The Rumpus Review of Seoul Searching
Seeing is a critical part of normalizing, and though it seems like a rudimentary expectation, it’s important for American audiences to see Korean-Americans simply living their lives.
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Posts Tagged: adoption
Voices on Addiction: Baby’s Home
I got to thinking about home. What the fuck is home anyway?
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Wanted/Needed/Loved: Torres’s Family Portrait
I’m constantly making up stories, and writing histories, even when I’m not putting them into songs.
...moreWriting Adoption
Over at Catapult, Nicole Chung, Managing Editor at The Toast, is editing a special series on adoption. The series so far includes essays by Jasmine Sanders, Megan Galbraith, and Michele Leavitt. New essays drop every Tuesday through the month of March.
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The Rumpus Interview with Karen Salyer McElmurray
Karen Salyer McElmurray talks about academia, the relationship between flaws and perfection, writing memoir, and the “tapestry” of writers who inspire her.
...moreThe Gift of Gratefulness
The worst insult people hurl at adoptees is that they are “ungrateful” and should “go back” (to their “own” countries, to their old families). That is the moment when adoption becomes a gift—because that is the moment when it becomes clear that adoption belongs to people like the adoptive parent and not people like the […]
...moreLanguage, Love, and Loss
Over at The Toast, Nicole Chung has written a deeply personal and beautiful essay about coming to terms with her adoption, embracing her Korean heritage, and learning her mother tongue alongside her daughter: When I watch my daughter writing in Korean, when we talk about our family history, when she seems sure about who she […]
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The Weight of the Future, the Emptiness of the Past
I am reminded of how we know something is there, sometimes, by its absence, how dark matter is said to exist because of so much missing mass.
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The Sunday Rumpus Interview: Jillian Lauren
Karen Halvorsen Schreck talks with Jillian Lauren, author of the new memoir Everything You Ever Wanted, about adoption, identity, and how to create new models for heroism and the family.
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Build-A-Bear
Other kids were just the grab-bag prize their parents were stuck with when they unwrapped it, whereas mine had gone shopping and picked me.
...moreTemporary Residence
At NYT Magazine, Maggie Jones profiles an entire generation: the South Korean adoptees making the trek back “home.” But having spent their lives abroad, where “home” is becomes a tough question to answer: As Trenka writes in her memoir, “The Language of Blood”: “How can I weigh the loss of my language and culture against the […]
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Photos that Remember Us
Mathew Daddona’s father and uncle were adopted into different families. When they reunited with each other and their biological father as adults, they uncovered connections that extend through the generations.
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The Rumpus Interview with Matthew Salesses
Writer and Rumpus contributor Matthew Salesses discusses the form of flash fiction, the selective nature of adoption narratives, and how to confront fears of parenting.
...moreSlouching Towards Baltimore
Geoffrey Becker’s second novel races across the country in the company of “spiritual beings having a human experience.”
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