- Author: KIM, A LAM
- Title: People’s perception of hybrids(mixed bloods) in the 1950s, and their adoption to foreign countries
- Language: Korean
- Journal: Critical Studies on Modern Korean History 13, 2: 33-71Gender and Culture 6, 1: 7-41
- Publication Year: 2009
- Publisher: The Institute for Korean Historical Studies
■ Abstract In the 1950s, in South Korea the paternal lineage was evidently crucial in the conceptualization of both the nation and the national population. We can see that from the country’s and the society’s perception of the hybrid(mixed blood) population. The number of offsprings from a foreigner male-Korean female couple increased during the U.S. Military government period and the Korean war. And after the war, as many of the females found themselves in a forced position to make a living, some of them started to resort to prostitution. As a result, ‘base-towns’ were formed around U.S. army bases stationed in Korea, after the war. Prostitutes gathered around in such base-towns, and after the stationing of U.S. troops the American males and Korean females started having prolonged relationships, which led to a rapid increase in births of the hybrids.
The perception of the country, the society and the base-town residents viewing the situation, presented itself as a perception hiding or excluding hybrids with different paternal bloodlines from the community. The Korean Law of nationality was based upon the principle of generally recognizing the paternal bloodline of an individual, so it was difficult for the hybrids to be recognized and acknowledged by others as a legitimate countrymen. The social atmosphere considered the task of maintaining a father-based family order and of maintaining females’ chastity to be highly important, so giving birth to a hybrid was considered as a wrongdoing and fault of the female. And even with no bases, the mother of a hybrid was immediately believed to be a prostitute. The residents of the base-towns were economically linked with U.S. military camps, but there were also clashes between the villagers and the troops, and the residents also not that much welcomed the fact that entertainment businesses were thriving in their living areas and a lot of outsiders were flowing into their realm. The government’s legal dismissal, society’s criticism of the prostitutes, and the viewpoint of the base-town residents, all continued to haunt the hybrids.
The Rhee Syngman regime wanted to isolate the hybrids from the society, yet failed to do so. Instead the government strongly recommended that such hybrids be sent oversea. In the post-war period, so many ‘countrymen’ needed help from the government, so the government could not afford to care for the ‘non-countrymen hybrids’-especially the orphans-as well. The adoption process for the hybrid children was actively undertaken by the Christian civilian agencies, and most of them were adopted into American families. Yet the foreign families and the hybrids from Korea never met with each other directly, and the agency intermediated the whole process is called proxy-adoption’. A large number of children were adopted over the sea through the proxy-adoption, yet insufficient data or preparation led to many failures as well. And the Korean government did not engage in either law-making efforts or institutional efforts regarding the issue of foreign adoption. The government only wished more hybrid children to be shipped off the Korean peninsula, through intermediary agencies. |
