Imagine a story told to you from childhood, that your biological mother died and your biological father decided to relinquish you? And the people who adopted you rehomed you to another couple, where you found abuse and neglect? Randy Walker, 48, has lived such a life and re-examines his trauma and discusses how negative family experiences can shape one’s future relationships.
Audio available June 13, 2023.
“Running” by Jae Jin.
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
Sara Jones isn’t sure whether she’s 48 or 49. That’s because the circumstances surrounding her relinquishment are still a bit unclear. What she does know for certain, is that her father never wanted her to be separated from her family or be adopted overseas. But his worst fears happened anyway, and against most all odds she was able to find her way back. Now, she’s using her voice to help other Korean adoptees whom the system disenfranchised and left vulnerable.
Audio available on Tuesday, May 23 at 7:00 am CST.
“Running” by Jae Jin.
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
Eric Poole, 55, continues his conversation in this second of a two-part interview. In this episode, we follow his adoption to the U.S. and adjustment in New Hope, Minnesota, where as a Black Korean boy, he felt like he traded one outsider life for another.
CW: N word
Audio available May 08, 2023.
Patreon subscribers get early access.
“Running” by JaeJin.
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
Eric Poole, 55, is a transracially adopted Black Korean who has come a long way from his early days as a mixed-race Korean child in a US military camptown in Korea. He’s now a father to three kids, husband, and one of the few Black pilots in the commercial flight industry. But his success story is built on the complicated foundation of being orphaned, outcast, alone and othered. He also shares his experiences being at the Holt orphanage, including being sexually abused by other kids and being groomed for a new life in the US. (Part 1 of 2 part interview).
Audio available on April 25, 2023.
“Running” by JaeJin.
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
Karen Lechelt, 50, is a mother, wife and a returned East coaster after two decades in the San Francisco bay area and a few years in Amsterdam in between. Their childhood in New Jersey was marked with feeling not quite fitting wherever she was, and having to always adapt themself.
Because of the loss of their first family, Karen says there’s always been a feeling of not being anchored. That changed with the birth of their daughter.
“Running” by JaeJin.
“Some Nights End,” “The Sermon,” “Feeling Fine,” “Breaking The Chairs,” by Blue Dot Session under license.
Megan Nyberg, 37, was adopted as an infant from South Korea to Minnesota. But ever since her premature birth, she has struggled with medical conditions that have been constant reminders of the mystery surrounding her origins. Now a therapist, Nyberg gives other grace and more recently, has started to give it to herself too.
“Running” by JaeJin.
Other music by Blue Dot Sessions: “Awash,” “Leatherbound,” “Shoreline Piling,” and “The Gerimo.”
Queer Korean adoptee Midnite Townsend, 38, is many things. A large part of her/their past has been as a performer; first training to enter the world of musical theater to realizing her/their real desires were better applied to the art of burlesque and drag king performance. Midnite’s throughline has been a quest for authenticity – and the test of whether loved ones around her/them would see her.
Theme music: JaeJin
Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
“Tempo” by Lizzo appears courtesy of fair use as the backing audio to a Tiktok video by @movewithmidnite.
Korean-born French adoptee Laure Badufle’s story and search for idenity is now the subject of a new Sony Pictures film, “Return to Seoul.” In December of 2021, Badufle, then 37, shared some of that story, including meeting her birth parents in her 20s. The film is now opening to more international audiences this month and is already winning accolades. This is a re-broadcast.
“Running” by JaeJin.
Other music under license with Blue Dot Sessions.
Michael Jessup of Mountain View, California is a father, coach and adopted Korean. But it’s only been in the last six years that the 46-year old has explored his feelings about his adoption and faced his pain about being abandoned and given up by presumably his first family at 13 months of age. He opens up about his life, how tennis has carried him through the years, and shares a touching letter to his eomma.
“Running” by JaeJin under license.
“Trajectories,” “Krotoa Hills,” “Helion Ruins,” “Engine Flicker” by Blue Dot Sessions under license.
Reunion with biological parents can be complicated for adoptees. Especially because relinquishment or losing a child or parent, language, culture can be traumatic and represent lifelong grief. But whose story is it? Aneyah Elmore, 56, is a Black and Korean adoptee who is balancing the need to tell her own story and the desire of her biological mother not to.
CW****Child killings, racial genocide, suicide, emotional abuse of a child
Note: Aneyah mentions Truth and Reconciliation Commission but instead means Danish Korean Rights Group.
“Running” by JaeJin under license.
“Dorothea,” “Trajectories,” “Edge of the Woods,” “Red Ember,” and “Anippe” by Blue Dot Sessions under license.
