Transcript for the 59-min version w/music in news hole version of Crossing East: Brides & Children - Program Five
PROGRAM FIVE
Brides and Children
BILLBOARD
ANNOUNCER: Major Funding for this series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting with support from PRI- Public Radio International.
HOST: This is Crossing East ? Our stories, our history, our America
SOUND COLLAGE-MUSIC
Cut from Military Brides
RAINJITA GEESLER: She met my dad who was in the air force, got married, went to America, lost contact...
Amerasian collage: I am Chinese Greek Swedish English Scottish German Pennsylvania Dutch. I don?t really consider that to be my identity, that?s more my heritage.
Debra Johnson: I think we need to really reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are Korean. We were born in Korea, we look Korean, we?re American, we live in America.
Shannon: What I know of Vietnam is sort of what I see unfortunately in Vietnam War movies.
Ying: I was born in Chung-Sha in Hunan, I don?t know what time and I don?t know exactly what day.
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho? When we return??Brides and Children? on Crossing East?,
(NEWS BREAK)
(MUSIC BREAK)
SEGMENT A
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho, your host for Crossing East? Our stories, our history, our America? We present ?Brides and Children.? The story of Military Brides and Asian Adoptees?
Chapter One. The War Brides Act.
After World War Two, American men wanted to bring their brides back to America with them from Europe and Asia. The War Brides Act of 1945 made it possible. But it excluded Asian women who married American servicemen.
Ji-Yeon Yuh, (Gee-yon-YUH) professor of Asian American history at Northwestern University says these women faced suspicion and prejudice.
DR. YUH: There is a stereotype about Asian military brides that they?re all former prostitutes and that they married the American solider simply for social mobility, to escape a backward country and to come to the United States to pursue the American dream. The second reason is that there remains an image in the United States that Asia is this war-torn ravished, devastated area. Economically poor, culturally, socially backwards, and therefore who wouldn?t want to escape if they could. They were not all prostitutes.
HOST: Many Japanese women, working to support their families after the devastation of WWII, fell in love with American soldiers stationed there. During the Korean War and later during the Vietnam War, the same thin g happened, and young men and women endured ridicule, bureaucracy and discrimination to stay together. Professor Ji-Yeon Yuh.
DR. YUH: Congress passed a series of exceptions to the War Brides Act, amendments, which gave basically a grace period, saying from X month to X month soldiers in Japan can bring over their wives of Asian ancestry. In 1952 the US immigration and naturalization laws were changed and that law for the first time since (p)1924 eliminated the prohibition against migration from Asia and also overturned the US naturalization law that prohibited Asian immigrants from naturalizing as US citizens.
Chapter Two. ?Military Brides? by Sara Caswell Kolbet and Dmae Roberts
START MILITARY BRIDES PIECE
KAZUKO STOUT: I don?t know if American people could understand, this is an old Japanese custom. Mom and Dad find a husband for you. And you never even think about marrying a foreigner, and especially the enemy. Was an enemy not too long ago, you know?
NARRATOR: Kazuko Umezu Stout grew up in the countryside of Japan and only realized the full devastation of World War II when she moved to Tokyo. She met and fell in love with a young American soldier named Carl, but was terrified of what her father might say.
KAZUKO STOUT: When Carl asked me to marry him I went home to get an okay from my dad, you know. And here come aunt, uncle, cousin, all were there were about 30 people. And the first thing my dad said was I know my daughter better than anybody in this room, so just let her go. She?s stubborn, once she said it, she?s not going to back down. And that?s true, I didn?t, so. Some members, their parents disowned them.
NARRATOR: Maria Miyagi Bartruff was born in Okinawa and met her husband Dave in post-WWII Tokyo while he was still in the army.
MARIA BARTRUFF: So he was writer, copy chief in Tokyo office. And grandfather, relatives, say no, no, no, no, not. So nobody know when I marry the American because nobody see. I never invite anybody. We just two person, we just lunchtime we marry over there. So nobody relatives, no friends, nobody. Secret marriage.
NARRATOR: For a few years Maria and Dave lived in Japan and adopted a Japanese daughter, which confused the officials when they tried to bring her to the United States.
DAVE BARTRUFF: Actually in December 1967 we adopted Amico. Getting her from the hospital.
MARIA BARTRUFF: I took picture this all of. This heart memories pictures, baby pictures.
DAVE BARTRUFF: Like here is the court. She?s the one that had to okay everything.
MARIA BARTRUFF: Because we got to bring back States. Took six months to okay.
NARRATOR: During the Vietnam War, Wen Kim Denham ran away from home to Saigon at 16 years old. She met up with a madam who sold her to her future husband, a US soldier.
KIM DENHAM: I live with him for three weeks and then I get homesick. When I go home to my village my father throw me out because I?m shaming the family. Well, in Vietnam if you live with a GI then they think you?re prostitute, cheap. I locked myself in the house for a long, long, long time, maybe six months cuz I never come out because I?m afraid of people. When he was shipped out I think my world?s going to end because I?m pregnant. At sixteen, seventeen years old. And we cry a lot but we can?t communicate because I can?t talk to him. He leave me some money. I even cry harder because I think he?s just buying me out. So he left and I had the baby. Then he came back seventeen months later and marry me.
NARRATOR: A Vietnamese military bride with biracial kids, Kim Denham faced racism even from her in-laws at a family reunion in Norman, Oklahoma.
KIM DENHAM: And when I get there his family of six brother and sister, no one invite me to their house. And at Christmas morning when my mother in law, who give all the grandchildren twenty dollars, except our two, they get five dollars. And they cry and they didn?t know why Grandma only give them five dollars.
NARRATOR: Kim?s loneliness was heightened by constant moving from military base to military base. Her kids were unsettled and lost friends. And Kim could never maintain friendships. The pressure of isolation built up and she tried to kill herself by taking a whole bottle of aspirin.
KIM DENHAM: I want to be loved because I had no one here. I?d rather be home with my people. I?m homesick, I don?t know the language, I don?t like the weather, I?m very miserable. The first two years I?d rather die, I was so hurt and so lonesome. And back home I got lots of helps and all that. And when I came here I had no one.
NARRATOR: Many Asian military brides came to live in parts of America with few other Asians. Often second or third generation Asian Americans didn?t readily accept the new immigrants. Kazuko Stout.
KAZUKO STOUT: I married to my husband November 18th, 1953 and ?54, April ?54 I left Japan to go to Kentucky because he had a transfer. Japanese American people living here before, we called Issei. When they come to United States their discrimination was so bad, they had a little land and they worked morning to night. And here we come, wearing high heels, you know, and put the lipstick on, put the permanent on. They didn?t like it. Don?t forget you are Japanese, don?t make ashamed of it, you know.
NARRATOR: And decades of negative Japanese press frustrated Kazuko. She decided to take action.
KAZUKO STOUT: I said we got to do something to change the image of the war bride. So in ?88 I had a convention in Olympia, Washington, right here. And from all over United States over 320 people showed up. That was amazing. I had the consul general come from Seattle and I got a war bride speaker and husband speaker and I gather up the whole thing and that was successful and 15 reporters from Japan came. That made a lot of difference.
MARIA BARTRUFF: From Japan to America couldn?t bring money much either.
NARRATOR: Many military brides became the foundation for local Asian communities out of necessity.
MARIA: Only 3000 dollars Japanese government say okay, you can take money. Only 3000 dollars. I got to do something because income. We got to living. So I started an Oriental Folk Arts store. Folk art. Ceramics, silk.
KIM DENHAM: I tell my kids that their father bought me for 20 dollars. But he good to me, we were married for twenty-five years.
NARRATOR: Kim Denham.
KIM DENHAM: But when the kids grow up and move out we just sort of growed apart. I couldn?t get work. I?m more than qualified to get a sewing job but no one give me a job. I get to the point that I said I called for the job but I?m Vietnamese, will that make any difference?
NARRATOR: But Kim persisted and found a steady job as a seamstress. She feels that despite the hardships, she does have a better life than she would in Vietnam.
KIM DENHAM: America were land of opportunity. Women have a chance here to get good jobs, and earn respect, which we don?t have that in Vietnam. Lives are equals here. We don?t have to walk six pace behind, we don?t have to keep our voice down, we can say what we think, do what we like. Which I like.
MARIA BARTRUFF: Oriental women working so hard and never give up.
NARRATOR: Maria Bartruff echoes the endurance of thousands of war brides.
MARIA BARTRUFF: They?re especially strong mind they have because all parties say no, no, no, and their husband so hard time, you know.
NARRATOR: And inspired by her convention, Kazuko Stout began the Nikkei International Marriage Society for Japanese war brides.
KAZUKO STOUT: I think that ?88 convention made this old war brides realize we?re doing okay. All I can say is 90% of war brides is strong, really strong ladies.
HOST: ?Military Brides? by Sara Caswell Kolbet and Dmae Roberts with Contributing Producer Mia Kim.
You heard the voices of Kazuko Umezu Stout (KAH-zu-ko OO-meh-zu), Maria Miyagi (Mee-YAH-gi) Bartruff, and Kim Denham contributed to this piece. Thanks also to the Nikkei International Marriage Society.
Today, most military bases have a support center specifically for international women marred to servicemen something not available to women we just heard.
Often women are cut off from any kind of support system and from their home country?
When we come back?The journey of one Korean military bride back to a homeland she hasn?t seen in 32 years.
HOST: I'm Margaret Cho. You're listening to Crossing East?? Our stories, our history, our America?
ANNOUNCER: This is PRI- Public Radio International.
MUSIC BREAK
SEGMENT B
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho?this is Crossing East?.Our focus is on Brides and Children.
Our next story is about a women who hasn?t been back to her home country in 32 years. Dr. Ji-Yeon Yuh says that isn?t all that uncommon for military brides.
DR. YUH: The 100,000 Korean women who came to the United States as so-called war brides or what I call military brides began coming in 1950 and are still coming today at an estimated rate of about 1000 per year. Overall the research seems to show that the marriages were less successful than what you might call a conventional marriage. Different research studies have shown very high divorce rates. One study showed a divorce rate as high as 80%. Even when the marriage fails it?s not that common for the woman to return to Korea.
HOST: Ok Cha Yang (Oak-Cha-Young) arrived with her husband in 1972. Like many military brides from Korea, she faced the stigma attached to marrying a US soldier. And in the US, she faced the obstacles of being an immigrant woman?not knowing the language, not understanding customs and having no family or community support.
She eventually lost touch with her family. Finally, Ok Cha Yang and her daughter Rainjita traveled to Korea to find her long-lost brothers and sisters.
Chapter Three. ?The Story of Ok Cha Yang? by Rainjita Yang Geesler.
PLAY PIECE
OK CHA YANG: ?cause I owe it to myself, I want to see my family last time, close that chapter in my life. My father and mother passed away years ago when I was a kid, my brothers and sister still there, I?d like to see them before anything happens.
RAINJITA GEESLER: I?m Rainjita Geesler, and today is Tuesday August 31st. Today I?m leaving for Korea, and I?m going with my mother and we?re going back to try to find her family. And also for me to find my cousins to look into a similar face.
AIRPLANE ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Korea where local time is 8:40?
(collage of search to city hall/police etc)
OK CHA YANG: Hangu Gues, I went to America, I came back yesterday looking for Yang Du Sheik... Since 32 years ago I lost my brother, I want to find my brother, and then I got to go see where he lives. I am looking for my brother, Yang Du Sheik, and I haven't seen him in 32 years.
RAINJITA GEESLER: There were a lot of difficulties in trying to find her brother, but it just all flowed.
OK CHA YANG: We're walking down the police station, he's gonna go in there, put it in check it in the internet.
RAINJITA GEESLER: She met my dad who was in the air force, got married, went to America, lost contact...
RAINJITA GEESLER: And one thing led to another and her question of do you know Yang Du Sheik? Do you know Yang Du Sheik? It worked!
(Meeting brother in the hotel lobby. Walking towards each other.)
OK CHA YANG: You look good!!! Oh my god you look good! (Korean)
RAINJITA GEESLER: When I first saw her brother Yang Du Sheik, my uncle in the hotel lobby, I loved him. I was like, he looks like my mom! And that was an intense moment for me just to see them how similar they looked and...
OK CHA YANG: See he?s here, I told you he?s a nice lookin? man! (Brother in Korean)
RAINJITA GEESLER: I felt touched and sad and so many emotions when I saw him, and I felt connected. When I saw them hugging and being together it was really sweet.
OK CHA YANG: He wants to go?
OK CHA YANG: This my brother house, His house is 9th floor, Beautiful. He?s calling people to come over.
RAINJITA GEESLER: Who is coming over tonight?
OK CHA YANG: My brother, my sister, his kid, some friend.
Doorbell rings
RAINJITA GEESLER: The first day we met her older brother we went to his house, and that very night the whole family came over.
OK CHA YANG: Oh my LORD!
RAINJITA GEESLER: The doorbell rang it was her younger brother with his family. And (Mom ambiance) : I had a lot of cousins who came to the house, so it was a full house, we had a lot of people.
RAINJITA GEESLER: A little while later, my mother's half sister came?Who she raised, so this is the first time they saw each other after 30 years.
OK CHA YANG: (Crying) Ay Go (Korean)
RAINJITA GEESLER: How?s your sister handling seeing you again?
OK CHA YANG: My sister is seeing me again is very relieved. She was hurting a lot of years. She blamed herself that something happened to me. Because her and I, it was a mother-daughter relationship.
OK CHA YANG: This is your aunt.
RAINJITA GEESLER: Tell her in Korean what you told me.
OK CHA YANG (Korean fade under)
OK CHA YANG: When I left Korea, she was hurting until I met her, we reunited, her hurting was healed. A lot healed. According to her husband her heart was broken. She needed to find me.
RAINJITA GEESLER: Let's recap the day, we started at 9am, walking to city hall.
OK CHA YANG: (Korean)
RAINJITA GEESLER: Do you know you are speaking Korean now to me?
OK CHA YANG: Yes,.
RAINJITA GEESLER: How is that for you to speak Korean more and English?
OK CHA YANG: I am more messed up now, speaking both. But I talk more American, I didn?t speak Korean hardly, never. Because I didn?t have anybody to talk to, so no reason for me to talk. Cause if I say Korean everybody looks at me, like what you say? I didn?t have a car, I didn?t speak English. What am I going to go?
RAINJITA GEESLER: Today is September 5th, Saturday already.
Korean
OK CHA YANG: What?s that? Chicken liver, chicken (Korean) What is that? Squid?
RAINJITA GEESLER: She said that she wished her children could have been with their cousins growing up, and spoke Korean, just had the culture. And that is one of her regrets is that we weren't able to have this--our deep cultural roots growing up.
RAINJITA GEESLER: (to mom) Do you remember these things?
OK CHA YANG: Yes, we steam it and eat it.
RAINJITA GEESLER: I also regret that too, and I am trying to go back and learn more about my culture.
RAINJITA GEESLER: Oh bugs?
OK CHA YANG: Try it..
RAINJITA GEESLER: Okay mom, I?m eating a bug?
SOUNDS OF THEM EATING
OK CHA YANG: In back of my mind, I never left home, that?s how my mind was. Ya know just something my body is somewhere else, but I am still there. But when I come to America country, my husbands mother come to the airport greet us, that woman I never met in my life, I cry on her shoulder, how long I cried, I never met her before in my life. That?s when it hit me, that I wasn?t going to go back to my own, and after awhile you know your not going to go back, simple as that.
RAINJITA GEESLER: So me and my mom have been here for 8 days, and we?ve gone to so many temples, and mountains, and my mom talked to her brothers about the good ole days. What did you guys talk about?
OK CHA YANG: How we grow up, what we have to do. Why my father always beat the crap out of my younger brother and older brother.
RAINJITA GEESLER: How did you guys grow up? Because I didn't speak Korean, I didn't hear it.
OK CHA YANG: Very poor, we didn?t have much to eat or anything. We were happy. I raised my younger sister myself. My mom have to get up 3:00 in the morning to go to market. She used to come in 10:00, 9:00 at night. We were solely my mother and father, father passed away when we were young, and my mother's health wasn't that good. My mother had to do what she had to do to put the food on the table. We were so poor, my mom worked hard. But then, she didn?t appreciate what I had done. She take everything for granted. That?s when I say heck with it, everything gone. That moment on I take care of myself, nobody else.
RAINJITA GEESLER: I learned a lot about my mother on this trip, and when she was with her family I learned so much. Even though they were speaking Korean most of the time and she was speaking broken English. From the pictures and conversations and what was translated to me I learned she really had a hard life. And she struggled a lot and I feel like to leave that for a better life in America was her goal, that she fell in love, yes...
RAINJITA GEESLER: Why did you think you wanted to leave Korea besides my dad?
OK CHA YANG: Not besides. I want to leave Korea, I didn?t want to leave Korea. It?s you don?t have a choice. You marry someone, you go wherever they go. It?s not a choice. Gotta do it. Not a choice.
RAINJITA GEESLER: But when she met my dad she didn't speak English and he didn't speak very much Korean. So I wanted to know like, why, why were you with this man, who you couldn't really communicate with. She said it's just love. You can't stop it.
OK CHA YANG: There was a lot of Korean people at the time, they didn?t believe in that. You marrying some outside another country.
RAINJITA GEESLER: When I speak to my mother, she gets uncomfortable when I bring up the subject of military brides, and having her talk about specifically being a military bride, because of the negative stereotypes that many women, especially Korean military brides face, and have faced in the past,
OK CHA YANG: Yes, I felt that circumstances, my brother whole family did very well. They are very close, happy.
SOUND OF GOING TO AIRPORT
RAINJITA GEESLER: GO?!
RAINJITA GEESLER: A lot of people came with us to the airport to see us off. But it was like, everything led up to that moment of leaving, and they didn't want to leave the airport. They were following us everywhere, they were standing in line with us, they made us eat before we left. It felt like, Wow, this is my family, they are very close. And they want us to be here. Because of the love we felt. And the closeness in 18 days, how close we came to them. It was like she never left almost,.
This is really it! Bye!
MUSIC UP
RAINJITA GEESLER: Growing up as the daughter of a military bride, I didn?t really think about it. I just realized that I was different. As I learn more about my mother, I realize who she was as a young woman, what she had to go through, and having her trust me enough to open up.
OK CHA YANG: But now my peace is very happy. Final is that I?m glad they found themselves happiness.
RAINJITA GEESLER: And you too.
OK CHA YANG: Yup.
HOST: ?The Story of Ok Cha Yang? by Rainjita Yang Geesler.
MUSIC FADES OUT
Rainjita tried very hard to get her mom to answer questions about her experiences as a military bride but it wasn?t something that Ok Cha wanted to talk about. Dr. Gee-Yon- Yuh says it?s not unusual for military brides to be reluctant to share what is usually a painful memory. But despite that, military brides have made a huge impact on the American landscape. Often the brides are the only contact many Americans had with Asian culture.
Dr. Yuh: When schools began to have an interest in diversity and multiculturalism and began to hold international fairs, or multicultural fairs, military brides began to be called on to display their home cultures for this mainstream American audience. They often served as guides to the newly arrived relatives ? the new immigrants, help them get jobs, help them put their children in schools, help them deal with the INS and immigration papers and so on and so forth. Military brides tend to go everywhere. They go to suburbs, small towns, rural areas, they go to Appalachia, they go to the American Southwest, they go to Montana, because that?s where their husbands and their in-laws are. In those places they often tend to be the only representative of Asians, of Asian Americans, of Asian immigrants.
HOST: Rainjita like so many children of military families faced this question?
JULIE THI UNDERHILL: Throughout my life I have been asked, so what are you anyway, in that sort of quizzical stare.
HOST: It?s a question many multi-cultural Asian Americans have heard throughout their lives. Answering it was difficult for those born in the 50?s and 60?s when interracial marriages were not as common as today. Many had no name for their identify and relied on ?half-this, half-the other.? As decades moved on, the answer has been constantly changing, and for many, the question can be tiring to hear. Rainjita returns with this exploration of multiracial identity.
Chapter Four. ?I am?
PLAY RAIN PIECE
Opening Collage: DANIEL MORI SCHWINN, JULIE THI UNDERHILL, WEI MING DARIOTIS, JANET STICKMON, ANTHONY BROWN, CAHN OXELSON
Who am I? ?to answer the question who am I?
My first answer is usually Asian American.
I am a fusion child.
I rarely say that I?m half-Black, half-Filipino.
My mother is a native of Tokyo, Japan.
Being half-Black and half-Vietnamese.
Half something, and I never considered myself half of anything, I considered myself both.
If I had to answer the question ?What are you???
I am an Asian American Hapa boy.
That?s always the big question, how do you want to be known?
I am Chinese Greek Swedish English Scottish German Pennsylvania Dutch. I don?t really consider that to be my identity, that?s more my heritage.
DANIEL MORI SCHWINN: I am a fusion child, from the Hawaiian Islands. They would call me a Hapa Haoli, which is someone that is mixed, that has Asian ancestry but also my background is English, Irish and German.
COLLAGE: Amerasian. Mongrel. Hapa. Half breed. Mixed.
CAHN OXELSON: When I walk down the street, people see a Black man. They also know that I might be mixed, and a lot of people say, oh you must be mixed, you look like your mixed
WEI MING DARIOTIS: The word Amerasian has kind of gone through some changes. In general, the term Amerasian has to do with having a military-based, US citizen father, and an Asian national mother.
ANTHONY BROWN: Amerasian, I never really identified with Amerasian, to me it focused on the experience of the half-Vietnamese, half-American children.
WEI MING DARIOTIS: The term Amerasian was popular around the, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s and even people were still using it in the 80?s. In the 90?s, the word Hapa started to become really popular. And that?s a Native Hawaiian word.
JANET STICKMON: I don?t necessarily identify on a regular basis as Hapa, I?ll just come forward and say Black and Filipino.
ANTHONY BROWN: The term ?doubles?, that?s one that I really identify with, ?cause Hapa means half or Hafu, right? Half something. And I never really considered myself half anything, I consider myself both.
CAHN OXELSON: We often struggle with who we are, and who other people think we are, or who we want to be and who other people want us to be, and it?s a constant pushing and pulling.
WEI MING DARIOTIS: How many Chinese people have come up to me and said, ?Oh are you Chinese??; because my name, Wei Ming is Chinese. And when I say, ?Yes.?, they say, ?But? But you?re not really Chinese.? Or ?Really, You?re Chinese? I can?t believe you?re Chinese.? But nobody?s ever said to me when I tell them I am Hapa or an Asian American of mixed heritage, nobody?s ever denied me that.
JULIE THI UNDERHILL: So I feel an other in that I?m enough of a mix that I don?t really have anyone besides my immediate family who are my same exact ethnic background.
JANET STICKMON: It?s interesting watching people?s eyes light up, and all of a sudden they have this, this renewed interest in you, that stems from almost as a question, as if, how is it possible that this mix can come together.
ANTHONY BROWN: My father, African American and Choctaw Indian. My mother Japanese, so those three heritages. I look at the legacy, Africans, basically enslaved, Indians, basically a subject of genocide, and the Japanese Americans, interned and imprisoned, all by reason of race.
JANET STICKMON: I have learned so much about the complexity of race and race relations just by looking at how things operated on my mom?s side of the family, the Filipino side, and my Dad?s side of the family, the Black side, and where I fit in and where I didn?t fit in on both sides.
CAHN OXELSON: If there are parts about yourself either you?re not comfortable with or you don?t know about. I think it makes it more difficult to put yourself out. It?s almost like you?re not a whole person yet, you?re still missing things, and you don?t understand things about yourself.
JANET STICKMON: It?s been a challenge, but at the same time, I have become really comfortable being both fully all the time, every single day, instead of feeling fragmented.
CAHN OXELSON: Once I became more whole I think it was a lot easier for me to take the risk to build relationships with people.
JULIE THI UNDERHILL: I can relate to people who have been struggling in many ways with having multiple ethnic origins, because it complicates things to be honest about what your background is.
JANET STICKMON: I feel I have to work harder at just being whole. But that?s fine with me. I accept it. ?S like, this is the way that it is. This is the way that it?s going to be.
MUSIC FADES UP IN THE MIDDLE OF NEXT INTERVIEW CUT
ANTHONY BROWN: Know thyself and the truth will set you free. And you will gain strength in knowing who you are. I think that that really encapsulates the mindset of really looking and capitalizing on all those things that you are and building strength or gaining strength from all those differences.
HOST: ?I am? by Rainjita Yang-Geesler featured the voices of Daniel Mori Schwinn, Julie Thi (TIE) Underhill, Wei Ming Dariotis, Janet Stickmon, Anthony Brown, and Cahn Oxelson (OX-ul-son).
MUSIC FADES OUT
HOST: In a moment, Korean adoptees search for their ?Unanswerable Questions??
ANNOUNCER: You?re listening to PRI-Public Radio International.
MUSIC BREAK
SEGEMENT C
HOST: You?re listening to ?Brides and Children.? I?m your host Margaret Cho. The Korean War ended in 1953 leaving many children poverty-stricken or orphaned by the war. Americans started adopting Korean children in the 1950?s. Though adoptive parents may have meant well, the emphasis was on cutting ties to Korea and raising the children in mostly white communities. More than 100,000 Korean adoptees live in the US, with more arriving every day.
NEWSREEL: Liner ?President Cleveland? heads into port and onboard is a happy little Korean orphan, five year old Kim Kul Peel. He?s got his passport, he?s got a new home in America and he?s got new parents too and now after months of complications and delay, brings him home to peaceful America.
HOST: But Korean adoptees found a different America that was not so ?peaceful.? In Chapter Five, Korean adoptees find hope in themselves and each other. Here is ?Unanswerable Questions.?
HYUNJU CHAPELHEIN: I was adopted with my older sister and younger brother. We came to the states together because our birth mother insisted that we stay together.
RUBEN CHAPELHEIN: It was, it was awful. I mean, I was adopted when I was seven. And uh, immediately all the kids on the playground either wanted to fight me or just wanted to call me names. Things change, you know, as you get older, the kids get used to you. You make some good friends. But there?s always that struggle of being Asian in a very white society.
KATY ROBINSON: I think so many parents get caught up in they want a baby, they want a child, and once they get that child they think the journey ends with that, and really that?s just the beginning. Because in any trans-racial adoption you can?t raise that child like they?re white because they never will be.
THOMAS CLEMENT: I?m not sure exactly what date I was born. It was somewhere around 1950. And when I was around four and a half years old my father disappeared. Right around that period my mother had brought me to a street corner and told me to look down the street and not turn back and that was the last time I saw her. So I was living on the streets for a while, until I was found by a Methodist missionary nurse. And she brought me to an orphanage. Congress had passed an acceptance of international adoptees in 1957 and I was adopted into the US in 1958.
HYUNJU CHAPELHEIN: I was born as Hyunju and came to the states and my adoptive parents named me Crystal. But then when I was in college and started meeting more Koreans I rediscovered my name.
KATE HERS: I grew up in a primarily Caucasian neighborhood. I knew I was a, I wasn?t white, but feeling as though I wanted to be white my entire life and I think it really influenced feelings of you know, self-hate, really hating the fact that I was Asian or Korean.
KATY ROBINSON: At that time adoptions were being done very differently in that agencies were advising parents to assimilate us into the white culture as quickly as possible, give us American names and basically help us to forget about the past and start over in a new life.
JOHNNY COLLINS: My mom cared for me enough to, you know, give me a better life. And then she gave me up January 1st, which is New Years, and in Chinese calendar New Years is the luckiest day in the whole entire year. So I feel that my, my mom gave me away with as much luck as possible.
KATY ROBINSON: So I met my father. And it was an incredible reunion. He walked into my hotel room and the first thing he said to me was I?m so sorry that I couldn?t do my duties to you as your father.
LOWELL ROJON: I?ve actually been in situations where I?ve walked past African American men of a particular generation and it?s just struck me you know, if he served in the Korean War, that man could be my father.
RUBEN CHAPELHEIN: In Korea, again I was a novelty because you know, I didn?t speak any Korean. Actually, other Koreans would get very angry with me and scold me for not knowing Korean or um, Korean customs. So it?s like this constant struggle throughout your whole life.
KATE HERS: South Korea is no longer a third-world country. Yet it continues to send its children out to other Western countries. And I just want to ask why.
DEBRA JOHNSON: When I go to Korean cultural events and I see little kids learning how to drum and how to dance and those things, like, I never had that opportunity.
THOMAS CLEMENT: Who are my parents? What am I doing here? Why was I given up? What would have life been like if I had stayed in Korea? And these are unanswerable questions.
KATY ROBINSON: Again I would reiterate to adoptive families, as much as they can do to integrate the culture. The next generation of adoptees, maybe help them to grapple with some of their issues of identity.
DEBRA JOHNSON: We are a country that takes people literally at face value. You are what you look like. I think we need to really reconcile ourselves to the fact that we are Korean. We were born in Korea, we look Korean, we?re American, we live in America.
RUBEN CHAPELHEIN: I feel very comfortable just hanging out with our Korean adoptee friends because it?s not so confusing. And I think there?s like a mutual understanding that we can kinda act like however we want because we have this common bond.
KATE HERS: I am really pleased by just how much more Korean Americans are taking more of an interest in the experiences of adopted Koreans and I hope to see more of Korean Americans embracing the adopted Koreans into their community, but for reasons of seeing us as being equals, and something to contribute, as opposed to having feelings of guilt and feelings that they want to help us.
MUSIC UP
HOST: ?Unanswerable Questions? by Sara Caswell Kolbet and Mia Kim featured the voices of?..Writer Katy Robinson, Ruben Chapelhein, Kate Hers, Hyunju (Hee-YUN-jew) Chapelhein, Johnny Collins, Writer Thomas Clement, Lowell Rojon (Row-JON (like French name Jean)) and Debra Johnson.
NEWSREEL: Spring at home but unmindful of clock or calendar the Vietnam War goes on?
HOST: As the Vietnam War came to an end in 1975, US-assisted orphanages in Vietnam feared that if North Vietnam were victorious, all the children might be killed. Humanitarian groups suggested as many children as possible be taken out of the country.
On April 3rd, 1975, President Gerald Ford announced that up to 70,000 children would be flown out of the country to the United States. Around 2,700 arrived and were adopted in the US before the fall of Saigon on April 15th
Now adults, these adoptees share their search for a sense of self.
Chapter Six. ?Baby Pictures?
SHANNON HETRICK: I am Shannon Hetrick. I was born in September 10th, 1972. This was during the Vietnam War. I came over to the United States in April of 1975 and this was through Operation Babylift.
RICHARD SILVER: I?m Richard Silver and I was adopted from South Vietnam in 1974.
JARED REHBERG: I?m Jared Rehberg. Yeah, Betty Tisdale ran my orphanage back in Vietnam and she and Madam Nigh, they were responsible for saving the lives of 219 children.
BETTY TISDALE: I am Betty Tisdale. The government arranged, I guess, with president ford that these agencies could get their children out but I was not involved in that. So I had to try to get my own planes, get a place for them, make sure that they got adopted, all of that on my own.
JARED REHBERG: When we boarded the plane Betty and Madame Nigh made up names for us and gave us birthdays and we were on our way to a better life.
BETTY TISDALE: And we didn?t have birth certificates because these were abandoned children, they were left at the gates. And these children had never left the orphanage, let alone get in an airplane. Then they were all adopted within, within a month. Those babies were my babies. And I would have taken all of them if I could have, I would have adopted all of them.
NEWSREEL: Damaged planes at Danong airport are one result of a long-range rocket shelling attack by Vietcong, which also destroyed several military buildings. A powerful new Russian-made weapon is blamed.
SHANNON HETRICK: What I know of Vietnam is sort of what I see unfortunately in Vietnam War movies. I do think more recently I?ve kind of been interested in Vietnam and learning a little bit more about it. My parents, they were told it would be a good idea to expose me to the Vietnamese culture but when they did I was actually quite resistant to it. Growing up in the South, the last thing you want to do is bring attention to yourself.
RICHARD SILVER: There?s going to be a point in your life where you have to recognize who you are. There?s a point where you?re going to realize I need to have some of these questions answered.
SHANNON HETRICK: In August was the first time that I met other Asian adoptees as an adult. I got to meet other adoptees who were from the Operation Babylift and to me it sort of felt like that was an extended family because only those people kind of understand completely what I went through growing up.
JARED REHBERG: I met Richard Silver on the trip to Vietnam this summer.
SOUND: AIRPLANE
RICHARD SILVER: The purpose of the trip was to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Operation Babylift.
SOUND: RICHARD ON AIRPLANE: We will be landing in the airport called Tan Sin Ut, which is the airport in Ho Chi Minh City.
RICHARD SILVER: For me I went with the attitude that not only am I representing the United States of America, but I?m also representing my heritage as a Vietnamese.
SOUND: VIETNAMESE DRUMMERS & DANCING
MUSIC UP: ?OPERATION BABYLIFT?
JARED REHBERG: I got to play at the Reunification Palace and very few people have played that palace. And I got up on stage and plugged in my guitar. I looked out at the country officials and without being dramatic, I?ve got to tell you, I was thinking about my birth parents and thinking, you know, this was the closest I was going to be to communicating with them.
MUSIC LYRICS: Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone / But my own. My own. And there?s Angels standing by.
MUSIC OUT
RICHARD SILVER: One of my most special moments that will stay with me forever is my time in the orphanage. Because while I was there, I could imagine in my mind what I would have been like when I was in the orphanage.
SOUND: STEWARDESS ON PLANE: Return flight. Operation Babylift, Homeward Bound, and today we?re going to go to San Francisco. I hope everybody has enjoyed your trip so far?
RICHARD SILVER: What I got out of my visit in Vietnam was how proud I am of the country that I came from. The images that we have twenty-five years ago or thirty years ago of this chaos and stricken land, you don?t see that. The people that I talked with who knew that I was back after thirty years they asked, what do you think of Vietnam now? I was truthfully honest to say I really love this place.
SHANNON HETRICK: The pictures of myself at the airport, the Atlanta airport, of me arriving here that?s where I felt my life began, but now that I?ve had first-hand accounts of what happened, I guess I believe now.
MUSIC FADES UP
JARED REHBERG: In some village maybe there is a woman and maybe for a moment she thinks about the child that she gave up. And maybe my birth parents have passed away and I hope that they?re proud of me and know I made the most of this opportunity.
HOST OUTTRO: ?Baby Pictures? included the voices of Richard Silver, Shannon Hetrick, Betty Tisdale, and the voice and music of Jared Rehberg. (Ray-berg)
MUSIC OUT
HOST: Every year, approximately 5000 children from China are adopted into the United States. Beginning in the 1990s China replaced South Korea as the leading sending country of Asian adopted children to the United States. In 1992, the Chinese government passed laws enabling foreigners to adopt Chinese children. There is no doubt that international adoption is changing the landscape of American life.
Our final chapter? ?Where I?m From.?
YING: I?m Ying Ying Fry and right now I?m eleven years old and I live in San Francisco.
SOUND: OF HER SPEAKING IN CHINESE
YING: I was born in Chung-Sha in Hunan, that?s a province and I don?t know what time and I don?t know exactly what day. They estimated the day.
AMY: I?m Amy Klatzkin? and I?m Ying Ying?s mom.
TERRY: I?m Terry Fry? Ying?s dad.
AMY: We traveled to China on 10 days notice?all we knew about was her orphanage name. Jo Shen?
TERRY: China and the local Chinese community gave us their perspectives about how would the local communities accept her and accept us as a family. And that was really the important thing because we knew she would have to deal with that for the rest of her life.
AMY: We had a lot of support from friends in China, from our Chinese teacher in particular. Chinese friends were very supportive, so we felt we had a community to help raise our child. And living in San Francisco, we felt that we could bring her to a place where she would be in the majority
ZAJI: I was adopted from Zhiang-Shi province
DEANA: I was born in Wuhan.
MEI LI: I was adopted from Wuhan when I was seven months old.
MAGGIE: My parents are Caucasian. I have one brother and two sisters. They?re not adopted.
MAYA: When you go to restaurants people look at you and it?s weird. It feels odd.
YUNG: I like learning Chinese so that when I meet my birth parents, I?d like to speak with them.
TERRY: one of the most comforting things to us is the knowledge that other people have been here before. The Korean American adoptees are making themselves available to tell us what it was like for them if we?ll only just listen.
SOUND OF KIDS TALKING IN BACKGROUND
WOMAN: Our friends and our age of people, when we were adopted we went to places like Ohio, Minnesota a lot of people, Michigan.
TERRY: It?s important to have an adult role-model who?s Chinese, who?s Asian American in our daughter?s life. It?s every bit as important to have an adult adoptee as a role model in her life,
WOMAN: Our names were changed to very Anglo-sounding names, do you know what that means?
AMY: We must start the story of our children?s lives when they were born, just like everybody else. Because a lot of adopted kids are six or seven years old think they were never born. And ao that gave me a structure to start her story always with growing in her birth mother?s tummy, is how I used to say it and getting bigger and bigger and bigger until she was ready to come out and boop, she was born. And then there were ten weeks and we don?t know what happened.
YING: Well, when my friend went to her orphanage, that?s when I really wanted to go to mine, because I thought it wasn?t fair that she got to go to hers, and that?s when I decided I wanted to go back and visit my orphanage.
AMY: She wanted to make that connection that even though it?s China and even though they speak Chinese, that their lives are a lot like her life, and that was an important point for her to make. But she went over and over again to the room that had the babies that were the age that she was, four and a half months, when she was adopted. And she would just stand and hold on to a crib and she just like a shadow would pass over her face.
TERRY: I think she wanted to explore her story. To know more of it. That?s what comes out a lot in her book.
YING: The name of the book is Kids like Me in China
SOUND: YING YING READS IN CHINESE, THE ENGLISH IS OVERLAYED
YING: (READING) Hi, my name is Ying Ying I hope I can go back to China. I would like to go to the Great Wall and walk a long time. Go back to my orphanage and see the little kids.
AMY: You know whenever we go back to China every year, year and a half, two years, sometime in that period. And each time we?re there we ask her if she wants to go to the police station and see if they have any files on her, the police station that recorded her information when she was found, and so far she hasn?t wanted to do that.
YING: I don?t want to do it now, because just one more thing to worry about. And I think I?ll do it later when I?m about maybe in high school or something. I think it?s really unlikely that I?ll find them because they might have died or they might have gone away to a different province and so it would be really hard. And anything could happen to them and I?m not quite sure whether I want to do it or I don?t.
AMY: Also, I think it?s common for all children to some extent but particularly adopted children, to try to protect us, the parents. They don?t want us to be upset by their secret thoughts, they don?t want to hurt us, and it?s not just that. These are kids who have actually lost a set of parents and they know it by the time their six or seven, and they know it.
YING: Forever family is like a family that takes care of you and cares about you for the rest of your life, not your parents that gave birth to you but the people that actually care for you and make a home for you and stuff.
TERRY: There?s a time we can only listen and support our kids?when they?re dealing with some big issues that as parents we would love to be able to fix?but we can?t.
YING: Both of my families. They?rethe same because they both cared about me and both loved me. Both of my families.
SOUND: MUSIC UP?
JARED: Without me, without you, I?m living in America with a brand new name
Without me, without you, I?m waking up American on a brand new day.
And I?m still the same?
HOST: ?Where I?m From? by Producer Dmae Roberts and Mia Kim featured the voices of Ying Ying Fry, Amy Klatzkin, Terry Fry and fellow adoptees? Maya, Zaji, Meili, Yang, Maggie and Kam.
MUSIC FADES DOWN
FADE MUSIC UNDER
HOST:
We came in many waves?
Across oceans, across lands, across many barriers?
We worked, built lives, raised families,
We married men who came to fight?
We came as babies left behind by wars and poverty?
We gave birth to new generations of Americans?this is Crossing East
Our stories, our history, our America
I?m Margaret Cho??
ANNOUNCER:
Crossing East is produced with funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Bob and Olga Fredrikson and individual donors of MediaRites Productions.
Our lead scholar is Judy Yung.
Music on this show was provided by Jared Rehberg. (Ray-berg)
Our theme music is by Shasta Taiko from their CD Spirit Drum.
The Managing Editor is Catherine Stifter, The Associate Producer is Sara Caswell Kolbet. The Crossing East Engineer is Clark Salisbury with technical direction and recording assistance by Michael Johnson. The marketing and outreach director is Ping Khaw.
The Executive Producer is Dmae Roberts.
To find out more about Crossing East and this program?go to CrossingEast.org.
Support for Crossing East comes from this station and Public Radio International stations and is made possible in part by the PRI Series Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
MUSIC ENDS
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