Kori Graves on Black Korean adoptees

Hello from HISTORY!

This week, Tammy interviews Professor Kori A. Graves, a historian of adoption and the family at the University at Albany, SUNY.

Kori’s 2020 book, A War Born Family: African American Adoption in the Wake of the Korean War, explores how Black Americans came to adopt Black Korean children.

Tammy and Kori talk about the history of transnational, transracial adoption — and the special place of Korea and the Korean diaspora in adoptee activism and the contemporary architecture of family.

For more on this subject, Kori recommends:

* Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America by Catherine Ceniza Choy

* Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging by Eleana J. Kim

* Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States by Kimberly D. McKee

* “Side x Side” (documentary film project) by Glenn Morey and Julie Morey

* To Save the Children of Korea by Arissa H. Oh

* Framed by War: Korean Children and Women at the Crossroads of US Empire by Susie Woo

Tammy adds:

* All You Can Ever Know: A Memoir by Nicole Chung

* Interrogation Room (poetry) by Jennifer Kwon Dobbs

* Dust of the Streets: The Journey of a Biracial Orphan of the Korean War by Thomas Park Clement

* “Made in Korea: A One Way Ticket Seoul-Amsterdam?” (film) by In-Soo Radstake

* Palimpsest: Documents from a Korean Adoption (graphic novel) by Lisa Wool-Rim Sjöblom

* The Language of Blood: A Memoir by Jane Jeong Trenka

* Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related.: A Memoir by Jenny Heijun Wills

On November 16, Also-Known-As will host an event with deported adoptees. Register for free:

Tomorrow, November 3, catch Andy at NYU’s Skirball Center (via Zoom; register for free), in conversation with Prof. Charmaine Chua of UC-Santa Barbara. He’ll revisit some themes in his “‘Chinese Virus,’ World Market” essay from March 2020 in n+1 — twenty months later, twenty months into the pandemic!

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