Adoption Agencies from the Inside: One KAD's Perspective

An adult Korean adoptee who worked for a large adoption agency shares his perspective on the business of adoption from the inside, as a guest poster at Slant Eye for the Round Eye:

In the whole scheme of things, this adoption agency was good to me. It brought me to the states as a seven year old and placed me with my adoptive family in rural Minnesota. It was somewhat involved in my reconnection with my birth family in Korea. It additionally created a new position for me after I was let go by the second largest adoption agency in the state. And I made lifelong friends there; I consider one of its past vice presidents and directors true adoption advocates. Yeah, it was good to me.

Conversely, I was good for the agency. What better way to recruit adoptive parents than have a composed, well adjusted, transracial Korean adoptee who loves adoption? (“It’s the best thing since milk and cookies!”) What better way to engage potentially pissy adult adoptees than with an adoptee who openly talked about his pissy, non-well adjusted past? What better way to confront strong adoptees, with constructive arguments against adoption than with another adoptee who could easily express, with conviction, equally compelling arguments in support of adoption? Yeah, I, the poster boy transracial adoptee, was good for the agency. I played the “good Asian” role very well.

As they say, all good things must come to an end. I left the agency in 2006, absolutely disgruntled with the whole “adoption thing.”

It's a long post -- go read the whole thing, it's well worth it!