By Kayla Kuo
Unsettling Acts contains references to racism, physical and sexual abuse, rape, incest, parental death, and self–harm.
Adoptee literature, specifically books and zines written by adoptee authors, were (and still are) crucial to exploring my identity as a queer transracial and transnational adoptee, whether they act as a mirror to my own experiences, a soothing balm to heal my inner child, or a portal to better understand the rich and diverse experiences of adoptees.
It seems obvious now, but it wasn’t until reading Jieun Lee’s Unsettling Acts: Performing Transnational Adoption that I realized the expansive scope of adoptee artists and their multi-disciplinary work, including contemporary theatre and performance works.
Unlike most of the adoptee literature that I read and review, Unsettling Acts is an academic work. While Lee is not an adoptee, she’s a US-based Korean scholar, and currently an Assistant Professor in Theater Studies at Emory University. Lee’s robust research, including analysis of live performances, archival materials, and in-person interviews with Korean adoptee theater and performance artists, has made significant contributions to both critical adoption studies and theater and performance studies.
Lee analyzes 12 contemporary productions—ranging from plays, musicals, solo performances, community-based theatre, and performance art—and their representations of adoptees’ birth search and reunions. The majority of the artists identified as Korean transnational adoptees, illustrating the importance of adoptee-centered plays and performances based on their lived experiences and complexities of the historical, social, and emotional impacts of transnational adoption. The works themselves were produced and came from Korea, the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Denmark.
In evaluating these theater and performance works from around the world, Lee argues that “performing transnational adoption is an act of unsettling dominant discourses about Korean transnational adoption and adoptees.” It’s no doubt that these works were troubling at times, though it was through the discomfort that allowed narratives to be rewritten. As a Taiwanese-Chinese adoptee, I’m all too familiar with the mainstream adoption narratives built on gratitude (from the adoptee for their adoptive parents), white saviorism, religious beliefs, and postwar humanitarian efforts. And, as an adoptee who attempted to search for my birth family, it was refreshing to connect with many of the performances because they complicate the search and reunion process and disrupt the happily ever after fantasies. Unfortunately, the reality is never that cheerful or simple.
Unsettling Acts is divided into six chapters: an introduction, four chapters analyzing the contemporary theater and performance works, and a conclusion. The introduction is an orientation to Lee’s positionality as a scholar, an overview of the adoptees and artists, and most importantly, a historical explanation of transnational adoption from South Korea to the United States. This section provides readers with the knowledge of geopolitical relationships between South Korea and the U.S. (including U.S. militarism) as well as common conversations surrounding Korean transnational adoption. It too provides context to the artists’ work which is often political in nature.
The bulk of Unsettling Acts is dedicated to Lee’s analysis of the performances. Four of the chapters are grouped by shared themes in the performances, including representations of Korean birth mothers, adoptee autobiographical solo performances, sense of belonging and imagination, and the structural violence of colonialism and transnational adoption. Throughout these chapters, kinship extended beyond parent-child relationships to include search and reunion with biological siblings and their homeland.
In the conclusion, Lee reflects on her visit to Omma Poom Park, a memorial park in Paju City for Korean adoptees and their birth families. Yet, as Lee dissects the two main installations, Wonsook Kim’s Shadow Child and Kwanghyun Wang’s Mother’s Arms, it’s clear that these sculptures, once again, embody the parent-child relationship, specifically between birth mothers and their relinquished children.
Even as she tries to visit Omma Poom Park, Lee expresses how transnational adoptees may have difficulty accessing the park grounds, whether it be finding the correct entrance or even trying to read memorial plaques solely in Korean. Lee understands her identity as a non-adoptee scholar and, even though she does not carry this particular experience, her treatment of adoption narratives — especially in academic settings — is significant. Rather than collapse the depth and breadth of adoptee experiences into a singular, all encompassing monolith, Lee unpacks each performance and art piece to stress the nuances of each adoptee and their experience.
As someone unfamiliar with adoption-related scholarship and its standards, I was relieved when Lee repeatedly centered adoptee voices even — and especially when — their analysis criticized the system of transnational adoption and adoption parents. Lee’s research is not meant to protect adoptive parents’ feelings or to justify their ‘humanitarian’ actions. Lee’s research is crucial, too, because it expands search and reunion beyond birth parents; yet, it’s important to identify whose presence was most included in the performances and research and whose presence was missing.
It’s clear that birth mothers faced harsh and isolating systems of oppression—patriarchy, classism, societal norms, and an infringement on their reproductive rights—that led to the relinquishment of their children. In many ways, because of their profound presence throughout the performances and the socioeconomical and cultural factors that led to the children’s relinquishment, it can be easier to provide empathy towards the birth mother. Yet, birth fathers were nearly invisible in Unsettling Adoption.
My sole critique is the absence of Lee’s recognition and scholarly contributions to dismantle negative stereotypes of birth fathers’ disinterest and lack of involvement in the relinquishment, search, or reunion process. There was only one performance (Yellow Dress) that mentioned searching for the adoptee’s birth father. Yet, even in this play, the birth father cannot remember the circumstances that led to the adoptee and her biological brother’s relinquishment and transnational adoption. Birth fathers continue to be underrepresented in adoption literature and under-researched in critical adoption studies. I hoped that Lee’s contributions would reduce the research gap of missing and excluded birth fathers in adoption.
I appreciate how Unsettling Acts opened my world to different forms of adoptee art beyond literature. Given the academic nature this book, I would recommend this book specifically to those within academia (notably critical adoption studies or theater and performance studies). For those outside of academia (myself included), I would recommend following the adoptee artists and, if possible, watching the performances from archived videos. (Based on the initial performance dates, I’m not sure how many are still being performed and how many are available within the U.S.)
Note: Unsettling Acts is part of an interdisciplinary series, Formations: Adoption, Kinship, and Culture, edited by Emily Hipchen and John McLeod.
Kayla Kuo is a queer transracial and transnational adoptee born in Taiwan and raised in the Midwest. She is learning how to embrace slowness and be more creative. Lately, she spends her time sewing, reading too many books at once, deepening her community organizing, and snuggling with her miniature pinscher, Kenny.
You can find her book reviews on Instagram (@ThatBookBinch) and more reflections/essays as an adoptee on her blog.