VOICES OF KCCNYC ADOPTEES: MATTHEW’S STORY
Voices of KCCNYC Adoptees: Matthew’s Story
By Matthew Faulkner
My Story as a Korean Adoptee
Photo Credit to Matthew Faulkner, he included a caption: “My favorite stuffed animal growing up. I received him when I was 4 years old. I named him turtle cause I couldn't think of anything else. :D He went with me everywhere on trips and is one of my prized possessions still because of all the memories I have.”
Hello. My name is Matthew Faulkner, or my Korean name, 오은수 O Eun Su. I was adopted from Seoul, South Korea on August 26, 1988. I grew up with two older sisters and one older brother. In my family, I was very fortunate to have another Korean adoptee and her name is Katie. A lot of midwestern Korean adoptees will know her, as she is the president and executive director of KAAN. I would say growing up, I was spoiled as the youngest and I got everything my way.
My sister was always amazing to me: spoiling me, giving me piggy back rides and always giving me attention. I do not know where I would be without my older sister by my side. We grew up in a very sheltered area in Michigan and my school was 99.95% white. You could count how many different race kids went to that school on two hands. It was weird growing up in a bubble, but it was quite an experience. Also, growing up in the 90’s, my sister and I had to experience a lot of racism and my sister taught me from a young age how to deal with that.
I was always asked about my adoption story when I was a kid and I would say that it depends if I wanted to search for my birth mother or not. Internally, I was thinking she probably did not care about me. However, I was very fortunate to be given my birth mother’s name and her age at the time she had me. My sister was not so fortunate and she was not given anything. It amazes me, in a 7-year time span, how much information I had versus what she had.
From the adoptee experience, I do not know if I can say my life would have been better in Korea, being with my mother. However, I do not know if I can say the same thing about living in America, as I never got to experience my culture that much. Sure, we would do things as a family and go to Korean events and eat at Korean restaurants, but it is very different when it’s with an adopted family versus a biological one.
I know I have had to deal with a lot of pain being a Korean adoptee and the emotional trauma that the adoptees experience is very real. I never thought about the trauma that I had, until the Atlanta shooting in 2021. During the pandemic, I saw the evil in people and the evil the Asian Americans had to face. We had to deal with all the racism all over again and just not feeling safe.
A 2020 poster from the City of New York.
As an adoptee, we are asked, “What trials have you gone through?” I can honestly say I have tried to end my life over five times. I failed each time, but that is due to just me not feeling wanted. Sure, people can say, “But your adopted family wants you and they would be very sad without you.” Yes, I understand that. However, through all the pain I have had to go through by being abandoned by my birth mother and feeling abandoned by my adopted family, it certainly weighs me down.
During the pandemic, I had to find a therapist and her name is Sally. I was looking for another Korean for a therapist and in the first conversation we had, she brought up the question of what was the reason I wanted to see her and was it because of what was going on. I responded yes and that I hope you can help me through this. It took a while, but I was very happy to find her, Sally. Sally, I know you will see this and I cannot thank you enough or everything that you have done for me.
At the end of 2022, I was hired full time by my current employer and I had to move 700 miles away. It was tough, but I am very happy I did make the transition. During the one-year anniversary of the shooting, I thought about my life long and hard and I decided I was going to try to find my birth mother. It was the most difficult decision I have made in my life. I bought a painting to honor the victims of the shooting and I look at it every day to remember those families that lost their mothers during that tragedy. I thought to myself, if my mother is still alive, which I knew she was young when she had me, but if she is still alive, I would reach out to her.
I went online and I did my research, and I came across a company called Adopteebridge, run by Christine Heimann. I was very skeptical at the beginning. However, I was greeted by an amazing person named Sunnie. Her personality certainly matches her name and she is a bright and caring person. Once I read her email about everything that I needed to do, I was thrilled to be working with such a wonderful place. I contacted them in April of 2023 and I received my birth records, which I already had. The process took a while, so keep that in mind. I would receive updates here and there, but one day in November, I got confirmation that they found my mother. I was thrilled and I was on my way to work in the back of an Uber, trying to contain my tears of joy that they found her.
Photo of Seoul, South Korea.
I never told anyone in my family until I got the confirmation, I sent a letter and I waited for about a month and then in December, I received the first letter. It was a very weird experience. Trying to tell your birth mother about your life, 30-some years later, and what you have had to go through. Telling her that I was diagnosed with Autism, but highly functional, and that I deal with chronic pain daily. I tried to communicate with her on a weekly basis, but that did not really pan out.
I was sending emails back and forth to her, but then two months later, early in February of 2024, all communication stopped. I waited and waited and waited to hear a response, but in July of 2024 I got a message back from Christine, stating that was final letter from my birth mother. I was devastated that she did not want to have contact with me anymore.
I knew something was up, but that just hit me hard and I went back to the feeling of feeling like a piece of garbage that should have been thrown away. I know this will be brought up, but Korea did not legalize abortion until 2019. I know people think of this the wrong way but, I wish Korea had legalized abortion before I was born and that way my mother could have made her choice as to whether to have me or not.
In a way, I wish I was aborted, due to the pain of what I have had to endure for the past 30 plus years. Part of me wishes I did not think that way, but reading and listening to others. We are all lost and trying to find our ways. Part of me wishes that my life was better, however I know I still struggle a lot with being adopted and only having a short conversation with my mother. Yes, I was fortunate to be able to communicate with her for a short time. However, I wish that I could see her face to face and talk to her more. I wish that I could be by her side, because of the struggles I have had to go through here in America.
Only adoptees will understand the pain that we face about the “what ifs”. Sure, I have had a lot of great experiences, but that does not mean I wish I grew up here. I wish I grew up in Korea and experienced that culture, and I wished I could have stayed there with my mother.
During the birth search, I started learning Korean and I was able to find my amazing teacher at KCCNYC. I was scrolling through YouTube one day and I found a girl from TWICE. At that time I had no idea who she was and I did a deep dive to learn more. I found out who she was and then one day I stumbled across a buzzfeed video. I used to like them, but they fell off. However, thanks to them I was able to find my teacher. I was able to do an accelerated learning through her because of not knowing what was going to happen with my birth mother search, but you all read before how things went.
The Korean Flag, photo by Clive Kim
I have not been back to Korea since I was adopted. I plan on going back, but I am still waiting for my citizenship paperwork. During the time of birth family search, I ran across GOA’L and they have been another amazing resource for adoptees. There, I was able to apply for dual citizenship and eventually, hopefully in early 2025, I will be able to get my Korean passport. I was happy to take Korean and my teacher let me do an accelerated course because she understood what I was trying to accomplish. However, now that I received closure earlier this year, I struggle with learning Korean and I feel like I have given up on it. I know I will continue, but it just hurts knowing what I know.
I grew up with two amazing sisters and a brother, but knowing that my mother had two kids after me hurts and that she is hiding me from them. I know I may never be able to meet them, nor her. I know when I go back, I will try to see her, however I do not know if she will come. I highly doubt it, but who knows.
Recently there was a Frontline documentary about the adoption scandal that went on in Korea. Over 250,000 children sent abroad. I know I am only one of those children and that others have had a different experience than I have had. However, that does not mean that there are not still wounds there that people have not healed from.
Whether you are pro-choice or pro-life, until you have talked to the adoptees who have lived through their experiences, don’t pass judgment. They can tell you about their lives, about what they missed out on, about what they wish they experienced not being adopted. Until you can listen to their voices and understand where they are coming from and listen to their stories, instead of saying be grateful that you are alive, be thankful, as well, that you were not aborted.
I understand that is not the narrative we should be pushing on adoptees. Yes, most of us are grateful to be alive - I would not doubt that. However, what people do not understand is the pain and suffering we must live through everyday, knowing that we were sent abroad, because either the government did not want us, we were born into a single mother, or we were stolen/lied to about our origin story.
Moving forward with adoptee awareness, what I would encourage people to do is to talk to us more, listen to us more and listen to the struggles that we have gone through. I am one of the lucky adoptees who was never lied to that they came from Korea. However there are countless others like my sister may never find out their true origin stories, which is a tragedy and the government needed to do better.
I want to share a couple of examples of TEDtalks with you. One of my favorites is by Sara Jones and another story is by Vice from Kara Boss. Kara’s story helped me through the journey and hearing what she had to go through prepared me for the worst. Thank you, Kara, for what you have done for me. It truly means a lot.
I have gone through a lot of struggles with self-identity, feeling wanted, and just being comfortable with myself. I still struggle everyday with the pain of knowing that my mother is out there but does not want to talk to me. I hope that my story will inspire others to talk about their experience. I hope that you all find someone to talk to about issues like these. I have my sister and I have other people that I talk to daily. I want to thank my teacher, as well, for giving me a safe space to talk about things during my journey. She took time out of her day to talk to me about issues that I was having and it meant a lot to me.
In closing, I am one of hundreds of thousands of adoptees who have been adopted out of South Korea. I have struggled a lot with being adopted. Not my life, but my internal struggle. I have never really expressed my feelings fully until recently. My hope is that people will listen, and not try to mitigate our stories. Hopefully, they will take our pain seriously and listen to the stories we share, instead of questioning them and asking the questions that most adoptees get asked. At the end of the day, we are all human and we should be treated as such.
