Throughout this class we have focused
on various difficulties that have had a major impact on Asian Americans and
Homosexuals. One that I found to be very
interesting was the idea of the Parachute child. So what I wanted to focus on was an example
of one of the companies that helped with this idea.
I wanted to look at the Holt International
Children’s Services that was created by Harry and Bertha Holt. This couple had a kind heart from the
beginning always giving back to others.
One of their first contributions was sending money to Korea to help
children that were in need. However this
couple thought they could and should do more to help out. So what they did was in 1956 they adopted
eight children from Korea and brought them over to the United States. This was out of the norm for their time
considering most felt the need to hide if they had an adopted child. Because this was so controversial and because
it would be hard for these two individuals to take care of all these children
they had to go through congress. They
were successful in passing a law through congress that helped them with their
process.
This not only helped the children they
brought over from Korea find a home but also acted as a Revolutionary
Movement. Like I mentioned, being
adopted was not something to be proud of however this act slowly began to
change this perception. They were able
to show how “the love of a family could prove stronger than the race and
nationality barriers”. The Holt family
had not done this believing that they would help anymore than those they
adopted. Little did they know, this was
a stepping stone to the tremendous amount of help that would be aimed towards
orphans. Even after the passing of Holt
himself the agency proved to live on!
Similar to what we had watched in
class, I found a story about one of the children that were taken to the United
States to find a new family through the Holt Company. The girls name was Susan Soon-Keum Cox. She explains how she remembers Holt as a very
caring and compassionate person. He was
always there when one was sick and she always knew him as her “grandfather”. She goes on to explain how “I was the 167th child to be adopted from
Korea. More than 50,000 Korean children
in the last 40 years have made the same journey” (Cox). As for her life in the United States she
lived comfortably with the constant appreciation of Korea. Or in other words, her family made sure she
knew where she was from and respected that she was adopted. We even see how her parents were very open to
talk about any questions she had about the whole situation.
Susan had gone on later to visit with
her husband the orphanage in Korea that she was raised at. Here she was nervous, which one should be,
but yet she did find a familiar face; the daughter of Holt himself. Susan had seen the looks on the faces of the
orphans, the want for belong, the want for a family. She had finally felt that want to help, just
as Holt and his wife had felt at the beginning of their journey. She recognized her status with “The melting together of being
Korean-American. American by osmosis and
experience. Korean by birth and
ethnicity. Shared by both” (Cox).
Overall the adoption of these eight
children had begun just as a way to help the orphans of “mixed color”. It had evolved to a more revolutionary program
that continues today through the Holt International. Today their goal is to focus on the “Elevation
of the importance of homeless and orphaned children”.
Video about what
Holt and his wife did
Referenced
Links
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