273 SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/273
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're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. I'm so excited to welcome professor and sociologist Dr. SunAh Laybourn. SunAh's brand new book is called Out of Place, The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants, and it is definitely one you're going to want to add into your collection.
Today, we talk about SunAh's research, the realization that heritage culture camps are prioritizing adoptive parents comfort, the public's perception of the still dire issue of adoptee citizenship, and I've finally get to ask the question I've wondered about for at least five years. [00:01:00] Is being an adopted person a distinct culture of its own?
Before we get started, I wanted to personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community today over on 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 am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Dr. SunAh Laybourn. Welcome SunAh.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.
Haley Radke: Fellow podcaster, listen, my favorite people Yes. I would love it if you would start out by sharing some of your story with us.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I would love to. Haley, I've been thinking about this question.
My story and, for adoptees, we get [00:02:00] all these demands to tell our story, but it's something so special when we can share our story with one another, the way that our story and the storytelling that we get to do is a point of community and belonging, and it's not, a way for us to have to defend our existence or to make sense of, why we're here, and it's such a special moment I'm literally getting chilled right now, to be able to share in that storytelling, and so it's such an honor.
For me, I've also been thinking a lot about what is my story outside of the demands that people have made on me as a transracial adoptee, as a, Korean adoptee adopted into a white family, what is my story outside of just saying, Oh, I was, adopted from Korea when I was a few months old and adopted by a white American family and I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and I, don't have any siblings that I know of.
I didn't grow up [00:03:00] with any siblings. Oh, my parents adopted because, this reason, what is my story? What is a story that I want to tell outside of those demands to answer people's questions? And for me today, anyway, I'm thinking about, my adoptee story as how I've been able to come to this place of understanding that I do belong because for so long I felt that I didn't and not only that I felt like I didn't belong because people are always asking me, about my family or why are you here as Asian American person in the U. S. But thinking through, this idea that I can belong, that I deserve to belong. And that is how I'm thinking about my story now, as seeing all the ways and all the many communities that I am a part of. Which is a big shift for me. I remember having this conversation, an argument with my therapist about [00:04:00] that I could never belong.
And she was like, Oh, so that's a limiting belief that you have. And I was like, Oh, yeah, you're right. That is not a fact of my existence that I will never belong. But rather, that is something that I've come to believe through a lot of different experiences that I had, but that at its core was not true. And so that's where I am. At least today, how I'm thinking about, my adoptee story.
Haley Radke: I have a question for you before we go any further. Because you're a sociologist. And I've been, I gotta tell you, I've been thinking about this for years. And I think you're the perfect person to ask this of.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Ooh, okay. No pressure.
Haley Radke: Is being an adoptee, adult adoptees, is that a distinct culture?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah. This is such [00:05:00] a great question. I say yes. I say it's definitely a distinct culture. And when we think about culture, it's about the meanings that we share. It's about shared feelings, shared experiences, shared language, right? Shared way of seeing the world and interacting in the world.
And certainly as adoptees, and particularly as we come to consciousness, which for a lot of us does happen in adulthood. I see us making our own adoptee identity, adoptee culture, adoptee shared meaning making. And isn't it so beautiful to have a community to which we belong? That we have our own experiences, language, ways of feeling and seeing the world that we share among one another and that other people, they can't understand, they might be able to learn about and, try to imagine, but there's a feeling right that we share because of this [00:06:00] experience that we have that really can't be explained in words. It is felt and shared among us. And that's so beautiful.
Haley Radke: I suspected. Thank you for confirming. I wonder if you can take us down the personal a little bit, because am I correct in understanding that your first kind of toe into adoptee community was when you started interviewing adoptees that eventually turned into the book we're going to talk about today, which is Out of Place, The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants.
Yeah, that is correct. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, and because of the way well, I don't want to say because of the way that I was adopted, but certainly it probably played a role in it. My parents adopted me when my dad was stationed in Japan. And so we spent the first couple years in [00:07:00] Japan on a military base, which meant that we weren't connected to an adoption agency, which also meant we weren't necessarily connected to other adoptive families.
And so for me, once we finally moved to the us, moved to Memphis where I ended up growing up, I wasn't connected to any other adoptive families, any other adoptees and I didn't know that there were other adopt I didn't know it was a thing, it felt very singular and very isolating and very individual.
And, I had so many questions, right? I think that's very common. People just have questions in general. Are people like me, whether you're an adoptee or, not an adoptee, are there people like me? And I found no validation, affirmation, confirmation that there were. And so as many questions as I had and as many ways that I tried to answer that question whether through the library there was not the internet okay people there was not the internet when I first was [00:08:00] having these questions. You know how old I am but there's not the internet as we know it today. So I couldn't you know, jump on Facebook and connect with people or
Haley Radke: Hold on a second. What year were you born?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I was born in 83.
Haley Radke: Me too God no internet.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: We were not on the internet when we were like five, six, seven, eight years old, like we were on the Encarta CD, like pulling up some information, but not like the way the internet is now where you could like Google something or ask Jeeves or anything like,
Haley Radke: You're lighting up parts of my nostalgia area in my brain.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I was in the encyclopedia set that we had in our house. That aspirational middle class encyclopedia set. And, I was using the tools at my disposal, but I couldn't find any information about adoptees. So this is just a long way of me saying I learned not to ask.
At a certain point, I learned not to look anymore, and I learned not to [00:09:00] ask, and I felt extremely betrayed after going to our local branch library, my safe haven, my place of imagination, all the things, and to find there were no books about adoption or about adoptees. Maybe it was a good thing that our local branch didn't have any of the published, studies that were about adoption at that time because that probably would have been even more isolating and traumatizing because of how adoption studies were carried out in early decades. But I just learned that there weren't people like me. Or at least that's what reality had confirmed for me up until that point. So you are absolutely correct. It wasn't until I started graduate school at the University of Maryland.
I knew I wanted to research and understand and connect with like with other adoptees. I think by this point, I knew that there were other adoptees out there somewhere. And that's when I actually got connected to an adoptee community. And like many adoptees, was both [00:10:00] excited about the possibility of connecting with other adoptees and also completely terrified.
Haley Radke: Oh, you have to say more. Terrified of what?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Terrified of this idea of okay, what if, these are my people, they're supposed to be my people, but what if I don't fit in there either? Or what if they don't like me? Or, just all the fears that we have about, rejection. And so it took me a while to actually really connect with the adoptee community.
So I mentioned being at the University of Maryland, so in the broader D. C. area. There's Adoption Links D. C., a Korean adoptee group in D. C. And I knew they existed but I was really afraid to get involved because again, that fear of what does it mean about me if these folks who are supposed to be just like me don't like me, or I don't like them, or [00:11:00] I still feel like an outsider, then it really is me.
Haley Radke: I know you've shared before that your adoptive mother passed when you were still a kid and I heard you talk about how, I think it was Kaomi on the Adapted interview. She was like, did you picture it as being losing your second mother? And you said no at the time. Do you think having lost a second mother has impacted your feeling of being very sensitive to possible rejection.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah. So many things happened during that time in my life that made it very, I didn't want to even take the risk of having relationships. My mom passed when I was 11 years old. She had breast cancer. I was the last [00:12:00] person to see her alive. Which as a child, I made sense of as like I did something right you know of course, she had been sick and she was in hospice care and so it was very much inevitable that she was gonna pass, but still even then as a child, you think like I must have done something wrong. Again, that idea of it's something about me, like there's something wrong with me.
And then shortly thereafter, my favorite uncle came to live with us. And then he passed right in our living room, right in front of me, had a brain aneurysm. So again, something completely unavoidable. But the way I was interpreting, these losses was that everybody who loves me leaves me. And so very much from that point, as a young child, I was like, it's not worth it to have, deep committed relationships of any kind friendships, romantic relationships, family [00:13:00] relationships, and as a protective measure, I was like, I'm just not going to allow myself to get that close to people. And I felt that way for a very long time.
Haley Radke: And what's changed for you? Because I hope something has.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes, so bleak.
Haley Radke: No one will ever love me.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I know, right? It's just I didn't feel like it was safe. It didn't feel like something safe to do. And, I did have a very big shift, thankfully, and it happens, I don't know how to make sense of it, right? I can't tell you this nice linear package story, but I can tell you that in 2018 I reclaimed my Korean birth name. And so I legally changed my name. I know sometimes adoptees change their name socially, or just in certain settings might change their name. But I [00:14:00] wanted to legally change my name.
Because there is something about that authority of saying I've legally changed my name. It's on my ID, like you will call me by this name. This is who I am. And that was really important for me to make that claim and have, proof or evidence or whatever, that this is how you will refer to me.
And this is how I'm referring to myself. And I think that set me on a path to be all of me. I like to say all of me all the time with everybody, instead of trying to hide parts of who I am or try to make it safe, not even for me, but for other people to not see parts of who I was and with that realization of wanting to be all of me, all the time with everybody and understanding my self worth, I think, and my whole identity and not wanting to hide parts of who I am or not [00:15:00] wanting or no longer feeling ashamed. I think that feeling of shame, that idea that something is wrong with me, right? Releasing that put me on a path to say, there's a big life for me that I have been not allowing myself to accept.
And part of it had to do with not wanting to be vulnerable, not wanting to have deep committed relationships and just something in my mind said the only way to have that big life that we all deserve and that big love that we all deserve was to have relationships to be vulnerable to let people in to believe that people love me to believe that I could belong.
And so now I'm all about the relationships and wanting to be committed. And it's been a major shift for me but [00:16:00] definitely has been worth it.
Haley Radke: Amazing. What part of interviewing adoptees for research? This is for research purposes. So you can build a line in your own self, I think, when you're asking them the questions.
But what part of having all these conversations with fellow Korean adoptees did you notice? Something in me is shifting, I'm coming into consciousness in some way. Do you have a moment you remember or something you identified with one of your respondents saying to you?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I think what sticks out to me the most is connected to what you asked earlier about adoptee culture. Of seeing that and hearing that some adoptees who have been in the community for several years did think about adoptee as a culture and not [00:17:00] just this discreet, biographical fact, not just this thing that had happened was, and was in the past, but rather that being an adoptee was an ongoing accomplishment, something that was continually being wrestled with and created and grown in community, that was a very different way for me to think about.
Again, something that I had thought about is oh, this is just a fact of how I came to be in my family. And that was a new way of thinking that being able to define adoptee for myself, but also within community, which I think is just so key of again not it being something that was individual to me, but something that was shared and that it was meaningful and positive and expansive and something I could claim versus something that someone else used to say, you're different or you're less than.
And so [00:18:00] that, I think, was a big revelation that came both slowly, but also all at once, if that makes sense.
Haley Radke: And I'm just going to say there are definitely a couple of folks in the book that you quote or share some of the insights to say that don't identify with being a part of adoptee culture and are actually not necessarily against it, but are actively choosing not to participate in it for various reasons. Do you have a comment on that?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, I think we're all trying to find a way to belong and to feel safe. And it might look a lot of different ways for people, sometimes it might look like not wanting to have relationships and not being able to believe that you could belong. And sometimes it can be, that there is a shared source of feeling a shared experience.
And [00:19:00] everyone's experience is different. How everyone makes sense of being an adoptee is different. I don't think there's a right or a wrong way but I can understand and empathize with folks who are like, no, being an adoptee is just, this thing that happened in my life and it doesn't mean anything to me. And in fact, I think people who, find meaning in being an adoptee, there's something weird about them, which some of the people in the book do say. And I get that because for so much of I'll say for my life anyway, that's how it's made to feel. So why would somebody want to identify with something that for so long, so many people have said, that's what's wrong with you.
So I can understand why people would feel that way.
Haley Radke: And why would anyone make it their entire personality and have a show about it every week and just constantly talk about it for years and years? I don't know.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: I don't know! It's so weird![00:20:00]
Haley Radke: Okay, I have literal pages and pages of notes from reading your book, because I'm super into being an adoptee.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: So weird.
Haley Radke: This should not be embarrassing, because this is my whole job. Okay. First, I want to talk about you talk to some Korean adoptees who identify as white. And in my own personal relationships with fellow adoptees, like I've heard that from friends saying, I look in the mirror, I expect to see a white person.
And. For me, white woman, I'm like, okay, I don't understand, but there is this expectation that you're, look like part of your family and it's incongruent.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Can you share about what you heard when people were [00:21:00] telling you that? And did you personally feel that way ever?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, such a great question. It is such a common Korean adoptee experience for Korean adoptees who are adopted into white families to say at some point, yeah, I thought I was white, right? Like my mom and dad are white. Maybe they even had sibling grew up with siblings that were biological to their white mom and dad.
So it seems pretty normal. And of course, because of ongoing racial residential segregation, we often are growing up in communities, at least in the U. S. where it's typically folks who are of our same race. So if you're that adoptee in a white family, in a white community, going to a predominantly white school, you just begin to accept that, okay, I must be white too, right?
Not a lot of Korean adoptees continue to identify as white or to feel that they are white, though, of course, I talked to some adoptees who do, and the way that they're making sense of it is, again, tying [00:22:00] their, how they feel about themselves and how they think about themselves to how they feel a part of their family and how their family belonging has been constructed, that we are a white family, and by default, you too are white because that's what it means to be a member of this family. It means having this white world view and these white activities or part of these predominantly white communities. And so there's no space for the adoptees to explore their Korean ethnicity or their Asian identity. It's just not part of what it means to be in the family. And so again, that feeling of I want to belong. I am part of this family. So in order for that to be true, that means I also have to identify as white and to see the Korean and Asian parts of me as less than, or not desirable, or try to hide or minimize them, which of course we cannot, it is literally on our faces, regardless of how we might feel.
But again, it is that protective [00:23:00] measure, that feeling of belonging here forged through family, which is so important, right? For me, I never had the opportunity to think I was white. I grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, a very black, white city and it was very apparent to everyone around me that I was not white, and I was not black, and people made sure that I knew that.
It seems like it was a daily occurrence that people were asking me, what are you, or telling me that I was Chinese, right? That's the idea of every Asian person in America. It's you have to be Chinese. And so I never got the opportunity to think I was white because no one would allow me to believe that about myself, whether or not I may have, eventually developed that idea of who's to say, but I was never given that opportunity.
So no, I very much knew that I was not white. I knew that I was Asian, [00:24:00] even though I didn't really know what that meant. I wasn't part of any Asian groups, any Korean groups, any, I wasn't seeing Asian people on a daily basis in my community. So there was no way for me to make sense of okay, I understand this word and that I'm supposed to be this, but what does it mean for me?
I don't know.
Haley Radke: Okay, we're going to go to the adoptive parents. And this is going to really sound ridiculous, but I had a lightbulb moment in reading your book that I can't believe hadn't come to me yet. And I've spoken to many adoptees who have gone to heritage culture camps. You go for a week with your family and you experience the culture from which you were born, and you eat, I'm assuming here, you eat Korean food, and you do [00:25:00] whatever cultural things that the people who planned have in place for you, and you write, oh my gosh, this is so good. "Activities picked prioritized white adoptive parents comfort rather than adoptees racial or ethnic socialization.
They're safe and symbolic ways to engage with culture, and it's leaving their own understanding of race unchallenged." And I was like, Oh, yeah, because we'll just use the Korean adoptee example of Korean Heritage Culture Camp. All the adoptees are Korean kids who are being raised mostly in white families, and all the adults there are their white adoptive parents.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: So again, you're not being immersed in Korean culture, you're being immersed in Korean adoptee, white parent culture. [00:26:00]
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Sorry, that was a lightbulb moment because I was like, oh, they're trying so hard, but they're trying to avoid it still please talk about that and how you are revealing that to us.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. Heather Jacobson writes a lot about this as well in Culture Keeping and this idea exactly as you said, heritage camps. I think they're great. I think it's wonderful. But there are limitations because exactly as you noted, it is more of adoptive family culture, right? It's not in this case, Korean culture per se. Yes, there is Korean culture happening for sure but we're still maintaining this white world view. We are still not getting outside, particularly for adoptive parents, white adoptive parents, not getting outside of their white bubbles, right? It's still all very easy. Again, very symbolic. We go to this camp, we do the activities, and then we go home to our, our white communities, our white [00:27:00] world.
And we can check the box and say, oh yeah, we're doing culture. But are we? And for Korean adoptees, and for a lot of the adoptees I spoke with, they weren't necessarily making the connections between, oh, I go to this heritage camp and who I am as a Korean American, right? So it was still something that they got to do in within the scope of their family and even for adoptees who understood that, oh, this is something different.
This is something special. This is something, where I'm getting a sense of belonging and connection that I don't get in my other friendships or other relationships or other community groups that I'm a part of. For many of them, again, because it's a culture camp, maybe on the weekend or a week in the summer, it's not maintained.
And so still being able to cultivate an identity is very difficult when there are very few other ways that those connections are being maintained or that exploration can [00:28:00] continue.
Haley Radke: I think the other quote, sorry, paper noise. You say the parents made specific decisions to cultivate predominantly white social context.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And I think, that's still continuing to this day.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. It's an uninterrupted process. And that's, it's unbelievable, but yet believable, obviously, that this has continued to be the practice. But the adoptees that I spoke with whose stories are at the center of this book, there are folks who were adopted or born in the 50s and 60s, as well as folks who were born in the 80s and 90s, and still the same experiences, the same thing. And I wish things could change and would change, but decades of the same experience show that not much has changed.
Haley Radke: Ah, but we'll [00:29:00] just keep talking about it.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: We will.
Haley Radke: Hopefully it'll change for somebody, right? There must be this hope. And I believe, reading your book, there must be this hope that your work will impact how little adoptees are being raised today.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. I maintain that hope as well. I think I have to. And for folks who read the book, particularly for maybe adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents, hopefully folks can read it with an open mind and understand that, adoptees, we need more than just a loving family.
We need more than that. We live in a society that where love is not enough, right? We're still experiencing the world and all the inequalities that exist and you know having a loving family if you [00:30:00] have a loving family is wonderful, and that's beautiful and great but in a system where we are treated differently in a system where there are policies and also public attitudes that very much shape our experiences and life chances and opportunities. We need more than just love and good intentions.
Haley Radke: Let's talk about the adoptee as immigrant. And this is, again, I was like, oh my gosh, of course, this makes so much sense. You so amazingly tackle the adoptee citizenship issue, which is something we've been covering on the show for many years, and, I think people are still surprised that some adoptees don't have citizenship in the country they were brought to be raised.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: And I found it really interesting, this observation you bring forward, that when we talk about the citizenship issue to the [00:31:00] public, one of the main kind of pushbacks is the public blaming the adult adoptee. That it's their fault they don't have citizenship as if they had anything to do with it.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Can you please talk about that? Because it's really silly and you elucidate it much better in your book. So please talk.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Thank you. Yeah, it is this weird kind of like inability for folks to understand that adoptees as infants cannot fill out naturalization paperwork.
Go figure. No, as an infant I could not do that. And so there's this weird process that's happening in people's minds when they find out adoptees don't have citizenship. Then we see this shift in framing. What I talk about in the book is, adoptees in our minds are these, children that are in [00:32:00] need, these lovable, cute children that, we can rescue and take care of and, fulfill that need of family for us or this idea of family.
But then when adoptees grow up, and particularly for those of us who are Korean adoptees or adopted internationally, we grow up and all of a sudden, we're not children. So people can't make sense of that. Wait, you're an adoptee, but you're an adult. That doesn't make sense. And so now they're like, okay, how am I making sense of this?
And they're like, oh, and particularly for Korean adoptees, right? We're Asian in this nation where Asian is seen as the other and not American. And so now they're like, Oh, okay immigrant, foreign, you don't belong here. You're trying to, again, like you're lazy or you're trying to steal from the system or you're you didn't do it the right way, right?
All these arguments that circulate about immigrants in particular quote unquote illegal immigrants And so then we get seen through this framing that americans can very easily pick up on [00:33:00] right this idea of like immigrants being bad and you know all these stereotypes and racist beliefs that we have.
And so you see that in the book, I'm thinking about, one of the quotes that one of the adoptees I talked to was explaining like, oh, people say, they should have done it. They should have taken care of this. And we're like, but we're talking about someone who was adopted as a child.
Like they were supposed to do this. And out of sight, out of mind are adoptive parents, the government, legislators, just all of this personal responsibility, right? Something else that we really emphasize in the U. S. Personal responsibility is oh you should have done it. It doesn't matter what the circumstances were. It's your fault.
Haley Radke: And then the next shift that is here is that you mention there's this idea that citizenship should be earned while the rest of us are born into it.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. It's just it's really phenomenal [00:34:00] how our mind just shifts to all these different arguments that really make no sense.
And that's the point this whole situation of adoptees being undocumented makes no sense. And so people are relying on these other ways of thinking or explanations that also don't make sense. Without just looking at the kind of obvious answer in front of us, which is like, okay, this was a policy failure and we need policy to address it. It's not about can I earn citizenship? It's not about I should have done this myself as an infant, but it is a policy failure. And guess what? In this case, the solution actually is derived from the problem. Of course there are many problems we could also talk about, but in this very small piece of it, we're talking about policy oversight and we in fact could enact policy to change it.
Haley Radke: Maybe someday somebody will be listening to this interview and they'll be like, there I did, they fixed that.[00:35:00] That's the hope. What a dream.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: What a dream.
Haley Radke: So you wrote a book, you got your degree you have a lot of podcasts, you do radio hosting you got a lot on the burners SunAh. There's a lot going on. Are you ever still, do you ever pause and think about the impact of the work that you're leaving in the world?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: No. No. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that question. No. And I don't think it's any of my business, the impact. I think it's my business to do the best work that I can and how it's received is not really I don't know. It's yeah, that idea of impact such a great question because I'm really like, ah, [00:36:00] I just I don't think about it. I think about can I have I done the best work that I can do have I done the best work that I know I'm meant to do or feel purpose to do and just release that out into the world and know that it'll go to the places it's meant to go.
And that it'll do what it's meant to do. I think sometimes when we're too, when we're too focused on impact, that it can cause us to do things in a way that might get more visibility, but might sacrifice the goal or the purpose or the. I don't know, I'm at a loss for words right now for what I'm trying to find, but no, I don't think about the impacts.
Haley Radke: Has [00:37:00] delving into adoptee rights and studying the impact adoption has had on fellow Korean adoptees, has it impacted your family relationships?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Mmmmm. Oh, this is juicy. It has in a lot of different ways. So once I talked earlier about. wanting to hide parts of who I am and my work is all about race and racism and adoptees and adoption.
And I never talked to my family about that. Granted, they never really asked oh, what are you? What are you researching? That's not something that they would ask, right? That's not a way that they would ask. It's more like how school going, that type of thing. And I very purposely never shared [00:38:00] that with them, that, hey, actually, I'm a sociologist who specializes in race and ethnicity, my dissertation is about Korean adoptees, and identity development, and citizenship, and yeah, I never shared that with them.
And I think that was part of me wanting to hide parts of myself, whether to make it easier for me whether to make it easier for them. My, as a professor, as a teacher, I teach classes about racial and ethnic inequality, but these are not conversations that I have with my white family, or I have very minimally.
I guess I learned, not I guess, I learned that talking about race and racism in those ways was not an acceptable way to be part of the family. And I'm saying that now as I'm like, okay, you literally probably wrote that exact sentence in the book because that's what the [00:39:00] adoptees I spoke with, that's what they were learning.
But that's what I was learning too, that there's a way to talk about race or racism. And then there's a way to not talk about it and within our family, if you're part of our family, this is how we talk about race and racism, as if it doesn't exist or as if people are responsible. Again, that personal responsibility piece, right?
My family is very conservative, so that's how it's learning that it was acceptable to talk about race as a member of this family.
Haley Radke: What would you say to other adoptees who might feel the same way? I don't think it's even safe to express this. Do you think it's, I want to say, I was going to say better.
Like It's, is it safer to not address those topics? Is it, it's tough, right? There's not a good answer here. Let's, why don't you spitball? And we're not saying you're [00:40:00] necessarily giving advice, but would you do things differently? I know that these conversations can be family breakers, if it's unsafe for the adopted person to express this intrinsic part of themselves to the people who are supposed to have loved and nurtured you and cared for all the parts of yourself but have failed in one really important way, it can for sure feel unsafe to address that.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, this is a difficult question to answer because on one hand, we could say, oh, like people are who they are. I firmly believe that our families are not very likely to change their ideas about race and racism because of what we say. Now, I know there are wonderful examples of adoptees and their adoptive [00:41:00] parents who are learning alongside each other, and I think that's beautiful. I don't think it's the common experience. I think it's more likely that our families will change their mind about race and racism because of something that their peer their friend, or, someone else says, but not what we say.
For a lot of different reasons. One, just family dynamics, right? If we're the child, right? And depending upon how your family feels about, elders and children and, all that they're not going to change their minds because of us. They're more likely to change their minds because of their own friends, right?
In the relationships that they choose to have. And so I think it is an uphill battle. On the other hand, I think, is it safe to not is it safe for you to not be who you are? Because there's a cost that we pay for hiding parts of who we are and not speaking up when we know we need to speak up and for remaining silent. There's a cost to that. And are we willing to pay that cost? I think regardless of [00:42:00] the choice or the strategy that we decide, there's a cost that is going to be paid, and it has to be the cost that we can live with.
So for me, I'm thinking back to, I guess this was 2012. Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown or maybe even after Tamir Rice and Black Lives Matter was first forming. And I had posted something on my Facebook page, Facebook, ugh. Facebook and, talking about police brutality. And one of my aunts was just extremely dismissive.
And it ended up in lots of private conversations about her just telling me how police brutality didn't exist, and racism didn't exist, and, all these things, and I just eventually had to tell her we can't have these conversations and I'm not going to have these [00:43:00] conversations with you and several other similar examples with family members where they were either gaslighting me or being intentionally antagonistic to me around topics of racism and race to where I had to say, I'm not engaging in these conversations with you.
And if this is how the only way you're going to engage with me, then let's just not. And that was something I had to do because yes, you're my elder, but there is still a level of respect that I deserve to have. And so really being firm on this is how you're going to talk to me and this is how you're not going to talk to me.
And there's a way we could still have a relationship but not like this. So I think there's a cost and we have to weigh. What those costs are.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that and I agree that the adoptive parents [00:44:00] changing their perspective on race and or just ultimately that maternal separation is a trauma that adoption is a trauma.
I think it's uncommon yeah, and it definitely takes it takes a long time when you're not the one that's lifted. Oh my goodness I cannot recommend your book enough. It's called Out of Place the Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants and for sure fellow Korean adoptees will get a ton out of this book, but all fellow adoptees, I think there's so many relatable points in the story, and especially for folks who are passionate about adoptee rights and activism, you lay out some really concrete points for us in terms of giving us the ammo for [00:45:00] our arguments.
For adoptee citizenship, for example, as we discussed earlier, and for pointing out that white adoptive parents of children of color are not maybe doing their best work. And I really just appreciated so many of the snippets of conversation you share from the interviews with fellow adoptees.
And it's just so wonderfully done, SunAh. I really enjoyed reading it, and
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Thank you.
Haley Radke: I mentioned at the beginning you're a sociologist and a lot of, I minored in sociology. I'm like, I love sociology. It's so fascinating and so much of what is written about adoptees is more in the psychological realm and so this is a different framework that people can really look at it from a different way.
I don't know. How do you say it? It's not like necessary. It's not like it's just a step back. It's like a step back from the personal to more of the [00:46:00] structure and framework of it. Would you say is that more accurate?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Definitely. So thinking about that group level again. So that question of adoptee culture, right? It is personal, but it's also very much, again, made in community. And so while there are a lot of personal voices in the book and voices of individual adoptees, it is that lens of how are adoptees collectively creating identity and collectively creating culture.
Haley Radke: Very powerful. And we didn't even get to this, but there's this piece of language you gave me, which is the biculturalism. Can you explain that? Because I think that's probably really helpful for a lot of adoptees to hear.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, absolutely. So we think about biculturalism in terms of assimilation or in terms of folks, from one culture, living, growing up or coming to live in a different culture. And so we [00:47:00] could think about biculturalism in terms of having and holding two different cultures.
So maybe it is Korean culture and maybe it is American culture and being fully immersed and well versed in both cultures, so having that biculturalism. In the book, I talk about, how some adoptees, they might develop some biculturalism, right? We learn a lot about our birth cultures, language, culture, et cetera.
But then also for adoptees, we might be creating something completely different. An adoptee culture, for example, that might be drawing upon a heritage culture or birth culture, but also the culture we grew up in, but not to the same intensity or the same degree, but instead merging different pieces of those cultures into something else.
Haley Radke: See, look at all the stuff you're going to learn when you read SunAh's book. Okay. It's so exciting. It's out in the world. If you're listening when this episode is dropped, [00:48:00] it's just out and so you can grab it wherever you get your books. And what did you want to recommend to us?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes. So my recommendation for folks, if you aren't already familiar with or following Patrick Armstrong, he's Patrick In The World.
I know this will be in the show notes. Another Korean adoptee, but someone who has very publicly been able to share a lot of his journey and a lot of the ways that he has grown. And I think it's so beautiful for someone to share with us how they're learning and as they're learning and so even seeing them change their minds.
And for Patrick, I know he's been a guest on the show and for him. To say like the ways that his own thinking has changed and maybe the ways that he was wrong or the ways that he's grown in thinking about his own identity or adoptee community or adoption. And so that is who I would recommend. He has a podcast. He has a newsletter. [00:49:00] He has all the things everywhere.
Haley Radke: He's on LinkedIn, posting up a storm. I love Patrick. He was on episode 233 and his show his Conversation Piece is Patrick's standalone show. And then of course he has the Janchi Show and some other podcasts he's working on.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Yes. I agree. SunAh he's really putting himself out there. And that takes a great cost when you're sharing your in real time learnings, but it's really powerful. And I think that he's helped a lot of adoptees examine a little deeper. Some of the impacts adoption has had on us. So I love that.
Oh my goodness. I am so sad. Our time is coming to an end because I've had so much fun with you. Where can we find your book, connect with you, and if you loved SunAh's big energy and all the [00:50:00] things, I know we can hear from you in places too, so tell us all the stuff.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Absolutely. The book is Out of Place The Lives of Korean Adoptee Immigrants. I would love it if you shop local and bought it from your local bookstore. I think that's so important for our communities, wherever your community may be. So please shop local, buy the book. You can find me, I'm most active on Instagram @sunahmarieonly and, you can catch up with me and see what's going on in my world, and we can stay connected.
And that would be wonderful. And of course, the easiest way to find all the academic things that I'm doing is on the website, sunahmlaybourn.com, and we could definitely stay connected and continue to learn from one another.
Haley Radke: And you have a radio show, which is also available in podcast form. Yes. Yes. And there's several episodes where you interview fellow adoptees.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes.
Haley Radke: And you never hear it [00:51:00] here, but you interview authors of books that have adoption as strong themes. But if they're not adopted, they don't get to come on Adoptees On. But SunAh will interview them. There's some really great episodes, we'll link to those in the show notes. What's the name of your radio show and where can people find that?
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yeah, it's called Let's Grab Coffee on WYXR, which is our local community radio station here in Memphis, Tennessee. But as you mentioned, available in podcast format. So go ahead and subscribe. And again, more opportunities for us to learn together.
Haley Radke: And I so appreciate that you bring your adoptee lens to your listeners.
And you're, yes, you're doing adoptee activism in a multitude of places, and I thank you for that. Thank you for sharing your story with us and your wisdom. I really enjoyed our conversation, SunAh.
SunAh Laybourn, Ph.D.: Yes, thank you so much.[00:52:00]
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness, she is amazing. So fun and knowledgeable. Definitely one to follow. I want to let you know, if you're listening the day this drops, you still have a chance to join us for our discussion of the brand new YA anthology, When We Become Ours. We are talking about it on the morning of January 20th, 2024, with editors Shannon Gibney and Nicole Chung, and a couple of the contributing authors.
I hope you will join us. It's going to be a fantastic discussion. If you're listening after this has already aired, we will have the recording for you up in Patreon, so you can enjoy it that way. That is one of the ways you can support the work of Adoptees On and help continuing to [00:53:00] pay for production of this podcast.
If you go to adopteeson.com/community, you can find out how to join. There is a seven day free trial. We would love to have you with us and all of our live events are adoptee only. So it's a good vibe. Yo, I'm so thankful for every single one of you that supports the show and continues to help us do this work for you.
I am so grateful for each one of you. Thank you so much for listening to Adoptive Voices. Let's talk again next Friday.
