By Malia Matsuura
Transnational adoption can cause a cultural disconnect between one’s own culture and the culture of one’s adoptive families. In Alice Sola Kim’s short story, “Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying,” Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline meet at an event for Korean adoptees. Although they are very different from one another, Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline connect and form a friendship through their similar life circumstances of being adopted into white families. Throughout their friendship, they share an important familial figure, whom they call Mom. This creature they call Mom represents the three girls’ bond to their Korean culture that their adoptive families did not quite expose them to. Mom is not a physical being, but rather an image or an idea in Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline’s minds. It helps them cope with their lack of cultural understanding. Through food, language, and music, Kim uses an imaginary familial figure to pass down culture to adoptees in order to criticize how often transnational adoption causes people to lose their connection to their motherland.
In most cultures, food is an important aspect. In “Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They Are Terrifying,” Mom exposes the girls to many foods that they have not experienced due to their white adoptive families. For example, the girls “would find [themselves] making food that [they] didn’t know how to make, stews and porridges and little sweet hotcakes.” They do not know how to prepare these foods because they had not grown up experiencing their Korean culture. Because they are white, Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline’s adoptive parents do not expose them to Korean foods. Food is an important part of each culture and Kim argues that it is critical that adoptive parents of different ethnicities introduce their children to their birth culture. The narrator even states that the girls “found it impossible to accept [their adoptive parents] as [their] parents, now that [their] real mother was back.” The girls accept Mom as their own mother and that they no longer acknowledge the roles of their adoptive parents. Through food, Mom allows Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline to connect with their Korean roots which each of their adoptive parents gave them no chance to do.
Language is one of the most important aspects of culture. Because they were adopted by white parents, Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline did not grow up being surrounded by Korean. When one of the girls, Caroline, tries to sing a song for Mom, Mom states that Caroline does not speak Korean and that she “Will Never Speak Real Korean.” Although she can vaguely spit out the language, “she didn’t sound like someone speaking Korean—she sounded like someone making fun of it.” Transnational adoption has caused Caroline to never truly learn the Korean language, suggesting that because of this cultural loss, she may never truly be 100% Korean. If she were to have grown up in Korea, she would have felt more connected with her culture and mother tongue. As far as we know, her adoptive parents do not make an effort to expose their child to their culture or to teach her Korean. The issue with transnational adoption, Kim argues, is that many adoptive parents do not teach their children about their identity, causing them to experience a sense of disconnect from who they are.
On top of reconnecting the girls to Korean food and language, Mom also exposes the girls to Korean music. For example, a “few days after mom’s first appearance, Caroline woke herself up singing softly, a song she had never before heard.” Since this song was an important part of Mom’s “life,” it makes sense that she would want to pass it down like the food and language. By doing so, she fulfills the role of Caroline’s birth parents, passing down traditions, specifically Korean ones. This song is an important part of the girl’s cultural exposure because it is the song that Mom’s mother sang to it when it was late to school. Assuming that the creature called Mom is Korean itself, it can be concluded that this song is a small aspect of the exposure to their Korean culture that Mom is doing for Mini, Ronnie, and Caroline.
“Mothers, Lock Up Your Daughters Because They are Terrifying” by Alice Sola Kim touches upon the issues of transnational adoption demonstrated by the cultural disconnect between food, language, and music. Kim argues that it is important for adoptive parents to expose their children to their birth culture and allow them to gain an understanding of their own identity. By not doing so, adoptees may experience a greater amount of disconnect between themselves and their birth culture. This can result in feelings of confusion and loss of identity. American colonialism has a long history, and this is especially true of Korean adoption, which accounts for 10% of the Korean population in the United States. It gives children somewhere to live, but can also be traumatic for the children who are cut off from their families and cultures. Kim argues that it is still the adoptive parents’ responsibility to familiarize their adopted child’s culture to them even though a transnational adoption has occurred.
Malia Matsuura is a Japanese American student interested in trying new foods, esports, andtraveling. Born and raised in Orange County, California, she is currently studying at ChapmanUniversity.