EVENT DETAILS

HOMESCAPES/WARSCAPES SERIES: Kim Park Nelson

10:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
Humanities Interim
Classroom Facility 100k
For more information,
contact Professor Jim Lee
(jim.lee@uci.edu)

Native Informant: History and Community Building as a Within Group Researcher of
Korean Adoptees
In this conversation, Kim Park Nelson will discuss the history of Korean adoption studies in the
context of the Korean adoptee scholar and researcher, highlighting on how critical Korean adoption
studies emerged as a field in reaction to a long tradition of behavioral science research that focused
on expanding the practice of transracial and transnational adoption. She will discuss responsible
research design and community based methods in relation to her within-group research in the
Korean adoptee community.
1:50 p.m. - 2:50 p.m.
Social Ecology II 1306
For more information,
contact Professor Eleana
Kim (eleana.kim@uci.edu)
The Land of 10,000 Adoptees: Landscapes of Multiculturalism in the Korean American
Adoptee Homeland
In this conversation, Kim Park Nelson will discuss Korean adoptee experiences in Minnesota,
home to the largest per-capita population of Korean adoptees in the United States. Her analysis will
focus on ways in which this population is failed by popular forms of multiculturalism that celebrate
diversity. Using ethnographic materials, this presentation explores Korean adoptee experiences
in Minnesota and the many historical and sociocultural structures that have produced the high
concentration of Korean adoptees in Minnesota.

5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Humanities Gateway 1010

Korean Adoptee Birth Search, “Real Family,” and Direct-to–Consumer Genetic Testing
In this lecture, Kim Park Nelson will discuss birth search as a core part of collective Korean adoptee
cultures and focus on the recent phenomenon of birth search through commercial DNA testing
companies such as 23 and Me. She will explore issues and problems around using direct-toconsumer
genetic testing as a birth search methodology for adoptees, as well as the significance of
test results for Korean adoptees.

Kim Park Nelson is an educator and researcher whose work uses adoption as a lens to understand race
and culture. Her work has contributed to building of the field of Adoption Studies and Korean Adoption
Studies in the U.S. and internationally. She was the three-time lead organizer for the International
Symposia on Korean Adoption Studies, which took place in Seoul in 2007, 2010, and 2013. Professor
Park Nelson’s book, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Experiences and
Racial Exceptionalism was published by Rutgers University Press in Spring 2016 and is based on her
ethnographic research exploring the many identities of adult Korean adoptees, as well as the cultural,
social, historical, and political significance of sixty years of Korean adoption to the United States.
She is an associate professor of American Multicultural Studies at the Minnesota State University at
Moorhead. She has a Ph.D. in American studies from the University of Minnesota.

Event will be followed by a light reception.
RSVP required by November 2
to Jasmine Robledo (robledj1@uci.edu)