Happy May, Also-Known-As Community!
I hope that your spring is off to a lovely start. For those who don’t know, May is Mental Health Awareness Month, Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Jewish American Heritage Month, and Older Americans Month. I feel that all of these awareness and heritage months touch many if not all of our community members in some way, shape or form.
This May and all year round there’s a lot to both celebrate and bring more awareness to. The World Health Organization estimates 1.3B people - about 16% of the global population currently experience a significant disability (physical or mental illness). Furthermore, the National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 1 in 5 US adults live with mental illness. As we all go through different seasons in life, I hope that you may find yourselves checking in on others as well as yourself. I’d be remiss not to highlight our friends at IAMAdoptee who are focused on curating an online community of mental health and wellness resources to support the lived experiences of intercountry adopted people. Grow Beyond Words is also a wonderful resource for seeking an adoptee/adoption-informed mental health professional.
As we kick off the last full month of programming, we hope to see you at our May events, before wrapping up our end of term programming at our annual picnic on Sunday, June 9, 2024.
In partnership,
Lindsay Geier AKA 涂婷
Who: Open to the publicWhen: May 9, 2024 at 7:00pmWhere: Asian American Writers’ Workshop (112 W 27th Street, Suite 600 New York, NY 10001)RSVP: Required. In-Person registration is closed. Sign up here to attend virtually.
Also-Known-As and the Asian American Writers’ Workshop are thrilled to welcome back Nicole Chung, in conversation with Crystal Hana Kim, to celebrate the paperback release of her critically acclaimed memoir A Living Remedy.
From the bestselling author of All You Can Ever Know comes a searing memoir of family, class, and grief—a daughter’s search to understand the lives her adoptive parents led, the life she forged as an adult, and the lives she’s lost. Exploring the enduring strength of family bonds in the face of hardship and tragedy, Nicole Chung examines what it takes to reconcile the distance between one life, one home, and another—and sheds needed light on some of the most persistent and grievous inequalities in American society.
Books will be available for purchase from our friends at Yu & Me Books.
This in-person event will also be live-streamed for folks who are outside of the NYC area. RSVPs are required for all attendees, and masks are required for all in-person attendees.
Praise for A Living Remedy
“A Living Remedy is a profoundly moving account of one daughter’s love for her white adoptive parents and a damning indictment of the healthcare system that failed them. Nicole Chung writes with nuance and empathy about what it means to be ill and economically insecure in America today. She transforms her rage and anguish into luminous prose on the page, and the result is one of the most devastating portraits of a daughter’s grief I have ever read.” —Julie Otsuka, author of The Swimmers
“Like the best memoirs, Nicole Chung’s A Living Remedy is both an excavation of the self and the people who sustain it—but also, at its core, a work of art undergirded by a tender, forgiving, and awe-filled gaze at what it means to live and hurt in the human world. The result is a bone-deep enactment of love in all its valences.” —Ocean Vuong, author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous
Join us in partnership with Chinese Adoptee Alliance for a writing workshop addressing multi-faceted layers of grief as an adoptee. Led by our Advisory Committee member and Huh Healing Hub founder Heather Schultz Gittens, we will cultivate a safe space for adoptees to come together and self-reflect on how grief has shown up in our own journeys.
Topics we’ll explore together include: defining and acknowledging grief (loss and ambiguous loss); grieving family (adoptive or biological); grieving “another life”; and loss of birth country, language and heritage through adoption.
20-person max capacity on site; or feel free to join virtually (RSVP link for both below).
When: Monday, May 13; 6:30 to 8:30 pm ET
Where: Asian American Writers’ Workshop (112 W 27 St, Ste 600, New York, NY) + virtual (Zoom)
Who: Adoptees only, please
RSVP: Required here
"The Queens Night Market is a large, family-friendly open-air night market in Queens, featuring independently owned vendors selling merchandise, art, and food and featuring small-scale cultural performances, all celebrating the rich cultural diversity and heritage of NYC.” Join us on Saturday, May 18th as we explore all that the Queens Night Market has to offer. Bring your friends, family, appetite, and cash (as some vendors may not take cards)! When: Saturday, May 18th at 5pmWhere: New York Hall of Science, Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens RSVP: HereSave the Date - Annual Friends and Family Picnic: Sunday, June 9th
Mark your Calendars! Join Also-Known-As at our Annual Friends and Family Picnic on Sunday, June 9th from 11am-3pm! It's our biggest event of the year. We will have delicious food, drinks, and fun raffle prizes. Come one, come all as we kick off Summer 2024!
Who: Adoptees, Friends, and Family
When: Sunday, June 9th 11am-3pm
Where: South West corner of Prospect Park (across from Machete Circle)
Cost: FREE!
RSVP: Here
Community News
New Book Publication - The First Amerasians by Yuri Dooian
The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans From Camptowns to America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2024) is now available from author Yuri Doolan. The new book brings together the intertwined histories of camptown military prostitution in South Korea and international adoption in the U.S. It draws on the oral histories of mixed race Koreans [adoptees] and their birth mothers, as well as archival research in Korea and the U.S. Purchase it here.
Return of Results: Community Conversations - Saturday, May 11th
Professor Oh Myo Kim, along with Lillian Jiwoo Hexter and Bastiaan Seo Vin Flikweert, will present data from two separate studies. The first study focuses on the results of 41 interviews of Asian American adoptees who experienced pregnancy and childbirth. The second study focuses on both a registry of descendants of Korean adoptees (DoKADs) and 35 interviews of DoKADs that explore issues of adoption, cultural socialization and identity. This talk is open only to adoptees AND children of adoptees. If you have a question about whether this is for you, please reach out to the facilitator, oh.kim@bc.edu.
The event will start at 10 am ET - 4 pm CEST - 11pm KST and will be 90 minutes. The first section will focus on the presentation of the results and the second half will be a community conversation with time for q & a. ASL interpretation will be provided. The event will be recorded for archival purposes and future use.
Please note: BKA is committed to creating a safe and inclusive environment for all our events. Please note BKA’s anti-harassment policy. Thank you for helping us make this event a positive experience for all.
Register Here!
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