{"id":58745,"date":"2019-08-25T19:50:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-25T19:50:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=58745"},"modified":"2019-08-25T19:50:53","modified_gmt":"2019-08-25T19:50:53","slug":"alternate-lives-korean-orphans-quests-for-answers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=58745","title":{"rendered":"Alternate lives: Korean orphans’ quests for answers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alternate lives: Korean orphans’ quests for answersAlternate lives: Korean orphans’ quests for answers<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

France 24<\/a>
\n2019-08-23<\/p>\n

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\nSeoul (AFP<\/a>)<\/small><\/p>\n

On a summer’s day in 1985 a seven-year-old boy sat alone at a crowded bus station in Seoul<\/a>, sobbing as he waited desperately for his mother to return.<\/p>\n

Jo Youn-hwan was wearing a baseball uniform that his mother had bought him a few days before — the only gift she had ever given him.<\/p>\n

She told him to wait for her before leaving him at the terminal. So he did, increasingly terrified as day turned to dusk.<\/p>\n

“I’ll be a really good kid if only she chooses to return,” he promised himself, over and over again. “I’ll be a really, really good kid.”<\/p>\n

She never did…<\/p>\n

…International adoption from South Korea<\/a> began after the Korean War<\/a> as a way to remove mixed-race children, born to local mothers and American GI<\/a> fathers, from a country that emphasized ethnic homogeneity.<\/p>\n

More recently the main driver has been babies born to unmarried women, who still face ostracism in a patriarchal society, and according to historians, are often forced to give up their children.<\/p>\n

Most children remain institutionalised till adulthood as many South Koreans are reluctant to adopt. The country has sent some 180,000 children overseas over the years, mostly to the US<\/a>…<\/p>\n