소수자로서의 해외입양인 - 영화 <국가대표>의 해외입양인 재현을 중심으로

유지영,Keith Wagner 영상예술학회 2013 영상예술연구 Vol.22 No.-

해외입양이 시작되고 60년이 넘은 현재에도 해외입양은 지속적으로 이루어지고 있으며 이런 역사적 현실 앞에서 해외입양에 대한 다양한 담론이 형성되고 있다. 한국영화에서도 해외입양은 소재로서 종종 등장해 해외입양인을 다양하게 그려 왔다. 이 연구는 해외입양인 등장영화들 중에 2009년 흥행작에 하나인 <국가대표> (2009)를 사례로 해외입양과 해외입양인에 대한 한국영화의 재현방식을 분석한다. <국가대표>는 해외입양인을 포함한 다양한 사회적 약자와 소수자들이 스포츠 경기에서 함께 활약하여 훌륭한 결과를 얻어냄으로써 사회에서 인정받고 자신감을 얻게 된다는 성공사례의 서사를 갖고 있다. 이런 성공사례는 많은 스포츠 영화가 택하는 전형적 서사라고 할 수 있다. 그러나 해외입양인을 재현하는데 있어서 이 영화는 해외입양인을 원초주의적 민족국가주의에 의해 한국인으로 단정함으로써 그들이 갖는 언어적, 문화적 이질성을 제대로 드러내지 못하는 한계를 보인다. 또한 한국의 국가우선주의적 국가개념은 해외입양인을 한국민으로 쉽게 편입시켜 자국의 이익에 봉사할 수 있는 자원으로 취급함을 알 수 있다. 이와 더불어 <국가대표>는 해외입양에 대한 해외입양인 당사자의 비판을 가볍게 처리하고 오히려 그들로 하여금 한국의 이익에 봉사하도록 유도한다. 또한 생모를 가난하게 재현하여 해외입양이 단순히 경제적 어려움에 의한 것처럼 묘사하고 있어 해외입양이 한국에게 합리적인 선택이었음을 암시적으로 드러낸다. 이 영화는 해외입양인과 생모를 침묵하게 만들어 실제적 해외입양의 발생이유, 즉 한국사회가 갖고 있는 가부장적 사회통념과 서구 우월적 사고로 인한 것이라는 사실을 관객이 인식하지 못하도록 방해하고 현실과는 괴리된 영화적 재현을 보여준다. 이 논문은 <국가대표> 사례를 통해서 해외입양인에 대한 영화적 재현에 대한 평가이자 동시에 영화적 재현이 사회적 인식을 어떻게 반영하고 있으며 또한 어떻게 재생산하고 있는지 알 수 있게 한다. 이런 <국가대표>의 해외입양인 재현은 작가의 관념적 이미지 차원을 벗어나지 못하여 해외입양인에 대한 잘못된 인식을 생산할 우려를 낳는다. 그러므로 이 연구를 통하여 영화 속 인물의 정확한 재현의 윤리를 생각하는 계기를 제공한 것에 그 의미가 있다 하겠다. Korean transnational adoption started right after Korean War. Various discourses on transnational adoption issues have been developed as more transnational adoptees have returned to Korea. Recently there are more films about transnational adoption theme in Korean cinema. With this new phenomenon, this study pays attention to representation of Korean transnational adoptees in Korean cinema. Take off(2009), which has drown the most audiences among transnational adoption films is selected to be analyzed with post colonial studies, especially with Gayatri Spivak’s subaltan concept. Take off(2009) raises patriotism through a narrative that minorities who became national team members achieve their dreams by successfully performing at an Olympic game as many typical sports films do. A transnational adoptee, one of the minorities is considered as Korean based on his blood ties regardless his different linguistic and cultural background in the film. It rationalizes that transnational adoptees are supposed to devote themselves for Korean nation with a strong nationalistic sentiment. Transnational adoption is allusively promoted as the best choice for adoptees by showing James’ generous adoptive parents. On the contrary, his poor birth mother rationalizes the reason of transnational adoption practices as economic hardship. In this way, Korea avoids denunciation from other countries about the practices. This film also disregards one of the most important reasons such as patriarchical tradition. By showing positive images of adoptees and superior morality of adoptive parents, it reproduces the western superiority instead. This study points that the belief of western superiority is derived from Koreans' internalized colonization caused by colonial past. This study concludes that Take off is based on creator’s limited imagination of transnational adoptees without a concrete research, which causes stereotypes of transnational adoptees. It also proves that Take off reinforces western superiority by promoting transnational adoption. Scrutinizing Take off gives an opportunity to understand the importance of cinematic representation for better understanding of minority issues, and to recognize Korean cinema’s post- colonial influence.

한국계 입양문학에 나타난 뿌리와 기원의 탐색 연구: 케이티 로빈슨의 『사진 한 장:한국 입양아의 뿌리 탐색』을 중심으로

김영미 이화여자대학교 한국문화연구원 2009 한국문화연구 Vol.17 No.-

This study tried to consider the meaning of transnational adoptees' search stories of their roots through Kate Robinson's autobiographical book, A Single Square Picture(2002). Adoptees' journey for their birth family and birth country was promoted under the influences of minority groups' movement in the late 1960s of the US which insisted on the importance of ethnic roots as a source of identity, adoption activists' search movement for adoptees' biological kin in 1970s and 80s, and Korean government's attempt to embrace transnational adoptees who are supposed to be a kind of cultural bridge between the westerns and Korea in the age of globalization. In the Robinson's search story for her roots which reflects the complicated subject position of transnational adoptees between two families and two countries, this study found these meanings; Firstly, her search story shows transnational adoptees' inner suffering such as the feeling of rootlessness, incompleteness, and being trapped between two cultures under the pressure of assimilation which presupposes the complete separation from birth family and birth country. Secondly, her search story demonstrates the separation from her roots also creates the fantasy for her roots which suggests that the reunion with her roots can bring the wholeness and integrity of identity. Thirdly, her search story shows that transnational adoptees' biological family and homeland cannot be the place to which they wholly belong because of the barriers of language, culture and lost time. In the experience of Korean society and family, Robinson especially came to realize how Korean patriarchal social and familial structure marginalizes and excludes those women who gave birth their babies outside marriage or who were abandoned by their husbands. In this context, Robinson could understand her birth mother's decision of sending her to the US was not an act of abandoning but an act of love, which intends to give a better chance to Robinson, an illegitimate child. Finally, through her search, Robinson suggests that the wholeness of identity cannot be achieved by restoring lost mother and lost past. Rather it implies that identity is the kind of thing which is being shaped through the negotiation between past and present, between birth family and adoption family, and between birth country and adoption country. 본 연구는 최근 활발하게 목소리를 내고 있는 한국계 입양문학에 나타난 뿌리와 기원의 탐색의 의미를 케이티 로빈슨의 자전적 작품, 『사진 한 장』을 통해 살펴보고자 했다. 입양아들의 뿌리 찾기 여행은 60년대 말 이래 미국 내 소수민족집단이 전개한 민족적 뿌리 찾기 운동의 영향, 비밀입양정책에 대해 반기를 들고 생물학적 부모찾기 운동을 적극적으로 전개한 70, 80년대 입양활동가들의 운동, 그리고 90년대 이후 세계화시대에 입양아들이 서구와 모국을 연결하는 문화적 가교가 되기를 기대하는 모국의 열망이 서로 맞물려 90년대 이후 매우 활발하게 진행되고 있는 현상이다. ‘한국 입양아의 뿌리 탐색’이라는 부제가 붙어 있는 케이티 로빈슨의 『사진 한 장』은 70년대 후반 미국 백인 중산층 가정에 입양되어 백인 문화와 가치에 동화되어 살다가 뿌리와 기원을 찾아 한국으로 왔다 다시 미국으로 돌아가는 내용을 담고 있다. 이 작품에 나타난 뿌리 찾기 여행은 두 개의 국가/문화/가족과 교섭해야 하는 초국가적 입양아의 복잡한 정체성의 위치를 잘 드러내고 있으며, 보다 구체적으로는 다음과 같은 의미를 드러내어 준다. 첫째, 뿌리 찾기 여행의 주제는 초국가적 입양아가 미국 사회와 가족 속에서 느끼는 심리적 곤경을 드러냄으로써, 뿌리와 기원으로부터의 완전한 단절을 전제로 하는 동화의 삶이 가지는 억압적인 측면을 보여준다. 둘째, 뿌리로부터의 단절이 오히려 어떤 면에서는 뿌리와 기원에 대한 환상을 낳을 수 있음을 보여준다. 이는 작품 속에서 로빈슨이 뿌리 찾기 여행을 통해 존재의 완성, 정체성의 통합을 기대하는 것을 통해 나타난다. 셋째, 뿌리 찾기 여행은 언어, 문화, 잃어버린 시간의 장벽으로 인해, 모국 역시 완전한 소속이 불가능한 장소임을 드러낸다. 특히 이 작품 속에서 로빈슨은 ‘아비부재’ ‘남편부재’의 삶을 사는 사람들이 가부장적인 한국 사회에서 얼마나 고통스러운 주변부적 삶을 살고 있는지를 드러내고 자신의 입양 사건 역시 가부장적인 한국 사회의 구조적인 문제 속에서 나온 것임을 이해한다. 그러므로 로빈슨은 자신의 입양을 ‘버림받은 사건’으로 바라보지 않고, ‘더 나은 기회를 제공하는 사랑의 행위’로 재구성한다. 넷째, 모국에서의 경험은 정체성의 통합이 잃어버린 과거, 친가족의 회복을 통해 가능한 어떤 것이 아니라, 현재와 과거, 입양국가와 모국의 관계 속에서 형성해나가야 하는 어떤 것임을 드러낸다.

초국가적 시민주체: 귀환한 해외 입양인들의 탈경계적 정체성

이소희 이화여자대학교 이화인문과학원 2010 탈경계인문학 Vol.3 No.2

This paper explores the characteristics of the returned Korean adoptees’ beyond-borders identities with the possibility of their becoming transnational hybrid citizen subjects. Transnational Korean adoptees are a unique group of overseas Koreans because they have experienced separation from their Korean birth families and been raised in most white families and communities. Transnational adoptee networks constitute a unique and ultramodern global community transcending the limitations of geographical boundaries, meeting at gatherings and through the Internet, mostly using English. Moreover, about 500 transnational Korean adoptees have returned to Korea for the settlement by now, searching for their cultural identities in Korean society. But, their trials to “embrace Koreanness” through going back home do not offer a comfortable experience at all. Rather, visiting and resettling in Korea, meeting the birth family, especially meeting the birth mother, are understandably very difficult for one who has a white identity, which is the only identity that they have experienced so far. Thus, their experiences of national, cultural, and racial identities are varied and shifting. Recent changes to Korean immigration law concerning the F4 visa allows the returned transnational adoptees to live and work in Korea for indefinite periods of time. Embracing transnational Korean adoptees as economically and culturally “Korean” citizens includes them among the newest groups of “flexible citizens,” reflecting their ambivalent struggle for the practice of transnational hybrid citizenship and the sense of belonging; born in one culture, raised in another, they cannot wholly accept one and wholly reject the other.

한국계 입양문학에 나타난 뿌리와 기원의 탐색 연구 : 케이티 로빈슨의 『사진 한 장:한국 입양아의 뿌리 탐색』을 중심으로

김영미 이화여자대학교 한국문화연구원 2009 한국문화연구 Vol.17 No.-

본 연구는 최근 활발하게 목소리를 내고 있는 한국계 입양문학에 나타난 뿌리와 기원의 탐색의 의미를 케이티 로빈슨의 자전적 작품, 『사진 한 장』을 통해 살펴보고자 했다. 입양아들의 뿌리 찾기 여행은 60년대 말 이래 미국 내 소수민족집단이 전개한 민족적 뿌리 찾기 운동의 영향, 비밀입양정책에 대해 반기를 들고 생물학적 부모찾기 운동을 적극적으로 전개한 70, 80년대 입양활동가들의 운동, 그리고 90년대 이후 세계화시대에 입양아들이 서구와 모국을 연결하는 문화적 가교가 되기를 기대하는 모국의 열망이 서로 맞물려 90년대 이후 매우 활발하게 진행되고 있는 현상이다. ‘한국 입양아의 뿌리 탐색’이라는 부제가 붙어 있는 케이티 로빈슨의 『사진 한 장』은 70년대 후반 미국 백인 중산층 가정에 입양되어 백인 문화와 가치에 동화되어 살다가 뿌리와 기원을 찾아 한국으로 왔다 다시 미국으로 돌아가는 내용을 담고 있다. 이 작품에 나타난 뿌리 찾기 여행은 두 개의 국가/문화/가족과 교섭해야 하는 초국가적 입양아의 복잡한 정체성의 위치를 잘 드러내고 있으며, 보다 구체적으로는 다음과 같은 의미를 드러내어 준다. 첫째, 뿌리 찾기 여행의 주제는 초국가적 입양아가 미국 사회와 가족 속에서 느끼는 심리적 곤경을 드러냄으로써, 뿌리와 기원으로부터의 완전한 단절을 전제로 하는 동화의 삶이 가지는 억압적인 측면을 보여준다. 둘째, 뿌리로부터의 단절이 오히려 어떤 면에서는 뿌리와 기원에 대한 환상을 낳을 수 있음을 보여준다. 이는 작품 속에서 로빈슨이 뿌리 찾기 여행을 통해 존재의 완성, 정체성의 통합을 기대하는 것을 통해 나타난다. 셋째, 뿌리 찾기 여행은 언어, 문화, 잃어버린 시간의 장벽으로 인해, 모국 역시 완전한 소속이 불가능한 장소임을 드러낸다. 특히 이 작품 속에서 로빈슨은 ‘아비부재’ ‘남편부재’의 삶을 사는 사람들이 가부장적인 한국 사회에서 얼마나 고통스러운 주변부적 삶을 살고 있는지를 드러내고 자신의 입양 사건 역시 가부장적인 한국 사회의 구조적인 문제 속에서 나온 것임을 이해한다. 그러므로 로빈슨은 자신의 입양을 ‘버림받은 사건’으로 바라보지 않고, ‘더 나은 기회를 제공하는 사랑의 행위’로 재구성한다. 넷째, 모국에서의 경험은 정체성의 통합이 잃어버린 과거, 친가족의 회복을 통해 가능한 어떤 것이 아니라, 현재와 과거, 입양국가와 모국의 관계 속에서 형성해나가야 하는 어떤 것임을 드러낸다. This study tried to consider the meaning of transnational adoptees' search stories of their roots through Kate Robinson's autobiographical book, A Single Square Picture(2002). Adoptees' journey for their birth family and birth country was promoted under the influences of minority groups' movement in the late 1960s of the US which insisted on the importance of ethnic roots as a source of identity, adoption activists' search movement for adoptees' biological kin in 1970s and 80s, and Korean government's attempt to embrace transnational adoptees who are supposed to be a kind of cultural bridge between the westerns and Korea in the age of globalization. In the Robinson's search story for her roots which reflects the complicated subject position of transnational adoptees between two families and two countries, this study found these meanings Firstly, her search story shows transnational adoptees' inner suffering such as the feeling of rootlessness, incompleteness, and being trapped between two cultures under the pressure of assimilation which presupposes the complete separation from birth family and birth country. Secondly, her search story demonstrates the separation from her roots also creates the fantasy for her roots which suggests that the reunion with her roots can bring the wholeness and integrity of identity. Thirdly, her search story shows that transnational adoptees' biological family and homeland cannot be the place to which they wholly belong because of the barriers of language, culture and lost time. In the experience of Korean society and family, Robinson especially came to realize how Korean patriarchal social and familial structure marginalizes and excludes those women who gave birth their babies outside marriage or who were abandoned by their husbands. In this context, Robinson could understand her birth mother's decision of sending her to the US was not an act of abandoning but an act of love, which intends to give a better chance to Robinson, an illegitimate child. Finally, through her search, Robinson suggests that the wholeness of identity cannot be achieved by restoring lost mother and lost past. Rather it implies that identity is the kind of thing which is being shaped through the negotiation between past and present, between birth family and adoption family, and between birth country and adoption country.

귀환 해외 입양 여성작가들의 자서전에 나타난 모성과 가족

이소희 ( So Hee Lee ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2012 현대영미소설 Vol.19 No.2

This study aims to analyze the theme of motherhood and family in the memoirs of returned transnational adoptee women writers, focusing on Jane Jeong Trenka`s The Language of Blood (2003) and Joey Yoon`s Ein de lijk LeefIk Echt (Finally Found Happiness in Life), originally published in Dutch in 2004. Transnational Korean adoptees are a unique group of overseas Koreans because they have experienced separation from their Korean birth families and been raised mostly in white families and communities. Jane Jeong Trenka describes an adoptee`s longing to belong to Korean society, exemplifying her own experience of meeting her birth mother and family, i.e. sisters. For transnational Korean adoptees, returning to Korea has an unbelievable impact on adult adoptees, in particular, when they meet their birth mothers again. Jane Jeong Trenka`s memoir, The Language of Blood (2003), illustrates for us the individual process of psychological struggle of back-and-forth, while examining her own experience of motherhood and family in Korean society, most beautifully and painfully at the same time. Joey Yoon published Ein de lijk LeefIk Echt (Finally Found Happiness in Life) in 2004, and the Korean translation was published in 2007. Her clear purpose in publishing it in Korean was her wish to tell her story to Korean people, showing them what it is like to be adopted in a foreign country, especially for a young girl, because she suffered an eating disorder and sexual harassment for more than 10 years. Thus, the memoirs of returned transnational adoptee women writers have intellectually questioned for us the ever-precarious complexity of the subject`s formation, confirming the decisive and crucial role of motherhood and family in establishing their identities as "returned transnational adoptee" women writers. In short, both memoirs show us the experience of adopted Korean women, focusing on motherhood and family in the country of their birth and in their adopted countries through their first-person narratives, based on their memories and testimonies.

혼혈 입양 내러티브로서의 『만 가지 슬픔』

임진희 ( Jin Hee Yim ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2011 현대영미소설 Vol.18 No.1

This paper deals with the discourses of complex identity politics involved in the transracial and transnational female body. By groping linguistic predicaments, this paper argues that Elizabeth Kim`s adoption discourse challenges the closed structure of identity formation, and offers a profound discourse of a female body with a keen awareness of the complex interrelationship of race, nation and gender. Korea has recently been vigorous in recognizing overseas Korean adoptee writers, with their transplanted and untranslated life stories. Transnational and transracial adoptees` struggle to understand their origins ultimately deepens readers` understanding of Korean diasporic existence, and Korea in general. Ten Thousand Sorrows, The Extraordinary Journey of α Korean War Orphan, is read as a life-based literary narrative, exploring "a poetics of Experience." This life-testimony grapples with the meaning of Korea as an orphaned nation, and the adoption as the quiet migration and "queer diaspora." Transracial and transnational bodies work as "maps of the relation between power and identity." Korea has persisted in the deeply embedded ideas of "ethnic nationalism" and the patriarchal Confucian ideologies. Korean adoptees of mixed blood have been considered as the embodiment of a national shame in the turmoil of the tragedy of Korean national history. This narrative of Elizabeth, a Korean transracial and transnational female adoptee deeply explores her diasporic existence and the marks of trauma on her body caused by the victimization of women. It also deals with the questions of misogynist discourse of male supremacy from both Korean national structure and imperialistic white male dislocations, and the ensuing untranslability of her diasporic life. By focusing on how she overcomes this predicament, this paper proposes the positive legacy from adoptees` incessant struggle for the future Korean society intermittent with the questions of transraciality and transnationality.

입양 다큐멘터리 <일인칭 복수>(First Person Plural)에 나타난 기억, 상실, 정체성

이소희 미래영어영문학회 2015 영어영문학 Vol.20 No.1

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how memory, loss and identity in the transnational adoption documentary directed by Deann Borshay Liem, First Person Plural, are represented to illustrate the poignant process of the transnational adoptees’ search for subjectivity as an Asian female adoptee as well as an Asian immigrant based on the concepts of David Eng’s “racial melancholia” and Anne Anline Cheng’s “hypochondria.”In First Person Plural, we witness the numerous ways in which Deann Borshay Liem’s past in Korea have been repressed, the continuous ways in which her racial difference and past history are managed and denied, so that she cannot mourn what she has lost from her 8-year life in Korea since she was adopted into the Borshay family. Furthermore, the documentary portrays Deann Borshay Liem’s frustrating conflicts and impossible identifications with whiteness that remain perpetually elusive. After her first visit to Korea when she met her birth mother and birth family, she was very confused. Since then, she has recognized that “Emotionally, there wasn’t room in my mind for two mothers.” Because the transnational adoption is largely devoid of emotional agency for the adoptee, Deann Borshay Liem decided to visit Korea with her adoptive parents. In her attempt to mourn the unspeakable losses initiated by the transnational adoption in 1966, she tried to recover and revitalize a profound form of racial melancholia, one that reduces memories to dreams and agency to fantasy. In returning to Korea, she is forced to acknowledge the fact that confronting the past is always double-edged, challenging any sense of recoupable stability. In short, there is no smooth relationship between the ideological demands of the white American family and the Asian adoptee’s disjunctive affect, as shown in Deann Borshay Liem’s search for her own identity as an Asian female adoptee. However, it is necessary for her to confront the past through visiting her Korean birth mother and family in order to confirm her current position and identity.

해외입양 한인들과 국가의 치유적 대화

임진희 ( Jin Hee Yim ) 미국소설학회(구 한국호손학회) 2015 미국소설 Vol.22 No.3

Due to uncertainty and deprivation of one`s identity and existence, an adoptee experiences “ambiguous loss.” An overseas Korean adoptee is multifariously inscribed with unresolved components such as “the birth and adoptive nations,” and “biological and adoptive parents.” Feelings of guilt and shame derive from the overseas adoption; hence, the notion itself stands as a national trauma. Mutual communication and therapeutic discourses between the birth nations and adoptees can be observed by reading their life stories such as I Didn`t Know Who I was, a collection of personal essays and poems composed by the Korean adoptees after their “Motherland Tour,” and other transnational adoptees` narratives. In their candid confessions on adoption, the transracial and transcultural narratives converge on the ongoing controversial factors such as birth nation, adoptive country, birth parents, adoptive parents and adoption itself. In this paper, the recovery phases of one`s identity via his/her visit to the motherland shown in the adoptees` life stories and testimonial narratives are observed; moreover, examination of dialogues or discourses between an individual and the nations and also between birth and adoptive nations take place, which lead up to empathetic healing for all. The healing or consoling process of the narrative therapy for adoptees and the nations involves democratic tolerance or acceptance of multiple identities, which transcends dualistic rigidity, assimilation, and ethnic reductionism. Through the exploration of the intricate labyrinth of birth and adoptive nations and adoptees, the paper further explores the understanding of the socio-cultural constructions of adoption, the anxiety of belonging, and the deeply rooted trauma known as “loss without closure.”

Transnationalism, Adoption and Cultural Difference: Anne Tyler’s Digging to America

Koo, Eunsook 미래영어영문학회 2021 영어영문학 Vol.26 No.1

Anne Tyler’s Digging to America published in 2006 presents portrayals of the changing landscape of American families within the framework of transnationalism. Her novel brings into focus the timely issue of international adoption by introducing two families who are adopting children from Korea and China. The two families are the Donaldsons, a white, upwardly mobile middle class family, and the Yazdans, a first generation of Iranian Americans. Adoptive parents tend to turn a blind eye towards the division of labor regarding adoption and reproduction between the First world and the less developed countries which makes transnational migration of Asian children possible. In addition, cultural differences between ethnic minorities are exoticized and consumed by dominant whites who lack an understanding of the history of migration and its accompanying sense of loss and suffering. While Tyler offers a critical insight into such issues as American multiculturalism, adoption and immigration, she ultimately represents dominant whites as wholehearted American citizens with good intentions toward people of different ethnic backgrounds. By delineating the process of integration which adopted children as well as the immigrants must inevitably go through, Tyler investigates the meaning of kinship and American citizenship, and the formation of ethnic identity in the transnational context.

Ain’t I a Mother?: The Forgotten Narratives of Korean Transnational Adoptees’ Birth Mothers

Sina Lee Asian Qualitative Inquiry Association 2023 아시아질적탐구 Vol.2 No.2