Transcript Transnational Adoptee Scholar & Artist Panel

TRANSNATIONAL ADOPTEE
SCHOLAR & ARTIST PANEL
Dominic Golding, HeeRa Heaser, Jane Jeong
Trenka, Dr Jessica Walton, Dr Indigo Willing
NATIONAL APOLOGY
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The apology - reasons for/against foreign mothers
and international adoptees to be included.
What can we learn from the national apologies,
starting from the Stolen Generation, to today?
EXPERIENCE
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What are one or two main changes you feel
should be stopped or significantly revised in
adoption?
What are one or two main contributions your
work or research have addressed within the
context of adoption practices?
POST ADOPTION SERVICES
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How can adoptees' experiences inform postadoption support services?
How can adoptive families be supported to
discuss important issues such as racism and
identity, beyond celebrating birth culture?
MEDIA
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Misconceptions in the Australian media?
Minnesota Public Radio in the United States
(Minnesota has the largest Korean adoptee
population per capita) aired a show in July 2012
looking at the decline in international adoption, a
caller questioned why adult adoptees were not
invited to the show to talk about their
experiences. As adoptee scholars in Australia,
can you discuss the merits of this question and
the dialogue that followed?
FURTHER RESOURCES
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www.OzKad.com
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http://justicespeaking.wordpress.com/
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http://www.adoptedvietnamese.org/
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http://jjtrenka.wordpress.com/
SELECTED ADOPTION RESEARCH (FROM THE PANEL)
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Golding, D (2007), Shrimp. Sydney: Currency Press
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Golding, D (2010) ‘Being White: Art and Writings by Transnational Adoptees’, MA Theatre Arts, Monash University
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Golding, D. (2007). Shrimp. Sydney: Currency Press / Plays
Heaser, H. (2012). Adoption: My parents have moved on but I'm living in the past. Interviewed in SBS Online.
Heaser, H. (2012). Capturing the KAD: ‘K’orean ‘AD’optee social media collaborations in Australia. Paper presented at
the Social Work Social Development 2012: Action and Impact Stockholm, Sweden, 8-12 July 2012. Abstract retrieved
from http://www.swsd-stockholm-2012.org/Programme-Book.aspx
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Trenka, J. J. (2003). The Language of Blood. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society.
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Trenka, J. J. (2009). Fugitive Visions. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.
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Walton, J. (2012). Supporting the interests of intercountry adoptees beyond childhood: Access to adoption information
and identity, Social Policy & Society, 11(3): 443-454.
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Walton, J. (2009). ‘More than a Korean adoptee’: Making sense of identity and adoption in South Korea and adoptive
countries. In Other People’s Children: Adoption in Australia. Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, pp. 207-21.
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Willing, I. and Fronek, P., ‘Constructing identities and issues of race in transnational adoption: The experiences of
adoptive parents’, The British Journal of Social Work (Accepted September 2012. Forthcoming).
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Willing , I. W., Fronkek, P., & Cuthbert, D. (2012). Review of Sociological Literature on Intercountry Adoption. Social
Policy and Society, 11(4), 465 – 479.
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Willing, I. W. (2009). The Celebrity Adoptions Phenomenon: Emerging Critiques from 'Ordinary' Adoptive Parents. In
C. Spark & D. Cuthbert (Eds.), Other People's Children: Adoption in Australia (pp. 241 - 256). Melbourne: Australian
Scholarly Press.
Willing , I. W. (2006). Beyond the Vietnam War Adoptions: Representing Our Transracial Lives. In J. J. Trenka, C.
Oparah & S. Y. Shin (Eds.), Outsiders Within: Racial Crossings and Adoption Politics (pp. 275 - 285). Cambridge, MA:
South End Press.
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Willing , I. W. (2005). From Orphaned China Dolls to Long Distance Daughters. In S. Wilson & S. Sengupta (Eds.),
Defending Our Dreams: Global Feminist Voices for a New Generation (pp. 95 - 109). London: Zed Publications.
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Willing , I. W. (2004). The Adopted Vietnamese community: From fairytales to the diaspora. Special Edition 'Vietnam
Beyond the Frame', Michigan Quarterly Review, 43(4), 648 - 664.
CONTACT DETAILS

Dominic Golding,
[email protected]

HeeRa Heaser, [email protected]

Jane Jeong Trenka, [email protected]

Jessica Walton, [email protected]

Indigo Willing, [email protected]
BIOS – JANE JEONG TRENKA
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Panel Chair: Jane Jeong Trenka is author of the
memoirs The Language of Blood and Fugitive
Visions, and co-editor of the anthology Outsiders
Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption. Since
2009, she has been the volunteer president of the
group TRACK (Truth and Reconciliation for the
Adoption Community of Korea), which led the
grassroots coalition about revising the Special
Adoption Law in South Korea in 2011. Jane was
adopted from South Korea to the U.S. in 1972,
and has lived in Korea since 2004.
BIOS – DOMINIC GOLDING

Dominic Hong Duc Golding came to Australia as a tiny baby in a
cardboard box, evacuated from Saigon in April 1975, just before the
city fell to communist North Vietnamese forces at the end of the
Vietnam War. Operation ‘Babylift’ was a last minute effort to save
some 2000 plus children and babies from orphanages in South
Vietnam by flying them to adoptive families in the United States,
Australia, and other countries. In numerous roles Dominic has
worked with Australian Vietnamese Youth Media on Aussie Bia Om,
Viet Boys Downunder, Banana Strip (2001-2004) and directed
Walking Without Feet (2004) with the Vietnamese Community in
Australia (VIC chapter) a art showcase by Vietnamese young adults
with special needs. In 2000 he was involved with a site installation
performance Memory Museum about Australia's involvement in war
for the Adelaide Festival Centre. Dominic has returned to Vietnam
three times, each time a new show was developed, Shrimp (2005,
2007) which won the Drama Victoria Award, Mr.Saigon, Ms. Hanoi
(2007) and now completing his Diploma of Community Services with
placements at RISE and DHS. Dominic is coordinating a support
network for adoptees--particularly from overseas.
BIOS – HEERA HEASER

HeeRa Heaser is a PhD candidate at the School of Social
Sciences, University of New South Wales. Her dissertation
aims to capture the adult Korean adoptees’ shared
experience by understanding online networks and social
media participation in Australia. Her education has
focused on different aspects of social sciences, including
areas of cross-cultural communication, child and family
welfare and social work development. She also holds two
degrees from the United States a BA in Communication
Studies and a Master of Public Administration. HeeRa was
adopted from South Korea to the United States in 1983;
she has been reunited with her natural father and mother
in Korea in 2004 and her reunion experiences have mainly
been with her biological father and his family. She is an
active member in the Korean adoptee community and
hopes to continue her research in intercountry postadoption services and reunion.
BIOS – DR JESSICA WALTON
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Jessica Walton is a research fellow at the McCaughey
Centre, University of Melbourne within the antiracism, racism and diversity studies research group
(ARDS). She completed her doctorate at the
University of Newcastle researching Korean
transnational adoptees’ everyday lived experiences of
cultural identity and belonging. Her disciplinary
background is in socio-cultural anthropology and her
current research involves developing approaches to
promote intercultural understanding while reducing
race-based discrimination and examining how race
and culture are learnt and conceptualised in everyday
contexts. She is also involved with supporting postadoption services for adoptees in Victoria.
BIOS – DR INDIGO WILLING OAM

Indigo Willing is a researcher and also teaches
sociology at the School of Social Science, University of
Queensland where she also earned her doctorate
studying transnational adoption in Australia.
Committed to community engaged and socially
inclusive research outlooks, her established and
developing research interests combined spans issues
of migration, ethnicity, family studies, and
transnational adoption, and include theories of
transnationalism, cosmopolitanism, critical race
studies and queer theory. She is currently working on
several publications on the topic of transnational
adoption, cosmopolitanism and cultural diversity, and
has extensive community experience in the area of
adoption, including creating the Adopted Vietnamese
International (AVI) network.