Wellesley Student Bridges the Divide Between Birth Parents and Children as Translator for Korean Birth-Land Tours
| For
immediate release: November 1, 2007 |
Contact:
Molly Tarantino, |
WELLESLEY, Mass.— This past summer, Susan (Sook-jin) Wang, a junior at Wellesley College, worked as a translator for Korean adoptive families on birth-land tours to Korea. For some, the birth-land tour was a quest to find one’s identity. For others, it was to better understand one’s cultural heritage.
“The trip has a different meaning for every family,” said Wang, an economics and French major. “Some families just want to show their kids what Korea is like and show them where they are coming from. For other kids, they get to review their files and potentially meet their birth mothers.”
Wang, daughter of Jin and Hye Wang of Korea, will review the learning that took place during her time as a Korean translator during her presentation, “Why is Adoption in Korea So High? Interpreting Birth-Land Tours” at the 2007 Tanner Conference at Wellesley College Tuesday, Nov. 6.
Raised in both countries and cultures, Wang’s role was mainly to help families overcome the language barrier and to explain the cultural differences between Korea and the United States. She worked as a translator for ASIA (Adoption Service Information Service), now Children's Home Society and Family Services, with Korean adoptees ranging from 8 to 21 years old. Most were teenagers.
Families with children over the age of 13 can begin file reviews and do a birth mother search with parental consent.. If the corresponding agencies in Korea finds the mother — and the birth mother agrees to meet her birth child— the two can then reunite. Wang accompanied families as they met their child’s biological parent.
“Pretty much everything that happens on the trip is very emotional and it takes a lot of time for the families to process it as well,” Wang said. “I grew up in Korea, so my other role was to explain the cultural differences and share my experiences growing up in Korea.”
The experience also allowed Wang to see a different aspect of her culture. While on the tour, the adoptive families met birth mothers considering adoption and had a question-and-answer session. Adopted children got to hear the reasons the expectant mothers were thinking of adoption. The expectant mothers got to ask how life in America was, how it felt to grow up not knowing your biological parents and other questions. Most of the mothers were Wang’s age or younger, and it made her think about why so many women end up in that position.
“As a liason, I had a chance to learn in-depth about the international adoption process and to identify the issues within Korean society that lead to such high numbers of international adoptions each year – including the lack of both sexual education in schools and government support for single mothers, societal prejudice rooted from Confucian beliefs, and a widening gap between modernization and traditional values,” she said.
Wang became interested in working with Korean adoptive families while at Langley High School in McLean, Va. There she volunteered as a Korean teacher at the ASIA Culture Camp. While at Wellesley, she has been working with Korean adoptees through the Korean Student Association’s mentoring program.
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