A Look at Asian American Studies - Emery McKee - Ryan Caragher - Emma Rohrer - Gabe Velazquez

The Korean War led to a change in US immigration policy, enabling an influx of Korean immigrants to enter the United States. Korean women were having children out of wedlock with American soldiers, and many of these children were abandoned by their GI fathers. There were thousands of mixed race babies that Korea did not want to accept. In their society it was important to protect racial purity because, “South Korea treated multiracial children as obstacles to the realization of a viable ethnocentric nation anchored in the ideological notion of ‘pure’ blood” (Baik 43). Korea was anxious to outplace the mixed race babies so they could be “one nation, one race” (Baik 43). These children were made available for adoption in the U.S., conveniently filling the American demand for adoptable babies while at the same time serving as positive US public relations, framing the decision as kindly and caring. One effect not emphasized was that these children were being separated from their birth mothers and their native culture. Currently, undocumented immigrants seeking asylum in the US are being put in detention centers. Parents are being ripped apart from their children and the children are sent away. The Trump administration maintains that these immigrants are “aliens” who need to be gotten rid of because they are dangerous and seemingly a threat to our “Western purity.” These families are almost exclusively people of color. Parents are being told that “the child’s only chance to get asylum and protect them from the danger they originally fled in their home countries” (Rafei 2020) is to have the parents voluntarily return to their home country, leaving their children behind. Once again, American immigration policy is claiming to do something positive, “protect us from dangerous immigrants,” while tearing children away from their birth parents, without regard for the child’s and parents’ feelings.