“Seed from the East” – A Trip to the Homeland (Part 4)

As I was told, once my parents landed in Korea, they had four days. When they arrived at the orphanage in Il San, they got to visit with us for awhile but stayed the night somewhere else. (See photo of me with my parents in the yard.) Eventually I was picked up and flown to my new home in La Crescenta, CA. My Dad recounted, every chance he got, that on the flight back, when my mother left me with him to use the bathroom, I screamed the entire time at the top of my lungs until she returned.

Needless to say, I was a mess at three years old. I had boils, hair lice and worms. My two front teeth were rotten and had to be pulled out. (It took a long time for the adult teeth to grow in.) Plus, I had tuberculosis.

After looking at all the files my parents kept of the adoption process, I am truly amazed that the Holt Adoption Program was able to get Visas, adoption papers signed, and physicals approved for seventy-eight children for that charter flight on November 29, 1963.

In the book, “Seed from the East,” the story is told, in part, through the numerous letters from Harry in Korea. Things he wrote about, I remember being told about myself:

The children didn’t sleep in beds. They slept on the floor. My mother found me sleeping on the floor at home. It took awhile for me to get used to the bed.

They didn’t wear shoes. I had never worn shoes before. Captured in the 8mm footage, I sit down and won’t walk because the shoes hurt my feet.

We ate oatmeal in the orphanage. Living in America, I refused to eat oatmeal. To this day, I am unable eat it from scratch.

When the children arrived in Oregon, they were scared of the family dog. In Korea, dogs were known as vicious. As I was told, I climbed up on the picnic table and screamed when I saw the family dog, Susie. She had just been house-trained and was relegated to the backyard. Mom said we watched each other through the glass door. Eventually, she became “my” dog and we were inseparable. She slept on my bed, followed me to school (until we got a fence), walked with me everywhere in the neighborhood, and protected me. She died my senior year in high school.

Up until I was nine or ten years old, every Thanksgiving my parents would bring out the 8mm projector and show the trip to Korea. Every year, my brothers would laugh at the part where I would stop walking. At some point, I had expressed that I didn’t want to watch the movie of the trip ever again. In 1990, I had the footage transferred to VHS tape and gave it to my Dad on Father’s Day.

Recently, the Reverend Bob Bock told me he was there at the airport when my parents returned from Korea with me. He was the Associate Minister at Hollywood Beverly Christian Church where my parents worked for fourteen years until 1969. He said he admired how my mother instilled my Korean heritage. Sadly, I shared with him that I fought it and she finally gave up.

Growing up in a predominantly Caucasian community meant, I was self-conscious about looking different. I remember distinctly, while in third grade, being harassed by other school children about the way I looked. As I recall, it was after school and I was playing with friends on the playground. When I got home from school I didn’t share this with my mother, but she knew something was wrong. (I‘m not sure if I’d been crying or just had an angry face.) She prodded and I finally told her what happened.

That day on the playground changed the way I viewed people who felt a need to make fun of someone else because of the color of their skin or the shape of their eyes. It has helped me endure prejudice, bigotry, and racist comments throughout my life.

When someone says to me, “Your people. . . ” I am truly baffled by what they mean. I know visiting Korea will be an educational, emotional, but, also a fun experience for me. I take with me gratitude and love for the two people that never gave up hope that I would be their little girl.