Tag Archives: adopted

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 10: Marissa Lichwick and Her Ghosts

Marissa Lichwick, 46, is a Korean adoptee and filmmaker, playwright and actor. She is using her past pain and trauma surrounding her family separation, abuse in the orphanage and in her father and stepmother’s home and the haunting loss of a half-sister she’s never met in her art, to process the events of her life and to encourage healing and community with others. Her first feature-length film is a semi-autobiographical look at her life and will be distributed widely this fall.

Audio available on Friday, January 19, 2024.

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 9: Sara Docan-Morgan and Being In-Reunion

Sara Docan-Morgan, PhD, is a Korean adoptee and communications professor in Wisconsin. Docan-Morgan, 47, is also the youngest child in her Korean biological family, with whom she reunited with many years ago. Her research has focussed on experiences of Korean adoptees and their families, and this month she is out with a new book, “In Reunion: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Communication of Family” (Temple University Press).

Audio available on Jan. 5, 2024. Patreon supporters receive an early download.

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 5: Matthew Rodriguez and Fact Versus Fiction

Korean adoptee Matthew Rodriguez, 43, is trying to make sense of his adoption story. For years, it’s been clouded by stories that were told to him and those he told himself, even if they weren’t always accurate. It was a means to survive. But Rodriguez, whose adoptive parents are white and Mexican American, and who grew up in Alaska (a first for the podcast!), was taught that he needed to excel academically to be valued. Now a parent himself and manager of a venture capital fund, he has a different story to tell.

Audio available on Friday, Nov. 10.

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 4: Jenna Antoniewicz is Ready

Korean adoptee Jenna Antoniewicz, 40, has been on a whirlwind over the past 24 months since beginning to reckon her adoption history and adoptee identity. While mayor of a town in Pennsylvania, she found herself speaking for Asian America during the coronavirus pandemic about anti-Asian hate. But that triggered an imposter syndrome deep within Antoniewicz, who hadn’t previously given much thought about her adoption from Korea or what it meant to be Korean-American. Fast forward two years,  and this wife and mother of two is now living on Jeju-do, off of mainland Korea, not far from her biological father, making sense of her experience by connecting to others and blending her past with her future. 

Audio available on Friday, Oct. 27, 2023.

Season 7

Season 7, Episode 2: Lee Herrick — Scar and Flower

Lee Herrick, 52, is a poet, author, educator and adoptee. He was adopted from South Korea to the San Francisco Bay area in 1971. Herrick discusses how he uses his lens as an adoptee to observe and write verse about life. He also reads from his 2019 acclaimed collection of poems, “Scar and Flower.”

Photo Credit: Curtis Messer

Audio available on Friday, Sept. 29, 2023.

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 20: Sara Jones Was Marked By Love

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.

Transcript

“Running” by Jae Jin.

Other music appears under license with Blue Dot Sessions.

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 16: Megan Nyberg – Superheroes Have Feelings Too

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. 

Audio available 3/30/23.
Adapted_Megan_NybergDownload

“Running” by JaeJin.

Other music by Blue Dot Sessions: “Awash,” “Leatherbound,” “Shoreline Piling,” and “The Gerimo.”

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 15: After Midnite — Santa Claus, Birth Parents and Other Myths

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. 

Audio available on March 16, 2023.
Transcript Download

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.

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 14: Laure Badufle Returns to Seoul

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. 

Laure_TranscriptDownload

“Running” by JaeJin.

Other music under license with Blue Dot Sessions.

Season 6

Season 6, Episode 13: Michael Jessup and His Inner Game

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. 

Audio available Feb. 23, 2023.
Transcript Download

“Running” by JaeJin under license.

“Trajectories,” “Krotoa Hills,” “Helion Ruins,” “Engine Flicker” by Blue Dot Sessions under license.