(uplifting piano music)
- Hi, my name is Kara Bos,
and I'm also known as, in Korea at least,
as Oh Kara and Kang Mee Sook.
But I was born in, I was born in Korea,
but then raised in America.
I was sent for adoption when I was almost three years old.
And so I lived in Michigan.
Actually, I grew up in Michigan.
The last place I lived was in Virginia,
before I moved to the Netherlands.
I live in Amsterdam now and I'm married,
and have two children, a boy and a girl,
Alexander who's nine and Olivia who's six.
And my husband is Dutch and his name is Iles.
So I was adopted when I,
at least my paperwork in my file said that I was two.
But now after a bit more investigating,
actually I was probably closer to three or four.
So my adoptive family they were farmers.
Actually, my dad was a commercial farmer
and my mom was a stay-at-home mom.
And we lived in a very rural part of Michigan.
And it was called Sheridan,
that was the first place I came to when I came to America.
And they have two biological children of their own,
my brother and sister.
And so I'm the youngest in my family,
but I mean, when I came,
I was just treated as a little sister and their daughter.
Yeah, so what sparked for sure,
the looking into my past and looking into, you know,
being Korean and my origin is definitely my daughter,
because when she turned two, that was the age
I was always told that I was when I was found
in that parking lot.
And so when she turned two and just, you know,
all of the time and the bonding that was spent
in those first two years of her life,
it made me realize like, did I have that?
Or I questioned did I have that with my mother?
And if I did, what kind of,
I guess, trauma brought the situation
that we had to be separated?
But also like what kind of trauma she's still facing
with not knowing, you know, where I am and how I'm doing.
So that brought me to think of searching for her.
'Cause before that point, I never desired to,
because I really said, you know,
my American family is my family.
And so that spurred the search and also that includes
the identity of being Korean.
Because before that point,
if you don't look into anything to do with the,
I think your origins, then that part is also lost.
So when I started researching for her,
then I started actually searching for my identity.
So when you first start searching,
you contact your local adoption agency
in where you were adopted.
So that was in Michigan, Bethany Christian Services.
And I had already had my file from them,
but I've been told by other adoptees
it's best to try to get your original file from Korea
because it's happened often that the file in Korea
is different than the one
that you've received from your parents.
It can be just even small details that even,
or big ones or a completely different file,
like that's how drastic it can be.
So I contacted them and asked
to start a birth family search.
Through that is in the end
how I ended up getting a new piece of paper.
And to be honest, every single time I asked them for,
you know, specific information,
each year that I went back
because I started to go back to Korea then.
So this started in 2016,
I asked for the file.
And then I also did the DNA test.
Every single time I ended up finding new pieces of paper
and it completely conflicted,
always with the idea that I'd always had about adoption.
I'd always believed that, you know, my file was correct.
I always believed that the people who organize
and facilitate adoptions are just honorable people
who are trying to help these impoverished children
in these foreign countries and are doing good in the world.
I mean, when I was younger,
I always said also that I would adopt
to try to give back
because I was saved and rescued from poverty.
But then when I started research
and investigating my own file,
I kept being confronted with conflicting information.
Like in 2018, I found out that a foster family, you know,
they weren't just a foster family.
They tried to actually domestically adopt me.
And so when I met my foster mother,
she was told by the orphanage that an American couple
were looking for a two year old girl
and that they should send me back.
So then it started to make me question everything,
you know about who I am, about my adoption process,
if it was true.
That's the problem I think a lot of times with adoptees
is the story.
By the time you start searching, it's too late.
I mean, this all happened 30 some years ago.
And so trying to find information on people
who had found me in the parking lot,
who had facilitated my adoption,
who had stamped my paperwork is really difficult.
And I recently found out through an investigative program
here in Korea, that all of the names,
all of the information on my,
my little piece of paper that talked about
how I was found and who found me and what happened
was false.
So it confirmed also the fact that
it's almost impossible for us to be able to find family
unless our mother and father's names are on there.
And even then, you know,
because of the privacy act here in Korea,
it's also impossible to contact them
unless they really wanted and they can find them, you know,
that's the other thing.
So in 2019 is when kind of a miracle just dropped
out of the sky is when I found I had a DNA match
and he's my nephew or half nephew.
And he reached out, or I reached out to him via the,
My Heritage website.
And that's how we connected through DNA.
And he was super helpful and warm
and wanted to help me to find my mother.
And he wasn't adopted, he was Korean,
he was studying abroad
and he kind of just did this DNA test for fun
with his roommate and had no idea
that something like this would come out
and through him, I was able to kind of make a family tree
and it resulted in a long process
of building trust
and relationship and extracting information
as much as I could.
But he was also very careful, which I understood as well.
He was protecting his family and I still understand him now
cause we don't have contact anymore,
but in the end hit the next generation.
So my assumed half-sisters were completely closed
to wanting to meet, to wanting to talk.
I tried literally everything you can imagine to do it
in a way like this, like a conversation,
just asking if they knew anything about my mother and,
and also asking if their father was my father,
because that wasn't determined within that DNA test,
it was just assumed.
And it's possible that they had no idea,
that's also possible.
And I think that that's also the struggle
with adoptees is we can't reach the source.
It's so hard to get to the source to find out like,
just to have them tell us if it's true or not
and whether or not we believe them
is a different story compared to other people,
third-party intermediaries that tell us information
that's oftentimes not true.
So in the end, in 2019,
actually 36 years after I was sent to America,
I filed a paternity suit against my father.
It wasn't an easy decision to do so.
I've never done anything like that in my life.
And to do something like that to someone obviously
that I didn't even know for sure was my father.
I just could assume that,
but it was the only way to be able to meet him,
to be able to know for sure
one answer to the questions that I have from my past,
but in the end, so he took the DNA test through the lawsuit.
And in June I was recognized by the Seoul court,
family court that I am his daughter.
And that ended up blowing up in this huge media sensation,
which I really had no idea would happened,
but I, I wanted my story to be told
because I think this side of the adoptee story
is not often heard and I'm not the only one, you know,
there's more than 200,000 of us,
but I'm one of the few that was capable
of being able to come this far.
I mean, it takes time and resources
and not every adoptee has that.
So I wanted Korean people specifically to realize that,
you know, adoptees,
they just want to know who their parents are.
Who their families are and where they come from.
And even if we can just get pictures or if it's in secret,
that's often enough.
So I met,
I met him in the end after,
because of the media and the family was very scared
of their information being public
going public, or, you know, people knowing who they were.
I was able to negotiate a meeting with him
and the family hadn't even told him about me
or the lawsuit until actually after the trial on June 12th.
So he knew and heard about me June 12th
and the June 15th we met.
And he was 85 years old at that time.
I can imagine if you're that age and you're a Korean,
you know, successful man that,
that if he didn't know about me or if I was a secret,
regardless, either way, it would be quite a shock.
And it would be something that probably
he wouldn't want to admit to.
So on June 15th though,
his family did bring him or for,
or have him come to my lawyers office and we met,
but he last minute the family called us
and told us that he was not coming alone
like we had agreed upon
'cause I had promised there wouldn't be media.
And they had promised that he would come alone.
And in the end last minute they pulled a quick one
and two bodyguards actually brought him to the meeting.
So I didn't have even like, you know,
the first meeting with my biological father
was at a lawyer's office.
And then with two bodyguards, like,
like in a movie and he didn't admit to anything.
He acted quite hostile and confused as well to,
to the information.
You know, my lawyer kept telling me,
telling him that this is your daughter.
And it's been proven by DNA in the Seoul family court.
And within probably less than 10 minutes, he just said,
"I don't need to hear this," and he left.
He wouldn't look at the pictures that I tried to show him.
He wouldn't,
he came in also with a mask and sunglasses and a hat.
So I couldn't see his face.
And I, you know,
I tried to get him to at least take off his sunglasses
so I could look him in the eyes
and he didn't do that either.
He just left.
And so I was devastated because again,
I was left without answers and this time from the source,
but you know, I can understand people say,
you know, like, well,
what did you expect if you file a lawsuit like that?
Like what could you expect that he'd come in with open arms?
Of course not, no.
But I had hoped that he would admit,
or he would at least take responsibility.
And I do think that if obviously every other measure
that I had tried to take with the family
would have been received,
if we would've just been able to have a conversation,
you know, a year and a half before that point,
obviously none of this would have happened.
So it's tragic all around.
I can say that even though that meeting was terrible,
I at least met him.
And actually six months later he passed away
and the family, you know,
they didn't tell me until afterwards,
after the funeral was already finished.
So I couldn't even go to that.
And I didn't expect obviously an invitation either
but still he was, you know, my father.
And so,
you know,
I was glad that I at least met him,
that I knew for sure that he was my father,
because if I would have never taken any of those steps,
I would've never known that.
I would've never had answers to at least one half
of my story and now I can, I can tell my children, you know,
like a little bit, at least about who their grandfather was,
you know, that he was tall for a Korean man.
That he was very smart.
He was very successful.
You know, he was a banker.
You know, simple things like that are something
that are very precious for adoptees who don't know anything.
I never dreamed of looking for him
because as adoptees we're always told that, you know,
our mothers are probably single
and most the times that's true.
And my mother could have been a single mother raising me
and my father could have never known.
That's also true.
But if he did know, if he didn't take responsibility,
then I had wished he could have now,
but because of their distrust and their suspiciousness,
and just not being open whatsoever,
even though they all lived abroad, they all studied.
I mean, my oldest half-sister studied for 10 years,
got her PhD in America.
So it's not that they didn't understand
also the Western culture or the Western mindset.
And I think that part is the hardest reality
because I often think of how could it have been
if they would have been open.
I didn't have to have any kind of relationship.
I didn't have to come out in the open.
It could have been a secret meeting just to,
just to hear from him
if he didn't know anything or if he did.
But yeah, again, I'm left with just more questions again.
So I don't know who my mother is still.
And I'm hoping that someone will reach out
who knew her who or knew me,
but still even today I don't know.
Yeah it's a good question of why keep looking to the past
when you're only receiving
I think a lot of hurt because that's definitely true.
I never imagined this to be my story.
You hope and secretly desire that your parents
in Korea are still together and they lost you.
And I now know of course that that's not my story.
Reality of life has never, you know,
always filled with happiness.
But I do think as a human being,
I think it's really important to know
where you're from and who you're from.
And it's also important for my children.
It's important for them to know,
because I think I was also raised in a generation
where you don't confront your emotions.
My parents were sure not talking about, you know,
family issues or race or anything to do with,
you know, those I think deep subconscious levels
that need to be addressed in order to be a healthy,
emotional person that we now know and we practice.
I think that's important as a mother too,
to provide that role model for my children
to realize that even,
even if it's painful,
even if it's difficult,
it's important to confront those traumas
in order to completely heal.
And to not live with that bitterness,
to not live with the traumas of the past,
but to allow yourself to recognize them,
to forgive, find forgiveness in that.
And that's the only way you can heal.
I really hope that my children,
when they think about me when they're older,
when they look back, you know,
at the times that I had to also leave them to come to Korea
to do my search for my mother,
I hope that they see that as,
as courageous.
But I also hope that they see that as
is the unconditional love that I hold for them.
That they see that the reason why I went through all of this
is also because my love for them
that they can know and be proud
of also being Korean because they're 50% Korean as well.
That every aspect of their identity,
they can be firmly confident in knowing
and any kind of racial injustice
that they may face in the future
that they could know that they can confront it
and stand tall and be proud of who they are
and proud of what I've what I've done so far.
My name is Kara Bos, and this is my Korean American story.
(uplifting piano music)