The Paradoxical Development of Liberal Governance: International Adoption Policy and Professional Social Work in Authoritarian South Korea, 1953–1976
Abstract
This article explores the development of international adoption policy in post-liberation South Korea, emphasizing the roles of American and Korean professional social workers. By analyzing the orphan registry and a pivotal international adoption law, it reveals how international adoption in South Korea presents a unique opportunity to observe the formation of modern social policy in a newly liberated nation during the Cold War. The study argues that adoption policy served as a crucial locus of transnational governance, where American and Korean social workers pursued their liberal ideals of professional social work within the context of the authoritarian policies of the South Korean state. However, their quest for scientific professionalism, standardized procedures, and public oversight led to a paradoxical evolution of adoption policy, diverging sharply from the trajectory seen in Western liberal democracies where social work significantly contributed to the consolidation and expansion of the welfare state. In South Korea, embedded transnationality and ideological mismatch resulted in the state’s further withdrawal and the creation of policy workarounds that undermined the core social work principle of the child’s best interests. This case highlights the complexities and blurred moral boundaries in the shaping of modern governance and the broader journey toward modernity under postcolonial, Cold War conditions.
Issue Section:Article
“Everything began with the registry when a child was taken in for international adoption,” recounted Kim Kwang-su, a retired social worker in his eighties, as we sat in a café in central Seoul in 2017.1 He shared his experiences of handling adoption paperwork in 1970s South Korea, after I inquired about the typical adoption procedures of that time.2 In South Korea, the family registry (hojŏk) served as the foundational document for identification and citizenship until its abolition in 2008.3 This system, however, was not originally developed by Koreans. At the turn of the twentieth century, amidst imperial competition and expansion, the Korean peninsula fell under Japanese colonial rule, and the Japanese introduced the family registry system in 1909 in an early effort to make the Korean population legible to the colonial state. Unlike birth certificates or other typical forms of identity in Western societies that assign legal status to individuals, the family registry system conferred this status on the family as a unit. In particular, emphasizing the patrilineal principle, it required all individuals to be registered under the name of the family’s male head either as his spouse or child. Through their inclusion in this patrilineal system, individuals obtained official identification. When Korea was liberated in 1945 and two separate governments were subsequently established in the North and South during the intensifying Cold War divide, the South Korean government chose to retain the official role of the family registry.4
For children placed in overseas adoptions, however, a special variant known as the “orphan registry (koa hojŏk)” was used.5 Unlike the family registry where a child is listed under the father’s household, the orphan registry designated the child as the head of a single-person household, leaving blank all familial information such as details about the parents (see Figure 1). Social worker Kim elaborated that this registry was one of the first documents used to facilitate international adoption. Containing minimal information about the child, usually just an assumed date of birth and a name assigned by social workers, and seen as inconsequential, necessary paperwork, this document has long been overlooked outside the adoption profession.
Figure 1.
The Orphan Registry (Original Korean document and English translation by the author.).
Note: The orphan registry of Thomas Hartmann, interview by author, March 11, 2018.
This article takes the orphan registry as a starting point for its inquiry to argue that this document is far from a mere bureaucratic formality. Rather, the registry serves as a gateway to understanding the emergence of international adoption as a contentious site of transnational governance in South Korea. The study explores how professional social workers from both the United States and South Korea endeavored to realize their liberal ideals and vied with the South Korean authoritarian state in crafting modern social policy during a pivotal phase of the nation’s modernization. Furthermore, the orphan registry provides a contextual anchor for this discussion, positioning it within the broader scholarly discourse on transnational adoption and the history of social policy.
Recent scholarship on transnational adoption offers a critical reassessment of the long-standing perception that cross-border adoption is inherently benevolent, benefiting both childless couples and children in need of homes and overcoming national and racial boundaries. The critical viewpoint gained prominence at the turn of the twenty-first century, propelled by scholars and activists who scrutinized the political economy underpinning adoption practices.6 Highlighting the lopsided nature of the movement of children from impoverished homes in developing countries to predominantly middle-class, white families in the West, they contend that transnational adoption is far from an apolitical act. Instead, it is a form of structural violence intricately woven into and reinforcing global power disparities that create unequal rights and opportunities in reproduction and parenthood.
South Korea has been central in this scholarly debate because it is the home of the world’s most extensive and enduring international adoption program. This program, which has placed an estimated 200,000 children in North America, Europe, and Australia, began at the end of the Korean War (1950–1953) and is inextricably tied to South Korea’s development as a modern nation-state.7 After liberation, the peninsula was divided into two occupation zones by the Soviet Union in the North and the United States in the South. U.S. soldiers withdrew when a new government was formed in the South in 1948, but the outbreak of the Korean War and subsequent armistice turned South Korea into the frontline of the Cold War, hosting the largest U.S. military overseas contingent. Against this backdrop, international adoption was initiated as an emergency response to the plight of mixed-race children born to Korean women and fathered by U.S. or UN soldiers who participated in the war. The first president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, fervently promoted nationalism based on ethnic homogeneity to claim legitimacy over the peninsula against the North. Children of mixed parentage were considered out of place, and placing them with American families was seen as the only viable option.8 Even after the perceived immediate need to relocate mixed-race children was addressed, however, international adoption did not cease. From the mid-1960s, the practice shifted to predominantly children of full-Korean parentage who were found abandoned or later relinquished by unwed mothers. This change coincided with a rapid increase in the number of children placed internationally, extending to Europe. While around 3,000 children were sent overseas in the 1950s, this number grew to 6,000 in the 1960s and surged to 46,000 in the 1970s, reaching a peak of over 66,000 in the 1980s. Remarkably, South Korean international adoption expanded alongside the country’s rapid economic growth, often euphemistically referred to as the “Miracle on the Han River.”
This South Korean trajectory has provided a crucial case study for scholars critically examining transnational adoption. Focusing on the fact that adoption surged under the country’s military rule that mobilized the entire nation for economic growth, scholars argue that authoritarian regimes leveraged cross-border adoption as a strategy to address the supposed issue of overpopulation while simultaneously generating much needed foreign currency for their developmental goals.9 In this context, the orphan registry emerged as a key document, epitomizing the illiberal social policies of South Korea’s authoritarian rule. Observing that this registry was frequently used even for children with identifiable living parents, scholars suggest that it effectively erased these children’s past histories and transformed them into standardized commodities for Western families. Consequently, the registry stands as a stark representation of authoritarianism and state violence against children.10
While fully acknowledging the commodifying logic within international adoption and the significant human rights issues for adoptees associated with the use of the orphan registry, this article contends that the prevailing narrative risks oversimplifying the complex transnational formation of South Korean international adoption. This phenomenon was shaped not just by state actors but also by a diverse array of non-state actors from South Korea and beyond, each with varying and sometimes conflicting interests. Current discussions often conflate these multifaceted influences under the broad category of the authoritarian state which is portrayed as acting unilaterally in the realm of adoption at the expense of children’s rights.11 Complicating this narrative, this essay demonstrates that there were little-discussed but indispensable players in shaping adoption policy in South Korea: American and Korean social workers, who were influenced by liberal ideals and principles of professional social work.
Professional social work as a distinct field originated largely in the United States, particularly from the 1890s through the Progressive Era and into the first half of the twentieth century, with the establishment of formal social work education programs. During this period, American social workers increasingly viewed existing social services and practices as highly problematic due to their reliance on sentiment, motherly instinct, and arbitrary decisions mostly delivered by religious actors. Their efforts to professionalize the field were threefold: they aimed to draw on burgeoning knowledge of human behavior from social sciences such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology to guide their practices; to introduce standardized rules and procedures for providing social services; and to expand public authority and oversight in the care of individuals. When it came to children, the ultimate objective of this professionalization was to provide robust safeguards to foster growth, individuality, and independence often described as “the best interests of the child.”12 I call this vision of social work, which emphasized science, expertise, and formal policy to enhance the rights of children, “professional liberalism.” This ideal began to spread internationally, especially after the Second World War, as the United States sought to reconstruct the war-torn world in competition with the Soviet Union. American social workers traveled extensively from West Germany and Japan to newly liberated nations like South Korea and South Vietnam, spreading their ideas and fostering local leadership.13
Revisiting the example of the orphan registry, during the 1950s, American professional social workers in South Korea began using this document to arrange the overseas placement of mixed-race children. As their fathers were mostly American and UN soldiers, these children were not listed in South Korean family registries, stripping them of any legal protection and rights.14 Over time, Korean social work professionals, educated in U.S.-style social work, expanded the use of the orphan registry to include all children being placed overseas regardless of whether they had Korean fathers or had been previously registered under their natal families.15 This broader application was part of efforts to both implement the social work principles and streamline the adoption process. In many Western societies receiving Korean children, liberal conceptions of the family and the child’s best interests often presumed one set of parents for the child and necessitated severing the child’s ties with their birth family to establish an exclusive relationship with the adoptive family and provide full legal protection for the adopted child. On the other hand, in South Korea, the family registry system endowed an individual’s identity through the patrilineal family. A child registered under their birth father’s name was considered to have an enduring blood relationship not easily dissolved by administrative or legal measures. To resolve this conflict and realize the notion of the “freestanding” child—one devoid of a past life and family ties, ready for a new beginning—social workers utilized the orphan registry. This approach also significantly simplified and standardized the bureaucratic process of international adoption.16 Thus, the orphan registry served as a key mechanism mediating international adoption as a practice that interpreted and implemented liberal conceptions of identity, kinship, and rights.
This study builds on historical research that analyzes the relationship between social work and social policy. Examining the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries in the United States, historians have shown that emerging social work professionals strove to replace the work of evangelicals and philanthropists in influencing public policy on children and women.17 In particular, scholars like Ellen Herman and Julie Berebitsky have noted how adoption constituted a critical site of this endeavor. Professional social workers aimed to change the existing perception of child placement from something that could be arranged privately by non-professionals like midwives and baby farmers to a highly complex process, requiring thorough expert investigation of all parties involved, post-placement studies, and legal procedures to protect children’s rights.18 Extending from this research, historians have broadened their exploration to include international adoption. Karen Balcom’s work on Canadian-U.S. adoptions, for instance, highlights the challenges that cross-border adoptions posed to the longstanding efforts of social workers to reform domestic adoption and child welfare policies, often leading to legal loopholes.19 Balcom illustrates the ways in which Canadian and American social workers collaborated, utilizing international adoption to advance their professional agendas within their respective countries.20 While these studies recognize that the modernization of social policy by social workers was far from a straightforward, linear process, they largely concur that these efforts narrowed gaps in child safeguarding, heightened the role of expertise in child protection, and bolstered state oversight in child welfare. In other words, the liberal ideals of professional social workers were instrumental in the broader governance trend observed in Western liberal democracies during much of the twentieth century—the expansion and consolidation of the welfare state.
Contributing to this discussion, this article presents international adoption policy as a key locus for examining liberal governance, where notions of scientific professionalism, standardized procedures, and public authority were articulated through child placement. Focusing on South Korea—a non-Western, postcolonial nation that became a major child-sending society—this study highlights novel dynamics that diverge from the existing literature concentrated on North American contexts. These distinctions primarily arise from two key elements that influenced the formation of social policy in the country. The first is the transnational nature of policymaking in South Korea. Unlike North America, where policy development and modernization were largely driven by national efforts and domestic interests, even in the realm of international adoption, South Korea’s trajectory was markedly transnational. Established as a new nation in 1948 after 35 years of colonial rule, South Korea had limited experience of and resources for formulating modern social policies. Filling this gap were American professional social workers who arrived as the United States’ influence on the peninsula increased. Although power imbalances and the influence of American social work were evident in Canadian-U.S. adoptions, the hierarchical relationship between the United States and South Korea, often characterized as neocolonial, was unparalleled. It was not until the mid-1960s that Korean professional social workers began to assert themselves in the field, but their practices were also significantly shaped by the U.S.-style liberal model of social work.
The other critical factor is the broader political sphere within which professional social workers operated. In North America, social workers functioned within liberal democracies whereas South Korea was under authoritarian rule for much of its initial four decades. The first administration of Syngman Rhee was overthrown by student demonstrations in 1960 due to widespread dissatisfaction with its illiberal governance and failure to effect change. The subsequent democratic experiment was short-lived, as the military, led by Park Chung Hee, believing themselves to be the most capable group to lead the nation’s modernization, staged a coup on May 16, 1961 and maintained power until 1979. Anchored by the core goal of building a strong anti-communist nation, the Park regime prioritized the development of South Korea’s military and economic strength, monopolizing power within the government.21 In the realm of social policy, this approach manifested in public declarations of central authority and a professed concern for the population’s wellbeing. In practice, however, the regime’s ultimate objective was not to expand its citizens’ social rights but to strategically limit state involvement and responsibility for their care in order to concentrate on economic growth. I refer to this policy approach as “developmental authoritarianism.”22 This approach created a fundamental tension between the ideals of social workers and the goals of the state. This article argues that the evolution of adoption policy in South Korea was, in fact, driven by the interplay between these conflicting visions: the professional liberalism of social workers and the developmental authoritarianism of the South Korean state. It is crucial to note that, unlike many Western societies where social workers were typically viewed as state actors working within and funded by the state, post-liberation South Korea saw the emergence of a relatively distinct boundary between social workers and the state that was shaped by these divergent visions and the state’s reluctance to invest in social services.23
To delve into the articulation of liberal governance within an illiberal regime, this article focuses on the Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans (koa ibyang t’ŭngnyebŏp), enacted in 1961. As one of the earliest pieces of legislation concerning child welfare in South Korea, predating the Child Welfare Act, this law was the key policy document governing the overseas placement of Korean children until its repeal in 1976. The enactment, implementation, and subsequent revision of this law vividly illustrate the dynamic relationship between social policy and social workers, challenging the prevalent perception of law, particularly during the authoritarian era, as the exclusive domain of the state. Additionally, recent critical reassessment of transnational adoption has highlighted the citizenship issues of transnational adoptees, particularly those adopted from South Korea to the United States but never naturalized, resulting in several deportations.24 Examining South Korean adoption law also helps us historicize these contemporary repercussions of the transnational development of social policy.
A close examination of this process challenges the conventional expectation that the liberal vision of social workers inherently holds moral superiority over the authoritarian vision of the state. Due to the aforementioned key factors—the transnational power disparity and the coexistence of conflicting visions—we observe a highly paradoxical development. American social workers’ belief in the universal applicability of liberal ideals often overlooked local contexts and meanings, thereby significantly undermining the sovereignty and needs of the newly liberated nation. In contrast, the authoritarian state’s pursuit of self-determination and authority frequently clashed with the protection of children’s rights. Meanwhile, Korean social workers found themselves caught between a powerful liberal ideology emanating from the United States and material and political constraints on the ground. The outcomes of implementing liberal governance fell far short of increasing professionalism, closing legal loopholes, or enhancing public oversight; instead, the state’s further withdrawal from international adoption and the creation of policy workarounds challenged the very core social work principle of prioritizing the child’s best interests. This deeply uneven and contradictory policy development process in South Korea underscores the complexities and blurred moral boundaries involved in crafting modern social policy and, more broadly, the challenges of navigating the journey toward modernity under postcolonial and Cold War conditions.
This analysis draws on archival records from South Korea, the United States, and Sweden, as well as oral history interviews with social workers and adoptees. I begin by examining a specific adoption case in Sweden which serves as an introduction to the Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans. The inclusion of the Swedish case underscores the transnational nature of South Korean social policy formation, illustrating the far-reaching implications of U.S.-South Korean interactions. Additionally, this invites a critical reconsideration of the concept of the West, challenging the tendency to oversimplify “the West” as merely the United States or to homogenize diverse experiences under a universal label. The article continues by exploring the implementation and revisions of the law from the perspectives of American social workers, the South Korean state, and Korean social workers. In conclusion, the study revisits the orphan registry to discuss the implications of South Korea’s experience of social policy and modern governance.
THE CASE OF THREE SISTERS
On March 17, 1970, the Tonga Ilbo, a major South Korean daily newspaper, reported on the adoption of three sisters to Sweden 2 years earlier and criticized the Child Placement Service, the Korean adoption agency responsible for the placements.25 In the winter of 1967, the sisters, aged one, three, and five, were admitted to the Seoul City Baby Hospital, the official reception center in Seoul for children who were considered abandoned and awaiting permanent care arrangements.26 Their admission was prompted by a landlady’s report to the police regarding the parents’ disappearance. The parents, who once owned a small restaurant, were struggling with bankruptcy and relentless harassment from creditors. Following a violent encounter with these creditors, they disappeared, leaving their children with the landlady. Realizing the parents were not returning, the landlady alerted the authorities. Subsequently, the sisters were taken to the reception center where an adoption agency worker moved them for placements in Sweden.
Two years later, the parents appeared at the adoption agency, claiming they had never intended to leave their daughters permanently. The dispute was not over the children’s admission to the reception center or their discharge by the adoption agency; rather, it focused on the agency’s handling of the adoption process. The birth parents argued that the agency did not adhere to South Korea’s intercountry adoption law, which they believed might have allowed them to reclaim their children before their departure to Sweden.27 Before proceeding, it is important to note that the parents’ narrative, shared during their reunion with one of the sisters I interviewed, differs in several ways from the media’s account. I have reconstructed the story using newspaper articles from 1970, as the parents’ version could not be verified directly, and the media coverage of the time, primarily instigated by the parents, was sympathetic to their situation.28
Although international adoption in South Korea began at the end of the Korean War, there was no specific law governing this practice throughout the 1950s. The Rhee administration drafted the country’s first legislation on overseas adoption, but, due to the regime’s instability, the draft was never discussed at the National Assembly.29 Instead, a clause from the Chosŏn Relief Order, a remnant from Japanese colonial rule that permitted the care of a child to be entrusted to an individual family, served as a loose legal basis for overseas placements.30 The actual adoption and emigration procedures were primarily determined by private intermediaries who facilitated these adoptions on the ground. This legal void was eventually filled when the military government of Park Chung Hee, after the 1961 coup, enacted the Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans (ELAO) as part of widespread legislative efforts to legitimize its rise to power and demonstrate its commitment to social order.31 The ELAO was South Korea’s first modern adoption law, specifying the legal procedures for placing Korean children with foreign nationals.
Under the ELAO (Figure 2), adoption procedures typically began with the appointment of guardianship. When an agency took in a child for adoption from their parents, an orphanage, or a reception center, it applied to the local district office (Gu-office) to become the child’s guardian.32 Concurrently, an agency worker prepared a child study and medical report, which were then forwarded to a partner agency in the adoptive country. After a child was matched with and accepted by prospective adoptive parents, the Korean adoption agency sought adoption approval from district courts by submitting studies on both the child and the adoptive family. If it was established that the child had no known family in South Korea, the court would publicize information about the child in the form of an advertisement twice over the course of 15–20 days. Completing the court process, the agency then liaised with two further authorities: the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs for the child’s emigration permit and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a passport. The final step involved securing a visa from the embassy of the receiving country. These steps were not meant to be arbitrarily skipped or switched, as each step required completion before proceeding to the next. For instance, the court would not grant adoption approval without proof of agency guardianship, and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs’ emigration permit was a prerequisite for a passport.
Figure 2.
Typical International Adoption Paperwork Procedures under the Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans, 1961–1976.
In the case of these three sisters, the parents highlighted several procedural discrepancies. They criticized the adoption agency for creating orphan registries for their daughters, effectively labeling them “orphans,” despite the fact that they were registered under their father’s name.33 Their primary contention centered on the agency bypassing the legally mandated court process, choosing instead to arrange the travel documents directly. The parents argued that by omitting this vital court step, their children were deprived of the chance to be publicly advertised, which, in their view, rendered the adoptions legally invalid.34 This case may appear to be a glaring example of a corrupt adoption system wherein agency workers prioritized facilitating adoptions of children to wealthy countries with scant regard for their welfare. However, the subsequent sections show how bypassing the court process, in fact, involved intricate negotiations and interpretations over the liberal notion of the child’s best interests, starting with an examination of the United States in the 1950s.
PROFESSIONAL SOCIAL WORK AND PROXY BATTLES IN THE UNITED STATES
By the time the ELAO was instituted in 1961, the adoption of children from South Korea to the United States had been underway for almost a decade. On the U.S. side, American professional social workers had been involved in intense debates over the involvement of South Korean courts in these adoptions. Commonly referred to as “proxy battles,” these debates illustrate how professional social workers endeavored to influence international adoption policy in the United States to protect and reinforce their vision of professional liberalism. These deliberations would later significantly inform policy development in South Korea.35
During the 1950s, the main intermediaries for international adoptions between the two nations were American, Christian missionary and humanitarian organizations. With the Korean peninsula’s growing geopolitical significance, organizations like World Vision and the Christian Children’s Fund dispatched workers to South Korea to aid in the nation’s reconstruction and to bolster the United States’ image as a benevolent global leader. These workers felt a special responsibility for the plight of mixed-race children due to their presumed American paternity.36 This article identifies these individuals as humanitarians, primarily motivated by religious teachings and empathy and often without formal training in social work. Prominent among them was Harry Holt, an evangelical farmer from Oregon who became a central figure in international adoption. Deeply impacted by a World Vision documentary about Korean mixed-race children, he felt a profound sense of guilt and a calling to “save” these children. His 1955 trip to South Korea to adopt eight children and the foundation of the Holt Adoption Program thereafter have been extensively chronicled in both popular and academic discourse.37 A central and contentious issue among American professional social workers was the use of proxy adoption by humanitarians like Harry Holt. Proxy adoption allowed Americans to adopt Korean children remotely by granting power of attorney to entities like the Holt Adoption Program in South Korea which would then seek approval from local courts on behalf of the prospective parents.38 Since U.S. law recognized adoptions formalized in foreign courts, these children then could legally enter the United States as the full legal offspring of U.S. citizens.39
To understand this controversy, it is essential to revisit the professionalization of adoption in the United States. As mentioned in the introduction, during the first half of the twentieth century, domestic adoption became a key area for professional social workers. Drawing on new insights into child development and psychology that emphasized the need for emotional bonds and individual attention, social workers argued that forming familial relationships between unrelated adults and children required professional and public intervention rather than being an individual, casual matter. Over the decades, they implemented and standardized measures like child-parent matching techniques, post-placement supervision, and court finalization of adoptions. They believed that the child’s best interests could be protected, not through good intentions alone, but through scientific methods and formal policies.40
The emergence of large-scale international adoption from South Korea in the 1950s, however, brought back to prominence independent actors, such as Harry Holt, who were seen as significantly undermining social workers’ efforts. Leading the critique was the International Social Service—American Branch (ISS), a professional social work agency specializing in cross-border family issues which was invited to South Korea to address the issue of mixed-race children by U.S. officials.41 For ISS workers, the proxy method significantly sidestepped several hard-fought professional adoption procedures. Because these adoptions were finalized in foreign courts, often even before the prospective parents and child had met, neither party was subject to the comprehensive pre-adoption examinations required for domestic adoptions by social work professionals.42 Furthermore, they expressed deep concern that once adoptions were completed abroad, the adoptive parents would assume full custody of the child upon their arrival in the United States. They argued that this process not only negated the necessity of follow-up studies by professionals but also significantly restricted their and the state’s ability to intervene should issues arise.43 In essence, social workers contended that proxy adoption compromised the essential professional and public oversight of the adoption process.
In response to these critiques, missionary and humanitarian organizations highlighted the dire circumstances faced by mixed-race children in South Korea who often endured ostracism, neglect, and abuse. Severe restrictions on Asian immigration in 1950s America and the limited timeframe of the Refugee Relief Act, which was used to facilitate these children’s immigration, further intensified the need for immediate action. With the Act’s expiration looming, Harry Holt and other humanitarians argued that proxy adoption was essential to circumvent the lengthy procedures required by professional social workers and to expedite children’s relocation.44 By leveraging dramatic imagery and testimonies about the conditions of these children (including evocative phrases like “dying like flies,” attributed to the renowned writer and humanitarian Pearl Buck), these advocates successfully generated a sense of urgency among the American public and policymakers.45
The public’s initial sympathy for humanitarian efforts did not deter ISS. Instead, they viewed this as a crucial opportunity to further expand and consolidate their work. Collaborating with state welfare departments, policymakers, and immigration officials across the United States, ISS focused on the notion of the child’s best interests, asserting that proxy adoption put children at great risk by omitting the critical safeguards established by experts. ISS social workers meticulously documented and traced cases linked to the proxy method where “good intentions” led to disastrous outcomes including problematic placements, failed adoptions, and child abuse.46 As more distressing cases were brought to light by the media and the initial rush to “rescue” these children subsided, political support and public opinion shifted to support the professional social workers.47
ISS’s efforts culminated in the enactment of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) in 1961 which recognized international adoption as a permanent category of immigration, reflecting a growing interest among U.S. citizens in adopting foreign children. Crucially, the INA barred proxy adoptions, refusing entry visas for children adopted by proxy. It prescribed two pathways for international adoption. First, it required both parents to meet the child, either before or during the foreign adoption proceedings, for the child to qualify for a visa. Alternatively, if travel was not feasible (as was often the case), the child could enter on a visa with the stipulation that the adoption be finalized in a U.S. state court. The court process in the United States necessitated professional social agencies’ assessment of the parents, the child, and the post-placement adjustment to finalize the adoption. Thus, the INA codified social workers’ belief in the necessity of professional approaches and public oversight in the protection of children’s rights.48
“THIS IS WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN CALLING ADOPTION HERE”
With the enactment of the INA on September 26, 1961, the efforts of American social workers seemed to have borne fruit. Four days after the U.S. Congress passed the INA, however, South Korea’s military government, led by Park Chung Hee, enacted the ELAO which, in effect, legalized proxy adoption. Among its eight articles, two specifically addressed proxy adoption. Article Six, “Proxy for Foreigners,” stated that “foreigners may have an institution prescribed by the decree perform part of the adoption procedures on their behalf.”49 Additionally, Article Four, “Court Approval,” mandated that all overseas adoptions be approved and completed in South Korean courts. Unbeknownst to lawmakers in both countries, they had each enacted legislation that directly contradicted the other. This contradiction was first discovered by Anne M. Davison, Director of the ISS-Korea Office, when her social workers encountered difficulties in securing travel documents for children in the process of being adopted to the United States.50 This section delves into how American social workers sought to extend their ideology in South Korea through their engagement with the authoritarian state and examines the resulting consequences.
ISS social workers were dismayed to discover that the court process granting proxy authority had become a legally mandated step in South Korea. They worried this policy might reintroduce loopholes into U.S. adoption policy, reverting to the conditions of the 1950s. They quickly initiated discussion with key South Korean authorities, ranging from the Social Ministry to the Foreign and Justice Ministries, to curtail the implementation of the court process and push for an amendment to the ELAO, “even before it started to work.”51 Their actions were driven not solely by their commitment to U.S. adoption policy but also by the internationalist mindset prevalent among American social workers at the time. As noted in the introduction, following World War II, a growing number of American social work professionals traveled to Europe and newly liberated nations. This practice was partly due to dwindling career opportunities within the United States but also because American social workers believed that the professional social work they had developed was the most advanced and suitable for effectively and scientifically reconstructing war-torn societies, spreading the liberal order across the world. It is therefore not surprising that while the initial mission of ISS workers in South Korea was confined to facilitating the adoption of mixed-race children to the United States, they soon found themselves engaging with broader local child welfare issues as experts. For example, as key members of the Child Welfare Committee during the Syngman Rhee regime, ISS workers played a significant role in drafting South Korea’s first Child Welfare Act which closely followed the principle of the child’s best interests.52 They also conducted several surveys on children in collaboration with Korean sociologists and psychologists to produce social scientific data and inform policy formation. Later, as the military government sought advice on policies for children after the coup, these professionals were among the first to be consulted and to initiate various pilot projects that integrated professional social work methods to address social problems such as child abandonment.53
Hence, upon reviewing the provisions of the ELAO, ISS social workers recognized a vital opportunity not only to protect the U.S. adoption system by aligning South Korean law with U.S. legislation but also to influence the broader direction of policy development in South Korea. Working with prominent Korean legal scholar Kim Chin, ISS conducted a comprehensive analysis of the current law, identifying significant flaws in almost every aspect.54 These ranged from arbitrary definitions of eligible children and guardians to the absence of regulations on confidentiality or trial periods which had become widely practiced in the United States by that time. ISS workers particularly emphasized the inclusion of the Korean court process as the most critical risk to child protection in cross-border placements. At its core, they concluded that the law failed to embody the principle of, “adoption for children, not just for parents.”55 The confidence in their involvement and the belief in the universal applicability of liberal social work is vividly captured in the words of ISS social worker Josephine Beard: “We certainly have an opportunity in the coming years to provide assistance and direction to … [South] Korea as they struggle to bring about new legislation …. This is a role we have performed here in the States …. I think our help and assistance would be welcomed and most beneficial.”56
In contrast to the assuredness of American professional social workers, the ELAO quickly became a source of embarrassment for the Park regime which had come to power only a few months earlier. More importantly, the prospect of removing the court process from the ELAO was far from straightforward. As outlined in the introduction, the Park regime’s approach to social policy was grounded in “developmental authoritarianism,” wherein the state asserted its authority over the care of its population while simultaneously aiming to limit its responsibilities, particularly financial ones, to prioritize economic and security concerns. Thus, the regime had no real intention of displacing the work of American and other Western humanitarians and social workers who provided the majority of resources and social services in South Korea. Nevertheless, the regime sought to position itself as the central authority in this domain, overseeing the activities of these groups that had operated with little restriction and oversight throughout the 1950s.
When it came to the ELAO, the court process served this supervisory function, although in combination with the proxy provision, it indeed cleared the way for proxy adoptions. From the onset of international adoptions in South Korea, top authorities, including President Rhee who explicitly directed the rapid removal of mixed-race children, held certain reservations, particularly regarding who adoptive parents were, why they were interested in adopting children at such a distance, and what happened to the children when they arrived in the United States.57 During the 1950s, Americans almost exclusively managed the adoption processes, ranging from identifying children for adoption to pairing them with American families and arranging their travel, which exacerbated these concerns. Consequently, the South Korean government sought to implement a system that would enable its institutions to assess both the prospective parents and the child and formalize their adoption before the child left the country. This intent manifested in the ELAO’s court approval process which, for the Park regime, signified a move toward stronger public authority and regulation in international adoption.58
However, American social workers perceived this legal action as anything but enhancing child protection. They argued that completing adoptions in South Korea precluded their ability to intervene during the adoption process in both countries as previously described. ISS workers maintained that “from our experience, we judge that the best method to safeguard the adoption of a child coming for placement in the United States is to have the child’s custody released by the parent or guardian to ISS American Branch. Other methods attempted in case of need have not been judged as very effective.”59 In other words, if a child arrived in the United States for subsequent adoption without finalization in South Korea and was entrusted to ISS by a Korean adoption agency, ISS social workers assured the South Korean authorities that they would take all necessary steps for the child whether it involved recommending the adoption, arranging a replacement, or providing other services based on their expertise.
ISS social workers were also influenced by their distrust of the South Korean state authorities, from military officials to local bureaucrats, whom they felt had little to no understanding of or empathy for liberal social work and child welfare. They doubted whether the authoritarian state’s role in adoption would genuinely increase public oversight and benefit the child, worrying that it would instead entrench illiberal practices already prevalent in other bureaucratic areas, such as unofficial “under-the-table costs” for processing paperwork, in a system they criticized as “dictate[d]” by “paperwork […] with really no thought going into the way the child is treated.”60 This concern was validated by the manner in which the court adoption process was conducted. Anne M. Davison was dismayed to learn that Korean judges rubber-stamped international adoptions after only a superficial review of documents without conducting thorough hearings or evaluations, remarking, “[t]his is what they have been calling adoption here.”61
The ISS workers consistently stressed their ability to safeguard the children under their care, but this did not fully address the South Korean state’s insistence on maintaining the court process. The authorities understood that, as long as a child retained South Korean citizenship, the state held ultimate responsibility for the child even if they were under the guardianship of an American professional agency. Therefore, the South Korean state was keen to promptly resolve any citizenship issues once adoptive parents expressed their intention to adopt.62 To comprehend how court approval impacted the child’s citizenship, it is necessary to revisit the practice of the family registry (hojŏk) discussed in the introduction. In South Korea, legal familial belonging was synonymous with national belonging. This meant that a child’s inclusion in a South Korean family registry—whether under their father or as a single-person household—conferred South Korean citizenship. When a child was adopted by foreign parents, they were removed from their South Korean registry and lost their corresponding citizenship. Article 5 of the ELAO (“Denationalization of Orphans”) directed district courts to execute this: “When an orphan becomes a foreigner’s adopted child under this law, the court must, on its own authority, deregister the child.”63 The South Korean state mandated the immediate revocation of the child’s South Korean citizenship under the erroneous assumption that children adopted in South Korean courts would automatically qualify for U.S. citizenship upon arrival in the United States.64
Overall, the South Korean authorities perceived the demands of the ISS workers as an encroachment on their sovereignty and newly established authority. They, however, recognized that children adopted through South Korean courts would be denied entry into the United States so they eventually suggested an alternative: reversing the sequence of the court processes between the two nations. Under this proposal, the child would be sent to the United States without undergoing the South Korean court process and would instead be adopted there in accordance with U.S. law. When the U.S. adoption decree was issued, the adoption agency in South Korea would be informed and would go through the court process to assist the adoptive parents and the child for “re-adoption” by proxy, despite neither party being present in the country. ISS social workers viewed this proposal as yet another instance of the South Korean state’s illiberal approach to social policy, cynically describing it as “an effort of the [South Korean] government to mould the practice for foreigners adopting to fit the Korean system.” Nevertheless, they accepted this proposal as a gesture of “willingness to work with them.”65 This led to a “secret” agreement that was verbally established and known only among the relevant ministries and adoption agencies. As a result, the court process was temporarily waived for all Korean children sent to the United States, and the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs issued emigration permits without requiring court approval.66
ISS social workers characterized the South Korean authorities’ approach to adoption policy as illiberal, critiquing it as nothing more than “paperwork.” Despite American social workers advocating for enhanced public oversight and authority in South Korean adoption policy, the perceived incompatibility between their vision and that of the authoritarian state led them to push the South Korean state out of the policy arena to promote liberal governance. As a result, this attitude further reduced the role of South Korean authorities to a mere paper transaction. In this diminished capacity, South Korean state officials simply used U.S. adoption decisions to straighten out the child’s South Korean registry and citizenship status.
Furthermore, American social workers’ conviction in the superiority of their professional approach led them to neglect local needs and contexts. Specifically, the South Korean court approval process involved public advertisements, designed to offer birth families a chance to reclaim their children before an adoption was formalized (Figure 2). Under the Park regime, which predominantly assigned responsibility for children’s welfare to their families, state efforts to reunite children separated from their families due to abandonment, disappearance, or other reasons were minimal. The public advertisement step was indeed the sole legal measure in place. Yet, since the South Korean court process commenced only after the child’s adoption was completed in the United States, typically 6–12 months after arrival, no such advertising occurred during the South Korean courts sanction for a re-adoption.67 This critical change was understood and accepted by both the South Korean authorities and American social workers.68
The three sisters introduced earlier, however, were adopted in Sweden. Before delving into how the issue extended beyond South Korean-U.S. adoptions, it is important to note that, in the United States, finalizing an adoption did not automatically confer U.S. citizenship upon adopted children. Instead, adoptive parents were required to apply separately for naturalization with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service 2 years after completing the adoption. Yet, after switching the court processes between the two countries, South Korean courts frequently utilized the U.S. adoption decree to remove the child from the South Korean family registry and subsequently annul their citizenship during the 1960s and 1970s. ISS workers were cognizant of this procedural gap and the South Korean authorities’ misunderstanding but still agreed to forward the U.S. adoption decision to resolve the children’s South Korean citizenship. This decision was influenced partly by the daunting task of monitoring the citizenship status of all children after the adoption was finalized and partly by American social workers’ belief that being legally recognized as an adopted child offered the most robust safeguard. Moreover, they presumed that most American adoptive parents, vetted by professional social workers, would seek naturalization for their new children.69
In recent years, however, it has become apparent that many adoptive parents failed to naturalize their adopted children for various reasons, such as ignorance, financial constraints, or broken relationships. As a result, the citizenship status of more than 18,000 adoptees from South Korea cannot be verified. Many of these adoptees who lack U.S. citizenship are in danger of deportation, and several have been deported to South Korea only to discover that, for some of them, their South Korean citizenship had also been revoked for the reasons described above.70 This situation underscores the lasting and contemporary implications of these transnational negotiations for adoptees, exposing the troubling consequences of the presumptuous naivety and arrogance of liberal idealism.
SOUTH KOREAN SOCIAL WORKERS: BETWEEN LIBERAL IDEALS AND POST-LIBERATION REALITY
In the late 1960s, Europe emerged as a significant receiving region for international adoption which was a shift from its earlier role as a major child-sending area after World War II when Americans adopted children from war-torn countries like West Germany and Greece.71 With a dwindling number of domestically adoptable children due to expanded welfare provisions for families and women, Sweden was one of the first European nations to initiate large-scale adoption from non-Western societies. The Swedish state saw international adoption as providing parenthood opportunities for its citizens and as supporting family welfare policy. This approach was formalized in 1966 when the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare (Socialstyrelsen) established an adoption agreement with the Korean Child Placement Service (CPS).72
In contrast to the United States, where adoption professionalization and the development of the social work profession were closely intertwined, the progress of social work in most European nations was somewhat stalled due to the two world wars. Furthermore, there were sparse legal frameworks for domestic adoption let alone cross-border child placement. Hence, the majority of European nations, when adopting children from South Korea, commonly accepted and adhered to the adoption procedures outlined in the ELAO, including proxy adoptions. In the Swedish-South Korean adoption agreement, the procedures were specifically outlined as follows. First, in South Korea, all children were required to be adopted in South Korean courts. Once a child’s adoption was finalized and they left the country, custody was transferred to the adoptive parents by the Korean adoption agency. Upon arrival in Sweden, an additional step was necessary, but it was not to reassess the South Korean adoption decision or to evaluate the child’s adjustment in the new family. Rather, it was simply to convert the South Korean decision into a Swedish legal context. To do so, the adoptive parents needed to send the South Korean court approval to the Swedish Justice Ministry by post with no requirement for a trial period or a court hearing.73 American social workers often viewed their European counterparts as lacking the professionalism and rigor of U.S. social work and cited, “Swedish adoptions [which] omit a number of essential safeguards” as an example of this perceived deficiency.74
In the case of the three sisters, the prescribed South Korean court process was not followed. The final section of this article delves into this issue, revealing that the omission stemmed once more from the discord between professional social workers and the authoritarian regime. This time, however, the deviation was spearheaded not by American but by Korean professional social workers who had become significant contributors to the social policy landscape during the mid-1960s.
Relief work and charity, typically considered precursors to professional social work, began on the Korean peninsula during the late Chosŏn period, initially led by Koreans and later expanded by Western missionaries and the colonial government at the turn of the twentieth century.75 It was, however, only after liberation that the notion of social work as a specialized profession requiring scientific training emerged in South Korea. Following the Korean War, Americans involved in the country’s reconstruction observed South Korea’s immense social issues and recognized the pressing need to develop local leadership capable of addressing these challenges. This led to several initiatives to introduce U.S.-style social work education in South Korea. A pivotal project was spearheaded by the Unitarian Service Committee and the American-Korean Foundation, two major American organizations involved in the advancement of modern education in South Korea across various levels and fields including primary and secondary education and higher education in engineering and medicine. In 1954, these organizations collaborated with South Korean authorities to establish university-level social work programs and facilitated opportunities for Koreans to study social work in the United States.76 With their support, by the early 1960s, major institutions such as Ewha Womans University, Choong-ang Theology Institute (now Kangnam University), Seoul National University, and Chung-Ang University had introduced social work degree programs and contributed to the emergence of the first generation of Koreans who identified themselves as professional social workers.77
Given the strong influence of liberal social work ideology and methods, these Korean social workers demonstrated a keen interest in applying these principles within South Korea. The unique colonial experience of Korea—colonization by non-Western Japan—constituted a critical backdrop for Korean social workers’ proactive acceptance of U.S. social work, as it offered a modern path away from Japanese influence.78 Among the various social areas, international adoption became a major focus of their efforts. This emphasis was influenced not just by the centrality of adoption in the evolution of American professional social work but also, and perhaps more critically, by the constrained political and economic conditions in post-liberation South Korea. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the authoritarian regime provided minimal funding for social services, resulting in scarce local financial resources in a country still recovering from decades of colonial rule and war. International adoption emerged as one of the few viable avenues for these social workers to practice their profession, allowing them to secure funding from adoptive parents in the West. These funds were crucial in introducing and implementing new social work methods such as foster care, casework, and counseling.79
While both American and Korean social workers shared a liberal vision, the latter group was distinct for two reasons: their rootedness in South Korea and their relationship with the state, creating dynamics similar to yet different from those seen in the previous section. In July 1966, the ISS-Korea Branch, a key player in the field of international adoption, abruptly halted operations in South Korea. This was due to several problems, including leadership changes, financial irregularities discovered within one of its social projects with poor families, and conflict with the Social Ministry.80 The American director in South Korea had left for a new position in South Vietnam a few months earlier, leaving Korean social workers and various projects, including international adoption, in a state of uncertainty. CPS, a local agency established in 1954 to facilitate the adoption of mixed-race children and led at the time by Korean social worker Tahk Youn Taek, eventually assumed responsibility for the work of the ISS-Korea Branch and integrated their staff.81 While ISS in the United States continued to influence adoption policies and practices in South Korea through partnership with CPS, their capacity to effect change was significantly reduced without physical presence in the country. Instead, Korean social workers like Tahk began to hold greater power, and they eventually circumvented the Korean court process for children sent to Sweden.
Korean social workers’ skepticism toward the involvement of the authoritarian state in fostering liberal governance, echoing the sentiments of their American counterparts, significantly influenced their decision-making. They perceived the public advertisement process, carried out as part of court approval, as emblematic of the state’s irrational approach. Public advertisement was deemed obsolete for several reasons. First, the advertisement included identifying information about the child, but names and birth dates were typically assigned or assumed by adoption agencies or other initial caretakers, making it nearly impossible for birth families to recognize their children. Second, the timing of the advertisement was highly problematic. It was not done when the child first came to public attention but rather at the end of the adoption process even after a child had been matched with and accepted by adoptive parents. This delay meant that several months or even years could lapse since the child was first discovered.82 Last but not least, the purpose of the advertisement was questioned. Since it was mandated under the ELAO rather than the Child Welfare Act, it only applied to children designated for overseas adoption, excluding other unattended children. Therefore, social workers deemed the advertisement as, “a mere formality, red tape,” necessary only for the South Korean authorities to legally establish a child’s abandonment and adoptability prior to adoption approval. In essence, rather than serving any meaningful role in reuniting families, they saw the advertisement as another bureaucratic procedure absolving the state of its responsibility in the care of children.83
These factors alone, however, did not provide Korean social workers, a profession still nascent in the country, with the freedom to bypass or modify the legally prescribed process established by the authoritarian state, unlike their American counterparts, who could more freely demand their liberal ideals, as seen in the previous section. A critical moment came when the Enforcement Decree of the ELAO was enacted in 1967 about 6 years after the law’s establishment, delayed partly by negotiations with American social workers over proxy adoption.84 Initially, district courts had posted advertisements on their noticeboards, but the Decree now stipulated that adoption agencies also place newspaper advertisements.85 This mandate had two significant financial implications for adoption agencies. First, agencies were tasked with identifying suitable newspapers and shouldering the direct costs of advertising, estimated at around twenty-eight dollars per child—a significant amount at the time. In the late 1960s, South Korean adoption agencies typically charged fees of $200 to $250 which was just sufficient to cover childcare and operational expenses.86 Secondly, this requirement extended the adoption process by up to 2 months. Given that European adoptions usually took 3–5 months, the additional time and costs associated with extended foster care and medical treatment were considered substantial.87
As mentioned above, adoption agencies relied solely on adoption fees from adoptive parents for funding. Consequently, they were reluctant to undertake additional steps that they viewed as “mere formalities,” which they believed served only the authoritarian state’s agenda and delayed the children’s transition into the permanent, stable environments of adoptive families. As a result, CPS adopted a strategy of sending children to Sweden first and obtaining court approval afterward, effectively circumventing the advertisement step. This workaround was made possible by the “secret” arrangement previously established by ISS workers with South Korean authorities, creating a loophole in which the Social Ministry did not check for court approval for emigration permits regardless of the child’s intended destination country.88 In justifying this arguably controversial move, Korean social workers asserted that they had never witnessed a case where a birth family successfully located their child through the advertisements mandated by the ELAO. They also argued that parents would have had time and opportunities to reclaim their children prior to the child’s admission to adoption agencies.89
By the early 1970s, with the rapid increase in children being sent to Sweden, CPS faced a considerable backlog in paperwork, resulting in significant delays in obtaining court approval for many adoptive parents—sometimes stretching to 2 years after the children’s arrival in Sweden. For instance, in the case of the three sisters, while the agency sent them to Sweden in February 1968 after obtaining basic documents including the orphan registry and travel documents, the court approval process did not begin until over a year later, in March 1969, and was completed in 2 months (see Figure 3). These delays hindered the formal validation of the adoptions within Sweden and prompted intervention by Swedish authorities.90 Rather than challenging the South Korean agency’s procedural deviations, however, the Swedish authorities accepted the continuation of these practices to ensure children’s prompt arrival and instead sought ways to expedite the transfer of adoption documents.91
Figure 3.
Adoption certificate of one of the three sisters issued by the Seoul District Court (Original Korean document and official English translation.)
Note: This document is the adoption certificate for one of the three sisters issued by the Seoul District Court. The English translation was produced by CPS. The South Korean address listed on the certificate for both the adoptive parents and the child is that of the adoption agency. Interview by author, September 30, 2022.
Amid these complexities, children whose adoptions had not received approval from either South Korean or Swedish authorities were directly entrusted to prospective parents by CPS upon departing South Korea. This meant that, although technically acting as foster parents, the Swedish adoptive families maintained full custody of these children including the three sisters. Tahk Youn Taek of CPS, aware of the custody dilemma, optimistically hoped that the Swedish welfare state—perceived as one of the most advanced forms of modern governance—would intervene if needed: and attitude similar to that shown by American social workers in their unquestioning trust in adoptive parents’ ability and willingness to resolve citizenship issues. In the end, the three sisters were never returned to South Korea, and CPS was cleared of all charges related to breaching the law with the justification that the issue resulted from “contradictions of the laws” between the involved countries.92
Troubled by the detrimental impact of the ELAO on children, as exemplified by the case of the three sisters, Tahk promptly established a committee to revise the adoption law. This group, led by representatives from major social work agencies and including members from the Social Ministry and the Seoul Family Court, convened regularly throughout 1970 to develop a new policy framework that embodied liberal social work principles.93 They proposed removing the court approval step; defining clearer roles and rights for the child, adoptive parents, and guardian; and including penalty clauses for misconduct. To prevent the misplacement of lost or abducted children in international adoptions or orphanages, the committee also recommended enacting a separate law that required local authorities to publicize all found children before considering long-term placement options. These changes aimed to address perceived inconsistencies and illiberal procedures in the existing Korean adoption process while amplifying the roles of professional social workers as key authorities. The committee hoped for the law’s swift enactment after deliberation in the National Assembly in 1971. However, the rapidly evolving geopolitical situation in South Korea and abroad, which put pressure on the regime, led Park Chung Hee to initiate significant constitutional changes.94 In 1972, he implemented the Yushin Constitution which granted dictatorial power to the president. In such a turbulent climate, the focus of the state shifted further from social policy concerns, leaving the proposed changes stagnant until 1976 and the existing gaps in the adoption system largely unaddressed despite several enactment attempts by social workers.95 This situation suggests that Korean social workers often found themselves caught between the powerful liberal ideology emanating from the United States and the material as well as political constraints on the ground, leading to decisions that significantly diverged from their vision.
CONCLUSION: THE HANYANG ORIGIN
The Korean peninsula’s encounter with modern governance began at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly under Japanese colonial rule, which sought to assimilate Koreans into the Japanese empire through repressive social policies. Following liberation, South Korea experienced successive authoritarian regimes that employed illiberal measures to discipline and control the population, integrating them into an aggressive developmentalist project.96 Typically, liberal governance in South Korea is associated with the post-democratization era after 1987, marked by brief attempts to expand public welfare schemes before the country transitioned to a neoliberal order following the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.97
Through an analysis of international adoption policy, this article, however, underscores the significant efforts by American and Korean social work professionals to cultivate and implement liberal governance well before South Korea’s democratic transition. American social workers, who had been instrumental in advancing liberal social policy within the United States, were optimistic about the universal applicability and benefits of professional social work for newly liberated nations. Simultaneously, Korean social workers, eager to establish their professional authority and steer the nation’s modernization process, saw the implementation of the social work model developed by the global superpower as a promising avenue. This intersection of American ideals and Korean aspirations for modernization created a complex landscape in which liberal governance practices were pursued under authoritarian rule.
Eventually, in 1976, a new adoption law, the Extraordinary Law on Adoption, was enacted, replacing the ELAO of 1961. Although modified from the committee’s initial version, it retained many of their primary recommendations.98 Alongside this legal reform, a little-known, yet no less significant shift, occurred in the orphan registry: South Korean state officials instructed social workers at adoption agencies to uniformly use “Hanyang” (the precolonial name for Seoul) as the pon’gwan (family origin) in the orphan registries for children being adopted overseas.99 This article concludes by using this change to reflect on the implications of South Korea’s experience of modern social policy and governance.
A pon’gwan signifies the geographical origin of a family name, indicating that individuals sharing the same surname and pon’gwan belong to the same paternal clan.100 In South Korea, where a relatively small number of surnames exists, the pon’gwan has played a crucial role in differentiating between lineages with identical surnames. For example, a Kim from Kimhae and a Kim from Kyŏngju, despite sharing the surname Kim, are recognized as belonging to different kinship groups because their clans originated from different locations.101 In the orphan registry, pon’gwan was one of the few details recorded alongside the child’s name, date of birth, sex, and legal residence. Social workers, when creating an orphan registry, typically selected a surname for the child based on available information about the birth family or, in its absence, chose one at random. They then assigned a pon’gwan, an existing geographic origin associated with that surname, to establish the child’s single-person household within the registry system. For instance, the registry of Thomas Hartmann, who was found in a port city market and later adopted in Germany, shows he was given the surname Kim (Figure 1).102 Prior to 1976, an established Kim pon’gwan like Kimhae or Kyŏngju would have been used. This practice was initially considered unproblematic since the child would eventually be removed from the registry upon adoption. As illustrated in Figure 1, after Thomas’s final adoption and naturalization in Germany, his name was first crossed out to annul his South Korean citizenship, and, eventually, his single-person household was erased from the South Korean family register, a process known as muhuga (the dissolution of a household without posterity).
During the 1970s, however, as the number of children sent for overseas adoption increased, South Korean state officials grew critical of the practice of arbitrarily, albeit temporarily, assigning children awaiting overseas placement to existing pon’gwan groups with which they were deemed to have no actual connection. To address this issue, authorities instructed social workers to instead use Hanyang as the origin for all children’s family names regardless of the surname.103 This directive had little to do with the fact that most of these children had their legal residence in Seoul. Rather, it was because Hanyang was found to be the only location on the Korean peninsula without any associated surname origins. Social worker Pak Ok-sun, who shared this insight with me, explained, “if we assigned a child the Kimhae Kim pon’gwan, that clan might object. Similarly, choosing Kyŏngju Kim could provoke opposition from that group. Thus, we were instructed to designate Hanyang as the pon’gwan for all children heading for overseas adoption: Hanyang Kim, Hanyang Lee, Hanyang Park. As a result, Hanyang became the origin for all orphans” (emphasis added).104 This practice is why Thomas, whose adoption occurred in the mid-1980s, was given the paternal clan “origin” of Hanyang Kim. Hanyang thus became a state-sanctioned marker for transnational adoptees, a fact strikingly illustrated by the use of a ready-made rubber stamp for the word “Hanyang” in the registry, unlike all other information which was written by hand.
In the introduction, I discussed how professional social workers introduced the orphan registry for all children adopted overseas as a means to sever ties with their birth families. This practice was developed to realize the Kantian notion of the “freestanding child”—independent and self-referential—which was considered essential for full integration into new adoptive families and for ensuring the protection and rights of the adopted child. In this context, the orphan registry functioned to articulate liberal conceptions of family and the child’s best interests. Unexpectedly, the South Korean state, whose illiberal policies were frequently criticized by professional social workers, further advanced this process through the designation of Hanyang as the origin for all internationally adopted children. By establishing Hanyang as the origin, children were not only disconnected from their birth families but were also placed in a symbolic terra nullius with no ties to any Korean lineage groups. Hanyang was thus invented as an imaginary origin that was created only to erase both itself and the adopted children from the Korean nation. However, this attempt to create “freestanding” children proved incomplete when it was discovered that one exceptional surname, Cho, actually originated from Hanyang, revealing the deeply ironic unfolding of modern social policy and governance in South Korea.105
Contradictions and irregularities like the Hanyang origin characterize South Korean adoption policy, and, in current scholarly and public debates, they are often attributed solely to the authoritarian regime that commodified children and disregarded their rights. However, this essay argues that it was, in fact, the transnational interplay between social workers’ liberal ideologies and the state’s authoritarian approach that led to these outcomes. This perspective challenges the simplistic moral dichotomy that frames “good” (liberalism; American) against “evil” (authoritarianism; Korean). Here, the concept of a tragic perspective, as introduced by postcolonial scholar David Scott, is particularly instructive in interpretating the complexity of this issue. Disillusioned by the gap between the emancipatory, triumphalist narratives in postcolonial studies and the harsh realities faced by decolonizing nations, Scott advocates for a tragic vision that acknowledges “the constraints of human finitude, the pervasive, ineliminable proximity of collision and failure.”106 He proposes this perspective not out of pessimism, but “because such a perspective can help, from one side, to unsettle our confidence in that consoling image of human agency as self-sufficient and self-determining and, from the other, to give pause to our inclination to see ourselves as merely determined by forces larger than ourselves. From a tragic perspective we are both authors and authored.”107 Within the context of South Korean international adoption, this lens allows us pay attention to the on-the-ground aspirations and efforts of various actors who navigated and sought to influence social policy while also acknowledging the highly uneven terrain on which they operated.
Recognizing the blurred and shifting legal and moral boundaries do not, nevertheless, absolve the responsibility of individuals involved in international adoption. On the contrary, understanding these restrictive conditions allow us to discern concrete manifestations of agency among the actors, however limited in scope. This encompasses the American social workers’ decision to sidestep citizenship issues in their quest for professional liberalism, the authoritarian state’s persistent endeavor to absolve itself of responsibility in social policy under the banner of sovereignty, and Korean social workers’ bending of laws and regulations in ways that often contradicted their avowed principles. This tragic perspective invites us to examine the formation of modern governance and social policy within a complex interplay of power and dependency as well as the constrained yet significant agency of those involved. Ultimately, such a perspective calls for more focused and critical inquiries into policy formation, scrutinizing the roles of the state, adoption agencies, and other involved parties concerning the opportunities that existed, the choices made, and the profound impact of those decisions on the children, families, and societies involved. The designation of Hanyang as the family origin—a symbol of the impossibility of fully severing transnational adoptees from South Korea—serves as a reminder of the enduring ripple effects of these transnational negotiations in the years to come.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I extend my deepest gratitude to the two adoptees who permitted me to use their personal adoption documents for this article and generously shared their adoption stories. This article has greatly benefited from multiple readings and discussions with Eleana Kim and Jeehyun Choi. I also sincerely appreciate the thoughtful feedback from the anonymous reviewers and the guidance provided by the editorial team. All errors remain my own.
Notes
1
Translated from Korean. Kim Kwang-su, interview by author, June 14, 2017. I have anonymized all social workers and adoptees who participated in this research except for those who are both deceased and had given permission for their real names to be used. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. The terms “international” and “transnational” both refer to movements that cross national borders but focus on different aspects. “International” typically relates to state-to-state relations and bidirectional movements as seen in international relations, whereas “transnational” involves non-state actors and underscores sustained linkages in multiple directions. At the turn of the twenty-first century, scholars began to use the term “transnational adoption” to emphasize the ongoing impacts on adoptees, families, and societies involved in cross-border adoptions. In my discussion of this scholarship, I use the term “transnational adoption.” While I concur with this perspective, the historical analysis in this article uses “international adoption” to reflect the terminology prevalent in the field during the 1960s and 1970s. Additionally, I sometimes use “overseas adoption” and “cross-border adoption” interchangeably. The term “overseas adoption” is most commonly used in South Korea where it underscores the outward movement of children.
2
“Korea” refers to the entire peninsula or the nation prior to its division in 1945 while “South Korea” specifically refers to the southern half after the division. For reasons of style and brevity, however, I use “Korean social workers,” “Korean adoption agencies,” and “Korean children” to indicate those from South Korea.
3
Although “household registry,” would be a more accurate translation in English, this article adopts the term “family registry,” as it is more widely used in adoption scholarship. This choice also underscores the distinctiveness of the “orphan registry.”
4
For general discussion of state legibility and the significance of names and registries, see James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven and London, 1998). For further analysis of the registry system’s evolution, especially the reforms during the late Chosŏn period and under colonial rule in Korea, see Kyung Moon Hwang, Rationalizing Korea: The Rise of the Modern State, 1894–1945 (Oakland, 2015), Chapter 7.
5
In Korean, “kia hojŏk,” (the registry for abandoned children) refers to the same document. South Korean officials and social workers use this term more frequently.
6
This area of scholarship is known as Critical Adoption Studies which is characterized by its interdisciplinary approach to the study of adoption and draws particularly on feminist and postcolonial theories. Adoptee scholars have been instrumental in establishing this field, countering earlier studies that primarily focused on the psychological and individual adjustments of adopted children and were often conducted by scholars who were either adoptive parents or professionals in the adoption field. For an overview of Critical Adoption Studies, see Margaret Homans et al., “Critical Adoption Studies: Conversation in Progress,” Adoption & Culture 6, no. 1 (2018): 1–49. Exemplary works in this field include Sara K. Dorow, Transnational Adoption: A Cultural Economy of Race, Gender, and Kinship (New York, 2006); Eleana J. Kim, Adopted Territory: Transnational Korean Adoptees and the Politics of Belonging (Durham, 2010); Barbara Yngvesson, Belonging in an Adopted World: Race, Identity, and Transnational Adoption (Chicago, 2010); and Kim Park Nelson, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences, and Racial Exceptionalism (New Jersey, 2016).
7
Since the end of the Second World War, it is estimated that globally one million children have been adopted internationally. One in five of them are from South Korea. Official statistics compiled by the South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare indicate that approximately 170,000 children were adopted internationally from South Korea between 1953 and 2023. Adoption scholars and activists, however, suggest that the actual figure may be closer to 200,000, because many adoptions were informally arranged, and statistics were not rigorously collected during the first couple of decades. South Korean Ministry of Health and Welfare, “Kukche ibyang nujŏk t’onggye (1953-2023)” [Accumulated Statistics of International Adoption (1953-2023)].
8
Kim, Adopted Territory, Chapter 1; Kim A-ram, “1950-nyŏndae Han’guk sahoe ŭi honhyŏrin insik kwa haeoe ibyang” [Perception of People of Mixed Parentage and Overseas Adoption in 1950s South Korean Society], in Koa, chokpo ŏmnŭn cha: kŭndae, kungmin kukka, kaein [Orphans, Those Without Chokpo: Modernity, Nation-State, Individuals], edited by Pak Sŏn-ju, O Kyŏng-hwan, and Hong Yang-hŭi, 79–128 (Seoul, 2014); Arissa Oh, To Save the Children of Korea: The Cold War Origins of International Adoption (Stanford, 2015), Chapter 2. For more on Syngman Rhee’s ethnic nationalism, see Sŏ Chung-sŏk, Yi Sŭng-man ŭi chŏngch’i ideollogi [Syngman Rhee’s Political Ideology] (Seoul, 2005) and Gi-Wook Shin, Ethnic Nationalism in Korea: Genealogy, Politics, and Legacy (Stanford, 2006).
9
Tobias Hübinette, Comforting an Orphaned Nation: Representations of International Adoption and Adopted Koreans in Korean Popular Culture (Seoul, 2006), Chapter 2; Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 6; Kimberly D. McKee, “Monetary Flows and the Movements of Children: The Transnational Adoption Industrial Complex,” Journal of Korean Studies 21, no. 1 (2016): 137–178; Kyung-eun Lee, The Global ‘Orphan’ Adoption System: South Korea’s Impact on its Origin and Development (Seoul, 2021).
10
The term “paper orphan” is used by scholars and activists to underscore the constructed nature of the orphan status assigned to many adopted children. Numerous studies have explored this phenomenon. See Jodi Kim, “An ‘Orphan’ with Two Mothers: Transnational and Transracial Adoption, the Cold War, and Contemporary Asian American Cultural Politics,” American Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2009): 855–880; Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 4; Eleana Kim, “My Folder Is Not a Person: Kinship Knowledge, Biopolitics, and the Adoption File,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Kinship, ed. Sandra Bamford (Cambridge, 2019), 451–480; Kelly M. Rich, “Sight Unseen: Proxy War, Proxy Adoption,” Representations 163, no. 1 (2023): 51–78.
11
Analyzing the adoption files of transnational South Korean adoptees and their efforts to decipher often illegible records, anthropologist Eleana Kim considers the orphan registry a key site for examining the “state effects” of the biopolitics surrounding children. Kim, “My Folder Is Not a Person,” 457.
12
John H. Ehrenreich, The Altruistic Imagination: A History of Social Work and Social Policy in the United States (Ithaca, 1985); Kriste Lindenmeyer, “A Right to Childhood”: The U.S. Children’s Bureau and Child Welfare, 1912-46 (Urbana and Chicago, 1997).
13
Sara Fieldston, Raising the World: Child Welfare in the American Century (Cambridge, MA, 2015).
14
It is important to note that the orphan registry was not invented for the purposes of international adoption in post-liberation South Korea. Established during colonial rule as part of the family registry system, its initial purpose was to provide legal identity to individuals without family ties. There was a legal option for mixed-race children in South Korea to be registered under their Korean mother’s registry according to the Civil Code which stated that, if the father was unknown or refused permission, the mother could enter the child’s name in her family registry. This practice was, however, rare, as the mother did not have her own registry but was listed under her father and registering the child under the maternal grandfather would confirm the child’s illegitimate status. “Hojukdunbon (Family Registration),” April 15, 1958, International Social Service/United States of America Branch Case Records, Case 57-1600, Social Welfare History Archives, Minneapolis, U.S.
15
All social workers interviewed, across three different adoption agencies, confirmed this practice. Exceptions occurred when children were adopted by blood relatives living abroad in which case the existing family registry was utilized. Kim Kwang-su, interview by author, October 26, 2017; Kim Myŏng-u, interview by author, November 23, 2017; Mun Chun-ha, interview by author, November 17, 2017; Eugenie Hochfeld to Letitia DiVirgillio, 20 May 1964, International Social Service/United States of America Branch Papers (ISS-USA Papers), Box 35, Folder “Korea –Correspondence Vol. I,” Social Welfare History Archives, Minneapolis, U.S.
16
Eugenie Hochfeld to Tahk Youn Taek, 23 January 1967, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service—Adoptions, 1966-1967”; Josephine Beard, “Orphanages, Procedures and General Information with Regard to Children and Availability,” c. May 1968, 23, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Report on Korea Child Placement, 1968—Josephine Beard.” Differing understandings of the relationship between kinship and law in South Korea and in Western societies have continuously fueled debates around the “adoptability” of children. This tension is evident in a 1975 article written to assist lawyers and adoptive parents in the U.S. when navigating this issue. Chin Kim and Timothy G. Carroll, “Intercountry Adoption of South Korean Orphans: A Lawyer’s Guide,” Journal of Family Law 14 (1975): 223–254.
17
Regina G. Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work, 1890-1945 (New Haven and London, 1993); Kenneth Cmiel, A Home of Another Kind: One Chicago Orphanage and the Tangle of Child Welfare (Chicago and London, 1995).
18
Julie Berebitsky, Like Our Very Own: Adoption and the Changing Culture of Motherhood, 1851-1950 (Lawrence, 2000); Barbara Melosh, Strangers and Kin: The American Way of Adoption (Cambridge, MA, 2002); Ellen Herman, Kinship by Design: A History of Adoption in the Modern United States (Chicago, 2009).
19
Karen A. Balcom, The Traffic in Babies: Cross-Border Adoption and Baby-Selling Between the United States and Canada, 1930-1972 (Toronto, 2011).
20
Catherine Ceniza Choy and Rachel Rains Winslow also examine the role of social workers in their analyses of international adoption but their focuses differ. Choy emphasizes the racial dimensions in the development of international adoption particularly from Asian nations and the involvement of non-state actors. Winslow focuses on the continued significance of non-professional, non-state actors—whom she refers to as voluntary agencies—in the formation of U.S. adoption policy. See Catherine Ceniza Choy, Global Families: A History of Asian International Adoption in America (New York, 2013); Rachel Rains Winslow, The Best Possible Immigrants: International Adoption and the American Family (Philadelphia, 2017).
21
The creation of a strong modern military was also closely related to U.S. dominance in post-liberation South Korea. See Gregg Brazinsky, Nation Building in South Korea: Koreans, Americans, and the Making of a Democracy (Chapel Hill, 2007), Chapter 3.
22
During this period, developmentalism was the overarching ideology guiding state economic policies and practices. It signifies the state’s commitment to development, characterized by strategic intervention in resource distribution and the regulation of private economic actors to foster industrialization. This approach was also observed in other East Asian nations, such as Japan and Taiwan, with its roots in the Japanese empire. Chalmers Johnson, MITI and the Japanese Miracle: The Growth of Industrial Policy, 1925-1975 (Stanford, 1982); Robert Wade, Governing the Market: Economic Theory and the Role of Government in East Asian Industrialization (New Jersey, 2018). For a discussion of the South Korean iteration of developmentalism, see Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel, eds., The Park Chung Hee Era (Cambridge, MA, 2011), Chapters 7 and 9. On the relationship between developmentalism and militarism in South Korea, see Carter J. Eckert, Park Chung Hee and Modern Korea: The Roots of Militarism, 1866-1945 (Cambrdige, MA, 2016). As the state under military rule prioritized rapid economic development and severely undermined citizens’ rights, there is a prevailing view that social policy was virtually non-existent during this period. Therefore, limited studies have explored the development of social policy prior to South Korea’s democratic transition in 1987. Sociologist Chang Kyung-Sup is among the few scholars who have tackled this subject. Chang coined the term “developmental liberalism” to describe the social policy regime under authoritarian rule and to argue that the state implemented a “liberal (limited)” social policy “so as to developmentally redefine and subordinate otherwise social policy concerns.” In his view, liberalism in South Korea signified a lack of intervention as opposed to the social ethos emphasizing individual freedom and rights, which he describes as “liberally liberal,” as seen in the United States. While I find many of the core characteristics identified by Chang (such as “technocratization of social policy,” or “familial reconstitution of social citizenship,”) to be highly accurate descriptions of the South Korean situation, I find his use of “liberalism” problematic. It risks overextending the term’s applicability as the authoritarian state did not even claim to pursue liberalism as the objective of its social policy, let alone to practice it. Kyung-Sup Chang, Developmental Liberalism in South Korea: Formation, Degeneration, and Transnationalization (Cham, 2019).
23
The boundary between social workers and the state was not static; it shifted over time. From the early 1970s, the regime’s control over society intensified under the new Yushin Constitution of 1972. This political change increased tension around the role and autonomy of social workers toward the end of the decade, but this period falls beyond the primary scope of this article’s investigation.
24
Eleana Kim and Kim Park Nelson, “‘Natural Born Aliens’: Transnational Adoptees and U.S. Citizenship,” Adoption & Culture 7, no. 2 (2019): 257–279.
25
“Pit mollyŏ chip chuin e mat’kin se chamae koa kkumyŏ oeguk e” [Three Sisters Left with Landlord Due to Debt, Falsely Presented as Orphans and Sent Abroad], Tonga Ilbo, March 17, 1970.
26
This institution has multiple English names including City Baby Hospital and Seoul Children’s Hospital. Its official Korean name is Sŏul Adong Pyŏngwŏn.
27
“Pit mollyŏ chip chuin e mat’kin se chamae koa kkumyŏ oeguk e,” Tonga Ilbo, March 17, 1970.
28
The three sisters were not adopted by the same family in Sweden. The sister I interviewed recounted that her birth family informed her that an internal family dispute over business ownership led to their father’s incarceration and their mother’s illness, ultimately resulting in the children’s admission to the Seoul City Baby Hospital. Although the two versions of the story differ, the critical issue that emerges is the lack of a public support system for at-risk families, often leading to permanent family separation. Interview by author, September 30, 2022.
29
Kim Chin, “Koa ibyang t’ŭngnyebŏp” [The Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans], Sŏul Taehakkyo Pŏphak 4, no. 1/2 (1962): 124–139, here 135–136. The South Korean Civil Code contained clauses on adoption, but they were primarily concerned with domestic adoptions within the same clan, aiming to continue patrilineal lineage.
30
Clause 13, Chosŏn Relief Order Governor-General of Korea Ordinance No. 12 (enacted and enforced on March 1, 1944).
31
Hundreds of pieces of legislation were passed in the first year following the coup. Extraordinary Law on Adoption of Orphans, Act No. 731 (enacted and enforced on September 30, 1961).
32
To be appointed as a child’s guardian, an agency was required to obtain a document releasing the child from their current “primary provider” (puyang ŭimuja) such as parents, orphanages, or reception centers. For children transferred from reception centers, a document issued by the center’s director was sufficient.
33
The creation of orphan registries occurred before the appointment of guardianship, although this step is not depicted in Figure 2 as it was not a mandatory requirement under the ELAO.
34
Tahk to Wells C. Klein, 31 March 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- General, 1970-1972.”
35
Several studies have considered proxy battles. See Rachel Winslow, “Immigration Law and Improvised Policy in the Making of International Adoption, 1948-1961,” Journal of Policy History 24, no. 2 (2012): 319–349; Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapters 3 and 5; Choy, Global Families, Chapter 3.
36
Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 2; Kim, Adopted Territory, Chapter 1.
37
Harry Holt’s wife, Bertha Holt, chronicled their work in several memoirs, including The Seed from the East (Eugene, 1956) and Bring My Sons from Afar: The Unfolding of Harry Holt’s Dream (Eugene, 1986).
38
As previously noted, the 1950s saw no specific adoption law in South Korea governing the adoption of Korean children by foreigners. Prospective adoptive parents or their representatives sought individual approval from South Korean courts.
39
Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 3.
40
Herman, Kinship by Design.
41
On the role of ISS in the rise of international adoption of Asian children in the United States, see Choy, Global Families.
42
Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 3.; Winslow, The Best Possible Immigrants, Chapter 3.
43
Eugenie Hochfeld to Patricia Nye, 3 November 1967, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- Adoptions, 1966-1967.”
44
Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 3.; Winslow, The Best Possible Immigrants, Chapter 3.
45
Homer Bigart, “Pearl Buck Upholds Adoptions by Proxy for Waifs in Korea,” New York Times, January 7, 1959.
46
Laurin Hyde and Virginia P. Hyde, “A Study of Proxy Adoptions,” June 1958, ISS-USA Papers, Box 11, Folder “Proxy Adoption, Study in 1959.”
47
This proxy debate is largely understood as a confrontation between Christian humanitarians and secular professional social workers. For an analysis of the Catholic organization’s role in this debate and the broader professionalization of social work in the United States, see Cathi Choi, “Protection Against Good Intentions: The Catholic Role in the Campaign to Ban Proxy Adoption, 1956-1961,” Journal of Policy History 31, no. 2 (2019): 242–272.
48
Susan Pettiss to Anne M. Davison, 21 November 1961, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 25 “Korea- Adoptions Questions”; Richard R. Carlson, “Transnational Adoption of Children,” Tulsa Law Journal 23, no. 3 (1988): 317–377, here 351–354. Despite the enactment of the INA, the practice of Americans adopting children from South Korea sight-unseen persisted. As long as the children were brought to the United States for subsequent adoption under U.S. law, and a state-licensed American adoption agency was appointed as legal guardian in the interim, such arrangements were not considered proxy adoptions. See Oh, To Save the Children of Korea, Chapter 5.
49
Translated from Korean.
50
Davison to Pettiss, 30 October 1961, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 26 “Korea- Adoptions to 1962, Rejects—Non Policy.”
51
Davison to Pettiss, 22 December 1961, and Pettiss to Davison, 30 December 1961, both in ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64.”
52
The version enacted in 1961 under the military government differed from the one initially drafted by the Child Welfare Committee and was instead largely based on Japan’s Child Welfare Law. Pyung Hyun Lim, “Brief History of the Korea Child Welfare Committee,” in Handicapped Children’s Survey Report, Korea, ed. Korean Child Welfare Committee (Seoul, 1961): 25–29; Kim Kwang-su, interview by author, June 14, 2017.
53
Davison to Pettiss, 30 October 1961, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 26 “Korea- Adoptions to 1962, Rejects—Non Policy”; Else Miller and Gardner Munro, “Children and Extreme Poverty,” Canadian Welfare (1965): 1–4.
54
Kim Chin was an associate professor of law at Seoul National University, and his wife was a social worker at ISS-Korea. They later emigrated to the United States where Kim continued to engage with legal issues related to South Korean-U.S. adoptions in the 1970s.
55
Kim, “Koa ibyang t’ŭngnyebŏp,” 133–135.
56
Beard, “Orphanages, Procedures and General Information,” 3, 23.
57
“Taet’ongnyŏng hunsi” [Presidential Directive], April 11, 1953, 32nd Cabinet Meeting Minutes, National Archives of Korea.
58
Hochfeld to Nye, 3 November 1967, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- Adoptions, 1966-1967.”
59
Hochfeld to Nye, 3 November 1967, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- Adoptions, 1966-1967.”
60
David Munro to Edna Weber, 17 March 1965, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Korea –Correspondence Vol. I.”; Davison to Pettis, 21 January 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64.” Corruption and bribery within the South Korean bureaucracy were key issues for U.S. officials and voluntary workers who strove to promote liberal values in the country. For American efforts to train South Korean bureaucrats, see Brazinsky, Nation Building in South Korea, 59–69.
61
Davison to Pettis, 21 January 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64”; Pettiss to Katherine F. Kuplan, 8 March 1961, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 22 “Korea- Adoptions to 1962.”
62
Davison to Pettis, 21 January 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64.”
63
Translated from Korean.
64
This article was revised in 1966, stipulating that a child should be denaturalized once their citizenship in the adoptive country was confirmed. Nevertheless, issues persisted due to the gap between adoption finalization and the acquisition of U.S. citizenship. This problem is further discussed later in the main body of the text body of the main text.
65
Davison to Pettis, 21 January 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64.”
66
Davison to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Korea, 10 April 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64.”
67
Tahk Youn-Taek, “Adoption Service in Korea,” March 30, 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 44, Folder “Korea, #44.”
68
Beard, “Orphanages, Procedures and General Information,” 22–23.
69
Davison to Pettis, 21 January 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64”; Davison to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Korea, 10 April 1962, ISS-USA Papers, Box 34, Folder 23 “ISS, Branches, Korea, Adoptions, 1963-64”; Joan M. Crinnion to Tahk, 30 January 1976, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Korea- General.”
70
The issue of U.S. citizenship in transnational adoption affects not only adoptees from South Korea but also those from countries such as Mexico, Brazil, and India. Estimates of adoptees without U.S. citizenship range from 15,000 to as high as 49,000. For more information, see Hayeon Kim, “From ‘Alien Orphan’ to ‘Criminal Alien’: The Adoptability and Deportability of a Korean Adoptee in the United States” (MA thesis, Oxford University, 2018); Kim and Park Nelson, “‘Natural Born Aliens’.”
71
Gonda Van Steen, Adoption, Memory, and Cold War Greece: Kid Pro Quo? (Ann Arbor, 2021); Silke Hackenesch, “Love Across the Color Line? Pearl S. Buck and the Adoption of Afro-German Children After World War II,” in Adoption Across Race and Nation: U.S. Histories and Legacies, ed. Silke Hackenesch (Columbus, 2022).
72
There was only a single adoption channel between Sweden and South Korea. For discussion of the development of the adoption program between the two nations, see Youngeun Koo, “The Question of Adoption: ‘Divided’ Korea, ‘Neutral’ Sweden and Cold War Geopolitics, 1964-1975,” Journal of Asian Studies 80, no. 3 (2021): 563–585.
73
Statens Offentliga Utredningar, Adoption av utländska barn [Adoption of Foreign Children] (Stockholm, 1967), 108–110.
74
Walter R. Sherman to Tahk, 25 April 1967, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Korea—General 1966- 1967”; Sara Fieldston, Raising the World, 25–26.
75
Ch’oe Wŏn-gyu, “Chosŏn hugi adong kuhyul e kwanhan il yŏn’gu- Chŏngjo si <Chahyul Chŏnch’ik> ŭl chungsim ŭro” [A Study on Child Relief in the Late Joseon Period—Focused on King Jeongjo’s <Charity Decree>], Han’guk Sahoe Pokchihak 12 (1988): 173–188; So Hyŏn-suk, “Kyŏnggye e sŏn koadŭl- koa munje rŭl t’ong hae pon ilje sigi sahoe saŏp” [Orphans on the Edge- Social Work through the Lens of the Orphan Issue during the Japanese Colonial Period], Sahoe wa Yŏksa 73 (2007): 107–141; Young Sun Park, “Rescue and Regulation: A History of Undesirable Children in Korea, 1884-1961” (PhD Thesis, University of Southern California, 2018).
76
Initially, three Korean men were selected to study for a master’s degree in social work at the University of Minnesota. The two American organizations continued to fund several Koreans to study social work in the United States until the late 1960s. John C. Kidneigh, “A Report of the Social Work Education Exploratory Mission to Korea,” August 31, 1954, Unitarian Service Committee Medical Missions Records, 1942-1967, Box 51, Folder 2, Harvard Divinity School Library, Cambridge, MA, U.S.
77
Ewha Womans University and Choong-Ang Theology Institute had already initiated social work programs in 1947 and 1953 respectively, but both programs were limited as no trained social work educators existed and many of those who graduated did not enter social work. At the end of the 1950s, more structured social work programs modelled on U.S. social work education came into being. Sŏul Taehakkyo Sahoe Pokchi Hakkwa 50-nyŏn sa P’yŏnch’an Wiwŏnhoe, Sŏul Taehakkyo sahoe pokchi hakkwa 50-nyŏnsa, 1959-2009 [50-Year History of the Department of Social Welfare, Seoul National University, 1959-2009] (Seoul, 2009), 20–25; Cho Ki-dong, interview by author, May 1, 2017.
78
It is important to note that several leading first-generation social workers began their careers in social policy during the colonial period, serving as welfare officers in regional and central governments. For these individuals, U.S. education offered not only a new path toward modernity for South Korea but also a fresh start for their careers, effectively concealing their previous involvement with the colonial state.
79
Tahk to Klein, 22 May 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- General, 1970-1972.”; Tahk to Brita Hasselrot, 9 March 1971, Riksarkivet [Swedish National Archives] (RA), Utrikesdepartementet (UD), R34: 350, 1920 års dossiersystem 1920–1974,” Folder 2, Täby, Sweden; Louis O’Conner, “Facing Facts,” in Proceedings of Tenth Annual KAVA Conference (Seoul, 1966), 49.
80
“Voluntary Agency Closed For Alleged Law Violation,” Korea Herald, July 29, 1966; John Corbin to Paul Cherney, 13 July 1966, ISS-USA Papers, Box 20, Folder “Church World Service”; Memorandum from WRS to PRC, August 5, 1966, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Korea—General 1966- 1967.”
81
Nye to ISS Headquarters, 4 August 1966, and Tahk to Edna Weber, 16 September 1966, both in ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Korea—General 1966- 1967.”
82
Tahk Youn Taek, “1. Child Abandonment and Management,” March 13, 1968, 2, RA, UD, Vol. R34: 350, Folder 2; Pak Ok-sun, interview by author, September 11, 2017; Yi In-suk, interview by author, May 12, 2017.
83
Tahk to Nye, 2 July 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- General, 1970-1972.”
84
The ELAO was revised and enacted in 1966 (Act No. 1745) with the clause on proxy adoption being removed while the court approval process was retained.
85
The ELAO of 1961 (Clause 4, Article 2) mandated public advertisements on both court noticeboards and in newspapers. However, the requirement for newspaper advertisements was not enforced due to ambiguity over who would bear responsibility for this task.
86
This amount differs from the total fees paid by adoptive parents to agencies in receiving countries, as only a portion of these fees was transferred to South Korean agencies. A notable exception was Sweden where adoptive parents transferred the entire fee directly to CPS. “PM angående adoption av utländska barn,” undated [c. 1968], RA, UD, R34: 350, Folder 2.
87
Tahk to Hasselrot, 29 April 1968, RA, UD, R34: 350, Folder 2.
88
Tahk to Hasselrot, 22 March 1968, RA, UD, R34: 350, Folder 2.
89
Mun Chun-ha, interview by author, June 16, 2017; Kim Myŏng-u, interview by author, November 23, 2017.
90
Greta Wallin, “P.M.,” June 26, 1968, and Wallin to Stig Granqvist, 17 July 1968, both in RA, UD, R34: 350, Folder 2.
91
Socialstyrelsen, “PM angående adoption av barn från Korea,” April 24, 1972, RA, Socialstyrelsen (SoS), Vol. FI: 1, “Socialstyrelsen Rådgivande nämnden för frågor rörande adoption av utländska barn 1972–1973.”
92
Tahk to Nye, 2 July 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- General, 1970-1972.” In 1972, the agreement between the Swedish intermediary and CPS was updated to eliminate the need for the South Korean court process, instead adopting the Swedish court process upon the child’s arrival. Nevertheless, children were still released directly to prospective parents upon leaving South Korea without a mandatory trial period. Aiming to implement more stringent adoption procedures akin to those in the United States, Tahk requested that the Swedish intermediary report on the child’s adjustment in their new adoptive home before CPS forwarded the necessary documents for the Swedish court process. Tahk to Wallin, 26 October 1972, RA, SoS, Vol. Fl: 1; “Agreement Between Swedish Council for Intercountry Adoptions, Sweden and Social Welfare Society, Inc., Korea,” April 7, 1975, RA, SoS, Vol. F III : 1, “Socialstyrelsen, Nämnden för internationella adoptionsfrågor 1973-1981.”
93
Apart from CPS, the committee included participants from the Christian Adoption Program of Korea—the country’s sole domestic adoption agency—and the Korea Church World Service. Tahk Youn Taek, “In-Country Adoption Regulation,” in Proceedings of KAVA Monthly Meetings (Seoul, 1971), 58.
94
For further discussion of the shifting Cold War dynamics during détente and its impact on the South Korean adoption program, see Koo, “The Question of Adoption.”
95
Tahk to Nye, 2 July 1970, ISS-USA Papers, Box 35, Folder “Child Placement Service- General, 1970-1972”; T’ak Yŏn-t’aek [Tahk Youn Taek], “Hyŏndaejŏk ibyang ŭi sŏnggyŏk kwa munjetchŏm” [The Characteristics and Issues of Modern Adoption], Sahoe Pokchi (1972):18–27, here 25; Tahk Youn Taek, interview by author, May 22, 2017; Han Hyun Sook, interview by author, August 11, 2018; Hyug Baeg Im, “The Origins of the Yushin Regime: Machiavelli Unveiled,” in The Park Chung Hee Era: The Transformation of South Korea, eds. Byung-Kook Kim and Ezra F. Vogel (Cambridge, MA, 2011): 233–261.
96
Seungsook Moon, Militarized Modernity and Gendered Citizenship in South Korea (Durham and London, 2005).
97
In her analysis of the emergence of neoliberal governance in post-1997 South Korea, Jesook Song argues that such governance can arise without an extensive history of liberal governance. While I agree that the South Korean experience enriches the theorization of neoliberalism, I contend that the current literature underestimates the extent to which liberal governance was introduced and articulated in South Korea by various actors. Jesook Song, South Koreans in the Debt Crisis: The Creation of a Neoliberal Welfare Society (Durham and London, 2009).
98
The 1976 adoption law (Act No. 2977) governed both domestic and international adoptions. It eliminated the court approval requirement from the international adoption process and officially recognized the creation of orphan registries for children lacking such documentation. Additionally, the law concerning the guardianship of children without caregivers (Presidential Decree No. 8510) was revised in 1977, mandating that all such children be publicly advertised at the District Office before the appointment of guardianship. Nevertheless, several issues continued to arise. For detailed explanation, see Hŏ Nam-sun, “Kungnae mit kugoe ibyang chedo ŭi munjejŏm koch’al” [Examination of the Problems in Domestic and Overseas Adoption Systems], Sahoe Pokchi (1986): 130–135.
99
I was introduced to this policy by social worker Pak Ok-sun whom I interviewed on September 11 and December 6, 2017. During my year-long fieldwork in South Korea, I searched for official documents confirming this directive but was unable to locate any. However, the existence of this policy was corroborated by another social worker, Kim Myŏng-u, during my interview with him on November 23, 2017. Kim worked at a different adoption agency from Pak’s. Upon reviewing the personal adoption records of 23 adoptees I interviewed, I confirmed that the policy change occurred in late 1976 when all adoptees’ origins were uniformly recorded as Hanyang regardless of their surname. Based on this evidence, I concluded that the policy change did take place and was likely issued orally which was not an uncommon practice at the time.
100
While “lineage seat,” is the term most widely used in scholarship on premodern Korea, this paper uses “family origin,” as it is the official term in the English translation of the orphan registry used for overseas adoption and more effectively conveys the significance of this policy shift.
101
It is, however, important to note that, until the late Chosǒn period, surnames and pon’gwans were exclusive to the elite. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, commoners began to adopt surnames and pon’gwans as a way to elevate their social status. On this phenomenon and its broader implications, see Kwŏn Nae-hyŏn, Nobi esŏ yangban ŭro, kŭ mŏnamŏn yŏjŏng: ŏnŭ nobi kagye 2-paengnyŏn ŭi kirok [From Nobi to Yangban, That Distant Journey—A Record of a Nobi Family Over 200 Years] (Seoul, 2014), 88–94.
102
Interview by author, March 11, 2018.
103
This directive does not mean that all individuals recorded in the orphan registry had Hanyang listed as their origin from 1976; this policy was specifically applied to children sent for overseas adoption. For example, during my visit to an orphanage in Daejeon, which was established after the Korean War, I was informed that the orphanage consistently used Daejeon as the family origin when creating orphan registries for institutionalized children. In the case of domestic adoption, no separate registry was created; instead, children were directly entered into the adoptive father’s registry as birth children. For a discussion of the complications that this practice created, see Sungyun Lim, “Adopting in the Shadows: False Registration as a Method of Adoption in Postcolonial South Korea,” Positions: Asia Critique 29, no. 3 (2021): 495–521.
104
Translated from Korean. Pak Ok-sun, interview by author, December 6, 2017.
105
The extent of the South Korean state’s awareness of the existence of Hanyang Cho at the time of issuing the directive, and whether social workers assigned the surname Cho to children adopted overseas after 1976, remains uncertain. Among the 23 individuals I interviewed, who were adopted during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, none reported having Cho as their surname.
106
David Scott, “The Tragic Vision in Postcolonial Time,” PMLA 129, no. 4 (2014): 799–808, here 800.
107
Scott, “The Tragic Vision in Postcolonial Time,” 802.