Coming Up...

Our next featured guest is Tiffany Morrison, owner of Mix It Up, a new line of greeting cards for interracial couples and multiracial consumers (www.Mix-It-Up.net).

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Tiffany Morrison

Previous Interviews

Monica McGoldrick
Director of the Multicultural Family Institute

Jaiya John
Author, Black Baby White Hands: A View from the Crib

Marie Myung-Ok Lee
Author, Somebody‘s Daughter

Matt Kelley
Founder and President, MAVIN Foundation

Mardie Caldwell
Founder, Lifetime Adoption

Arun Narayan Toke’
Publisher and Editor, Skipping Stones

Laura Gannarelli
President, Paper Lantern

Cheri Register
Author, Beyond Good Intentions

Nancy Kim Parsons
Documentary Filmmaker

Five Questions with Marie Myung-Ok Lee

(View Biography)

We would like to thank Marie for answering questions about her book and childhood experiences with great sincerity. Her advice on raising children and opinion on media influence further reminds us that though we are all working together to instill a healthy self-confidence in our children, there is more than one way to pass on our respect and appreciation for diversity. Thank you again, Marie, for encouraging us to continue our efforts to celebrate what we all share with our children in all the ways we know.

1. In your new fictional book, Somebody’s Daughter, you tell the story of a young adult who joined her family through adoption from Korea and her quest to find her birthparents. Since you weren’t adopted, how did you get an accurate portrayal of the girl‘s experiences and the search; including the television show?

I followed a bunch of adoptees’ search stories and of course they were all wildly varied. One person had come to Korea for a 1-week visit with no thoughts of doing a search for her birthparents, but on a whim she decided to look, and because her birth family still lived in the same neighborhood she got to meet them right away. Other people searched very hard, but got nowhere. When I was in Korea, a number of people went on "Achim Madang," Morning Garden-the Korean television show where adoptees look to reunite with their birthparents-, to try to find relatives. That was the show I based Sarah‘s search on—it‘s pretty true to life the way the show works, where the studio is, etc.

2. How and why did you choose the subject given the fact that you aren‘t adopted?

A number of my friends, students, acquaintances are adoptees. My mother founded a Korean social service agency that works directly with adoptees and their families, a number of extended family members and close friends have adopted from Korea as well...and my husband and I are considering adopting from Korea.

3. Have you experienced bias and/or racism because of your ethnicity? If yes, at what age did you experience it and what did you do about it? How did your parents help you?

Yes. Actually, that‘s the subject of my young adult novel, Finding My Voice. The protagonist experiences a lot of racism, but she is afraid to speak to her parents around it. My 3 siblings and I had some pretty harsh experiences, and, interestingly enough, none of us ever told our parents—or each other—about it the whole time. But I remember when I was five and adults telling me I was "Chinese" and didn‘t belong in America and there was one time when I was playing Red Rover with a bunch of neighborhood kids and someone punched me in the nose and called me Chink. I was knocked out or something because some of the other kids dragged me home. I only spoke about racism once with my parents; in elementary school a bunch of bullies were calling me chink and I came home crying and demanding, "Why can‘t I be white, like Shelly B [this popular girl in my class]?!" My mom was so shocked and hurt to hear this—just the look on her face made me never bring the subject up again. It wasn‘t until my parents read Finding My Voice that they heard about all the prejudice, and frankly, they were surprised. They thought everyone in school was nice.

4. What advice would you give trans-racial families regarding developing racial identity in children who may not be of the same race they are?

There‘s no right way to do it, I think it depends on the child. I think living in a diverse area is always a good idea, and above all, parents need to be good listeners.

5. What is the role of educators (if any) in helping children develop their racial identity and how can the media make a difference?

Educators need to have students feel that their experiences are valid. One of the reasons I wrote Finding My Voice was because I felt I needed that book in high school; there was never any literature addressing my own experience. My hope with Somebody‘s Daughter is that a Korean American girl named Sarah Thorson could be considered a "normal" interesting American character, just like anyone else. I was particularly pleased, then, when People decided to choose it for a review, in that her story is one that anyone who likes to read fiction could be interested in.