ADULT KOREAN INTERCOUNTRY ADOPTEES: A RESOURCE FOR ADOPTION PRACTICE
8 Introduction On January 13, 1903, the first Korean immigrants to the United States arrived in Honolulu, Hawaii, on the S.S. Gaelic. In commemoration, President George W. Bush issued a proclamation declaring January 13, 2003 as the “Centennial of Korean Immigration to the United States.” Throughout the year, programs, ceremonies, and activities honoring Korean immigrants and their descendants have been scheduled to celebrate the contributions of Korean-Americans over the past one-hundred years. There was a time when I would not have identified with the millions of Koreans who risked everything for the hope of a new life in a new land. Like them, I was born in Korea and came to the United States with the hope of a better life. But unlike them, I did not travel with family or knowledge of my blood roots nor did I have to learn a new culture and language all on my own. My arrival to the United States at the age of three was eagerly awaited; I had become an American through adoption.
A relational model of understanding adult Korean adoptees' ethnic identity formation in the United States
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Moral and Political Issues Facing Relinquishing Countries
is Secretary General of International Social Service, based in Geneva Switzerland. He has a degree in psychology from the Louvain University, Belgium, and has worked in the field of social child welfare for the last fourteen years. He was a member of the UN Expert Group which drafted the UN Declaration on Social and Legal Principles Relating to the Protection and Welfare of Children, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1986. As a member of the Ad Hoc Non-Governmental Organisations Group, he participated in the open-ended sessions of the Human Rights Commission which drafted the Convention on the Rights of the Child which came into force in September 1990.