귀환 해외 입양 여성작가들의 자서전에 나타난 모성과 가족

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the theme of motherhood and family in the memoirs of returned transnational adoptee women writers, focusing on Jane Jeong Trenka's The Language of Blood (2003) and Joey Yoon's Ein de lijk LeefIk Echt (Finally Found Happiness in Life), originally published in Dutch in 2004. Transnational Korean adoptees are a unique group of overseas Koreans because they have experienced separation from their Korean birth families and been raised mostly in white families and communities. Jane Jeong Trenka describes an adoptee's longing to belong to Korean society, exemplifying her own experience of meeting her birth mother and family, i.e. sisters. For transnational Korean adoptees, returning to Korea has an unbelievable impact on adult adoptees, in particular, when they meet their birth mothers again. Jane Jeong Trenka's memoir, The Language of Blood (2003), illustrates for us the individual process of psychological struggle of back-and-forth, while examining her own experience of motherhood and family in Korean society, most beautifully and painfully at the same time. Joey Yoon published Ein de lijk LeefIk Echt (Finally Found Happiness in Life) in 2004, and the Korean translation was published in 2007. Her clear purpose in publishing it in Korean was her wish to tell her story to Korean people, showing them what it is like to be adopted in a foreign country, especially for a young girl, because she suffered an eating disorder and sexual harassment for more than 10 years. Thus, the memoirs of returned transnational adoptee women writers have intellectually questioned for us the ever-precarious complexity of the subject's formation, confirming the decisive and crucial role of motherhood and family in establishing their identities as “returned transnational adoptee” women writers. In short, both memoirs show us the experience of adopted Korean women, focusing on motherhood and family in the country of their birth and in their adopted countries through their first-person narratives, based on their memories and testimonies.