Deann Borshay Liem’s adoption paperwork contained two childhood photographs from 1964 and 1965, both labeled with the name Cha Jung Hee. But the images are of two different girls. Liem is on the right.
Deann Borshay Liem
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Deann Borshay Liem
Deann Borshay Liem’s adoption paperwork contained two childhood photographs from 1964 and 1965, both labeled with the name Cha Jung Hee. But the images are of two different girls. Liem is on the right.
Deann Borshay Liem
Last week, South Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that Korean adoption agencies were responsible for widespread fraud, malpractice and even human rights violations.
More than 140,000 South Korean children were adopted by families living abroad in the decades after the Korean war. The report documented cases in which agencies fabricated records and others in which abandoned children were sent abroad after only perfunctory efforts to find living guardians.
Documentarian Deann Borshay Liem was an adult when she first learned the story she’d been told about her identity was a lie. She was adopted by an American family from California in 1966, when she was eight years old. Her adoption records said she was an orphan, but she eventually discovered her birth mother was alive, and she had a large extended family in South Korea.
She shares her adoption story, her reaction to the commission’s report, and her thoughts on what justice looks like for adoptees.
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This episode was produced by Michelle Aslam and Connor Donevan. It was edited by Sarah Handel. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.
