Beyond apologies: Writing adoptees into Korea’s global identity
The members of the advocacy group Emergence Action for Records Storage stage a rally calling for an investigation into adoption agencies in Goyang City, Gyeonggi Province on July 23, 2025. Yonhap
Susan Vinzents Jensen
In recent months, Scandinavian and Korean media alike have been saturated with echoes of the past. In my home country of Denmark, a group of Korean adoptees has sued the Danish state over alleged irregularities in their adoption practices decades ago. Simultaneously, Korea’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is investigating the historical practices of adoption agencies. It is a quest for justice that understandably dominates the national consciousness in Korea today.
But amid the legal battles, the talk of reparations and the dark headlines of systemic failure, we risk overlooking a crucial conversation. This is not just about legal clauses or financial compensation. It is about something as fundamental as the right to belong — not as victims of history, but as an active part of Korea's modern, global presence.
I am Susan Vinzents Jensen — born Jun Hong Ah — and I am one of the approximately 9,000 Korean adoptees living in Denmark. Globally, we form a massive diaspora of more than 200,000 children sent overseas in the aftermath of the 1950-53 Korean War and during the country’s rapid modernization. For years, I have observed my own history from a distance in Scandinavia. I grew up in a culture that often views adoption through the lens of the Nordic welfare state. Paradoxically, when official diplomatic, economic and cultural relations between Denmark and Korea are celebrated, adoptees are notably excluded. We are the living testaments of the international ties between our nations, yet we remain invisible in official spaces.
When I look back at my motherland, another exclusionary perspective emerges — one heavily burdened by collective guilt. In Korea, adoptees are often treated as a "lost chapter." We are seen as the tragic result of a time when the nation felt forced to choose between economic survival and its own children. This shame dictates that we are either tragic figures owed an apology, or fortunate strangers who obtained a "better life" in the West and are therefore no longer truly Korean.
I do not want an apology, nor do I seek special privileges as compensation for my background. I am not asking for a memorial statue to commemorate a national tragedy. We are not a closed chapter of the past meant to be mourned; we are living history. My plea to Korean society is entirely different: Let us be written into Korea’s global identity.
Adoption should not be viewed as a systemic glitch to be silenced or bought off with settlements. We are not an unfortunate byproduct of the "Miracle on the Han River"; we are an integral part of it. Today, as Korea projects its soft power and cultural influence worldwide, it overlooks its most profound international network. Our journeys — from Seoul to Copenhagen, from Busan to New York — are interwoven with the grand story of modern Korea. We are the most expansive global diaspora this country has ever produced.
When I recently reunited with my biological family in Korea — connecting with a half-cousin in 2023 and my great-aunt and birth mother in 2024 — it was not a legal resolution I found, but a deeply human one. I found a profound peace in knowing where I came from, and I discovered that my history was not an ending, but a continuation. In those meetings, it became clear to me that adoption does not have to be a wound that never heals. It can instead be a bridge.
When adoptees in Denmark sue the state, it is a cry to be seen. But if we allow lawsuits to dictate the entire international conversation, we collectively cement the role of the adoptee as a victim. I am not a victim of a state error. I am a human being with a complex lived reality that has given me a unique perspective on both Danish and Korean cultures. That crosscultural understanding is a strength, not a weakness.
To write us into Korea’s history means recognizing adoption as a permanent thread in the fabric of modern Korea. It means our faces and our stories should have a natural place in museums, in textbooks, and in public discourse — not as a footnote about past "problems," but as a testament to a nation with a truly global footprint.
It is time to stop talking about limitations. Let us close the legal binders for a moment and open the history books. There is room for all of us, if we dare to finish the chapter together.
Susan Vinzents Jensen (Jun, Hong Ah) is a Danish-Korean adoptee based in Copenhagen. She contributes to the public debate on transnational adoption, focusing on the nuanced and multi-dimensional realities of adoptee identity.