Given Away: Korean Adoptees Tell Their Stories

by Glenn Morey, Julie Morey, Jeena Yi (Narrator)

In 1955, an American farming couple saw a film about the thousands of Korean children orphaned by the Korean War. Through a special act of Congress, they were authorized to adopt eight of these children - which marked the advent of international adoption. Since that time, there have been over 170,000 children adopted out of Korea to more than 30 countries. And the practice of international adoption has expanded across the globe, with over a million children being adopted out of their countries of origin.

What happens when children’s lives are re-set by adoption? When they’re sent to new countries to grow up with families of a different race, a different language and culture? How have Korean adoptees navigated early trauma, family, and their own identity?

Korean adoptee Glenn Morey and his wife, Julie Morey, spent six years interviewing 100 Korean adoptees from around the world. This stunning Audible Original is comprised of 15 first-person accounts - an international journey through the personal memories and experiences of abandonment, relinquishment, orphanages, aging out, and inter-country adoption from South Korea. Together, they are a triumph of resilience and survival. To appreciate these extraordinary lives, you need not be adopted or an adoptive parent. You need only be human.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook, Memoir, Adoption, Asian American, Autobiography, Family

3 pages, Audible Audio

First published November 5, 2020

Reviews

[Montzalee Wittmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Given Away: Korean Adoptees Tell Their Stories
by Glenn Morey, Julie Morey
This is quite a moving book! It tells of 15 adopters stories and things they all seem to have in common and how each are very unique. This book is a punch to the heart! Lots of love goes into adoption but there are things that adopters never tell even their own families about, until now. Powerful! Recommend!

[C · Rating 5 out of 5]

I chose this title b/c it sounded interesting and I had a Korean friend in high school who was adopted. What I hadn't expected was how many personal emotions it would stir in myself. I wasn't adopted but I did find out (through a DNA test) that my biological father wasn't the man who raised me. So many secrets about my birth story, and half siblings that I now know about, rocked my identity. Listening to the variety of experiences in this collection made me feel validated in so many ways. It feels really isolating, confusing and hard to process all of these unknowns--and most people can't really understand what you're going through. I felt more comforted by these stories than almost anything else I've read (or listened to) in recent history. I'm grateful to the author for this work.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

Moving and eye-opening look at interracial adoptions. Morey has collected the testimonies of fifteen Koreans who were either adopted by families in other countries as children, in a couple of cases, grew up abandoned to state-run institutions within South Korea and eventually aged out of the system.

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glenn Morey and his wife interviewed 100 Korean adoptees. Fifteen of those interviews make up this audio book. They share their thoughts and feelings and experiences. I found it very interesting. A glimpse into an experience and culture that I was not very familiar with. I felt it was a very good compilation. Very insightful. Hard to put into words the emotion that this production brought forth.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just little snippets of the impact of international adoption on Korean children, but it was especially poignant as my parents considered an international adoption of a Vietnamese child and wrestled with some of the same issues.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating, painful, poignant. I will remember these stories for a long time. They really illuminated unfamiliar perspectives.

[Ruth Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, poignant, and insightful personal stories of South Koreans who were “given up” as children. Some were adopted to other countries (there are accounts from people who were adopted in the United States, Australia, and Europe), and a few aged out of the orphanage without ever getting adopted. The struggles, doubts, fears, and prejudice many of them faced is related honestly and candidly. I listened to the entire thing almost in one sitting. Apparently this was adapted for Audible Original, but was originally a film documentary project called “Side by Side: Out of a South Korean Orphanage and into the World,” in which 100 people related their firsthand accounts. Now I’m curious to look up that documentary as well. This is definitely worth the listen. You won’t regret it.

[Laura Alvarado · Rating 4 out of 5]

Testimonies from adoptees telling about the good and the bad, successes and failures, and how, no matter what, struggle in one way or another is inevitable.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciate that it is people telling their own stories and there is such a wide variety of perspectives and backgrounds -- people with good and bad experiences and how it has shaped their lives. It really makes me appreciate what those people have gone through, even if they were placed in loving homes, being "given away" and coming to terms with that.

[Karen Manna · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I started this free on the audible app, I had no idea what I would be listening to. This was a compilation of actual Korean adoptees talking themselves about their experience.

Having spent some time in South Korea and having an adopted Korean daughter, I couldn’t pull myself away. I listened to the entire four hours in one sitting.

Even though none of the stories portrayed my daughter’s same story, there were pieces and parts from all of the stories that I’m sure she has experience. It brought a new light to me, and I loved listening to it!

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

These stories were beautiful and heart breaking. I think hearing and sharing stories is an important part of life. It brings needed perspective and knowledge into our lives. As a white american I believe it is important for me to hear a range of personal stories.

I love that this audio book has the voices and true stories of 15 individuals who were adopted from Korea. Several of the people didn't speak English and while a translator told their story, their own voices and languages were also shared.

This book was a quick one. I couldn't pull myself away for very long so I listened in one day. I feel honored to get to hear these experiences. As a foster mom and probably a future adoptive mom I believe it's important to remember birth family. We all want to know where we cam from and where we belong.

[Meredith Molloy · Rating 5 out of 5]

🎧: Given Away by Glenn Morey & Julie Morey
⭐️: 5/5

I am a Korean adoptee. And I don’t have words for what this listen meant to me. It’s heartbreaking, hopeful, gut wrenching, and beautiful. It made me feel less alone and simultaneously aware of the depth of the Korean adoptee experience that spans far beyond my own.

It also left me feeling hurt and angry for the thread of abandonment and children (not just like me - quite literally, me) being used as a commodity. Our pasts forged in some cases — is the story we’ve come to known on our single piece of paper that arrived with us to our new homelands even true? This listen showed that what we know to be true may not be true.

This is a must listen for any transracial adoptee, parent of a transracial adoptee, or friend of a transracial adoptee. Our pasts are fraught, and often not understood why. This gives a glimpse into the why.

[Kathleen Mahnke · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hit home. Though I am not Korean, as an adoptee, I identified with many of the emotions, questions, and reflections raised by these brave people who shared their stories. There are certainly things these adoptees have faced that I have not so much - e.g., racism and their longing to know their homeland, Korea. I was born in the US and raised here. I am one of the tall, blond variety. Lucky in those ways, yet still struggling with many of the issues raised in this collection of interviews. Always being different from other members of your adoptive family; the need to look for (and in my case, find) biological siblings and other blood relatives; longing for connection, yet inability to commit; feeling ashamed (why wasn't I good enough?); and, perhaps most difficult of all for me - an incurable fear of abandonment.

[Munjo Yu · Rating 5 out of 5]

It turns out much better than I expected. And it's emotionally heavy and touches upon many human natures. Even for someone like me who believes stuff under the skin is much more important than the skin itself, there is no denying that appearances do play an important role indeed.
As a Korean American, it's troubling to learn why South Korea has been a popular country to adopt children from. It started from the ruins of the Korean war which produced a lot of orphans and mixed-race children. Its culture that values "pure" blood and shuns adoption, made South Korea a favorite country for shopping for adoptees.
After listening to the adoptees in the book, I can't help having a warm heart for them for what they've been through.

[Sheila Dailie · Rating 3 out of 5]

When my parents adopted two Korean girls at two different times, our family had two completely different experiences. I found it fascinating to hear how many of the adoptees were able to make connections with their biological parents when they were older.
It is difficult to imagine being thrown into a totally different culture without language or any type of support, especially for older children. It is no wonder that making the transition proved so difficult for some children/young adults.
Other than connecting with other families with Korean children, I don't think my parents had any kind of support to help them understand the difficulties of trans-racial adoption. Glad that I listened to this.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting interviews with people who were adopted from Korea, or who spent their childhoods in orphanages in Korea. I liked the interviewers method of only asking the people to "tell me your story" without posing any other questions - it allows the people to talk about the parts of the experience that were important to them without 'shepherding' them into a specific narrative. The experiences of any adoptee (or anyone, period) do not fit in to a nice neat narrative - there are complex feelings with complicated stories. I also think their experiences coincide with experiences of any ExPat living in a foreign country - you never truly become a member of the community where you are living, but when you go back home you have changed too much to truly belong there, either.

[sliceofmini · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 / 5
Though I'm glad I listened to this I have to say there was a lack of depth ( understandable with the short length of the audiobook )

We had like what ? 5 minutes with each person and I felt the sense of disconnect especially when they started crying when they told their stories. For them it's their life and being vulnerable about the details got them to tears but I hardly had few minutes to listen to their story and not only that but move on to the next story right after.

I just wish this audio was longer because I really thought it was interesting listening to various perspectives of these adoptees , it just lacked the "critical length" for me to elicit empathy.
But I think it works as an introduction to something larger

[Melissa Boatwright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely incredible!

As a white American who lived in South Korea for three years, visited orphanages and met other service members who were Korean adoptees (and with a brother who was adopted and reunited with our mother about 15 years ago), I was really curious about this book.

It's a collection of stories from 100 interviews with Korean adoptees, and it spans the diversity of their experiences. A must read.

If you're interested in learning more about the modern history of adoption, I would also recommend, The Girls Who Went Away by Ann Fessler.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really great look into the perspectives of Korean adoptees who come to the US and who struggle with their identity no matter how good or how bad their life becomes in the US. There is a lot of wondering about why they were given up, what life would’ve been like if they would’ve stayed and for some, they are grateful that their parents gave them up.

Even though they grew up in the US they still face racism and xenophobic behavior from friends and family and neighbors.

A sad listen but a good one.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is extremely powerful and poignant. As the child of an adoptee and the best friend of a Korean adoptee and myself being someone who cannot have children, adoption has always meant more to me than most of the people I went to school with or dated, etc. So much of this is familiar and the rest is extremely other but all together it's overpoweringly emotional and I can't help but think those feelings are twice as powerful for adoptees that hear these stories.

[Chad · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a man married to a first generation Korean and hearing the stories from her Korean family and the difficulties with transitioning to America, this was a very interesting book. The stories are extremely varied, and it displays the uniqueness of each individual's experience. I am sure there were similarities across all of the people that were interviewed, but this is a very riveting cross-section. The audible narrators were great and offered a lot of personality and emotion that gave the stories life. The content was sad and uplifting at the same time, but makes me want to explore further...

[Carolina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this compilation of true adoption stories, mostly told by the adoptees themselves. It was well put together and highlighted the different challenges these children face, the struggles for a sense of identity in terms of background and also in terms of fitting into a predominantly white society. Most of them have to grapple with lifelong questions about why they were given up by their birth parents, and with it also with a lingering sense of abandonment.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of autobiographical short stories is available free right now on Audible in recognition of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.

This was both heart wrenching and informative. I’d recommend it to anyone, and even more so to those who are considering international interracial adoption or who know a friend or family member who has been part of an international adoption in some way.

[Heather Vertin · Rating 5 out of 5]

These were such amazing stories to hear and can’t thank the author and adoptees enough for sharing them. Having 2 children adopted from S Korea in 2010 and 2018, this tugs on my heart strings for struggles they will experience growing up in a white family, loss of their birth family and loss of their birth country. We knew this would happen but hearing first hand stories is a whole other perspective.

Thank you for this audiobook ❤️🇰🇷🇺🇸

[Books&teacup ☕️ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hearing people talk about their adoption experiences was so emotional and somewhat sad. As a person who dreams of adopting a child, I have never thought about this side of the process. Of course, I know that any type of experience like this is emotional, but I felt like we adopt to save these children (or that’s what it should be). However, maybe they don’t want or need to be saved by us (because they could be saved and happy with their original family if they have one).

[Kelly Conrad · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was an interesting “listen” on a drive to Paso Robles, but I am not totally sure I would recommend it.

It held some painful stories and certainly spotlighted how sometimes white parents who adopt can’t relate very well to the racism their adopted child faces, no matter how much love is in the home, but the assembly of stories a bit “all over the place.”

I did like being exposed to and my mind opened up to the perspective the shared stories held, though.

[Deborah Frazier Gibson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an interesting listen. I never realized there were so many Korean children left behind from the Korean conflict and unfortunately from that being so long ago, a single mother didn’t support herself and raise her own child the way they do today. This is the many stories of several children who went through the adoption process (some good and some heartbreaking) but all telling their honest story.

[Heather Brammer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have several friends who are Korean adoptees. It was interesting to see the struggle many of these children faced by being pulled from their home countries and placed elsewhere with people that speak a different language, look different and have different traditions and culture and how this effected their personal identity.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved listening to these stories and could have listened to hours more. I loved what the authors said about why they chose to not ask questions but rather let the participants speak to what was significant to them.The Korean-American adoption story is a fascinating one that I'd like to know more about. I appreciated the variety in the stories chosen for this collection.

[Bonnie Thrasher · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an Audible Free selection of the month. It provides interviews with people who have been adopted from Korea. It details their gratitude, grief, feelings of separateness, and the commonalities they feel regardless of the country to which they are adopted into.