Not My White Savior Read online

  A Very Terrible Trauma

  for Jade

  To us a victor!

  to your adopters

  an eternal burden

  denied due process

  parental needs eclipsed yours

  Dutch parents dissatisfied

  return policy expired

  store credit refused

  adult exception

  diplomat father

  inhabited Hong Kong

  open market bought your salvation

  secret money back guarantee

  parents reviled

  you beloved

  your abandoned legacy

  orphaned testament

  seven-year-old Korean girl

  Dear White Family,

  you say you love me but you voted for hate

  I cannot meet you on your white side

  white lies suffocated me

  I believed

  I could never be white enough for you

  you helped create this

  to call me daughter, sister

  dismantle your whiteness

  Dear White Family,

  do you really think you’re better than me?

  you said I was the most beautiful

  is it inferiority oppression?

  I was never white enough

  Right enough

  Perfect enough

  Why don’t you march around Jericho

  until your white privilege walls

  are made of justice, equality for all?

  Dear White Family,

  please say you regret your vote for hate

  I will never be white like you

  nor do I want to be

  Relinquishment Quiz

  Please select the answer that best matches your adoption file. If there is a match, you will get to meet your Korean mother. You have five minutes to complete the quiz.

  A. Your mother was a college student

  needed to finish school

  loved you so much

  she sent you away

  B. Your mother was a factory worker

  no sex education, birth control

  needed to work

  money was tight

  at least she didn’t abort you

  C. Your mother was a drug addict, poor

  no family, no social status, no power

  no privilege, mental illness haunted her

  I pray she got saved

  now Christian

  D. Your mother was unwed

  mistress, victim, prostitute

  abandoned you at the police box

  *If you fail this Relinquishment Quiz, you may try again next summer if an agency worker is available. Please schedule your quiz appointment at least two months in advance. You will need to pay the fifty-dollar fee again. We accept cash only.

  Consider

  after Scott Cohen, “Popular Turf Varieties”

  When choosing the best variety of children

  first select one

  that will best suit the needs

  of your whole family

  that will thrive in your local environment

  The most important factor to consider

  in selecting

  is the ability of the children to survive

  the intended use from adults

  is there adequate sunlight to support?

  space that favors intolerant varieties of children?

  Consider your choices, conditions

  to plant children

  installed

  for an instant family.

  Drop Box

  Good Morning Korean Families!

  If you’re done with your babies

  you can deposit them in the Baby Box!

  Yes, that’s correct.

  just drop them off

  no questions asked

  anonymity guaranteed

  a minister will care for your child

  along with one hundred previously deposited children

  all in the name of God and Jesus Christ!

  Please consider a donation

  so we can build more Baby Boxes

  one on every street corner in Korea!

  so all families will have this option

  to deposit their unwanted children

  then we’ll have no unwanted children

  because they’re all wanted

  by good church going Koreans!

  You see, it’s God’s will to separate families

  so we can perform our Christian service!

  Caring for orphans in their distress!

  Please dig a little deeper

  give a little more

  so we can build Baby Boxes

  from sea to shining sea!

  My Body’s DMZ

  Abducted, kidnapped bastard

  my body split by war

  breathes DMZ trauma

  bleeds myth story

  my body floats

  between east and west

  ocean salt drowned me

  before I reached

  Amerikkka’s white supremacy shores

  my unknown body

  perpetually ten months old

  Korean history

  lied to my Buddhist soul

  My birthplace straddles

  US military oppression

  borders liberation

  divides unification

  Japanese occupation

  Chinese migration

  Shenyang enclave

  Dalian hideouts

  Waldorf Astoria concierge

  glares bastard judgement

  white linen five course tuxedo

  silverware, water goblets

  outnumber my hands

  Beverly Hills Wilshire Korean privilege

  won’t seat me

  My body trafficked war crime

  discarded my white name

  Asian brothers court side

  reclaimed my heritage

  body pieces

  find peace

  Said Child

  Guardian Kwan Soo Kim

  I am not Said Child

  I am your worst nightmare

  I have spent more time with my adoption file

  than you took to assign my random name

  I know it ain’t all fact

  so which parts are fiction?

  Did my Korean family approve you

  to write my Child’s Progress Report

  or is it the unauthorized account

  of my first ten months?

  By virtue of your right as my legal guardian

  you’ve proven you have no character

  you have no integrity

  you thought white people

  could raise me better than Koreans

  you must hate yourself more than I ever will

  You will be irrevocably terminated

  you and the rest of your adoption cronies

  selling Korean babies

  to white christian adopters

  Yesterday I broke out with diarrhea

  began to snivel with a cold

  I hope my feces and mucus

  left eternal skid marks, stains

  on your reputation and conscience

  My left thigh bean-size mole

  you call a defect

  disappeared

  Did you know white American doctors

  would remove it?

  tamper with crime scene evidence?

  you are the defect

  not me!

  Last night I began to vomit

  accompanie
d with slight fever

  you too would be ill

  if torn from your family

  subjected to trauma against your will

  your recommendation: milk or rice cereal

  what about my Korean mother’s breast milk?

  why did you deprive me?

  You say I’m too young to mingle with children

  how the fuck would you know?

  did you ever bother to ask me?

  you are too old for a relationship with the world

  You signed me away

  at the American Embassy in Seoul

  you must have been in bed

  with the Vice Consul

  how is John P. Leonard doing?

  remember

  the US embassy

  is Japan’s continued colonization.

  You certified a full, true, and correct copy

  of my Original Family Register

  but its full of No Records

  false as Satan

  how do you sleep at night Guardian Kim?

  For My Mother

  That title is not correct

  this is a poem for my mothers

  My first mother

  Korean

  gave birth to me

  in the Land of the Morning Calm

  My second mother

  Korean

  cared for me

  from the orphanage to the plane

  My third mother

  White

  abducted, bought, adopted me

  raised me in the Promised Land

  Three mothers

  One child

  One daughter

  To my Korean mother

  I don’t know who you are

  I don’t know your name

  I don’t know your face, your history,

  family, interests, home,

  how you conceived me

  yes, I know how babies are made but

  I don’t know if you were someone’s wife,

  someone’s mistress,

  someone’s victim

  when I was conceived

  I don’t know if I was your only child

  sent away from our divided country

  I don’t know if you understand

  how your choices impacted my life

  I don’t know if you’re even alive anymore

  I don’t know if you think about me

  but I know I think about you

  I know you look like me

  or should I say

  I look like you

  but which parts of this body you gave me

  belong to you?

  To my foster mother

  Ahn-Soon Lim

  I waited over three decades

  seven thousand miles to know your name

  maybe you’re now in your seventies if you’re still alive

  Does not recognize her foster mother.

  Recognizing the foster mother.

  Will look for her own foster mother.

  Says “mom” now and then.

  This is what my adoption file says,

  but what do you say?

  we know the papers lie

  but we don’t know when

  To my white mother

  Mother

  I’m not sure why I have to use this term when addressing you

  so I have abandoned it

  a purchase agreement and a

  promise to raise a child in the Christian faith

  do not require me to address a woman twice my age

  who looks nothing like me by this title

  therefore, I don’t

  I’ve been told I need to be thankful to you

  for giving me a better life

  rescuing me from the war-ravaged country of Korea

  here is what I have to be thankful for

  when you told me

  you paid a lot of money for me

  when you told me

  if you hadn’t adopted me

  I’d be living a life of prostitution

  on the streets of Korea

  I’d be homeless or dead.

  Did it ever occur to you

  I can do all of those things in America?

  I can go back to Korea and fulfill this destiny

  or all of the above?

  I’m told I should be thankful

  for everything you’ve taught me

  you taught me that control,

  manipulation, brainwashing, and

  spiritual abuse are normal in childrearing

  that I am responsible for how you feel and look

  that when we die we go to heaven

  but the only way to get there

  is to do the right thing

  but no matter what I did

  it would never

  be good

  enough

  you taught me

  that I was responsible for how God felt

  that God was a white man

  that it is best to be white

  or at least an honorary white

  but it’s good to have at least one black friend

  as long as he is married to a white woman

  you taught me interracial marriages aren’t always okay

  that I should be ashamed of my body

  that I am not beautiful

  that college was my only option after high school

  actually, you taught me a Christian college

  was my only option

  because I would marry someone I would meet there

  you taught me that as a woman

  my success would be measured by the man I would

  marry and children I would birth

  that it wouldn’t be right to

  marry someone outside of your faith

  that the only political choice

  was to be a pro-life Republican

  you taught me that being narrow-minded,

  self-righteous and judgmental are normal

  you taught me that it is okay for you

  to be a hypocrite

  but not for me

  so for all these things I cannot

  and will not

  be thankful

  To my Korean mother

  you had no choice, no power

  To my foster mother

  a surrogate

  To my white mother

  you had choice, power, privilege

  and you chose to abuse it.

  Three mothers.

  One daughter.

  who traveled this journey

  alone.

  Jealousy

  We cannot let those people who do not love us

  determine who we are.

  —Nikki Giovanni

  In the backyard

  under giant tree shade

  leaves fall

  welcome winter

  leaves I raked for years

  Today is not for raking

  but raking me over coals

  my identity interrogated

  my journey on trial

  forced assimilation

  my white parents sit in patio furniture they can’t afford

  demand reports of my first return to Korea

  Then

  my white mother

  slams me to my past

  Jealous I was so cute, pretty

  Jealous of my skinny frame

  Jealousy drips off her words

  Venom throws daggers I dodge

  shock me back to my childhood

  past crumbles

  materna
l love conditional, rationed

  my existence threatened her

  child controlled parent

  my power unaware

  just wanted to make A Honor Roll

  come home

  sleep under safe roof

  jealous of my talents you encouraged

  ten year piano lessons

  state competitions

  inferior red second-place ribbons

  coveted blue first-place ribbons

  You made me into something

  you could despise

  resent.

  Jealousy let me believe

  I was the ugliest child

  ever born

  now you tell me

  with seething envy

  I was the most beautiful

  in our family

  but I never felt that way

  I didn’t belong

  Raked leaves bear witness to frozen emotions

  eternally jealous of your imported child

  disgraceful

  You

  should be ashamed

  still jealous of me

  I

  will never

  be jealous

  of you.

  Mother’s Day Mourning

  Grieving

  Healing

  Day filled with sorrows

  more than salt can hold

  abandoned children grieve

  now grown ass adults

  grief floods hearts

  like hurricanes

  Lives lost,

  Erased,

  Invisible,

  Silenced,

  Deported,

  Terminated.

  Now parents, grandparents

  we are treated like children

  nation’s doors slam adopted faces

  own your shame

  Street corners block family reunions

  corrupt agencies

  aunts, grandmothers

  skin holds lies

  secrets whisper decades’ betrayal

  Hallmark, FTD, boutique shops proclaim

  Where Mother’s Day Wishes Come True

  but it’s

  a fucking

  lie

  Deception extinguishes

  birthday candle wishes

  Mother’s Day our social media detox

  try

  to survive

  this fucking day

  Reunions kept family secrets

  holiday gathering invites lost

  told to end rendezvous

  you deny you ever knew us

  rejection once wasn’t enough

  we wish

  we never looked for you

  you wish

  the same

  Honor Thy Father