March 27, 2008, (englishnews@chosun.com ) Four adopted Korean children were killed by their adoptive father in the state of Iowa in the U.S. The children had been born to unwed mothers and were abandoned a week to three months after they were born. According to the local press in Iowa, the four adoptees, Ethan (10), Seth (7), Mira (5), and Eleanor (3), and their adoptive mother Sheryl Sueppel (42) were found dead in their two-story home in Iowa City at 6:30 a.m. on Monday. Authorities believe they died of blunt force trauma. The adoptive father Steven Sueppel (42) was found dead in a wrecked and burning Toyota minivan that had crashed into a concrete abutment in the median of a highway some 14 km east of town. The Sueppel family is seen in this handout family photo. Steven Sueppel, a former bank executive facing trial for embezzlement, beat to death his wife Sheryl and the couple's four adopted children in Iowa City, Iowa, before killing himself by ramming his car into a highway sign post, police said on Wednesday. /REUTERS Police on Tuesday said Sueppel killed himself after slaying his wife and children, and that it was Sueppel himself who made an emergency call directing officers to his home. Police believe Sueppel killed his family and himself because of the pressures of an impending trial for embezzlement and money laundering. Court records show that Sueppel was indicted last month on charges of stealing about US$560,000 from Hills Bank and Trust in Johnson County, where he was vice president and controller. His trial was scheduled for April 21 at the U.S. District Court in Iowa. The adoptions of the four children were arranged by Holt Children's Services. An official with Holt said the four children were born to different unmarried mothers. According to Holt, Ethan, Seth and Eleanor were abandoned by their mothers as soon as they were born. Carrying their one-week-old children, the three unwed mothers visited Holt and asked that their babies be adopted overseas. Mira was three months old when her birth mother visited Holt. "That means Mira's birth mother must have agonized for three months about whether she should raise Mira alone or abandon her for adoption," the Holt official said. The children were adopted by the Sueppels in different years -- Ethan in 1998, Seth in 1999, Mira in 2002, and Eleanor in 2005. Having adopted four children, Steven Sueppel was once called a "humanitarian" by the local press. His wife Sheryl taught at an elementary school until 2001. Holt Children's Services said, "Holt International Children's Services investigated and found that the Sueppels were a very good family when the children were adopted. They had no criminal records. Mr. Sueppel's parents and brothers had decent jobs." The Sueppels and their children attended a church service nearby their home on Easter evening. "The Sueppels were very dedicated to raising their children," said a shocked church official. "I can't believe that such a thing has happened."

Feb.22,2008 07:39 KST  Article Location: Click Here

A Korean-born woman who was abandoned at a market in Seoul when she was three and adopted by an American family has become a successful writer fluent in English, French and Swedish. The New York Times on Wednesday wrote about Kim Sunee's confessional memoir, "Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love and the Search for Home", in its Dining & Wine section. In the book, Sunee poetically describes foods from places she has traveled and lived in, including South Korea, Sweden, and France. The book is a record of Sunee's craving for food and love. Although she grew up in comfortable circumstances in New Orleans since she was adopted in 1973, she could never erase from her mind the physical and emotional hungers of her childhood. As a promising poet in the early 1990s, she met and fell in love with a French businessman 17 years her senior, Olivier Baussan, the founder of L'Occitane, the line of natural soaps and cosmetics. Sunee moved into Baussan's Provencal farmhouse in France, where she appeased her hungers with local gourmet foods. But the food and surroundings weren't enough to help her find her identity. Five years after moving to France, she left Baussan and returned home. She later met a bartender named Roger and grew to love him while cooking together. Sunee now can talk about her life with serenity. As the newspaper wrote, "she has come to believe that abandoning a child can be an act of love: 'I survived. More than survived.'" (englishnews@chosun.com )

The experience of being adopted creates unique life cycle issues that have been the subject of recent study. According to the psychodynamic literature, the factor that has the greatest influence on an adoptee's life cycle is the early loss of a primary object. This loss frequently affects an adoptee's ability to form attachments and develop a coherent adult identity.

Read More: http://www.luc.edu

October 23, 2007

"G.O.A.'L is running a nationwide campaign in order to raise awareness in regards to birthparents search. During the campaign we will visit three major cities with our information booth. Many volunteers will help with distributing information material and explaining the cause of our campaign to the visitors. We will also distribute our 2007 Search Brochure where we printed short infos about 160 adoptees. The brochure is all in Korean because we target with that the birthparents. We also distributed already this brochure to the media, to the national assembly and to all major district offices."

More information found at the G'OAL website.

One day at Fresno City College, English major Melissa Geston overheard an African-American student utter the n-word.

Geston -- who is not black -- said it made her feel sad, and then she wrote a poem about the incident for her poetry class at City College. The 20-year-old Fresnan began:

Why do you use that word? The word that forced herds of people onto ships. That disbanded villages, homes. That raped women and made men feel like boys.

Poetry seems a rarefied subject for study at City College, where more than 3,000 students are taking remedial classes in English this semester. But a small band of skilled writers is learning to compose poems under an instructor whose first book of poetry was published this summer and is beginning to attract national attention.

Lee Herrick -- a Korean adoptee who writes about being left on the steps of a church as a baby -- is scheduled to read poems from his book in the Bay Area, Minneapolis and El Paso beginning in October.

If Herrick continues to be recognized for his book, "This Many Miles from Desire," he could one day join a celebrated group of poets with Valley roots.

Former Fresno State English professor Philip Levine won the Pulitizer Prize for poetry in 1995, while renowned poet and author Gary Soto is a Fresno native who attended City College in the early 1970s. More recently, Brian Turner -- who wrote poems about serving as a soldier in the Iraq war -- taught composition for a short time at City College.

Herrick said he has found no Gary Soto-like student in his classes so far. "But there have been some great ones," he said, "and they're early in their writing."

He teaches them both traditional poetry and a poetic form that their grandmothers might not recognize.

Until the 1920s, most poetry conformed to a rhyming, metered form that addressed themes of nature, romance and the ethereal. But early in the 20th century, free-verse poems that dealt with the poet's ordinary, daily experiences began to emerge. That's the style many of the City College students seem to like best.

When the words come, some poetry students write on whatever is handy. A napkin. A hand. An arm. "It's like translating emotions on paper," said one of Herrick's students, Adolph Vizcarra, 18, of Sanger, who has scribbled on all three surfaces.

There's something almost spiritual about producing a poem, Herrick said: "I've begun to think the poems call me out, as opposed to me being in charge of the words."

City College is offering three poetry writing classes this year; Herrick and fellow English instructor James Ewing are teaching the courses this semester.

The classes attract about 75 students annually and help define the college as a place of ideas, not just degrees and programs, said a division dean at City College.

"This is part of offering a variety of classes -- not just bread-and-butter classes, but classes that enhance and distinguish the arts in our community," said Michael Roberts, dean of humanities, who has a master's of fine arts degree in poetry.

Other Valley colleges -- including California State University, Fresno, Reedley College and College of the Sequoias in Visalia -- also offer writing classes for students interested in poetry.

Dealing with difficult situations gives poets stories to tell, said David Campos, one of Herrick's students. "You have to have something to say," the 22-year-old from Clovis said.

Herrick agrees.

"Poetry is sometimes about high-tea and English Victorian culture, and appropriately so, but mostly it's about grit and work and aspirations and sweat and love -- and these things are very much a part of the Central Valley," he said.

Sing Tao Daily, News Feature, Xiaoqing Rong, translated by Eugenia Chien, Posted: Aug 27, 2007

Editor’s Note: Advocate Pauline Park, an Asian transgender woman who was adopted by a Caucasian couple, says she has finally found a sense of belonging.

The famous Chinese movie star Chen Xiao Ching once said, “It’s hard being a person, harder being a woman, and even harder being a famous woman.” What about being a transgender woman? Pauline Park, the chair of the New York Association for Gender Rights Advocacy, understands best the weight of this question.

Whenever someone asks Park where she is from, Park never knows how to answer. Park and her brother were adopted by a Caucasian couple from a Korean orphanage when Park was only eight months old. Growing up in a small town in Wisconsin, Park and his brother were the only non-white residents. When he was in elementary school, teachers and parents looked at Park and his brother curiously and asked, “Whose children are these?”

“Ever since I was a kid, I never knew where I belonged. I was born in Korea but I have never been there. I grew up in America but people call me Chinese or Japanese,” Park says.

Even more confusing for her was her sexuality. “When I was little, I felt that I was a girl. I was just a girl’s soul in a boy’s body,” she says. In 1978, Park and her brother left home to attend college in Madison, Wis. Madison had a more active gay and lesbian community, and the university had a center for gay and lesbian students. This was where Park and her brother came out as openly gay.

Park’s adoptive father passed away when she was 12. Not wanting to upset her adoptive mother, a devout Christian, Park hid her sexuality from her even after she came out of the closet. Even when a male admirer came to her house and roused suspicion from her mother, she still did not admit to being gay.

In 1981, Park left for the London School of Economics and fell madly in love with the first man she has ever lived with. She began dressing and living as a woman. Three years later, when Park graduated and returned to America to work in Chicago, her boyfriend traveled from London to see her. After her boyfriend left, Park’s adoptive mother finally openly talked about her son’s sexuality.

“She said to me, she knows that this man was my boyfriend. She didn’t use the term ‘gay,’ but she was subtly expressing to me that she can accept this,” Park says.

Her mother’s understanding had touched her deeply, but what Park didn’t know was that it would be the last time they would see each other. Three days later Park received a phone call from home, informing her that her mother had died from a heart attack. Although she does not think that her mother’s death had any relation to acknowledging her son’s sexuality, Park says, “Obviously, that was the last challenge of her life.”

After her mother died, Park felt more and more that the homosexual identity did not fully represent how she felt. She began to completely abandon the lifestyle of a man and formally lived a woman. But because Park did not undergo surgery or hormone therapy to completely change her physical appearance, new challenges began to surface.

In 2004, Park was at a restaurant with friends and was surrounded by security guards after she went to the ladies’ room. Park sued the security company. A year later, New York City amended an anti-discrimination ordinance to include gender identity, and whether it is different than a person’s biological sex. Based on the new law, the security company settled with Park, marking a milestone in the rights of the transgender community in New York.

Today, Park lives in New York City, where she has been for the last ten years. She is an advocate for the transgender community and established Iban/Queer Koreans of New York, the first organization for Korean-American gays and lesbians. In this diverse city, she finally has found the sense of belonging that she has been looking for. In her home in Queens, she plays Chopin and Bach on her piano, melodies that remind her of her home in Wisconsin where she would play the piano for her mother and grandmother.

“In music, all sense of confusion and fear disappears. I feel that the me in the past and the me now have finally united as one, becoming the real me.”

Attachment 101, a Primer for Parents (and Suggested Readings)

by : Heidi Holman (hhholman@mindspring.com)

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An interesting article found on the Bay Area Adoption Services (BAAS) website...

Countries with children available for U.S. parents can change dramatically

When Chicago lawyer Catherine Nelson adopted her daughter, Grace, from an orphanage in Vietnam, she considered herself very lucky. Nelson was single, and many countries refuse to allow single parents to adopt.

Six years later, Nelson realizes that she was lucky in another way. In the 2001 fiscal year, Vietnam granted 737 adoption visas for children heading to new homes in the United States, and Nelson's waiting time was a modest nine months. By 2006, that number had dropped to 163.

Six years later, Nelson realizes that she was lucky in another way. In the 2001 fiscal year, Vietnam granted 737 adoption visas for children heading to new homes in the United States, and Nelson's waiting time was a modest nine months. By 2006, that number had dropped to 163.

"Vietnam is still open but bumpy," says Judy Stigger, director of international adoption at the Evanston-based agency the Cradle. "It's become much more locally regulated in the various regions of the country, and it's much more unpredictable."

"Vietnam is still open but bumpy," says Judy Stigger, director of international adoption at the Evanston-based agency the Cradle. "It's become much more locally regulated in the various regions of the country, and it's much more unpredictable."

The situation in Vietnam is typical of the shifting international adoption landscape, in which local conditions in various countries -- including their economies, bureaucracies, rates of domestic adoptions and ever-rising standards for prospective parents in the United States -- are in constant flux.

China still is the favorite adoption destination for American families (including those from Chicago, which Stigger says closely mirrors national trends), but it's getting more restrictive and the waiting lists are longer.

Russia has been the perennial runner-up, but the number of children it sends to the United States for adoption is dropping. Guatemala passed Russia for the second spot on the foreign adoptions list, but it may abruptly fall off the list if it fails to comply with the terms of an international treaty by next spring.

Filling out the top 10 foreign adoption destinations -- for now -- are South Korea, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Liberia, Colombia and India. But the composition and order of that list are likely to change, perhaps drastically, over the next few years.

"It's just not a stable field -- in fact it's pretty rocky -- because of political situations overseas," says Deborah McFadden, president of the International Children's Alliance, a Maryland-based adoption agency with offices in several states, including Illinois. "China has been the top sending country for years, but it has now established so many new rules for prospective parents that the numbers of adoptions are inevitably going to drop."

China now requires adoptive parents from other countries to be married, for example, and to have a body mass index within a certain range. Too many divorces make you ineligible to adopt; so do being too old, having a disability or being on anti-depressants.

According to Stigger, South Korea has signaled its intention to decrease foreign adoptions, in part because of rising prosperity and domestic adoptions there. In addition, several former Communist nations in Eastern Europe that sent thousands of orphaned children to the United States in the early 1990s, such as Romania and Bulgaria, have all but dried up as adoption destinations as political and economic conditions there have stabilized.

Because of similar factors across the globe, in fact, McFadden expects foreign adoptions by Americans to drop 30 percent next year.

But while American adoptions from several countries are decreasing, adoptions from Africa are on the rise. Ethiopia, for example, sent 158 adoptees to the United States in 2001; by 2006, that number was 732.

"The interest in Africa is a relatively new thing, and I think it's been partly a response to the movie-star buzz that adoption there has been getting," Stigger says, a reference to the much-publicized adoptions of African children by Madonna and Angelina Jolie.

In addition, she says, there are signs that more American families are willing to adopt children of races and ethnicities other than their own. "As the white mom of African-American kids," Stigger adds, "I think that's fabulous."

That was certainly the case with Nelson, who tells friends that she adopted in Vietnam "because that's where my daughter was."

It was also the case with Molly and Todd Krause of Northbrook, who adopted two young children from South Korea early this decade.

"At the time, Korea was moving the process along pretty quickly," recalls Todd Krause, an accountant. "It was a nine-month process both times, almost like a natural pregnancy."

Since then, the number of children adopted from South Korea by Americans has fallen from almost 1,800 to 1,376 and is likely to go lower with every passing year. Like Nelson, the Krauses were luckier than they knew.

THE FIRST YEARS

For a month, the Sun-Times is featuring everything Chicagoans want to know about babies, from delivering and naming them to paying for them on a budget or in high style.