America ReFramed

Geographies of Kinship

By Deann Borshay Liem. A Mu Films production in association with the Center for Asian American Media.

GEOGRAPHIES OF KINSHIP weaves together the complex personal histories of four adult adoptees born in South Korea with the rise of the country’s global adoption program. Raised in foreign families, each adoptee sets out on a journey to return to their country of birth and map the geographies of kinship that bind them to a homeland they never knew. Along the way there are discoveries and dead ends, as well as mysteries that will never be unraveled.

As the four adoptees search for a sense of self, belonging and purpose, they also come to question the policies and practices that led South Korea to become the largest “sending country” in the world - with 200,000 children adopted out to North America, Europe and Australia. Emboldened by their own experiences, the four courageously become advocates for birth family and adoptee rights, support for single mothers, and historical reckoning.