I sit down with Alicia Soon Hershey, 41, a Korean transnational adoptee now living in Barcelona. Soon Hershey was the very first adoptee interviewed on the podcast back in 2016 and our conversation book-ends the podcast in the 165th episode (!). We get a chance to hear how she has evolved in the past eight years and her outlook for life now that she is a mother herself.
Audio available Wednesday, August 28, 2024 at 7 am CST.
Korean-American cultural anthropologist and scholar Eleana Kim (UC Irvine) talks about her research and observations in writing her seminal book, “Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging” (Duke University Press, 2010).
Audio available on August 16, 2024 at 9:00 am CST.
Geoffrey Winder (Jeong Kae-bin) (he/him), 42, of Oakland, CA, shares some of his story as a queer Black Korean transnational and transracial adopted man and about his activism in queer advocacy, adoptee community, education justice and leadership spaces.
Audio available Friday, August 2, 2024.
Mirae Kate-hers Rhee, 48, is a transnational, transcultural artist and adopted Korean who uses her socio-political artwork and performance to investigate concepts like identity and belonging.
Audio available July 20, 2024 at 6 pm CST.
Photo: Michael Hurt
Korean mixed-race adoptee Sarah Harris, 54, of Los Angeles, shares her story of visiting Korea and finding the place where she felt truly rooted.
Audio available July 5, 2024.
Korean adoptee Delight Roberts, 52, talks about marrying into a Korean-American family and the challenges and benefits that provided her. Some were surprising – like table eating etiquette – but all of Roberts’ experiences from childhood bullying to having future in-laws who didn’t approve of her because she is adopted, have strengthened Roberts’ resolve to live the life of her choice.
Audio available on Friday, June 21, 2024. Patreon supporters have early access.
Wyatt Tuell, 45, is an adopted Korean who has learned that family does not have to be biological to be special. The Omaha, NE resident was adopted as a newborn to a Korean adoptive mother and white American military father. However, he was adopted a second time by another man whom he considers his father. And later, when he sought to become a father himself, health complications meant that path would also rely on alternative methods to create a family.
Audio available Friday, June 7, 2024.
Kit Myers, 42, is a transracial Hong Kong adoptee and assistant professor in the Department of History & Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at UC Merced. In this interview, we talk about Myers’ search for his birth mother and feelings he’s had of having a ‘ghostly’ or ambiguous kinship with someone he doesn’t know. We also talk about his upcoming imprint, ” Violence of Love, Race, Adoption and Family in the United States.”
Audio available on May 24, 2024.
Instagram: abolish_and_build
Twitter: @MyersKit
I continue my conversation with Nik Nadeau, a Korean adoptee who reunited with his Korean birth mother years ago, and who is still learning more about her and himself in the process.
Audio available May 10, 2024.
Writer, poet, husband and Korean adoptee Nik Nadeau, also known as Im Chang Hoon, 36, talks about how writing has helped him find inner layers of himself and uncover memories. He also shares how he’s unlocking feelings towards his birth mother with the passage of time.
Special thanks to Jacquelyn Wells for original music.
