(soothing music)
- My name is Barbara Lee Potter,
and I was born in the San Francisco area in 1943.
My adoptive mother and father were match made in Korea
maybe when they were 14 or 15.
I'm not sure how old they were.
My adoptive father, he was first cousins with Mrs. Helen Ahn
who I call 큰엄마.
We lived right next door to them.
I was emotionally more close to the Ahns,
which was kind of sad for my mother
cause she got very jealous,
but she didn't know how to raise a child.
One time when I was really still an infant,
I guess she just couldn't cope,
and I guess was beating me.
I don't know.
I'm not sure.
But Philson, the second oldest of the Ahn family,
found her beating me.
And that even made, I guess it made it more important
that they oversee me.
My mother really didn't know how to take care of a child.
They were 44 when I was adopted.
My adoptive father was a patriot following Ahn Changho.
At 19 he came to America and left her in Korea.
I'm not sure how old she was, maybe 40.
She came and she called Mrs. Ahn and said,
"I'm looking for my husband."
She called him and said, your wife is here from Korea.
And what she wanted was to have a child by him.
So he felt obligated that he should do this.
So he came back to LA, and they tried,
and I guess she miscarried.
And then through Mrs. Ahn, they heard about me
in San Francisco being up for adoption.
And actually, I think she was one of
Mrs. Ahn's closest friends lived up there
and adopted me first, but she also was old.
She and her husband were old.
I don't know the timeframe,
but it was just maybe months that she got sick,
and they had to put me back into the adoption agency.
And that's when Mrs. Ahn and Phillip Ahn told my father
that I was available.
And that's how they adopted me.
I found out I was adopted, kind of, you know,
it was like a fluke.
There was a friend, I mean,
it's somebody I played with and went to school with
in sixth grade that came from Hawaii.
And she's the one that told me,
she said, you know you're adopted.
I go, no, I'm not.
I was going, what?
And so I asked my dad, I said, I need my birth certificate.
I had never seen it.
He said, why do you wanna see your birth certificate?
And I said, oh, it was a school project.
So it was a little photostat.
And I guess in those days they put, you know,
Aukson Lee and Youngson Lee my parents.
So I happened to be staying with the Ahns,
and it was just before my 13th birthday.
And I decided to just ask them.
Maybe it's time for you to know, she told me.
It turns out it was the best kept secret
of this Korean community.
They kept it a secret.
My aunts, my cousins, you know, my best friend Barbara
who I grew up with, you know, from, she even knew.
After the trauma of feeling I have no blood relatives,
you know, being a teenager, starting to be a teenager,
I was very emotional.
But it wasn't until I was around 45
that I kind of decided I would check it out.
We had a big party at the Moon Gate,
and it was at the end of the party,
and I was sitting next to kind of like an aunt of mine.
And I just said it out loud.
Dora, I said, I think I'm gonna go talk to Ada.
I understand that she knows something about my, you know,
real family, and Ada, who I grew up with,
her son at the same age as me.
She turns to her husband Andy.
She goes, Andy, remember when during the war
when you were stationed in Hawaii and saw her mother?
That was the start of it.
And I eventually met her, which was such an experience.
She came here when she found out that I was looking for her
through her sister who lived here, Florence Ahn, Sarah Ahn.
And I went to have lunch with her.
And she, you know, told me,
I will let your mom know you're looking for her.
It was like the secret had been there since I was born
and came to LA, and as soon as I said something,
they opened up just like my aunt saying,
Andy, we went and saw Honey's real mother.
And I'm going, how come you never told me?
We didn't know you were looking for your real mother,
and we couldn't say anything because of your adopted mother.
So I met her and kind of rounded my life.
She and I had the same toes, you know.
I mean, I didn't have anyone to compare with.
And I met my father.
She said, I will see if he's living or dead.
And you know, I met him when I went to Hawaii
to meet my siblings.
She had five other children, me being the oldest,
and I'm very proud of my Korean side.
My name is Barbara Uni Lee Potter,
and this is my Korean American story.
(upbeat music)