with me. And he knows he's safe and he knows he's loved and we speak English at home and all of those things.
And what that must have felt like for so many international adoptees. And so it gives me pause. And I [00:04:00] wonder if it gave anybody else pause who were adopting at that time. And here, but at that time, I'm thinking about folks who came over in the 1980s, like myself or earlier, and I can't help but just, it makes you think, right?
Haley Radke: Yeah, I think for any of us who have children, there's this very different thing for their legacy that we're trying to create. And now you as a Korean adoptee, you get to go to a country and it's this very physical thing. Like I'm literally changing locations and languages. And so there's an embodiment that is unusual and so amazing. Like it forces you to think about it.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: And it's so deeply layered. And I think that's something [00:05:00] I don't want to say people forget, but it's not just Oh, we're picking up and I'm spending a year in some other country. That's not the United States where we were living. This is a country that has so much meaning for so many of other adoptees from Korea, including myself. And so thinking about what navigating life is I'm not fluent in Korean. You know, I've studied Korean language, but so many adoptees, I know that unless I have dedicated time where I can do full immersion, my ability for language acquisition isn't going to be the same.
And you know, thinking about what that means to for us. And so this is an incredible opportunity. And I'm really excited to be here. But it also makes me think so much about adoption and return and what that means for so many of us, especially for those adoptees who maybe don't want to return, can't return.
And being able to do like I said before, is such a privilege.[00:06:00]
Haley Radke: I know you've been back before, and I heard you talk about being on a TV show for searching. Can you talk about that? Because I know probably a lot of Korean adoptees will be like, Oh yeah, we know about this, but a lot of the rest of us maybe don't.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Of course. My first time back to Korea was in 2007. And then, and that was for the International Korean Adoptee Association's gathering. I specifically went in 2007 because I'm a nerd and was really excited about the first international symposium on Korean adoption studies and I couldn't wait. That was the reason I was going.
It wasn't necessarily for the other components of the gathering, but really for the research symposium, which as a side now, I will say it's been an incredible privilege to be part of the co-organizing committee for that since goodness 2016. And so it's been really delightful. So I also was back in [00:07:00] 2010 and then in 2011 and 2010 was for the Aika gathering as well.
And in 2011 I was here studying Korean. And then 2013 I was back for the gathering. Same with 2016. But I had the privilege by virtue of the work that I do in the academy, being able to come back to Korea for a conference almost every year since 2013. Obviously with a pause for Covid. And so that's been lovely. In 2011 I was not on one of those formal search shows. Let me be clear. In 2011, I was living in Jeonju and my seonsaengnim. She knew I was adopted. There was another adoptee also in the program and we were on local or regional TV. Where I sat down with a reporter and shared part of my story and that aired on kind of like the local regional news.
It was not fruitful for me. And so that was really the last time that I contemplated searching. [00:08:00] And so I had previously queried my agency and I came through Eastern Child Welfare Society and I wrote to them, I think in 2007, maybe in 2010 again, and it was always, you know, in relation to me coming to Korea.
Cause that usually is what sparks it. And I think what people forget, and, you know, I'm sure, you know this, I'm sure many of your listeners, but for non adoptees, or maybe adoptees who have thought about searching, but really haven't, it takes up a lot of emotional energy and it does things to you, to your body that I think you're not aware of in terms of the kinds of stress or the anxiety that and how that manifests itself because there's so many unknowns. Personally, I knew that I was okay if I searched and they found my birth parents and they did not want to meet, and I attribute that in part to really understanding kind of the reasons why a birth parent may not be able to meet you, especially for birth mothers, if their family, their [00:09:00] current families don't know that they relinquished.
And I know that's really complicated and what I'm saying may be very unpopular to some people, but I was never trying to ruin somebody's life and by ruin, I don't mean oh, because I'm a terrible person or you're a terrible person or anything like that, but rather, I think a lot about the trauma of adoption and the fact that I'm not the only person inhabiting that trauma.
I'm not the only person who lived with those decisions that obviously affected birth mothers, maybe birth fathers, other biological relatives, maybe siblings, et cetera. And you know, I think sometimes we can be very inward in terms of thinking about adoption is only about me, but rather there's so many other people involved and their own experiences.
And so I really wanted to make space and honor that. By the time I was on that show in the summer of 2011, I had really made my peace that I probably would not be reunited. I kind of assumed that was a dead end because I mean, once you [00:10:00] go on TV there's only so many things you could do. And this was really before DNA testing kind of was really being used, I think, in, in the way it is now.
I mean, it's been over a decade. I was fortunate that my birth mother actually reached out to my agency in 2013. This was spurred after she saw my birth father again at their high school reunion. And so that is how we kind of made contact, uh, the agency. And I don't know, I think if you traffic and dark it out, the humor, the agency emailed me and was like, we have some news for you, but is this your right email address?
So it's it was one of those moments. I was like, yes, this is the right email address. Tell me the news. Could you just, could you lead with the news? I mean, I understand maybe why not, but it was just very odd. And that's how we connected. And so in December of 2013, so close to 10 years ago, I flew to Korea.
It was right after [00:11:00] I submitted my grades. When I was a postdoc at Grinnell College in Iowa, I submitted the grades for the semester, and then I flew to Korea to meet them in person. I was really fortunate to be able to do that. I know that's not possible for so many people and I recognize that privilege, but I really wanted to kind of, I think, pull the bandaid off and just do it.
And then it was kind of a whirlwind experience. And then I came home and the day after we drove out to see my family for the holidays. So it's just kind of a lot. And so being on the show with another adopted person as well. It was, I think. It's always hard sometimes to talk about your adoption story, and it's always difficult because you never know what the outcome would be to get back to your original question.
And I think for me, like I said, I knew the odds of something happening was probably going to be slim. And so I think about if it wasn't for her, for my birth mother, seeing my birth father at their high school reunion, [00:12:00] I probably would not be in reunion and you know what that means. And I think, too, now that I'm in reunion, I see the way relinquishment had a long standing effect on my birth mom, and that's why even now I am trying to be very mindful about how I tell my reunion story specifically thinking about what parts that I share that I feel like I can share without breaking the trust in the relationship I'm forging with her, my birth father, my siblings, their families.
Haley Radke: So are you still in contact with him?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yes. We were very fortunate. We, my son and I spent Chuseok, which is colloquially known as Korean Thanksgiving with my birth with my Oma and my younger siblings. And so that was, it was a privilege and incredible and strange, not like in a bad way or strange and it was just different because I think I'd read this and this is [00:13:00] where I sound like.
You know, an academic or somebody who studies adoption. I'd read so many things about people spending their holidays with their families, their birth families, if they were in reunion. And so like in my head, I had this, I didn't even know I had this idealized version of what it should be based on what you read.
And then I was experiencing it and I was like, oh, it's not the same. That's okay. This just feels just different and that's when I was like, oh, because I went in with all these preconceived notions and assumptions about what this should be like based on reading about other people. And we know that's not how life is.
And so I had to really step out of that situation and reflect on that because that's not fair.
Are you able to be present in a moment like that? Are you looking at your child and being like, getting this experience that I might have had at your age if I hadn't been adopted. I mean, that's whoa.
Yes and no. I think at times, you know, as [00:14:00] he starts to speak more Korean and it's the intonation of some of the words when he calls me Oma and it's a particular kind of pitch. And my husband and I, who, and he's, my husband's also adopted. We're talking about how that it warms our souls inside, right?
Like it makes us feel good in a way that I don't think either one of us imagined. And my husband was adopted when he was older. So he remembers living in Korea. And so I think us having this opportunity and watching our son it's kind of crazy and awesome. And yeah, it's just I wish everybody who was transnationally adopted, or just adopted in general, could be able to kind of have those moments.
I saw on Instagram, because I'm on Instagram a lot, people talk about those, I think, as glimmers, right? Those really warm and fuzzy moments. I was scrolling, so I cannot attribute that to anybody. But anyways, it was one of those moments where I was like, oh, it is exciting to see. But I think it's exciting to, for anybody [00:15:00] who may identify as an immigrant or who has experienced displacement. So I don't think it's just unique to adoptees. I think being able to sort of see somebody having opportunities that you wish you had when you were a child, it's amazing.
Haley Radke: That is like such a neat experience. I'm as you were sharing it, I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy for you.
You know, there's something about those moments that has to be healing for us somewhere deep down in there. I don't know if you think that way, too, but I don't know. It's the wounds that we carry from separation is just it feels like this never ending pit for me. So anything I can do to fill in a little bit at a time, just important.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I think for me, I've always been cautious of discussing or labeling adoptees as melancholic and [00:16:00] in part because there's always this assumption that we're in constant search of something that's missing as if adoption isn't trauma or adoption doesn't involve malfeasance and fabrication. And all the things, these things that we know to be true, but because it's supposed to be this good, happy feeling, then I think when you map melancholia onto that, it creates kind of a pathologized adoptee subject instead of that's devoid of nuance or context.
And so something that I've been sitting with and thinking through and starting to write about a little bit is to really thinking about the melancholia or the haunting or The Korean word Han to talk about sort of loss and sorrow and unnamed grief about what it means to be living with that grief, a palpable grief that for me, I finally could name. In relation to sitting at dinner this was about a month ago with my appa, with my Korean father and my son [00:17:00] and myself and my appa really doesn't speak English. My Korean, I mean, I can care, I can order food. I can give him. Get directions, but I can't, you know what I can't do. I can't have that sustained deep conversation. And for me, it's recognizing those losses and warning, even though I am in reunion, because there is. There is a grief there and it's palpable and you can feel it on both sides and, you know, I'll say, gwaenchanh-ayo like, it's okay when my appa tells me something and I kind of look at him and I smile oh, gosh, this is, yeah. And, you know, we rely on either siblings to translate kind of thing, or we use translation like apps like Papago or Google Translate because they have conversation features and stuff.
And I don't think there's been a lot of, at least that I've come across. About that kind of living grief, and this is in part two, I think, because there's so few of us in reunion, and so reunion is kind of seen as an end point, even though I don't think [00:18:00] it's an end point. It's just a, it's just one marker in one's adoption journey, if that happens, and so then it's living in reunion and you'd ask me am I still in contact because we know that doesn't happen all the time. And so I'm very mindful of that as well, because I know when you do start raising these kinds of questions about reunion, it can be also incredibly painful for those who have not, who've had less success.
Or for those who, for whatever reason, have decided that's not the route they want to take. I think that, for me, I'm really hoping that we can have complex and nuanced conversations, where we can hold everything in tension with one another, to recognize that there's not one path forward, but rather we have to be able to have complexity at a time when I think just not just talking about adoption, but just thinking about what's happening in the world right now, where context [00:19:00] gets to be lost.
People want something that's very black or white. There's no room for gray. And, you know, that feeling of grief and loss. We have to be able to do many things, and we have to be able to recognize how complex reunion can be. And I really hope that as I think through this and start writing about it more, that people want to be, want to have that conversation with me.
Haley Radke: I think even as you mentioned, we don't always think about the emotional labor just with searching that space that takes up. I mean, being in reunion, I'm in 12 years, you're in 10. That's just a chunk of space that we're always giving whether or not we're really focused on it or it's running in the background. It's the process of reunification into a family takes more labor than we probably know.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: So I know you'll ask me at the end of your show, but I just real quick wanted to mention because we're talking [00:20:00] about reunion. Sara Docan- Morgan has a book coming out called In Reunion and she's looking at Korean transnational adoptees and I was privileged enough to read an early copy of it and it's a wonderful book.
But she discusses that labor and she names that labor and it's really incredible and moving because it's something that's so often I think those of us who are in reunion can acknowledge, but it's having these kinds of conversations like the two of us are having right now, we don't necessarily hear from unless it's kind of not necessarily whispered in like real corners, but like where we're talking to each other inside conversations or we're DMing one another, but it's not necessarily shared openly because I think for adoptees, we also hold space for, like I said before, other adoptees and their experiences and what that looks like too.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Definitely. I want to shift and talk about your work because you are a [00:21:00] critical adoption scholar.
This is a quote from your book, Adoption Fantasies. I'm just going to read one line to you because I was like, how did you figure out a way to watch some TV shows and movies and add it into your work life? That's pretty cool. So I figured that out too, by the way, I turned toward popular cultural artifacts to critically engage how adoption is packaged, commodified and sold as a social good.
And I will talk, I'll recommend your book later to spoiler alert. There's your two spoiler alerts, but I'm, I love how you go through several examples in popular culture and talk about how adoptees are represented. I was earlier this year, I did a two part episode on Patreon about how Friends deals with the adoption storyline, [00:22:00] because I was thinking about what were the messages I was getting in those formative, you know, teen, young, adult years about adoption. And, yikes. Do you remember from when you were a kid, any TV shows or things you were watching then that had an impact on you?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yes, and I'm not sure what kind of impact. So I think a lot about the fact that Losing Isaiah used to be on cable television a lot. It would be on Lifetime. Kind of. Not necessarily on a loop, but you would see it. I mean, this is back when you could watch the like Breakfast Club and all those kind of movies also on TV a lot. So I think about Losing Isaiah. I think about those made for TV movies. So do you remember Switched at Birth about the oh, gosh, maybe I butchered the title to of the movie where these families to calm the wrong infant.
So it's not necessarily adoption, but like the idea of being raised or separated at birth or [00:23:00] something like that, right? Being raised by different families. I think a lot about. It was a book and then it was turned into a movie The Face in the Milk Carton. So again, it's a lot about stolen children.
Haley Radke: I remember that book series. I read it so much. I was obsessed with it. It was, there was three books. And I think in the second book, she goes back to live with her original family and how disruptive this is. Oh, wow. You really got something in my, I've got a whole section of my brain lit up.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: But I think about those moments, because I think for me, at least there was this, I don't want to say obsession, but there was this interest about what that looked like and what that felt like in society at that time.
Okay. And. You know, I know you've had Shannon Gibney on, right? So like Shannon's memoir, The Girl I Am, I Was, and Never Will Be gets to some of that's similar but obviously different because it's adoption themed. And then I think too about other representations, you know, in Adoption Fantasies, I discuss [00:24:00] Woody Allen, Mia Farrow, and Soon-Yi Previn, and I think about kind of what I knew growing up and then what I've learned, obviously working on the book to think about S oon-Yi I, for me, in terms of where else there was adoption, it would oftentimes appear oddly and shows, right? It was always strange in TV, but a lot of times it was always packaged as we adopted you for a better life. Shouldn't you be happy? Yay. Or, oh gosh wasn't, it was like Macaulay Culkin and Elijah Wood in that horror movie, like The Good Son or something where like Macaulay Culkin was like adopted.
I'm not the, I don't look at horror film because I will freely admit. Horror films freak me out. I like, I'll watch them, but they're not my jam.
Haley Radke: I'll watch them for you. That's my fave.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I just, I can't do it. I like, I need all the lights on and I'm gonna still jump. I'll cover my eyes.
Anyways. so It's either there is this positive experience or, oh gosh, [00:25:00] this adoptee is so damaged. Look at how incredibly messed up they are. Look how, you know, it's pathological. And you know, I remember those kinds of things, but a lot of the time it was about when I think about pop culture, it was more about how other people understood Asian Americans and Asian people and thinking about the racism that I experienced, some of which I share in the book as well.
And so that's what I spend a lot of time thinking about.
Haley Radke: Going back to Woody Allen, I think another thing we don't really spend a lot of time talking about, but I think we should be highlighting more, is I think adoptees are at higher risk of sexual violence and incest from either their immediate adoptive families or their extended family because you're not biologically [00:26:00] related. Do you have thoughts on that?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Oh, goodness. I will first say that is not in my area of expertise. So my work looking and applying the lens of incest to really understand, uh, Soon-Yi Previn, Woody Allen, and Mia Farrow comes from a particular lens of thinking about power and privilege and the operationalization of that power in father or paternal like figure daughter relationships.
And so I am not trained in social work or psychology to make sort of specific assessments around kind of the number of cases of abuse, trauma, et cetera, rather what I'm hoping to do by shining a light on what happened and kind of how the 1992 scandal and fallout really reverberated in society is to have us have that conversation to think about when people believe these families are good families because they've allegedly been screened and vetted, except for we know that's [00:27:00] not the case.
We know of adoptees who have shared their painful experiences. With sexual and physical violence and emotional abuse. So we're all too aware. I think when you look at how society reacted to Soon-Yi and how even Mia Farrow reacted to her own daughter, it becomes very evident the way adoption clouds people's understandings of sexual abuse.
And frames their understanding of how we will protect some kinds of girlhood over others in some childhoods over others. I think that when you look at. How Woody Allen supporters, you know, really justify that Soon-Yi was never really adopted by him and, you know, stuff like that. It raises questions about what does it mean then if somebody's long term boyfriend sexually abuses someone's child?
It [00:28:00] doesn't make it any less, it's not a lesser form of violence or like a different kind of violence, right? At the point in which you're splitting hairs like that we really have to have a different kind of conversation because you are, you so far missed what's actually happening. And so I'm hoping that folks who are survivors of abuse, when they get to that particular chapter, they see, or they can recognize, and if they can't, I will accept that feedback as well. But what I'm really trying to do is provide space for talking about why isn't it? Why don't we see that happening here? You know, how does the Asian adopted woman's, girl's body become subsumed under racialized and gendered stereotypes of Asian women's sexuality? And what's at stake there when we see the limits of adoptive kinship.
Haley Radke: I know this is going to be like, this is like a [00:29:00] giant question because your whole book covers it, but I'm wondering if you can talk a little bit about the word fetishization and you talk about it from the start. So infants as babies, commodities, and then growing up into I think you call it oriental fantasies, plus a combination of anti Asian racism and all of that.
Like it's, this is like a huge subject, huge question that all you're covering. So I know it's unfair, but I'm curious if you can describe that a little bit for us. So we can kind of go along with your premise here.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: The book looks at both of fantasies of white adoption and Asian American fantasies of adoption.
And when I think about The fetishization of adoptees. I look at how as other scholars have demonstrated. So here I'm thinking about the work of Andrea [00:30:00] Louie or Sarah Darrow, Heather Jacobson and Christine Ward Gailey when they've talked to adoptive parents of Chinese children. I mean, these parents sometimes describe their children as China dolls, porcelain dolls.
You see that in the work of Soojin Pate and Suzy Woo when they describe the earliest Korean war orphans and how they were the girls and how specifically Soojin Pate's work and transformed into adoptable commodities and how the labor of these young girls was used to support morale of military troops in South Korea. I think a lot about how Asian adoptees in particular, and here I'm thinking about East Asian adoptees who came over from South Korea and China, but I'm also thinking about the packaging of kind of Vietnamese war orphans and what that looked like. It was under the banner of saving these, again, doll like being, and they were [00:31:00] fetishized as being readily available blank slates where you could raise them like your very own.
So we have to think about how legacies of assimilation also shaped that. Because if you could not obtain a healthy white infant, adopting from Asia was kind of seen as the next best thing. You see, you know, if you're interested in the racialized marketplace of U. S. adoption, at least. And I apologize for being so U. S. centric to your listeners, because I know they come from all over, and you're in Canada. Elizabeth Raleigh's book, Selling Transracial Adoption, does a good job of kind of articulating the assortive marketplace of children. And so when we think about fetishization, though, in adulthood, I'm very much aware of how gender notions of Asian womanhood have penetrated and circulated the U.S. public imaginary, as well as the global Western imaginary for some time. So thinking about how other scholars have [00:32:00] also said this too, right? So when we think about some of the earliest anti Asian exclusion laws in the U. S., It really does position Asian women, specifically Chinese women, along the lines of sex work and what that looks like, out of fears of Asian women as sex workers.
We see this with legacies of US militarism and militarism abroad. And so you have those fantasies coupled with a lack of understanding of what that means to be Asian American in the US, Canada as well. To really get that we are full people. We're autonomous subjects, like everybody else who, you know, negotiate the world.
But when, you know, there's assumptions about you being passive, submissive, sexually available, easy to please, and see how long standing these stereotypes have been, and then recognize the fact that so many white adoptive parents. If they knew of these assumptions, didn't want to recognize and recognize [00:33:00] how those fantasies and fetishes map onto our bodies and how they actually may be complicit in some of those things as well.
I think I answered your question. I may have meandered a little bit.
Haley Radke: No, I think that was great. It's hard to touch on all the things when you're like I wrote a whole book to answer that. One thing I really appreciate, this is a little bit of an aside, but you're so good at pointing us back to where ideas originate from and who said.
You know, so and so said this, and I know some academics do this, but not all. And I've never observed anyone do it in as generous a way as you do. Why is that so important to you?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: I'm indebted, I think, a lot to Black feminism and thinking about the citational practices of Black feminists. But just thinking about how citing matters, citations matter, recognizing that, you didn't just invent sliced bread.
[00:34:00] Is hugely important and it's not about necessarily being humble, but it's recognizing those genealogies and so being able to trace a conversation and to understand how a field developed this isn't to dismiss somebody who's like coming into adoption studies to be like, Oh, no, but it's rather okay, so if you want to have these conversations, who are you engaging with?
So how are you, if you're having a conversation about Korean adoption studies, you know, how are you engaging the work of Tobias Hübinette, Kim Park Nelson, Lene Myong, Rich Lee, Oh Myo Kim, Adam Kim, you know, there's so many folks out there who've done this work. You know, I've mentioned Soojin Pate, Susie Woo, thinking about the work of Kelly Condit-Shrestha and others, right?
There's so many people that. We need to be able to sort of see how, again, if you're looking at race and ethnic identity, who are you talking to, who are you in conversation with, whose ideas are you departing from or [00:35:00] building on, if you're thinking about transracial adoptions within the U. S., and understanding adoption as violence are you engaging Kit Myers and his concept of violence of love, and those sorts of things, because that, that matters.
And it matters because it demonstrates that you recognize that, again, you know, you are part of a community. And I think about how generous my colleagues were when I was a master's student in 2006, 2007 finishing up my master's thesis with the London School of Economics about the gendered reasons why Korea still participates in inter country adoption.
You know, I remember reaching out to them and then making time to talk with me. So Kathleen Bergquist, Kim Park Nelson, Eleana Kim, Tobias meeting Lene Myong and Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, thinking about how these folks really brought me into a community where I am now situated and what that looks like and thinking about friendships that have developed over time [00:36:00] with these scholars, some adopted, some not adopted doing the work.
And so I'm very attentive to that. I also, and it's funny because, you know, you bring it up here, but this came up when I was in at, symposium back in March that Kelly, Rich and Catherine Nguyen organized. It was a Harvard Radcliffe Symposium up in Cambridge. And I remember one of my friend colleagues, she was like, Kim always sort of does this.
And it's because it's so important to me. And I can't say it enough. Being able to say who or where you're getting ideas from and attributing them. It just, it matters. We don't want to engage in that kind of, I just don't want to engage in bad scholarly practice. This is something I really encourage because it matters. And I don't know.
Haley Radke: Can I say? I've had it modeled to me when talking about adoptee activism, right? I'll be interviewing somebody and then they'll be like so and so [00:37:00] did this first and so did that right? And now I find myself doing that too. I mean, usually younger adoptees as well, and I think it's important too, and I just, I really respect how you do that, and like I said, I think it's in a really generous way, and so yeah, good modeling.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: No, thanks, and I think it, I think a lot about sort of activism too, because, you know, the way social media has transformed those conversations, but I think about kind of the group now. I sound like an old person in the early days of the Internet. I think about how different how adoptees were coming together kind of a decade ago, more than a decade ago.
What was that looking like? How did those folks push a conversation to enable us to have the conversations we're currently having and why that's significant? We have to understand those genealogies because if we don't, you're just going to assume, oh, we're doing it better or they did it wrong. And that's not the case.
We also have to [00:38:00] recognize the material conditions in which people were doing that work to really understand perhaps why did they stop at X even if they were still talking about some of the other issues, too?
Haley Radke: I know this isn't technically your field of study but I really feel like in both of your books that I've read so Disrupting Kinship and Adoption Fantasies you're also playing the part of historian because you are referencing all of these things again showing my age that I feel are, you know, current events, quote unquote, in the adoptee community in the recent history, recent past.
How do you say that? And so you're preserving those things for future generations as well. So I'm like, Oh my gosh, big hearts on that. I don't know.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: No, thank you. Also, it just reminds us that I don't think we're old. And then there's those moments where I'm like, Oh, okay. Yeah, you, yes. It feels, you know, 20, 2015 wasn't yesterday, right? Or like [00:39:00] 2002 wasn't five years ago. And you're like, oh, time. It happens.
Haley Radke: You have a toddler to keep you young. I have a kid who's a couple years away from the learner's permit and I'm like, Whoa, you know?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: And it's funny you say that. So my step kids are older. One graduated college already. The other one is in college and I remember when, you know, when they get to be the same age as the students that I'm teaching or the students that I'm teaching are their age. I don't know. One of the two. It's always Oh gosh, wow. You are a grown up.
Haley Radke: It just happens, right? It's in a blink. I really want to recommend your books to everyone. I'm sure lots of people have already read Disrupting Kinship. I love your unpacking of your term adoptee killjoy, which, I don't know, maybe you can talk a little bit about that to us.
And, but we're talking about Adoption Fantasies today, The Fetishization of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to W omanhood, which is just out if you're listening when this [00:40:00] releases. And I really appreciated the critical lens that you brought to Sex in the City, Modern Family, Soul Searching, Twinsters, all of these pieces that a lot of us are familiar with and looking at it with different eyes, right? I mean, I know there's a lot of us that would have consumed some of that content and been like, gross or like, why is this uncomfortable? Or oh, I can't believe they're doing this, but you really help us break it down in a way that you're like, okay, here's all the really problematic things in regards to this.
And this is what the public is consuming. And has the warm fuzzies around this is their glimmers is like, oh, let's watch Modern Family together, you know, and when we see all these adoptee tropes, just being over overused, and we're [00:41:00] complaining about it, you really break it down for us. And then, of course, the added lens of the Asian American racism that is going on and I need to be more informed about that as a white woman and I'm, I was, you know, really, you really unpacked a lot of those things for me as well.
I really hope people read it. I know you're an academic writer, but it's very accessible, and I think it helps us build skills in our conversations with people when we're talking about how problematic adoption is. Okay, that was a big mouthful. Any comments on that? And plus, Adoptee Killjoy, please tell us what that is.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: The term adoptee killjoy actually originates from Sara Ahmed's use of the term feminist killjoy. So I have to mention that because I'm really indebted to what Sara Ahmed was doing with feminist killjoy. But with adoptee killjoy, I'm thinking about how, and I know you're not supposed to [00:42:00] use the words and the definition, but like how the adoptee does kill the joy of adoption by voicing critiques or criticism. About the malfeasance, the fabrication, the violence of adoption, and thinking about the ways that adoptees are so aware of what it means to keep their place within their adoptive families and what does it mean to be legible. As kin, what does it mean to disrupt those fantasies of adoption by voicing dissent by kind of acknowledging what transpired was nothing short of either forms of trafficking, violence, et cetera. And I don't mean to repeat myself ad nauseam, but it's to use the concept of adoptee killjoy it also into embrace it really means we want to have those critical [00:43:00] conversations and I think what's also important, it's getting us to move away from the other binary about adoptees.
Like you're happy and well adjusted or you're angry, you're maladjusted no. And also it would be okay if I was angry because wouldn't you be angry when you'd be angry if you don't have access to your original birth certificate. Here I'm thinking about domestic adoptees as well as international adoptees. Wouldn't it, wouldn't you be angry if you were told this one story and then you found out it wasn't true or that you were told this, but you knew in your heart that it wasn't true or wouldn't you be angry if you were used as a prop for your family to feel like they did something good and that they're amazing, even though we know about so many examples of glorified families who have enacted trauma or have murdered their adopted children, but they were lauded at the time.
And so we know those things. So that's just my short piece on that. And now I'm going to switch [00:44:00] gears super awkwardly to think about what I'm doing with this book and why I'm looking at these pop culture artifacts. And you know, if you go to my public Instagram @AdopteeKilljoy at one point this summer, I had hopes and dreams. Don't we all that I was going to be able to look at the second season of and just like that and really dig deeper into thinking about Lily. However, as I also posted on my Instagram later this fall because I have the move to Korea and, you know, literally moving my life here and other things. And, you know, I haven't had the chance to yet.
It's something that I really want to do, especially in light of some of the other conversations that I've had and the work that I did with both with not both because there's more than two of us with Sun Yung Shin, Grace Newton and Grace Gerloff around our discussion guide for Joyride. Which came out this past year and features an adoptee storyline and thinking about fantasies of Asian American adoption [00:45:00] and what does that mean when adoptees are not at the table or when our stories are used as vehicles for larger narratives. Without really thinking about some of the deeper ramifications and impact.
Haley Radke: I think you even mention in one of the chapters on the documentary you asked the question who is behind the camera? Are we thinking about that?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yeah it's important because who's telling those stories matters. And so other things that aren't necessarily in this book, but I'm working on. So I have a piece in a book edited by Jennifer Ho that should be out hopefully next year. It's a collection on global anti Asian racisms. And I discuss how adoptees of color Asian adoptees have known anti Asian racism very intimately.
Because of the adoptive family and what that means. And so the majority of us were adopted by white families. And in that piece, I actually discuss what does it mean when you also look at documentaries [00:46:00] featuring young people and youth. And so I do reflect on my own personal essay in Yell-OH Girls that I mentioned at the beginning of this episode.
I also kind of expand because if you read Adoption Fantasies, you'll be like, but Kim, didn't you say that you didn't look at youth because you are reticent? And I'm like, yes, I am reticent. And it took some time as I was digging through and thinking about looking at youth and documentaries about what I was doing and why, which is why I turned my own critical gaze on myself and what I wrote and it mean when you take a snapshot of a young person's life and then you just leave it?
And I think that's something we need to be thinking about, especially given the ways that adoptive parents have monetized their children, or any parent, right? Thinking about sort of momfluencers and like dads on TikTok, you know, all of that kind of stuff. So there's that piece.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Or brave love using the young birth mom who is not processed her grief yet as poster child for [00:47:00] giving away your baby.
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Yeah. We need to have that conversation and really think critically. The other thing that I've been spending a lot of time thinking of, too, when it comes to popular culture, I know a lot of folks have been very reticent about talking about the show This Is Us and thinking about Randall Pearson and so many adoptees never watch the show. The series that has since gone off the air, but I submitted an essay to for an edited collection, thinking about racialized childhoods and spent time with the season that This is Us and now I'm forgetting the season because my, you know. I'm a human. But it was the season that the show dealt with COVID and Black Lives Matter and kind of the post George Floyd uprisings in the U. S. And thinking about Randall's character and character development, and I watched, I can and I re watched the, that particular season to discuss that, because I think we need to be able to have a [00:48:00] language to start pushing back against some of these, understandings of adoption. Think about what happened in the news, at least in the U. S., around Michael Oher and the conservatorship with the Tuohy's. You know, I reference, I think it might be in a footnote in adoption, or an end note rather, in Adoption Fantasies that The Blind Side is like the most watched Netflix movie. And I remember hearing it. I was like finishing up doing either like copy edits or page proofs on the manuscript.
And I heard that and I was like, holy moly, that says a lot. About how adoption is understood. So if that's all you know about adoption is The Blind Side you're gonna come in with particular kinds of investments, right? So if all you know about adoption is because you watched Sex and the City in college, and that's why you wanted to adopt, I mean, that, again, tells you a lot.
And I think so often people for people think, oh, pop culture. No, pop culture has a huge impact on society [00:49:00] and it does make meaning. It's how parents of other kids. Also, are understanding adoption. So if you're an adoptive parent and you have an adopted child, you know, other families, you may not watch those shows, but other families might.
And so other families might engage in like weird interactions with your kid as a result. And what does that mean to when you have adoptees who continually speak out and push back in. In memoir in essays in fiction, you know, we should be listening. I mean, I know I've been listening. I know you've been listening and many of your listeners have been, but I think we continue to move the needle in terms of how those voices and the reckoning that we're going to be having if.
And I think we're having that reckoning. I think you could see that when The Lost Daughters. So here I'm thinking of like the writing collective spearheaded by Amanda Transue-Woolston. And then Rosita González also helped sort of push this term forward too, is to flip the script. And so that was a decade [00:50:00] ago.
And so what happens when you have that moment and thinking about how that hashtag really changed conversations and considering what we're doing now. And again, it. It is that genealogy. It is recognizing that we are continually moving that needle. And while it may not be fast enough for everybody, we're having conversations about abolition and adoption abolition.
You're seeing how that is in conversation with around the family policing system and the Up End movement in the US to talk about foster care and the violence associated with that. We're seeing conversations and people being able to kind of think broadly and coalition build about the experiences of like donor conceived children and having that conversation around adoption and what that means moving forward too.
And so for me, it's about where are we going next? And what, how can we create the change that we want to see?
Haley Radke: Your friend has a new book coming out [00:51:00] in January that you wanted to tell us about. Speaking of new things changing.
I am really excited about Sara Docan-Morgan's book, In Reunion, that comes out in January from Temple University Press and by, I'm sorry, by January, I mean January 2024, in case you're listening to this episode in 2024 or beyond.
What Sara is doing is weaving accounts from Korean transnational adoptees adopted abroad to not only the U. S. but elsewhere to really think about. Not only that first point of contact and reunion, but what does that look like in the intervening years? And then when she reconnects with the participants, her research participants, she also interweaves her own experiences.
She, like I said earlier, gives voice and is able to name the labor associated with managing not only your affect, but also the experiences [00:52:00] of others. And so here I'm not just thinking about adoptive parents and adoptive families, but also thinking about what that looks like in terms of labor with your birth families.
And she does it with such tenderness and care. I love her book, and I can't say more about it. I think everybody needs to read it, not just if you're Korean adopted, not just if you're in reunion. It's an important book because it helps, like I was saying earlier, change the conversation and narratives we have about reunion, because it's not an end point, and we know that.
We know it's not. We've seen how it's not an end point in documentaries, and yet it always still is seen as the end point. And this isn't to say that everybody is going to want to search or that everybody has success in reunion. Rather, she's giving us the tools, though, to have much needed dialogue and much needed conversation about such an important topic. And so I can't say enough or gush enough about Sara and her work.
Haley Radke
I'm really looking forward [00:53:00] to reading it. I've already been messaging her and hopefully she'll be on to talk about it a little bit with us. Okay, thank you so much, Kim. What a delight to talk to you and hear your wisdom and your shoutouts to all your people you've learned from and we've also learned from.
Where can we find Adoption Fantasies and connect with you online?
Kimberly McKee, Ph.D.: Adoption Fantasies is published by The Ohio State University Press, so you can go directly to their press website. You can also purchase the book online. Or in a probably online wherever books are sold. I would like to think that I would be carried at some big box retailer, but I'm not. So why pretend you can also connect with me on my website, mckeekimberly.com or you can find me over on Instagram @ adopteekilljoy. I will freely admit I am not very strong at managing my DMs on Instagram. So [00:54:00] sometimes if you message me, I will message you back. It just may not. Be very quick.
And I'm always very apologetic. And trust me, it's me. It really is me. It's and as you can see, if you're if you go over to my Instagram account, I don't tend to post a lot. And I think it's because people forget, you know, that's not my full time job I'm not a I don't, I manage my own social media, so I'm a person, like everybody else, so I hope people give me some grace if you try to find me online.
Haley Radke: That might be one of the things I relate to most about you. Relatable, DMs gone unanswered for a long time. Yes, me too. Yes, we're human on the other end. Thank you so much, Kim. Thank you.
This has been so much fun talking with you.
I'm so thankful for Kim and the other critical adoption scholars who share their wisdom and knowledge with [00:55:00] us. On the show, it just means so much to me that we are getting a high quality education here on the podcast from these really tremendous folks who have put so much effort in researching Adoption from the adoptee perspective.
So one amazing way to support these folks is to make sure we are ordering their books and writing reviews for them. Wherever we order our books from or on Goodreads, it is a big help and a lot of them love hearing from you and knowing what impact their work has had on you. So make sure you are kind and generous when you are supporting these fellow adoptees. Who are spending a lot more time researching adoption stuff than a lot of us would like to spend on it. And I'm grateful for their efforts for us. I want to thank all of the [00:56:00] people who are supporting Adoptees On, whether it is a one time donation or you are a Patreon supporter, you make this show possible. Thank you so much. If you want to join them, go to adopteeson.com/community to find out more details. And we have book clubs going on. And we have. Adoptee's Off Script Party is going on where you can make a new adoptee friend. We have our monthly Ask an Adoptee Therapist events and I just, there's so many good things going on over there.
I hope that you'll join us. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
