For Anna Merrick Luster, keeping her Korean siblings together at all costs was a promise she kept to her biological parents before they died. But as you’ll hear, that meant enduring painful years of sexual abuse by her adoptive father and possible emotional and psychological abuse from her adoptive mother. In this podcast series, we’ve heard some painful and complicated stories about Korean transnational and transracial adoption. This one is no different. Luster shines a light on an international adoption industry, in this case Children’s Home Society of Minnesota, that often has blamed adoptees for the abusive families it has placed Korean children into, rather than acknowledge its own negligence and inaction to protect them under its guise of child welfare. This story is also an example that abuse can take place behind closed doors not only in large anonymous cities, but in small rural towns in plain sight. And that local child protection services, schools and other local officials have also failed to act. But despite everything, Luster’s story is about survival and of how her memories of Korea gave her hope even in her isolation and despair, from thousands of miles away.

Credits:
Music: Jahzzar – “Schmaltz”
Logo: Rusty Detty