Adoptees from Korea say they were isolated and abused in the US. Were they also ‘stolen’ from their birth parents?
Summary
Two Korean-born adoptees in the US, Jacquelyn Wells and Lauren White-Gydas, share different experiences of being adopted into white American families in the 1980s. In 2025, the South Korean government admitted that private agencies helped send many Korean children abroad without proper consent from birth families, raising questions about the nature of these adoptions.Key Facts
- Jacquelyn Wells was adopted from South Korea as a baby and reunited with her birth family in 2018.
- Wells grew up in mostly white towns in Massachusetts with few Asians around.
- Lauren White-Gydas had a hard experience; her adoptive parents left her in a children’s home, and she claims she was pressured into sterilization.
- South Korea’s government admitted that private adoption agencies exported children without full consent from parents since the 1950s.
- Over 100,000 Korean-born adoptees now live in the US, many questioning their origins.
- Adoption stories are often simplified as a child needing a better life and a Western family offering love and resources.
- Adoption agencies were involved in large, sometimes secretive international adoptions that are now under scrutiny.
- Wells leads an adoptee group in Boston and acknowledges many adoptees face difficult realities that differ from happy reunion stories.
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