Depersonalizing "Home"

     In Ahmed and Castenada’s introduction on uprootings and regroundings, they assert that the privilege of movement is actually evidenced not by who moves, but by who gets to stay put (7). This theoretical piece stayed with me while reading Kim’s Adopted Territory because there was so much power illustrated by the American parents’ agency in the adoption of their child. In one instance, a couple even sent a brochure back to Korea with a child’s face circled, thus indicating they wanted that child, as if shopping out of a magazine. This power of staying put/remaining on the homefront while mandating the activities of the marginalized and abroad made me think about the agency and power that is inherently intertwined with whom is doing the deciding on those who are moving. For example, the American parents in the aftermath of the Korean War desired to bring Korean orphans not only into their country, but into their homes. Their desire and ability to move these children legitimized the children themselves. Conversely, the current situation with Mexican children refugees is quite the opposite; in general, Americans (parents or not) want these children neither in their country nor in their homes. Why? Are not both groups of children products of American war, capitalism, and imperialism? Are not both groups of children without “proper” parents? Not to ignore the racialized piece of this conversation, but the main reason that the latter group is not seen as legitimate is because those with agency and power do not desire to move these children. This is not to suggest that racial reasons have nothing to do with the lack of desire to accommodate Mexican children refugees, but it is not the only informant of this viewpoint.

            This visibility of race is a fact that Kim explores in Part I of her book; after considering the readings altogether it would appear as if the visibility of race is parallel to the visibility of “not being at home.” Kim reflects on this a few times in the first half – Ulysse style??—when she talks about how the Korean adoptees do not know she is not an adoptee until she tells them. Mohanty also mentions this in her piece when she discusses how people would constantly ask her when she was going home (126). This assumed separation of home is synonymous with “out of placeness,” just like the semantics in the language surrounding Korean adoptees. Kim writes about “orphan” and “motherland” as words that infantilize and remove agency from the now adult adoptees, yet some of the adoptees themselves use these words (136-7). This verbal and visual suggestion of displacement seems to foster what Kim describes as a “model of kinship that is not exclusive but additive, transnational, and expansive” (95). This leads me to wonder: the authors dealing with these topics seems to always include some sort of personal narrative and/or experiences (home-building, meaning-making, world-making). With this in mind, is it possible to de-personalize the concent of home? If so or if not, what does this mean for studies of kinship and belonging?

Mohanty mentioned that when she did go home, she was criticized for not being able to understand the problems of home (131). I am anxious to see if this scenario plays out in the same way for the Korean adoptees when they visit Korea in Part II.