Ally Yoon Chae and her brother ride on toy cars at one of the many homes they lived at in Korea before being entered into the orphanage system, around 1983. Courtesy of Ally Yoon Chae

Despite a proliferation of stories about fairytale reunions, or stories that treat adoption as the end of an individual’s journey, Korean adoptees have a wide range of experiences. Those experiences are not monolithic, nor are they always black and white.

One such adoptee is Ally Yoon Chae, born in 1979, who came to the U.S. at the age of 10. Named Choi Yoon-kyeong at birth, Ally was born out of wedlock and later neglected by her birth parents. She and her brother were living in a one-bedroom hut with no electricity or running water when a stranger — likely a social worker — brought the two of them to an orphanage in Seoul in the late 1980s.

After a year, Ally and her brother were adopted through what she believes was the Eastern Social Welfare Society. Her adoptive parents, she says, saw them in what was essentially a magazine. Her adoptive mother named her Alexandrea Porter.

Ally Yoon Chae and her brother pose together while getting their passport photos taken prior to being sent overseas, in the late 1980s. Ally entered the orphanage at age 9 and her brother was 7. Courtesy of Ally Yoon Chae

When Ally moved to her adoptive parents’ home in Ventura, California, in March 1989, it felt like a new start. But after a year, the adoptive parents divorced. Ally juggled several things at once: learning how to speak English, visiting her dad’s place on weekends and navigating her mom’s struggles with mental illness. After a few years, she found a job to avoid being at home but was forced to spend half her paycheck on bills.

“The first year was amazing, heavenly — discovering what being a child and being taken care of meant. But childhood got robbed again,” Ally said. “We didn’t have a childhood. We didn’t have parents, really.”

Ally Yoon Chae's 4th grade photo in the U.S. Courtesy of Ally Yoon Chae

Around 16 or 17, Ally’s rebellious side — and her voice — began to emerge. Once, when she was having an argument with her adoptive mother she decided to ask point-blank why she was adopted in the first place.

Her adoptive mother’s response was that she was just trying to save her marriage.

Source: Korea Times News