Note: story includes child sexual abuse

Kaomi Goetz 49, was adopted from Korea to the United States at the age of six months old. She grew up racially isolated in rural Minnesota, the only daughter and adopted child in her family. In many ways she was like most kids around her. She climbed trees, built snow forts, sang in the church choir, played clarinet and volleyball. But she also knew she was different. She carried a painful secret that took her childhood away too soon. At age 11, she was sexually abused, and it became a family secret that both silenced and shamed her. That she had been given up by people who left no trace of themselves, either to be found, or loved, also remained an unexamined wound, locked away with no key. Lee details what happened when she reported her parental abuse to her adoption agency, Holt Korea and the late Molly Holt; the response was as much shocking as disappointing, that no one was willing to apologize or take responsibility for her pain. For this season-ending episode, Goetz sat down with Korean adoptee Alicia Soon, who was the first person interviewed for this podcast in 2016, and who also shared her adoption story of abuse and feelings of abandonment.

BLACK LIVES MATTER.

Audio available at 7 p.m, EST (US) on June 1, 2020.

Music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.