On the way home from Korea, I watched a movie called August Rush. It is one I had seen many years ago but had always loved the themes. (Spoiler alert if you haven’t seen it.) A child of musicians ends up in a boys’ home. He is always waiting for his parents to come for him and believes he hears them in the sound of the music he hears everywhere. He is made fun of for this. At some point he runs away and becomes a street musician, earning money for a bad person. He somehow finds himself at Juilliard as a child prodigy but is brought back to the street life by the bad person. But at the end he follows the music he keeps hearing and is eventually reunited with his parents at a concert in the park.

I never really understood why this movie spoke to me so much. And then I went to Korea on the Holt Heritage Tour. As a Korean adoptee I had always grown up with something that felt like a hole in my heart. It was not something I could explain. But I just knew that I was always looking and chasing after something. And when I made it to Korea, I felt this hole start to close.

It was not because I found my birth parents. That did not happen. I’m not sure it ever will. Even though I registered my DNA at the police station in Seoul (arranged by Holt). What I did find was a community. Others who were searching and trying to fill a hole just like me.

As I wrote in my blog, I had a popcorn moment. The Chinese and Korean way of making popcorn involves heating up kernels in a small metal popcorn container until it’s hot enough. Then releasing the steam and allowing the corn to pop all at once into a bag. I felt like my questions and pent-up emotions exploded and popped while on this trip to Korea.

All of the fellow adoptees on the trip had searched for these answers. Some starting the search early in their lives, others like myself beginning this journey of discovery much later. However, even though I was not actively looking as a young person, I always wondered about my birth family and my country of birth. My adoptive parents were not bad people, but they were different from my birth parents, not educated in Korean culture or the challenges of adoption. And they definitely did not understand the difficulty of being a Korean child in America. I knew this. I was reminded constantly because I did not look like any of my family members. I did not have the same color hair or skin. Other children were cruel at times and made fun of me. And although I know now that much of that was a learned racial ignorance that came from their parents, it still hurt.

I knew I did not feel like I belonged where I was. Thus, this journey. I tried to fill my heart hole with friends, family members, marriage, work, my own children, books, hobbies, etc. And although all these things provided something temporary, there was always something missing.

After I had my girls, I realized I had something all “my own.” Children who looked a bit like me. Had features like mine. Skin like mine. Hair like mine. As I fell in love with these girls, I started wondering how my birth mother could have made the decision to abandon me. But I was busy and my children needed me, so I just paused these questions.

However, as the feelings of abandonment and loneliness kept coming up for me, I went through intensive therapy. I started reading books about Korean adoptees such as “The Seed From The East,” an autobiography of Bertha Holt who — together with her husband, Harry Holt — started the Holt adoption agency which I was adopted through, and “I Wish For You a Beautiful Life,” which was a compilation of letters from birth mothers to the children they had given up for adoption. And articles such as “The Surprising Facts Behind Korean Child Abandonment,” which was published in the Huffington Post in 2017, “The Value and Meaning of the Korean Family,” published by the Asia Society, and “Group Resists Korean Stigma for Unwed Mothers,” in the New York Times.

It was through some of this research I started hearing about how difficult it was for young unwed mothers in Korea. And even if they were married, if they were poor, if they had a girl, they might give her up in hopes of having a boy. Even to the point that the baby could be thrown away. I was told by my adoptive parents that if I had been in an orphanage at five, I could possibly have ended up on the streets, so I needed to be grateful that I was adopted.

I did find out on this trip that the “aging out at five” was not true. However, Korea was not ready to handle all the babies and young children that were abandoned since the Korean War. Thus began international adoptions. If Korea wouldn’t accept these children domestically, there were families in other countries wanting a child and willing to accept a foreign child.

Post adoption services are critical, but when an adoptive family does not understand or is not willing to recognize the need for this support system, it creates an angst that the child must live with. This angst caused the hole in my heart to continue to grow. In the book “The Body Keeps the Score,” Bessel van der Kolk talks about how post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) impacts the body both physically and emotionally. Abandonment, moving multiple times in my formative years, and learning different languages and cultures were all things that caused trauma for me. I know I have experienced what trauma does to the body firsthand. Including unhealthy attachments because I was always chasing after love.

So, at the recommendation of my counselor, I wrote my own origin story. One based on my research. I also got a tattoo that said beloved daughter. I got this as a reminder that I know in my heart my birth mother loved me. And there was also never a time when God had not loved me, even when I ignored Him and walked away. I was always loved.

With this, I realized that the next step of the journey was to go back to Korea. To see if there was anything that I would connect to. That opportunity came when I saw an email from Holt International in September of 2024 announcing their Holt Heritage Tour in 2025. With the sale of our home in Oregon and move to Texas, there was a lot going on, but my husband and I also realized that I wasn’t getting any younger and this might be the best opportunity for me to go. I put my deposit down and started blogging about my feelings leading up to this next step in my journey.

I did not immediately remember things when I got off the plane in Korea. I did not recognize certain sites. Nothing looked or smelled familiar or like home.

What I did find was a sense of belonging. I found some answers to questions that I didn’t even know I had. Answers that started to fill that hole in my heart. I found a connection with other adoptees who had similar experiences to mine. And as I talked with the other Korean adoptees on the trip, I found that hole getting smaller and smaller. These fellow adoptees who may have had different journeys, but all found ourselves in Korea at this exact moment.

The emotions I felt just walking up to the Holt Korean Agency in Seoul. Those emotions were leaking out everywhere and I didn’t even know why. But having the hands and arms of other adoptees come around me to hold me, letting me know they understood, and it was ok was like having a family. It was the heaviest of days.

Even though there was precious little in my file, just hearing a post-adoption social worker provide some explanations filled the hole up further. Learning the name Park Soo Yung (박수영) was very likely given to me by my birth mother. Realizing that the birth story I had written, was possibly very close to the truth and that my birth mother loved me so much that she made a sacrificial decision. A decision filled with hope and trust that I would have a much better life than she could provide all just continued to fill that hole in my heart.

The tour included visiting different temples and learning about the history and culture of Korea. This included lesson about the different dynasties as well as the Korean War from our awesome tour guide.

I went to the top of Seoul Tower with a group of 10 others. Most people that know me will not be surprised that I got us a little lost on the way back. Or like my dad used to say, we took the scenic detour. We even saw the love bugs that were in the news and NO, we did not love them. But we did see the love locks as well. There was even a couple in our party that put a lock on.

Going to the Holt Ilsan Center was also full of emotion. This was where I stayed from September of 1969 to April of 1970 when I came to the US. On the wall was a picture of Harry Holt, made up of hundreds or thousands of pictures of adoptees. I also got to see a picture of what the building I likely stayed in looked like at that time.

Jeju Island, which is like the Hawaii of Korea, is beautiful and very tropically hot. Not only was there a beach, but there was a climb to the top of Sunrise Peak as well as exploring a lava tube. The lava tube was 20-30 degrees cooler. But the hike made up for it. I was soaked by the time I got to the top. We were blessed to have sun the entire time we were on Jeju Island. Something that isn’t a guarantee this time of year.

Seeing the site of the orphanage in Busan where I spent the first 3 1/2 years of my life made me feel like I was back in Oregon. I blogged about seeing the reindeer outside of this orphanage. Putting my feet in the water in Busan and seeing the Jalgachi Market (lots of live fish) were all experiences I appreciated. Many did try the live squid. I may or may not have tried it. Busan is definitely a place I will come back to.

We got to visit another temple in Gyeongju and learn more about the history and culture of Korea as well as see some ancient tombs and artifacts.

Probably one of the most meaningful experiences happened at the Holt Morning Garden women’s shelter in Daejeon. We got to hear the amazing story of the work done at this facility as well as celebrate their 20th anniversary. This was also where I got to visually see my name painted in calligraphic Hangul on a fan. And because I had previously received the blessing of owning my name and then learning the meaning of my name, another part of the hole in my heart was filled.

It was a very sobering moment to visit the DMZ. To see what humans are capable of doing to each other.

Attending a baseball game was a very unique experience. They have cheerleaders and cheers and the fans know them all. It was like being at a concert for hours. Apparently they like their fried squid about as much as Americans like their hot dogs.

I also loved wandering around and seeing the sights and sounds of Seoul and taking it all in. Oddly enough, on the last day, I actually had another foreigner ask me for directions and I was able to help her. So it’s like I’m almost a native Korean.

And the food. If I ever had any doubt I would not like the food or might not have enough, it was clear on day one that would not be an issue. So much Korean BBQ, rice, kimchee and all the other banchan (side dishes) including a favorite Japchae. And it was all family style, just like I wondered about before coming on the trip.

However, the piece that is making me feel like I am returning home as a whole person are the precious friends I have made. Lifetime friends who have the common bond of being adoptees from Korea. Some have found their birth families, many have not. But we found each other. And even though they don’t replace my adoptive family or my birth family, they add to that family. And for that I am so grateful. Seeing all these lovely people in their hanboks at the final dinner was amazing.

So, I go back to August Rush. The sound of the New York Philharmonic orchestra. Where all the musical instruments and sections have a part and without each one, the music is missing something. This boy found his family. My life has been a symphony. One that God has orchestrated and one where every single part of the journey has brought me here and let me know that The Detour really was the road to this place where I have started to feel whole and healed.

Susie Bechtle-Mason | Lago Vista, Texas

Read Susie’s further reflections on her trip to Korea in her blog “One Korean Adoptee’s Heritage Journey“

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Hollee McGinnis was born as Lee Hwa Yeong in South Korea in the early 1970s. Her birth parents did not marry, but Hollee was raised for a time by her birth mother and paternal grandparents, who were seaweed fishermen on an island off the coast of Incheon. When Hollee was 2, her birth family could no longer care for her. So they placed her in the care of a warm and loving couple who ran an orphanage on Deokjeok Island, where she lived with 15 other children. As Hollee recalls, the orphanage was more like a foster home. 

In May 1975, at the age of 3 ½, Hollee came to the U.S. to live with her adoptive family — her parents and two older siblings who were biological to her adoptive parents. Growing up in the suburbs of New York City, Hollee had not considered a career related to adoption. But after she established the adult adoptee organization Also-Known-As in 1996, the trajectory of her life’s work began to change. For the past 30 years, Hollee has been a professor, scholar, writer, policy expert, community organizer and researcher whose work has centered on adoptive and racial/ethnic identity, adverse childhood experiences and complex trauma, cultural loss, and the life course of adoption and adoptee-led mutual aid groups.

Earlier this month, in honor of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) Heritage Month, Hollee spoke with Holt about her early days in the U.S., her involvement in establishing Also-Known-As, her return to Korea as a researcher and scholar, her current passions and interests, and the legacy she hopes to leave behind. Here are some excerpts from the interview.

Hollee, thank you so much for speaking with us. We’re so grateful for all the work you’ve done for the adoption community over the years. So let’s start at the beginning of your life in the U.S. You arrived here at 3½ years of age, speaking no English and thrust into a completely new environment. What was that like for you?

Back in the 1970s, it was assumed that children were blank slates, that we were resilient and we would just handle things. There wasn’t an understanding of how traumatizing it was for a child to be separated from familiar people and places, and experience disrupted attachments. 

When I arrived in the U.S., I was deeply attached to the people who cared for me in South Korea. In fact, a few years after I left Korea, the director of my orphanage wrote a letter to my parents, describing the day that he and his wife brought me to the airport. I had been escorted to a point [at the airport] where they could no longer see me, but I broke loose and ran back to them. I grabbed onto the legs of the orphanage director’s wife and cried, “Eomma! Eomma!,” or “Mommy! Mommy!” Basically, I was fighting to not get on the plane.

In the first months of being in my new adoptive home, I often ran to the front door saying something in Korean that my mother didn’t understand. Later, she learned I was saying, “I want to go home.” I also wanted my older sister to sleep in the room with me the summer I arrived, which she did for a time. That’s because in Korea, young children do not sleep by themselves until they are much older.

I arrived in May, and by September, I was speaking English and able to go to nursery school. I was able to adjust, and my parents’ love did settle me down. But something inside me was broken.

So what happened next for you?

Growing up, I had to shut the door on my past as a coping mechanism and just start my new life. I identified as Hollee McGinnis, part of an Irish Catholic family. I knew I was adopted, but it only came up in conversation if someone pointed it out, or if I had to explain how I got into my family. There were always these little nibbles, though, these microaggressions. For example, my parents and two siblings and I would go to a restaurant, and a waiter would ask if we needed a table for four — not five, not realizing I was part of the family. 

In college, I realized people were expecting things of me because of my race that I could not deliver. They would speak to me in Chinese or Japanese, or praise me on my English. I thought I would major in Asian studies so I could learn about all the things people expected me to know because of my appearance. But then I thought, well, that’s just fulfilling a racial stereotype! So I changed my major to American studies, focusing mostly on 20^th century race relations. I hoped to better understand why people were interacting with me based on my race and not my lived experiences.

In college, I realized people were expecting things of me because of my race that I could not deliver. They would speak to me in Chinese or Japanese, or praise me on my English.

After college, I was working in New York City when I learned about a three-month leadership training program. As part of the program, we were asked to design something for our community. Since I had studied international adoption and its history as an undergrad, and since I was hearing news stories about Chinese adoptees coming to live in America, I thought this could be a compelling focus of the project. I thought it would have been helpful for me to have had mentors or seen other families like my own when I was growing up, so that was the impetus for this project — to find adult adoptees to mentor this upcoming generation of international transracial adoptees. And that’s how the organization Also-Known-As got started in 1996.

It’s amazing that Also-Known-As is still around today. How has the organization changed?

Once we got started, our mission grew because we realized we needed more than just a mentorship program. So we focused on three things: empowering adoptees to understand their own lived experiences, building bridges back to our countries of origin and to ourselves as a way of healing, and transforming conversations about race. As I began building a community of adoptees for Also-Known-As, I started to feel that adoption was much more at the forefront instead of just in the background of my life. That’s when my career focus started to shift.

(Editor’s note: To delve deeper into her work in the adoption community, Hollee returned to school to earn a master’s degree in social work from Columbia University, completed a clinical fellowship at the Child Study Center at Yale University and worked as the policy director at the Donaldson Adoption Institute, with an emphasis on program development, public policy and mental health care. Then in 2013, Hollee returned to Korea for 18 months to conduct research on children living in orphanages as part of her doctoral dissertation.)

What prompted you to return to South Korea to study children living in orphanages?

In 2000, Also-Known-As planned a trip to Korea for adopted adults and I went as one of the tour guides and mentors. We visited an orphanage, where all the children were 6 and under. It was the first time I’d been back to an orphanage since I was a baby. When I was getting my PhD, I wanted to research the mental health outcomes of adolescents in orphanages in Korea. One of my core questions was, Do children in orphanages experience birth parent loss in the same way that adopted children do?

David Brodzinsky [professor emeritus of clinical and developmental psychology at Rutgers University] was one of the first people to really study birth parent loss as a core trauma or a core stressor of adoption. He found that it correlated with higher anxiety and depression in adopted children. So I was curious if this would be true for the kids in the orphanage too. They ranged in age from 12 to about 18 or 19, and I was struck by the fact that 80% of the kids in my study had some contact with their birth parents. But regardless of contact, they still experienced birth parent loss, and in my data at least, it was found to correlate to higher trauma symptoms. One of the things that came up was that the children didn’t know why they were in the orphanage, why they had been abandoned. I think this is a core question for adopted people too. (You can read more about Hollee’s research in South Korea here.)

What did living in South Korea mean for you personally?

I always had a dream to go back to South Korea and live there for at least a year. So personally, this was very special because I went with my husband, who is also adopted from South Korea, and my oldest son, who was 6 at the time we arrived. It was a really profound, foundational experience that really solidified the subtleties of being in another culture. After that experience, I felt that I was truly bicultural — that year and a half put that deeply in my bones.

When we came back to the U.S., the experience seeded in me a desire to eat the food I ate in Korea because I really developed a palate for it. So that motivated me to cook more Korean food at home, including kimchi. And now I teach kimchi-making workshops from time to time, both in my home and on retreats!

That sounds so interesting. What do those classes involve?

For many years, I felt like an imposter, someone who was “performing” Korean culture when I tried to do things that were Korean. Inside me, I felt like I’m not a Korean Korean, like people who live in Korea are. When I approached culture only from my mind, I thought… ‘I didn’t grow up in Korea. I didn’t grow up with Korean parents. I didn’t eat Korean food every day.’ But when I realized that if I could let go of those thoughts, I could actually touch this authentic part of myself that says, ‘Of course, you’re Korean. What are you talking about?’

So in my classes, I use the power of making kimchi as a healing process for adoptees. We let go of the imposter syndrome, the thoughts that say, ‘How can I make someone else’s food?’ And we reclaim and re-indigenize ourselves to our ancestral wisdom through our bodies, hearts and souls.

That’s beautiful! What else have you been working on these days?

One of the things I’ve been interested in is how complex trauma and early adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in adoptees can correlate with physical health and mental health challenges and problems as we age. Most of the research on adoptees stops by the time we’re 20 or 30, so we’ve not looked at these long-term health aspects.

Currently, I’m leading a research study called Mapping the Life Course of Adoption Project, which examines the health, wellbeing and importance of adoptee connections in adulthood. In 2023, we surveyed 465 adoptees over the age of 18, who were adopted domestically, internationally or through foster care. The average age of the survey participant was 36, although we did have a few people in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. We’re analyzing the data now and finding that the average number of ACEs is higher in the adoptee survey participants than in the general population — and we’re assessing what impact that might have on our long-term physical and mental health.  

Through the Mapping the Life Course of Adoption Project, we want to leverage the power of research to benefit all adoptees, including those in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Complex trauma can show up in in the body in many ways. For example, I have a group of eight close women friends, all adopted from Korea, who I’ve known since my 20s. Five out of the eight of us developed breast cancer in our 40s. Is this related to the fact that the rate of breast cancer is rising among Asian American women in general and at earlier ages? Or is this also somehow connected to our adverse childhood early experiences? We just don’t know because the research isn’t there. That’s part of what we hope to accomplish with this study and others in the future. We want to leverage the power of research to benefit all adoptees, including those in their 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s.

Hollee, you’ve done such important work in so many aspects of your life. Is there a particular motto you live by or legacy you’d like to leave behind?

I think for now I’m trying to live by my principles and my ideals, which are to be fully present to my children, my community, the people who matter to me. I think that’s what I would want to most be remembered for — that I lived a life that wasn’t just lip service, right? That I lived a life aligned with my values and wish for all people to believe in their own beauty and worth.

Finally, as we wrap up Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, can you share something about the importance of elevating AANHPI voices — and in particular, AANHPI adoptee voices?

Yes, of course. Adoptees who are of Asian ancestry are a minority within a minority. So it’s very important for us to elevate our experiences. It’s also important for us to connect to how we are immigrants as well, and a part of the Asian American experience. Even though some of our adoptive parents immigrated a long time ago, those legacies of how Asians came into the United States, and our histories as Asian Americans, impact our lived experiences because we walk in Asian bodies. While I also dream that we live in a world where a person is not judged by the color of their skin, the truth is the only way for us to get there is to see how our society has not operated this way. Only when we see how color and race have shaped how we treat each other and ourselves can we move to this dream for all of us.

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On Friday, April 25, nearly 30 Holt staff, board members, adoptees and members of the Holt family gathered for a special event celebrating the book “His Eye is on the Sparrow” by David and Ani Pearman, published in July 2024.

Holt President and CEO Dan Smith opened the event by sharing how he discovered David and Ani’s book.

One day he walked into his office to find a thick, brown envelope on his desk with the name ‘D. Pearman’ scribbled across the front. Curious, he opened the package.

“Inside was a lovely book,” Dan said, smiling at David and Ani.

Cared for by Holt

As a child with polio, David stayed at Holt’s Ilsan Center in Korea — a nurturing care home founded by Harry and Bertha Holt in the mid-1960s for children with disabilities — until joining an adoptive family in 1971. It was at Ilsan that he met Molly Holt, Harry and Bertha’s daughter and a nurse who devoted her life to caring for children with special needs.

Molly could be called the Mother Teresa of Korea for what she had done for the Korean orphans. She devoted her life to caring and advocating for the unwanted children — orphaned or abandoned. She defended the most forgotten, those with developmental problems or physical needs like my handicap from polio. She loved us like her own children, but she knew if the organization could match us with loving families who would adopt us, we would thrive even better.

His Eye is on the Sparrow, pg. 62

In his book, David shares his powerful journey of resilience and faith in his search for identity as an adoptee. He reflects not only on Molly Holt’s lasting impact but also on another of Holt’s early founders, Dr. David Kim, whose kindness and guidance left a profound mark on his life.

Celebrating an Adoptee’s Story

It was a moving and memorable event — full of connection and a few tears as David read emotional excerpts from the book.

“These are tears of joy, really,” David said as he read Jeremiah 29:11, reflecting on his departure from Ilsan at the age of 10. “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and a hope.”

David read excerpts from the book, tracing his journey from life at Holt’s Ilsan Center to his arrival in the United States to join his adoptive family — a mix of joyful and heart-wrenching moments.

One afternoon when I was attending my watermelon garden, a significant event happened. I saw a tiny bird fall from a tree. It was a brown and beige bird like a sparrow. He cried out in pain, and I could see his wing was hurt badly. I could see he was trying to breathe in and out. Compassion for the helpless hurt bird overtook me. I reached down to pick up the sparrow … caring for the sparrow would later display important values in my life.

His Eye is on the Sparrow, pg. 56

Reception by the Holt Community

Robert Holt and Suzanne (Holt) Peterson, son and daughter of Harry and Bertha Holt, came to the event, along with Nancy Kim, wife of David Kim, who passed away in January 2018 at the age of 86.

“I enjoyed this — it was wonderful,” Suzanne said of the event.

The book was well received by many, including Nancy.

“I couldn’t stop reading,” Nancy said after David finished reading from his book. “I want to give [copies] to my children, grandchildren and some of my church members.”

Nancy was by David Kim’s side throughout his lifelong service to orphaned and vulnerable children. The first employee Harry Holt hired in Korea, David’s dedication to the Holt mission later led him to serve as Holt’s CEO and President for 10 years. Nancy shared about his efforts to help build Ilsan Center in Korea alongside Harry Holt, expressing how meaningful the book was to her — it brought her back to those early days.

“It was totally moving,” Nancy said, looking at David and Ani. “I admire you so much.”

Reflecting on His Journey

“His Eye is on the Sparrow” invites readers to explore themes of identity, belonging, adversity and disability and to consider the power of faith and forgiveness.

“There are many things which can apply to many people,” David said as he reflected on what he wants readers to take away from the book. “For me, God had a plan. The book ‘His Eye is on the Sparrow’ is so good in that the bird, like in the orphanage, is for a purpose. He cares for the fallen bird, as I cared for the fallen bird. God even more cares for us — whatever we’re going through … God has a purpose behind it. And if we trust Him and we open up our hearts to him and to other people around us, that will be a good thing.”

“I just believe that all these things happened for a purpose,” David continued. “It takes time to forgive, but if we just have that willingness to change, to be open to God and to people around us, we will know our purpose and identity.”

Readers can buy David’s book online from various retailers, including Kharis Publishing.

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In April 1975, Jon Dull, Jodi Willis and Thuy Williams were children living in Vietnam, strangers to one another. But within a few weeks, all three would be evacuated from the war-torn country, shortly before the fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War. Jon, Jodi and Thuy were part of what has come to famously be known as “Operation Babylift.” The babylift was a series of flights at the end of the war that followed an evacuation order issued by U.S. President Gerald Ford for Vietnamese children living in orphanages, and who were already in process, to be adopted by families in the U.S. Many of these children were fathered by military personnel from the U.S. and other countries, and the children who were part of the babylift also joined families in other Western nations. Holt was one agency that took part in this effort. During the month of April 1975, Holt safely evacuated more than 400 children in our care, many of whom traveled aboard a Holt-chartered Pan Am flight that left Saigon on April 5.

Shortly after leaving Vietnam, Jon, Jodi and Thuy were adopted into families living near Portland, Oregon, and the three still live in the area today. In addition, they are all members of an Operation Babylift adoptee group on Facebook. In the summer of 2024, with the 50^th anniversary of Operation Babylift approaching, Jon felt inspired to reach out to other adoptees in the area, asking if anyone wanted to meet up for lunch. In total, five adoptees (four of whom were adopted through Holt) and two spouses gathered at a Vietnamese restaurant in Portland. As the group had never met before, they spent a couple of hours getting to know one another, speaking of their origins in Vietnam, the families in which they grew up and other aspects of their lives. They also expressed that they felt Operation Babylift had given them a second chance at life. Recently, Jon, his mother Joy, Jodi and Thuy shared more about their lives and their adoption journeys with Holt. Here are their stories.

Jon Dull: “I Was Given a ‘Golden Ticket’”

In the spring of 1974, Joy and Jerry Dull were the parents of four young children, hoping to add another child to their family. They had begun working with Holt on the adoption of a child from Vietnam, but soon learned that they would not be eligible to move forward as they already had children. So the Dulls refocused their efforts on adopting a child from South Korea. After about a year, Joy and Jerry had given up hope as the waiting process lingered.

Then on April 2, 1975, Joy received an unexpected call from Holt that changed their lives. Their social worker had just received word that a chartered flight with more than 400 orphans in Holt’s care would be leaving Saigon on April 5 and arriving in Seattle a day later. On that flight was a 5-month-old baby named Tran Ai Quoc, who was in immediate need of an adoptive family. The child had been relinquished by his mother at birth and had been living in a Holt-run orphanage in Saigon for months. Since the Dulls had been in the process of working with Holt and had gone through the necessary background checks, they could move forward with the adoption of this baby. “Of course we were very excited,” says Joy. “But we had just a few days to pull everything together.”

Late in the day on April 5, Joy and Jerry made the four-hour drive up to the Seattle-Tacoma airport to await the arrival of a Pan Am jumbo jet that held their new baby. They were surrounded by a sea of other Holt parents, many of whom had been in the process of adopting from Vietnam for the past 12 to 24 months. The scene at the airport that evening was hectic and filled with nervous anticipation, Joy recalls, as the parents waited for the plane’s arrival. Finally, at 12:30 a.m. on April 6, the families drew a sigh of relief as the Pan Am jet came into view and landed safely with the babies, nurses, doctors and other personnel on board. Six hours later, the children were released to their parents after receiving their vaccinations and clearing immigration. The Dulls’ baby appeared to be tired from the long overseas flight but was otherwise healthy, weighing in at a little more than 13 pounds. Recalling her first moments with her child, Joy says, “He cried for a while — I think he was hungry and not used to his new environment.” But soon after taking a bottle, the baby settled down for the long car ride to his new home in the U.S.  

Joy and Jerry named their new child Jon Michael Dull and raised him in a small town south of Portland. In time, the couple would go on to adopt two more children, a 14-year-old boy from South Korea and a 12-year-old girl from India. Growing up in a large and loving family, Jon formed close bonds with his parents and six siblings, and embraced the opportunities he was given. He was the first of his siblings to go to college, earning a bachelor’s degree in business economics and an MBA with a focus in finance.

He and his wife, Charlotte, have also traveled to many places in the world, visiting Vietnam several times. “I went to Vietnam because I like to travel, not to find my roots,” says Jon. Yet, in 2018, Jon and Charlotte brought Joy on a trip to his birth country, visiting places like Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), Da Nang, Hanoi and Ha Long Bay. “My mother had always wanted to see Vietnam, so when we had the opportunity to take her there, we did,” he says. Then last November, coinciding with his 50^th birthday, Jon and Charlotte returned to Vietnam and traveled to an orphanage north of Da Nang. They visited the children during dinner, spent some time talking with them and helped clean up afterwards. “I’m not really sure why I decided we should go visit an orphanage,” says Jon. “But I felt it was important for me to visit one on my 50^th birthday trip to help remind me [of where I once lived] and ground me.” Jon and Charlotte also plan to live overseas for a few years in the near future once they’re both fully retired. They hope to engage in volunteer work, possibly in an orphanage in Da Nang.

Looking back on the past 50 years, Jon believes that being part of Operation Babylift has had an impact on his life, but doesn’t define him. As he says, “I never really felt that I was adopted, in that my parents are my parents. But I also believe that I’ve been given a ‘golden ticket’ in life, and I have tried to make the most of it. Knowing that I came from an orphanage in Vietnam — and [sensing] what my life would have been like had I stayed there — has motivated me to enjoy every moment and to experience life to the fullest. Beyond that, I’m grateful to the unsung heroes of Operation Babylift, everyone from the Holt workers in Vietnam, to the pilots, nurses and other flight volunteers, to, of course, my parents. If it wasn’t for their efforts, none of this would be possible for me today.”

Jodi Willis: “I Am Grateful to So Many People”

Jodi Willis was born on March 21, 1975, in My Tho, Vietnam, a city located in the Mekong Delta, south of Saigon. Born to a single mother, Jodi was brought to an orphanage in Saigon and into Holt’s care when she was 3 weeks old. At the time, she weighed less than 5 pounds and was sickly and small.

Two weeks later, however, Jodi was evacuated from Vietnam on Holt’s last flight out of Saigon. She was placed on a military cargo jet with the remaining babies in Holt’s care, leaving Saigon on April 27, 1975. Three days later, the city would fall to North Vietnamese forces, leading to the collapse of the South Vietnamese government and the reunification of Vietnam under Communist rule. With all the chaos surrounding them, “the evacuation itself was a miracle,” says Jodi, now 50 and living in Oregon with her husband of 31 years and two children. “Everything was working against us. We were lucky to have even had a runway to get off the ground.”

But fortunately, Jodi’s flight did take off safely, and on its way to the U.S. stopped at a military base in Honolulu to refuel. While there, all of the children were medically evaluated, and Jodi and another baby were detained as they were too sick to continue. But in a week’s time, Jodi’s health had improved enough for her to be placed on another flight to Portland, Oregon. On May 5, 1975, she met her new family — her parents, John and Sherri, and an older sister who’d been adopted from South Korea two years earlier.

Jodi’s family would grow in time as her mother gave birth to a daughter in 1976, and the family would adopt a 13-month-old boy from South Korea three years later. She and her three siblings were raised in a Christian household in a predominantly white community, south of Portland.

Recalling her early days, Jodi says, “I had a very challenging childhood. Growing up, I knew that the Vietnam War wasn’t popular, and I was afraid people would be cruel to me because of this. I was afraid people would think I was a Communist.” For many years, Jodi chose not to explore her roots in Vietnam — or the early weeks of her adoption story. “To be honest, I didn’t think it was possible,” she says.   

But in 2021, Jodi discovered that it was possible to retrieve her adoption records through Holt and saw for the first time her Vietnamese birth certificate. Through an English translation of the document, Jodi discovered her birth mother’s name as well as her own birth name, birth date and other data. She also was able to view her medical information from the time she was in Holt’s care and learned the name of the American nurse who completed her intake exam. (The nurse, now elderly, lives in the U.S., and by a stroke of luck, Jodi was able to locate her on Facebook. The two have spoken since, filling in gaps to Jodi’s early story.)

Jodi credits her own evacuation from Vietnam — as well as the safe retrieval of her adoption files — to the efforts of two men, Glen Noteboom, a Holt social worker in Vietnam in the 1970s, and former Holt president John Williams, who started his career with Holt as a project manager in Vietnam just before Operation Babylift. Both men are now in their 80s. Jodi was fortunate enough to meet John in 2024, as he helped fill in more of her story. John described how he and Glen did not leave Saigon until every one of the children in Holt’s care was safely evacuated from the war zone. He also described how he and Glen safeguarded the children’s records, by packing a small chartered DC-3 aircraft from floor to ceiling with boxes and boxes of documents, before boarding that plane themselves and leaving Saigon. Those documents today are secured at Holt’s headquarters in Eugene, Oregon.

Though Jodi has not been back to Vietnam since she left as an infant in 1975, she does have a desire to someday visit. “Obtaining my adoption records in 2021, approaching my 50^th birthday, and meeting John Williams, who answered so many of my questions and eased so many of my uncertainties, has lit a desire in me to find out more about myself,” Jodi says. Returning to Vietnam may also provide insight and clarity into all of the forces that worked together to bring her to the U.S., from the nurses and orphanage workers who cared for her as a baby, to those who helped her evacuate as chaos ensued, to her parents who answered the call to adopt 50 years ago today.

“Operation Babylift gave me a new life,” says Jodi, one filled with love, challenges and opportunities. “My husband often tells me that God knew I was meant to be his wife, so Christ brought me across two oceans to bring us together. Looking back, the evacuation is the ashes that brought the beauty of a new life.”

Thuy Williams: “I Was Given a Second Chance”

Thuy Williams remembers hearing the bombs fall around her as a young child growing up in Saigon. She also remembers being hungry and terrified. In April 1975, Thuy was 5 years old, the daughter of a single mother who had given birth to her at age 16 and a father who had been a U.S. Marine serving in Vietnam. Thuy was an “Amerasian” child — half Asian and half American — and as the fall of Saigon grew closer, her mother, Ho, feared for her safety. Biracial or Amerasian children faced discrimination growing up in Vietnam, and Thuy says there were rumors that all Amerasian children would be killed at the end of the war.

So on April 4, 1975, Ho made arrangements to help Thuy leave Vietnam. She brought her to the Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon and placed her on a military cargo plane bound for the U.S. (To read more of Thuy’s remarkable story, and to learn how this plan came about, see When Life Gives You Second Chances.) But shortly after Thuy boarded that plane, she was removed from it, as the flight had too many passengers. She was scheduled to travel the following day, April 5, on one of Operation Babylift’s next flights out of Saigon.

As it turned out, the change in travel plans likely saved Thuy’s life. Shortly after takeoff on April 4, the military plane — with more than 300 passengers on board — suffered a mechanical failure and crashed in a rice paddy near the Saigon River. Sadly, 128 people died, including 78 children. In the chaos, Thuy’s mother was told that her daughter had perished.

The next day, however, Thuy flew to the U.S. on a chartered Pan Am flight alongside another 324 infants and children, including survivors of the previous day’s crash. Not knowing that fate had played a part in her journey, Thuy simply recalls sitting next to another little girl on the plane and pretending to read her a book. (The book was given to Thuy by a flight attendant and written in English.) She also remembers stopping at a military base in the Philippines where a U.S. serviceman came on board and offered her a hard-boiled egg. “Much of the trip was a blur, but I have these two memories,” says Thuy.

Unlike Jon and Jodi who had been in Holt’s care in Vietnam and who were placed on a Holt-sponsored Pan Am flight, Thuy did not join her family through Holt and was on a separate Pan Am flight on April 5.  So when she arrived at the airport in Portland, Oregon, she was greeted by Jenny Williams, a mother who had agreed to foster a 6-month-old baby from Vietnam. Much to Jenny’s surprise, Thuy was a 5-year-old child who spoke no English. But undeterred by this change in plans, Jenny and her husband, David, decided to not only foster Thuy but to adopt her — giving her a permanent home in Oregon.

Thuy grew up in a largely white community, sharing a loving home with her parents and two younger sisters. But like many adoptees, the trauma of her early years in Vietnam stayed with her. Since trauma-informed adoption therapy did not exist at the time, Thuy’s parents looked for physical activities to help her find an outlet for her emotions. When she was 8, Thuy joined a children’s soccer team, and that was the beginning of her lifelong love of sports. “Playing soccer gave me something to do and took my mind off things as I could totally focus on the game,” she recalls.

In time, Thuy would take her passion for sports and turn it into a mission to help others. At the age of 20, Thuy joined the military for eight years, serving as a tank mechanic in the U.S. Army,  in an effort to honor her birth father and to serve America, the country she loves. Upon her return to civilian life, Thuy became a sports coach, public speaker, mentor and missionary, eventually leading some 30 humanitarian trips to impoverished countries around the world. She’s focused her outreach on helping kids who’ve faced trauma — in the U.S., in war-torn countries and in refugee camps abroad.

Looking back on her time in Vietnam, her evacuation to safety through Operation Babylift and her life thereafter, Thuy says, “I believe we’re all put here on this earth for a purpose, and mine is to make a positive impact on children around the world. Because of the things I saw in Vietnam and the poverty I experienced, I think I’m able to connect with kids in refugee camps and in poverty. One of the things I love is going to an area where there’s no hope for kids and bringing out a soccer ball, and seeing the smiles on their faces. I think, if nothing else, I was put on this earth to give these kids a little bit of hope that things can get better. It might not be today. It might not be tomorrow. But there’s always a hope for something better.”

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The post Operation Babylift Changed Our Lives appeared first on Holt International.

Q: What kind of research are adoptees doing?

(Amy):  There is a lot of great research that adoptees are doing that’s really looking at the outcomes and the impact of adoption. We are seeing research in the areas of identity, grief and loss, psychological and emotional wellbeing, transracial adoption, birth family search dynamics, the need for support, and the importance of connection.

Q: How and when did adoptee-led research start to develop and start to pick up momentum. 

(Elliot): There is a lot of great research on adoptees and the impact of adoption on children, but a lot more research has been published by adoptees within the past decade or so. I think of researchers like JaeRan Kim, whose research includes studying families who adopted children with disabilities, Susan Branco, who created the “adoptee consciousness model,” and Hollee McGinnis, who researches how early life experiences affect adoptees’ long-term health and wellbeing.

(Amy): We’ve seen an increase in adoptee research as the current movement and need for adoptees is expanding from initially seeking and being in community, to still wanting to be in community, but also seeking social and systematic change. Over the years we’ve seen a growing number of adoptees enter the research/scholar field and start to examine the historical and current dynamic and impact of adoption. 

Q: Why is adoptee-led research important? 

(Amy): We have learned and are still learning a lot about the long-term impact of adoption on the emotional, social and psychological wellbeing of adoptees. Before professionals started hearing more from adoptees, there was this thought that adoption was just a one-time act, a child was placed through adoption and it’s done; this thought is very one-dimensional and more in the direction of the adoptive parent’s voice. Adoptee-led research is lending more dimension and texture to adoption. Adoptee-led research is additionally supporting the notion that adoption is this lifelong process and it affects adoptees throughout their whole lives.

We’re learning more and more about some of the long-term implications of adoption and I think it’s really helping families to look at it from an adoptee point of view. We want families to be successful, and we want to help parents be able to be there for their adopted children.

Amy Trotter, Director of Post Adoption Services

Q: So how has all this research influenced adoption practices?

(Amy): We are starting to see more of a shift happening in adoption. It’s so exciting to see more adoptee voices and adoptee-led research coming to the forefront. This change is really reshaping the lens of how we view and understand the bigger implications of adoption practices. The dominant narrative is definitely changing, and there is so much we can learn from this transformation. As professionals, it helps us to better prepare families to raise healthy children.

Q: How have adoptee voices and adoptee-led research informed the development of post-adoption services?

(Amy): For Holt, the importance and value of adoptee voices has impacted aspects of post-adoption services. Holt has a post-adoption team primarily made up of adoptees. There are several post-adoption programs that don’t have adoptees on the team or leading it. Our leadership understands the value of, if we’re going to provide these services, we need to have adoptees in these roles helping to guide us. 

Q: How does having a post-adoption team made up of adoptees make a difference?

(Elliot): I think it makes a difference in that we are able to advocate for the needs of adoptees and the diverse perspectives that we hear on a daily basis. We are also able to say that as adoptees speaking to adoptees, we understand and we are here to support you. 

I also think of how [adoptee voices at Holt have encouraged] training and education not only for parents, but for staff. …  Now I think it’s for the most part pretty accepted that adoptees can love their adoptive families, but also hold grief and loss for their birth family and their culture that they lost. And that it’s okay to have both those feelings. 

(Amy): We’re learning more and more about some of the long-term implications of adoption and I think it’s really helping families to look at it from an adoptee point of view. We want families to be successful, and we want to help parents be able to be there for their adopted children.

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post How Adoptee Voices, Adoptee-Led Research is Changing Adoption appeared first on Holt International.

In 2024, we asked adoptees to submit a creative work responding to the prompt, “What is the one thing you want to tell parents starting the adoption process, and how would this advice have impacted your adoption journey?”

This topic was chosen by adoptee professionals who work on Holt’s post-adoption services team. They chose this prompt in order to offer adoptees creative freedom in a safe environment to tell their story and describe their adoption journey. We were moved and impressed by all of the adoptee submissions!

Adoption is a wonderful thing that is born from loss. The loss of birth family and culture needs to be grieved, and this can look different for every adoptee.

Rosy Tate was adopted from China and is now a student at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She hopes to use her higher education to become involved in the adoptee community and continue her adoption journey.

Here is an excerpt from her winning essay:

I encourage adoptive parents to be patient with their children as they navigate their adoption journey. For me, coming to terms with my adoption took some time. It was not until high school that I became willing to talk about my adoption openly. Moving to a diverse area certainly helped me realize the value of my Asian identity, while also pushing me to evaluate my adoptee identity. It is important to remember that adoption is traumatic. Adoption is a wonderful thing that is born from loss. The loss of birth family and culture needs to be grieved, and this can look different for every adoptee.

To sum it up, my main pieces of advice would be: try to incorporate birth culture into your adoptee’s life, be willing to talk about adoption, be educated on the implications of adoption, be willing to move to a diverse area, seek out the adoptee community, hold space for birth family and culture, and be patient with your adoptee.

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post 2024 Holt Adoptee Scholarship Winner: Rosy Tate appeared first on Holt International.

Congratulations to the 2024 Holt Adoptee Scholarship Contest winners — Jayden Waggoner, Rosy Tate and Shaelynn Pelusio.

In 2024, we asked adoptees to submit a creative work responding to the prompt, “What is the one thing you want to tell parents starting the adoption process, and how would this advice have impacted your adoption journey?”

This topic was chosen by adoptee professionals who work on Holt’s post-adoption services team. They chose this prompt in order to offer adoptees creative freedom in a safe environment to tell their story and describe their adoption journey. We were moved and impressed by all of the adoptee submissions!

Deliberately left in a state of chaos, the piece mirrors the confusing journey of growing up as an adoptee.

Jayden Waggoner was adopted from China. She currently attends Oregon State University, where she plans to major in psychology. Jayden chose to answer the prompt by creating a piece of artwork and describes its significance below.

Here is her response:

The legend of 1,000 cranes has always inspired me. Throughout my childhood, I wished to connect with my birth parents, a wish intertwined with my love for folding cranes. In making this artwork, each crane holds significance. The largest one bears the word “Adoption,” symbolizing the central theme. Medium-sized cranes carry questions and comments I’ve encountered repeatedly, while the smaller ones feature words encapsulating the adoptee experience. Deliberately left in a state of chaos, the piece mirrors the confusing journey of growing up as an adoptee.

This artwork serves as a portrayal of the adoptee experience — its complexity and challenges. Zooming in reveals intricate details, representing the tough days where details dominate, while zooming out offers a broader perspective, representing the easier days or the entire journey.

Reflecting on my own journey, I would advise prospective parents starting the adoption process to brace themselves for difficult days and simply provide unwavering support. Adoption is inherently intricate, and sometimes, the most meaningful support involves empathetically navigating our emotions and building safe spaces for their expression. Such validation and support would have significantly eased my emotional journey and fostered a greater sense of connection with adoption from a younger age.

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post 2024 Holt Adoptee Scholarship Winner: Jayden Waggoner appeared first on Holt International.

In 2024, we asked adoptees to submit a creative work responding to the prompt, “What is the one thing you want to tell parents starting the adoption process, and how would this advice have impacted your adoption journey?”

This topic was chosen by adoptee professionals who work on Holt’s post-adoption services team. They chose this prompt in order to offer adoptees creative freedom in a safe environment to tell their story and describe their adoption journey. We were moved and impressed by all of the adoptee submissions!

Shaelynn Pelusio was adopted from Korea at 6 months of age. She is currently enrolled at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where she is majoring in social work and minoring in psychology. Upon graduation, Shaelynn intends to earn a master’s degree in social work and pursue a career in counseling, disability services or child welfare.

Here is the essay she wrote in response to the prompt:

I am Shaelynn Pelusio. I was adopted at six months of age from Seoul, South Korea, through Holt International. Thanks to my adoption, I live in New Jersey and grew up on the shore with my mom, dad and two brothers, who were both also adopted from South Korea through Holt. My family is near picture-perfect. We had annual trips to Disney World, and even now still go as all of us have reached adulthood. We had nightly family time, in which we collected on the couches and watched the same cooking and reality competition shows, with the occasional sitcom sprinkled in. We’d inevitably talk through them all, favoring each other’s company over the entertainment, and have to rewind every few minutes to catch the parts we missed.

I attribute the majority of my personality traits and ambitions to the teachings of my mother, father and brothers. They are everything to me, and had it not been for my adoption, I wouldn’t have them and would undoubtedly be a completely different person than I am now.

We had game night every few months, in which we would humor each other with vulgar jokes and fill the space with nothing but boisterous laughter. We have inside jokes and traditions we’ve forged together through our tight bonds. Through the business of work and education, we intentionally carve out time for each other. I attribute the majority of my personality traits and ambitions to the teachings of my mother, father and brothers. They are everything to me, and had it not been for my adoption, I wouldn’t have them, and would undoubtedly be a completely different person than I am now.

There are two pieces of advice I would give parents starting the adoption process, one of which my parents excelled at, and one of which I wish my parents prioritized more. First, ensure you celebrate your child’s adoption. My parents raised me to be comfortable with my adoption. We celebrated my Gotcha Day, the day I came home to them, almost as a birthday. They baked me airplane-shaped cookies to bring to school every year and share with my classmates, and printed a book about my adoption to read to and educate my peers with as we feasted on the themed treats. They took me and my brothers out to our favorite restaurants for dinner on the nights of our Gotcha Days, commemorating the anniversary that we officially became their children.

My parents raised me to be comfortable with my adoption. We celebrated my Gotcha Day, the day I came home to them, almost as a birthday.

They raised us with basic information about our birth parents, and the perspectives that they may have had in giving us up for adoption. They always described my birth mother as brave, and never wavered in affirming that she loved, and still loves, me. She had to love me so, so much in order to make such a tremendous sacrifice for me. She put me up for adoption so that I could have a better life, and that is nothing short of an ultimate act of love. The younger version of myself always had the mental image of her as a superhero, watching over me in the shadows, with a flowing cape and mask concealing her eyes, preserving an unknown identity. My parents fashioned her as a humble protector, with the best intentions for my safety and happiness.

My parents fashioned [my birth mother] as a humble protector, with the best intentions for my safety and happiness.

My parents also never had a savior complex about adopting me and my brothers. They were upfront about wanting children to love and cherish, not to showcase as prizes of their morality. They would snicker at neighbors who called them “good people” for adopting. I never had to question if they adopted me because they wanted to impress our community with some perceived nobility, because their response was always, “We just wanted kids.” Whenever we said “I love you” before going to bed, I would always challenge them. “I love you more,” I’d say. “We love you more,” they’d answer. “And we always will. You will never love us more, because we are your parents.” They never, ever relented to me and my stubborn ways. They always won the fight. Their constant assurance of their love and my birth mother’s love for me resulted in my being comfortable with my adoption. On a conscious level, at least, I have never felt like I had to come to terms with being given up, because my parents always made me feel wanted. I don’t see it as being given up, but rather, being given the greatest blessing of my lifetime.

On a conscious level, at least, I have never felt like I had to come to terms with being given up, because my parents always made me feel wanted.

Second, ensure you celebrate your child’s culture. Admittedly, this is something my parents did not excel at, but I do not blame them for. I was raised in a predominantly white area. I was one of the very few people of color in my high school graduating class. The only other South Korean people I knew were my brothers, or the handful of other Korean adoptees in my town. I was not surrounded by my people, and by extension, not connected to my culture. My parents tried their best. I remember once, when I was in elementary school, my parents packed me and my brothers into the family minivan, and drove up north to a church. They were hosting a Korean event. There were performances and food, and though the displays of dancing and martial arts fascinated me, I was conditioned to eat only chicken nuggets and cheese, and turned my nose up at the kimchi. After that, I don’t believe my parents hauled my brothers and me to another Korean event, though I cannot imagine there were many being held in 2000s New Jersey. As an adult, I regret not being surrounded by my culture more.

I was raised in a predominantly white area. The only other South Korean people I knew were my brothers, or the handful of other Korean adoptees in my town. I was not surrounded by my people, and by extension, not connected to my culture.

I began the journey of reconnecting with my culture four years ago. This journey has primarily been through food, ironically enough. In 2020, I made my first bowl of bibimbap. I used as many substitutes for traditional Korean ingredients as I could — fuji apples in place of Korean pears, spicy mayo in place of gochujang — as the items in stock at my local grocery store were catered to our white neighborhood. Though, that was my first time really feeling a connection to my heritage. Since then, I have learned to make a few other Korean dishes: Korean army stew, bulgogi, tteokbokki, kimchi fried rice. Unfortunately, Korean ingredients aren’t the most accessible to me, so trying new dishes has been a slow process, but an important one, nonetheless.

Since learning how to make various Korean foods, I have felt significantly more in touch with my culture. A piece of me feels missing, as my identity as a Korean woman feels fragile. I do not know the customs, traditions, holidays, norms or language. It feels that I am only Korean through my features. Sometimes, I feel like a fraud. I feel like a white woman inside a Korean woman’s body, just because of the way I was raised. Had I been more involved with my culture growing up, I would not have to embark on this journey as an adult, and I would have a stronger sense of and confidence in my identity. I take pride in being Korean — the culture is rich and beautiful, but that pride does not displace the imposter syndrome, and that culture is “mine” in what feels to be the loosest sense of the term. Had I been raised with my culture, I would have felt more at ease with who I am and where I come from.

I take pride in being Korean — the culture is rich and beautiful, but that pride does not displace the imposter syndrome.

Today, I am an undergraduate social work student at my university, and have ambitions of pursuing my graduate degree and a career in counseling, disability services or child welfare. Maybe all three, if I’m lucky enough. This is my path because of the empathy and value of helping others that was instilled in me through my family, the Pelusios. I am proud to be a Pelusio, and I am proud to be an adoptee. Though I may not be as secure in my identity as a Korean woman, I am secure in my adoption. I have been given the tools to be secure with my adoption, but am currently achieving security with my culture on my own, starting with food as my first step. I hope that my advice of celebrating both adoption and culture can afford a future adoptee the luxury of feeling secure in both areas.

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post 2024 Holt Adoptee Scholarship Winner: Shaelynn Pelusio appeared first on Holt International.

We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2024 Holt Adoptee Scholarship Contest!

All three adoptees poured their creativity into the prompt:

“What is the one thing you want to tell parents starting the adoption process, and how would this advice have impacted your adoption journey?”

This topic was chosen by adoptee professionals who work on Holt’s post-adoption services team. They chose this prompt as a way to offer adoptees creative freedom in a safe environment to tell their story and describe their adoption journey.

Jayden Waggoner’s artwork beautifully illustrated the complexity of adoption, while Rosy Tate and Shaelynn Pelusio’s personal essays explored the topic with honesty and depth. Each of these three adoptees displayed incredible vulnerability with their submissions, and we are so grateful to them for sharing their stories!

The winners will each receive $700 to put toward their further education.

Congratulations, winners, and thank you to each and every incredible adoptee who participated!

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

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Through a streaky windshield and teary eyes, I waved goodbye to my friends one by one as they drove out of the In-N-Out parking lot. Moments before, we reminisced on our favorite memories and shared our hopes and anxieties about the upcoming freshman year over burgers and animal-style fries (a quintessential California send-off for those who were headed out of state). The hangout seemed like any of our other countless, spontaneous In-N-Out runs all throughout high school, but deep down we knew this one was different. None of us wanted to admit out loud that what happened next  would completely change our friendship forever. 

So, I sat alone in my car, frozen in disbelief, unable to shift into reverse. Because I knew the moment I heard my ‘94 Camry engine rev, I would need to accept a grave reality: this was the last hangout before we all  left for college. It wasn’t until months later that I was finally able to name the uncomfy feeling that we all avoided that afternoon. I would come to know the feeling as grief, a gut-wrenching pain of being  forced to say goodbye to people I love.

And unlike Sam Smith, “I’m (not) too good at goodbyes”. In fact, I am awful at them and hate when people leave me. I attach too easily to people and allow them to get close to me. I readily open up even though I know it might hurt in the end. 

Saying goodbye can be hard for non-adopted people, but for some adoptees this process can be especially difficult.

Transitions in relationships can trigger feelings of abandonment stemming from the primal wound, a theory coined by Nancy Verrier, LMFT in the early 90s, to describe the life-long impacts of severing the tie between infant and biological mother. Through her research, she found the primal wound “manifests in a sense of loss (depression), basic mistrust (anxiety), emotional and/or behavioral problems and difficulties in relationship with significant others…affect[ing] the adoptee’s sense of self, self-esteem and self-worth throughout life.” Because of the primal wound, adoptees take huge risks when it comes to relationships (platonic, familial, or romantic) due to the fear of being abandoned again.

Even though the loss I experienced with my friends occurred as a result of a natural transition from high school to college, nevertheless it triggered my primal wound. At that point in my life, I felt like a jigsaw puzzle and all my friends were pieces that completed the “puzzle of Katelyn.” When Krista moved to Berkeley, I lost a corner piece. As Laura flew to Boston, suddenly I missed a straight edge. As each friend moved away, integral pieces of Katelyn left with them. I felt incredibly abandoned and asked myself, “who is Katelyn without her friends?” 

And the thought of making new friends in college triggered major insecurities around being cool, smart, and pretty enough to be deserving of great friendships. I was also skeptical to find friends I could trust with my secrets, who would understand me and where I came from. On my darkest days I wondered what the point was of making new friends if inevitably we would be saying goodbye four years later. 

A friendship goodbye is just one example of the many goodbyes adoptees will encounter in their lifetimes.

A death of a loved one, setting boundaries with a family member, a breakup with a significant other, or a favorite colleague leaving the workplace all have the potential to trigger adoption wounds. But the reality of life is transition and goodbyes are inevitable. It’s a fact that many people will enter and exit in the story of an adoptee’s life. And for me, this was a hard truth to cognitively accept despite experiencing this loss as part of my origin story. 

Because my body remembers the searing pain of abandonment to this day, I still grip tightly to my relationships in an effort to protect myself. Because my body remembers, I try to make meaning out of the fact I was separated from my birth family, and as a child the only reason I could come up with was that I was somehow unlovable, damaged, or broken. Because my body remembers, I often found myself trapped in unbalanced, one-sided relationships where I gave too much and belittled my own needs. Because my body remembers, I have internalized the lie that I need to perform in order to be loved.  

After years of self-exploration and therapy, I’ve found that most goodbyes are beyond my control. That in itself has freed me from my people-pleasing tendencies, feelings of shame, and the taxing burden of convincing people to stay in my life. I realized people will leave and it’s not always my fault. There’s nothing I can do to make them stay. The only thing in my control is how I react to and process the goodbye. 

Now, I have a more balanced perspective on the comings and goings of people in my life. I am still uncomfortable with goodbyes, but don’t take them as personally anymore. They still hurt just as much, but I have better coping strategies to work through the pain of feeling abandoned (see below). And as far as my high school friends go, thankfully with a little bit of effort and a lot of luck coordinating schedules, we still get together at least once a year to reminisce on our favorite memories. And in those moments, all of the pieces are put back together again in the puzzle of Katelyn. 

A special thanks to Sammie LaFramboise and other adopted friends who helped me put together these tips!

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