The tragic story of homeless twin sisters in Washington, D.C. has been met with anguished reactions from the Korean American community.
Korean broadcasting station SBS recently aired a one-hour documentary about the Korean American twin sisters living on the streets of our nation’s capital.
Mi-kyung and Mi-young, both 32, were only 6 years old in 1987 when their father Soon-hong Min sent them to an orphanage in South Korea. The twins’ mother passed away only three years after giving birth. Min, who struggled to make ends meet, decided to drop off his daughters at a local orphanage, where they were later adopted by American parents.
On their way to the orphanage, Min told his daughters that they will be staying with their aunt until he comes back to take them back home.
The twins were soon taken to the United States to meet their new family. However, they were often harassed by their adoptive parents, who they described in an interview last year with the Korea Daily as being heavily abusive. They said at the time that the abuse was severe, so much so that both were convinced a mysterious stranger kidnapped them to separate their biological family.
After being evicted from their home in Nevada due to non-payment in 2001, the twins moved to Washington, D.C., and began living in homeless shelters. They subsisted on food provided by local Korean American business owners who sympathized with seeing them on the streets of D.C. during the city’s harsh winters.
The twins were often seen at the Korean embassy begging officials to help take them back to Korea. Witnesses say that they were even planning on enrolling in the rehabilitation program for the homeless in hopes of one day reuniting with their family.
However, everything changed when the twins received a letter from Min last year. Min, after learning that his daughters had become homeless 26 years after he had taken them to an orphanage, wrote a letter to them asking for their forgiveness.
Having thought that they had been kidnapped for all these years, the twins were devastated by the truth that they had actually been abandoned by the very person they spent nearly all of their lives trying to find.
Since receiving the letter from their father, the twins cut all ties with the Korean American community in the D.C. area.
The documentary by SBS revealed a shocking truth that, in a few cases, adopted children end up in homes where they’re victimized by abusive parents.
According to statistics released by SBS in the documentary, the suicide rate of those who have been adopted are 3.7 times higher than average. Additionally, the rate of adopted children who later suffer drug abuse is 3.2 times higher than average while crime rate among adopted is also 1.5 times higher.
Related Articles
Featured Event
Attention, hoopers and gym rats! Now is your chance to play in the best 3-on-3, height-restricted, Korean American-centric basketball tournament in all of Southern California! read more
LINKS
Featuring Recent Posts Wordpress Widget development by YD
To add some clarity on this documentary by SBS:
• the twin’s adoptive parents were contacted and reached by local police in the VA area;
• the police have not charged their adoptive parents with abuse of any kind;
• as reported by the police, the adoptive parents stated that the siblings exhibited growing mental health issues as they got older, and that these challenges became overwhelming;
• several churches, individuals, and service providers have tried to work with the siblings to provide assistance;
• all have reached the conclusion that the twins are dealing with serious mental health issues, but on account of their age (adults) and ability to survive, mental health services cannot be forced on them;
• they have repeatedly refused such assistance.
Our local church provided temporary shelter for them, but also found them extremely difficult to work with. They exhibited mental instability, expressed theories of persecution, and disappeared for extended periods of time. How much of this is a result of their stated abuse is uncertain, as is the possibility that their stated persecution is a result of their mental instability.
Feel free to reply and inquire further.
I’m sorry. I meant when was the film originally taped vs aired. Thank you!
Thank you for information. So, are you saying the film was aired Sept. 2011 or 2012? I was really asing about when the film was aired vs. taped. Do you know? Thank you again.
The documentary was aired last September in Korea. There has been no update on the twins since the release of the documentary.
Mr. Han, please tell me the date when the documentary originally taped? I’m touched by the story and wondering if Mr.Han knows if the two young women are still on the streets and if the brother has helped them since this article was published here. Thank you..
I wonder if they’ll vote for Obama?
The article states, “The documentary by SBS revealed a shocking truth that, in a few cases, adopted children end up in homes where they’re victimized by abusive parents”…to state that this is shocking or in a few cases again proves how uneducated and out of touch the Korean-American and Korean community are with the children they sent and continue to send overseas from Korea. When you begin to speak with Korean adult adoptees there are more than “a few cases” of abuse. Not just sexual abuse, but emotion and verbal. Another abuse is isolation and separation from your birth country, culture and what is means to be Korean. Then you have cases where children were placed with families in the states and when they are not that “perfect child” the media or agency portrays them to be, they are sent to another family before the adoption can be finalized. In many cases these children are abused by their first USA family. Whether Korea is ready, adopted adults from Korea are speaking up and speaking out. It would shock the world to hear about these adoption experiences, but since they are not the happy stories media and agencies want to hear, it has become our responsibility to speak out.
What most do not realize is that the main issues are not about white, Korean, or Chinese cultures at all. Identity as a “FILL IN BLANK” is completely different in another country. All immigrants to the USA went through stages where at first they are the “new guys” and then by a few years they also looked down on new comers. When the twins were six years old they were left by their father, and were sent off to another land. I was five and my sister 18 months old when MY Korean mother was forced by social prejudices and economic hardships after the Korean war to do the same. For these two girls they would have had a terrible time ‘bonding’ with any family, white or Korean, because they were victims. Going back to Korea is hardly an option, they don’t speak Korean very well anymore and those Korean Adoptees who have returned find that they are rejected by the majority or pitied by them. Korean people IN Korea, consider Kor-Amer. as ‘no longer Koreans’. I spent 16 years in my mother’s country and was constantly faced with identity issues, being a Mixed-Blood but proud American. I tried to help them see the multiple issues of culture, ethnicity, beyond stereotypes, etc. Anyone can be homeless, race or ethnicity has nothing to do with it. People take care of their own usually, and in Korea where Confucian ideas control even Christians of both Catholic and Protestant faiths, Orphans and Adopted persons are very low on the social order…parents would forbid their son or daughter to marry because the bloodline is not known or they were not “perfect”. Still like that for 75% of the society even today.
Troll said – “I would give whatever I could to a Korean homeless person. I have always taught my younger relatives to always be sure to give to Asians who are less fortunate. Thankfully for the Chinese, their community has strong ties such that they help their own, though I cannot say I have seen a whole lot of that among Koreans. It’s really too bad.”
You really need to stick your head out once in a while from that basement mahjong gambling den that you seem to be living in. The opium fumes are making you delusional.
@chris, these designer name clothing companies got a penchant for disrespecting Asians. A & F, Hollister’s parent company, had this incident several years back with the “Wong” t-shirt. It’s no surprise to me, that A & F, Hollister, and probably more clothing lines, are blatantly racist towards Asians.
I agree with you that a lot of Koreans worship whites. But to be specific, it’s usually the ignorant FOBs who clamor for “trendy, higher end” casual fashion. The FOBs are sooo fixated on any fashion garbage that overpriced and got white boys or white girls for their models. These FOBS got this delusion, thinking that the will look just as sexy as the white models….Asian-Americans are usually keen about these incidents, and don’t support A & F, Hollister, etc. by not wearing their shit. I personally don’t care for pricey $50 t-shirts or $150+ jeans. I’m above that, and yes I could afford it but don’t think it makes me more attractive, or that I will gain friends of a certain milieu if I sport that shit. That’s for insecure, physically unattractive people.
“Thankfully for the Chinese, their community has strong ties such that they help their own, though I cannot say I have seen a whole lot of that among Koreans. It’s really too bad.”
Stop trolling. Koreans do help out their own much more than the Chinese from what I’ve seen. Go take your inferiority complex elsewhere.
It’s horrible how Korean government continue to allow abusive white American parents to adopt their own and can’t do anything about it. Aftermath of Hollister company ridiculing Koreans on their own turf shows how white people look down on Koreans; yet Koreans continue to worship whites and think of them as their saviors. This is truly bothersome.
The real tragedy here is how this reflects the true inner core of Koreans (especially in the DC area). I’ve lived in this area before and from firsthand experience I can tell you there are a metric ton of extremely well to do Koreans here who wouldn’t miss a couple of plane tickets for these two back to Seoul. (heck they can probably get free tickets with the amount of frequent flyer miles they racked up with Korean Airlines).
Most Koreans around the DC/MD/VA area are callous, selfish, and cold-blooded. These two would have done better in LA K-town (the weather also doesn’t get below freezing there). Anyhow, if I had 2 grand I would immediately send these two back home to Seoul.
In theory, we could get a fundraiser started to buy a ticket for these two and perhaps some money to start a new life in Korea. I know plenty of Korean churches around the VA area where each person could donate 1 dollar which will be more then enough.
I have to agree with Won’t Turn that there is something really unsettling about seeing my own in such a destitute state, though I can’t say I have ever felt disgust toward such people. If anything I would give whatever I could to a Korean homeless person. I have always taught my younger relatives to always be sure to give to Asians who are less fortunate. Thankfully for the Chinese, their community has strong ties such that they help their own, though I cannot say I have seen a whole lot of that among Koreans. It’s really too bad.
So heart breaking. I mean, it’s tough enough to see people suffering from homelessness, but when it’s Korean people it hurts me even more. The Korean American community snubbed them, because, like mental illness, suicide, and other social stigmas, Korean Americans repudiate the fact that Koreans can be homeless too. I was in K-town, LA about 5 years ago, eating inside the Mcdonalds on Western and Wilshire. And as I was minding my own business, eating a cheeseburger, this KA guy came up to me begging me for change. I hate to admit, I was shocked initially and repulsed. I was petrified at seeing a KA brethen in a slovenly state and destitute. He stank as I could smell him from arm’s distance…I shook my head at his request….It literally makes my eyes well up as I think about it now. I won’t do it again; I am ashamed of myself as a KA; I was a coddled, delusional person that day, only beleiving that these kinds of issues didn’t affect the KA community.