AsiaSource spoke with Deann on December 11, 2000 when she was in New York City for a film screening co-sponsored by the Asia Society.

Is this your first documentary?

This is the first documentary that I have directed. I worked as an executive producer on a couple of documentaries, both by Spencer Nakasako. One is a.k.a. Don Bonus, which is about a Cambodian teenager, living in a tenderloin in San Francisco and his struggles to graduate from high school. The second is called Kelly Loves Tony, which is also a video diary about this teenage couple dealing with a lot of issues related to teen pregnancy, gangs, assimilation, cultural issues and things like that.

At what point did you decide to document your personal journey through film? Was it difficult being both filmmaker and subject?

When we were starting a.k.a. Don Bonus, initially it was envisioned or created in part by Wayne Wong, around the time that he started The Joy Luck Club, right before he actually started with Joy Luck Club. It was when High-8 cameras were just becoming affordable to consumers and at NAATA (National Asian American Telecommunications Association)we were interested in developing a series of video diaries using High-8 cameras, the concept being for sort of normal, average people who were about to undergo some kind of journey in their lives, to document it themselves.

So that project ends up being a.k.a. Don Bonus but at that time I was getting ready to go to Korea on my second visit in 1992. I decided to take my High-8 camera and go and document and try to create also a video diary that would be all shot on my own and told from my perspective. Of course that changed as I went into full production because I realized that I couldn't really shoot it on my own.

The whole aspect of being both the filmmaker and the subject was very difficult. I was wearing a lot of different hats. I was writer, producer and director and subject. I think the most difficult part of it was trying to get objectivity about my own life and about my own experiences and sort of to sift through what was fascinating to me just personally, and what might be interesting to other people. Fortunately, I worked with a great editor. Not only did she have a lot of experience in editing, but she was not aware of my story before we started on the project and did not know my family. So she often reminded me you know, of things like, "Well that may be interesting, really interesting to you but nobody really cares. Nobody else really cares." So it was good to have that kind of conversation with her.

What do you hope this documentary will accomplish? Many adoptees don't have the same opportunity you did to find your birth mother and family. What advice would you give other adoptees who struggle with identity, memories and paradox?

I think that so much of adoption is about silence and, for adoptees in particular of having to cut off parts of yourself and pretend like they don't exist. So in some ways I feel like the film is about reconciling loss and reconciling our relationship with our childhood and things like that. But, it's also about integration and being able to integrate and accept all aspects of our lives into ourselves and in our hearts.

When I was really into the heart of editing in particular, a lot of people were asking me, "Well who was your audience and who are you aiming this at?" Obviously I was making it for PBS in a way, in this sort of vague abstract sense of PBS. But in my heart of hearts I was really making it for my two mothers, wanting to be able to express to them things that I couldn't verbally articulate. So, I didn't really think about that broader impact. It's a very personal story about what I want to say to my mothers. Now that it's gotten out I am just hoping that maybe it will help people open a door toward being able to discuss things that they haven't been able to talk about before.

One of the most striking moments in your film occurs when you acknowledge that your adopted mother is your "real" mother and that you need to accept that in order to become closer to your birth mother as a person. How is your relationship now with your Korean birth mother?

Yes, I feel like I can now get to know her better as a person, Without the barrier of these sort of fantasies. I think before I was so tied up with wanting to be a good daughter to her, wanting to be a good Korean woman, being frustrated with not understanding Korean culture, being frustrated with not being able to speak Korean and sort of beating myself up about all these things. In part, because in my fantasy, I should be all those things. I should be a great daughter to her and we should be bonding instantly and there should be a lot of love between us and all these things. Now, I feel like I can sort of put that aside and see her as a person. In fact, a kind of stranger. And approach her in that way and get to know her in that way. So in some ways, I feel like it is really just the beginning and I am not sure. Unfortunately it's late. She is in her 70s. But hopefully we'll have the time to get to know each other better. I'm hoping she'll come to Berkeley actually to visit me next year.

Do you feel that your Korean mother had a similar view of you after having given you up. That you were, in some ways, a fantasy or a dream?

Yes, in some ways, yes. Well, I am not entirely sure. In some ways I feel like I don't think that she ever... I think with this last visit she's come to more of a clearer resolve about the adoption. I think in her mind, I was gone. Like I was dead, gone, that kind of thing. When I came back, even though she wanted to see me and so on, I think it was, for both of us, a kind of shock in that way. Because in that culture and in the times that's sort of how women dealt with it, with difficult things like that. With separation that severe, this person is gone, no more.

You speak about how the physical body holds memory. What about Korea most resonated with you?

First of all, the physical connectedness was really strong. I mean, my brother and I look so alike and my younger sister also. Although I think when she was younger, when we were both younger, we did a lot of comparing of physical characteristics. There's things like my moles around my mouth. Everyone has them in my family. That's very comforting. That physical connection is important to me because it connects me to the human race in a way. It brings humanity into the picture. Because prior to that, I really thought I was born out of an airplane. The plane gave birth to me into this new life. A lot of other older adoptees have shared kind of a similar sentiment, that they were sort of born out of an airplane because their lives started when they came to this country. So having someone who is physically related, and we would look at our hands and we would look at our feet and notice all these characteristics, that was really wonderful.

But there were other things about Korea that I think I connect to on this physical memory level. I don't know when the body stops and when the mind begins in terms of memory and recollection. But a scent for example, in the air, during the different seasons that I've been in Korea, very different in the spring than it is in the autumn. It was a very a visceral kind of recognition. Some of the tastes. Just walking down the streets, in the older sections of up town, where I think Korea has changed dramatically. But there are some areas that are the same as I vaguely recollect. It's almost like I can feel myself physically sort of disappearing into the crowd and blending in, which I never felt in the U.S., never.

What do you think of Korean society today and have you ever thought about what your life would be like had you stayed?

I know I always ask that "what if" question. In particular, because I found my family, and know the things they have and how our family story ended up. So it's very hard not to ask the question "Well, what if I'd stayed." Of course it's hard to conjecture these things. Korea I think is undergoing tremendous transition right now. I've seen my family in this broader kind of social, political context. My mother was born during the Japanese occupation. My eldest siblings were born during the Korean war and so our family went through the occupation, the Korean War and the the rebuilding of the country and have experienced this huge significant historical period, but also a Korea that changed from one kind of epic to another. You know, from a very agrarian to a more westernized society, so it's really interesting. I feel in some ways, a child of this transition. I went from one historical epic to another.

What is very unique about your story is that you had three layers of identity that you had to unravel: 1) The identity the orphanage gave you; 2) The new identity you had to build as an American ; and 3) Your identity with your Korean birth family. What are the things that most define you now?

I think the making of the film and the journey that I went through with my parents was sort of a culmination of an intense desire for integration, internal integration. But somehow, internally I felt so divided and the multiple names that I had contributed to that feeling of internal division. Sort of multiple selves in a way. I feel more and more that I have achieved that internal integration where I am one person. I sort of see myself as the single unit, rather than sort of split in multiple directions. I think my current family has a lot to do with that. Having a son in this country certainly means that I have established roots here now. Having a family here in this country makes a big difference. It's sort of like committing myself to being here and recognizing and reconciling myself tp the fact that I am an American, a Korean American.

Do you think having a child gives you a different perspective on your past? And being a mother, does that give you a new outlook on what your mothers went through?

Yes. It's certainly given me a different perspective on my adoption. I took my son last November to see my birth family for the first time. So he now has met a whole new set of realtions, another uncle, some aunts, a bunch of cousins and another grandmother. It's given us an opportunity, but what I realize is that it doesn't stop with me, but in some ways, he's inherited with this legacy also in his own way and that he has to reconcile himself with it also in a different way. So it's given us an opportunity to talk a lot about what a family is and to contemplate what the meaning of family is and that there are different kinds of families and different ways to make families and that adoption is one way of making a family. He needs to understand that. So he's now trying to figure out, how he relates to his Korean grandmother and Korean aunt and uncle, and taking his cues from me. I realize that I need to be more aware about how I relate to both families so that I set a model for him to make it okay to have a relationship with everyone and be comfortable with it.

How did your families feel about being filmed and what were their reactions to the film?

Well fortunately because my father had been filming the family obsessively since 1950, my American family really felt very comfortable with the presence of the camera. So that really I think, worked to my advantage. I was shooting in a small format initially and so they were very comfortable with it.

I think it was more difficult for my Korean family in some ways. Initially, I was also shooting small format. But then when my parents came and we did bring a whole crew and there were a lot of us. There was a camera person, a sound person, a translator, a production coordinator and an associate producer. So it was a big group.

In terms of the finished film, my American family loves it and they've been great about it, even though it exposes their idiosyncrasies, they've been very accepting. It's more difficult for my Korean family in part because of the cultural issues, not airing dirty laundry in public is sort of a standard Korean cultural motto. I think there's that and also, the sense of shame and guilt, that is, I would say, still part of the collective Korean ethos around the adoption issue.

Do you feel that Korea is taking active steps to address its history with adoption? Do you think there is more of a cultural acceptance these days of the notion of adopting within Korean society or trying to keep families together?

I think adoptions, promoting domestic adoptions in Korea, have not met with great success, which is part of the reason that international adoptions continue to take place. Since Kim Dae Jung has come into office, he himself and his wife, his wife in particular, have taken on the adoption issue as one of their banner causes and have tried to be as welcoming as possible to adoptees. I am not sure if there have been any formal government efforts to reunite families and so on. But you know, I know that Kim Dae Jung has met with a group of adoptees and has sponsored homeland tours and things like that with adoptees. I think that's good. I think that filters down to other government officials. Hopefully that will filter down to the general public and create a sense of greater acceptance and awareness about the issue. But in Seoul there are a lot of creative things happening and a lot of interesting sort of things happening in the media, making the adoption issue part of the popular culture. You know, these kind of reunions happening on television. I think they are somewhat exploitative, where television stations for example are actually going and finding families and setting up these awkward reunions in front of cameras.

But I would say that from my sense and my limited experience, it seems that collectively though, as a nation, this issue has not been dealt with. Much like a lot of other painful things have not been dealt with. Like Vietnam for example. I don't think that collectively the country has dealt with its role in Vietnam. So, I think it's going to take a long time.

The question of nature vs. nurture in transracial adoptions is a heavily debated subject. It seems that in America the African American community has been much more vocal about this issue. Is the Asian community voicing concern as well, and if not, why?

It's a very interesting question. In the 1970s the Black Social Workers of America made a formal position opposed to transracial adoption saying basically that black children raised in white homes will not develop the coping mechanisms for dealing with discrimination and racism as they grow older. That it's a form of cultural genocide. From that point, the controversy has not really abated. With Asian adoptions, it's very interesting. In part, because no formal entity in the U.S. has ever made a formal statement to that effect. The Asian American Psychological Association for example has not made a formal statement one way or the other. There's been no group to look after the interest of this group of children coming from Asia. So nothing of that kind has taken place. It's interesting to speculate why, you know. Is it this question about Asians being sort of invisible? Or that Asians can pass as white? You know, what's going on? What are the racial dynamics, racial and cultural dynamics that are going on? I don't have an answer to it. It's certainly something worth thinking about and contemplating.

Although historically, most of the psychological literature, for example, around adoption has been with transracial adoption, meaning African American kids adopted by white families. But increasingly there have been more and more studies about looking at adjustment of Korean and now Chinese kids adopted by white families. The parents of the children being adopted from China are incredibly well educated and incredibly well organized. I think in some ways, it seems that they will be more and more research, and a different way of approaching adoptions and the raising of Chinese children. But I am not sure to what effect. I mean in 20 years we'll know, when these kids grow up. Because they are all 6 or 7 right now.

Is the film going to be shown in Korea?

Right now I don't have plans. I would like to eventually, but I don't have any immediate plans.

What are you working on next?

It's going to be sort of an extension of this project. I want to look at the social/political controversy around international adoption with a focus on Korea. Is international adoption a form of humanitarian aid or is it commercial exploitation, or sort of an uneasy marriage of the two?


AsiaSource interview conducted by Cindy Yoon. Photos courtesy of PBS