For Julie Hollek, who was 8 months old when white parents in Michigan adopted her from South Korea, her relationship to her birth country is “tenuous” at best, she said. Raised as a Catholic in a white neighborhood, she grew up speaking only English, knowing little about Korean culture, and going to school with kids who didn’t look like her.
“It’s this weird thing where this is all I know, white Catholicism, but I didn’t fit in there,” she said. “One day, if I go back to Korea, there will be many reasons why I don’t fit in Korea either. Where do I belong? To whom do I belong?” She said, “At some point, I kind of realized that I am Korean. I don’t have to do anything to be Korean, because I just am.”
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