Beyond the papers: Korean adoptees and the search for truth
By Alessandra Bonanomi
ROME: A few days ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube video by Al Jazeera that told the story of Simon Hokwerda, a man born in 1966 who was adopted by a Dutch family at the age of four.
Simon, whose Korean name is Kim Kwon-si, is one of the biracial babies born to U.S. soldiers and Korean women. “In 1970, I was adopted to the Netherlands because I was a ‘hapa’ (multiracial Asian).
I had no chance of going to school, and the safety of our family wasn’t guaranteed by anyone in Korea,” Kim Kwon-si shared in an interview with Hankyoreh. His adoption story is a reflection of a broader trend in South Korea’s post-war history.
The reason why there were so many adoptions of Korean infants and toddlers is mainly due to poverty in Korea after the war. According to the Bank of Korea, in 1956, immediately after the Korean War, Korea’s nominal GDP was $1.4 billion, while the amount of aid was $330 million. In other words, Korea was a poor country that had to rely on international aid for more than 20 percent of its economy. As a result, many families who could not make a living had no choice but to adopt their children overseas.
In addition to large-scale adoptions, many workers were dispatched to West Germany or the Middle East, contributing to the national economy by sending a huge amount of money back to their home countries compared to Korea’s economic level at the time. These factors combined to lead Korea to achieve the development known as the “Miracle of the Han River.” About 70 years later, Korea’s estimated nominal GDP in 2024 is $1,760,947 million, ranking 14th in the world.
As time passed and Korean society achieved remarkable growth in the meantime, it was only natural that the generations adopted overseas would want to find their roots and identity. The Korean government and society are also considering national-level policies or private-level support for these people, and this remains a task that Korea as a country must solve.
Watching this video made me reflect on some of the interviews I conducted in 2018 for an article I was writing on the concept of identity. I had spoken with several Korean adoptees, and one conversation, in particular, stood out.
A Korean adoptee, who preferred to remain anonymous, told me that there were many doubts surrounding the stories given by adoption agencies to adoptees.
These agencies often said that children were orphans, abandoned by their parents, or that the parents had given their consent for adoption. But when some adoptees managed to reunite with their biological families, the truth often did not match what was written in the official documents.
Since then, stories like these have only increased in number. For example, on Instagram, the story of Yooree Kim, interviewed by AP News, went viral. Yooree Kim was adopted by a French family at the age of 11, along with her brother.
Years later, when she reunited with her biological mother, she discovered that her mother had left them in an orphanage temporarily, just to ensure they would be fed—a common practice at the time. When she returned to retrieve them, they were gone, having been sent abroad for adoption without her knowledge or consent.
More than 200,000 South Korean children have been adopted overseas since the 1950s, following World War II and the Korean War, according to authorities.
The vast majority of these children were sent to families in the United States, Europe, and Australia. Many of these adoptees, now adults, are seeking answers to fill the gaps in their personal histories and understand their identities.
They often begin their journeys of self-discovery with nothing more than vague adoption records, some of which were falsified or incomplete.
The stories of Korean adoptees share common threads: a desire to uncover the truth about their origins, a struggle with identity, and a need to reconcile their lives in the countries where they were raised with their roots in South Korea.
Many adoptees are now calling for greater transparency in adoption processes and for the South Korean government to provide more assistance in helping them reconnect with their biological families. In some cases, adoptees have returned to South Korea to live and work, drawn by a desire to reconnect with their cultural heritage.
Others have embarked on personal journeys to locate their birth parents, often encountering bureaucratic obstacles and incomplete records.
The least that can be done is to support these individuals in their quest for truth, rather than hinder their efforts. For many adoptees, the search for their past is not just about finding their biological parents—it is about reclaiming a part of themselves that was lost in the process of adoption.
As awareness grows about the complexities and challenges these individuals face, there is hope that future generations will be spared the pain of forced separations, and that those searching for answers will finally uncover the truth they deserve.
Journalist / Art Critic 
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