Lisa Futrell-Williams (김수자) / Everybody Has a Story

Lisa Futrell-Williams (김수자) is a mixed Korean adoptee who runs her personal blog site, Everybody Has a Story.

Within her blog, she details her feelings and emotions regarding her own adoption story and her exploration into her Korean culture and heritage.

This past August, she made her first trip back to Korea and spent the rest of 2011 there learning the language, immersing herself in the Korean culture and furthering her search for her birth mother and family.

HalfKorean.com had a chance to discuss with Lisa about her background and her blog, Everybody Has a Story.

Lisa, what is your mix?
Afro-Korean.

Where were you born, raised and currently live?
I was born in Incheon, South Korea and raised in South Central Los Angeles. I currently live in Fallbrook, CA.

Do you speak Korean?
Only a little bit. I just began studying Korean last September.

What has your mixed Korean experience been like?
Like so many other Afro-Asian adoptees growing up in the States, my parents tried to pass me off as African American. Obviously my appearance didn’t fool anyone and trying to pass for African American created a very turbulent life for me. I endured constant bullying (both emotional and physical) to the extent that I developed childhood PTSD. My parents told me not to tell anyone that I was adopted (a common practice back in those days) and being forced to keep that secret caused me to grow up feeling that something was wrong with me.

One day in the spring of last year I was reflecting on my life, and I discovered that emotionally, I had never made the transition from feeling like an orphan to feeling like I was connected to a real family or community. This realization led me to embark on what I call my “Journey To Become More Than My Story.”

Being that you are an adoptee, do you feel that that your connection with your Korean culture has been harder/easier than others?
It’s been harder for me to connect with my Korean culture because prior to last year I didn’t know that groups like HalfKorean.com existed. My experience with feeling connected with others like myself was little to none. Also, in the hood that I grew up in Korean Americans and African Americans didn’t mingle. Racial tensions in Los Angeles between African Americans and Koreans made connecting almost impossible.

Right now my priority is to get and stay connected to the mixed Asian community as well as the community of half Korean or full Korean American adoptees, and the Korean American community at large. During the four months that I spent studying in South Korea one thing I learned was that meeting other Koreans—whether they be half Korean, full Korean or adopted—and spending time learning about their culture and listening to their stories helped me to find the missing parts of myself that I’ve always been searching for.

Let’s talk about your blog site, Everybody Has A Story. When did you start your blog and what compelled you to create it?
Last year I enrolled in a four month long Korean cultural studies program at Inje University that was designed for Korean adoptees who have had little to no exposure to Korean culture. I thought that blogging would be a great way for me to document my experience returning to Korea for the first time in 52 years to search for my birth mother and live and study in a college dorm. It’s been an extraordinary journey and I wanted to share it with others.

What are some of your goals for your blog?
My initial goal for the blog was to share my experiences living in Korea and searching for my birth mother, but as my journey became more than simply studying Korean culture or finding my mother which, my goals became more as well.

I believe that, adopted or not, a lot of us come from extraordinary circumstances but what matters is how we overcome our circumstances and what we can do to bring strength and hope to others who need help overcoming their own circumstances.

Now, my long term goal for the blog is to create a place where others can share their stories about being a mixed race Asian as well. By doing this, it’s my hope that I can inspire others to overcome their circumstances so they can also become more than their story. I also want to add more resources to my blog to assist adoptees with the search for their birth parents, and to assist those who struggle with identity issues that may come from being a mixed race Asian or adopted.

How did you come up with Everybody Has a Story as the name of your blog?
The name came to me during a reflective time in my life when I was examining my positive and negative feelings about myself, my life, and what steps I could take to identify and remove obstacles that were in the way of me reaching the next level of my life’s journey.

I realized that all of us have a story of experiencing extraordinary beginnings, traumatic experiences or circumstances, and it’s not until we overcome them that we become more than our story. Overcoming those things then brings opportunities to be a source of light, hope, and strength to others experiencing similar circumstances if we are willing to be transparent enough to share our experiences.

While in Korea, did you find what you were searching for?
Since I’ve come back from Korea everyone seems to ask me that question. While I have not yet found my biological mother, my journey was a success! It was a beautiful and life changing experience. At times it was emotionally tough, but it brought about much needed healing. I experienced many bitter sweet moments where I had to surrender to the things I could not change and rejoice in the things that I could change. In these last four months I’ve gained much more than I ever expected and the journey is still producing results. There is still so much for me to share about that, but its better left for my blog.

Have you been able to find out anything regarding your biological father?
Unfortunately, unless I find my bio-mother, there’s no way to find out the name of my bio-father.

Have your adoptive parents been supportive of your birth family/mother search?
My adoptive parents are deceased, but they were not supportive of my search efforts when they were alive. I think that’s why I kept putting the search off, because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings as they saw my interest as being ungrateful for being adopted.

Any final words or anything you would like to share with the mixed Korean community?
I feel that organizations like HalfKorean.com and others are vital to the vibrancy of the mixed Korean community and subculture that we are. I hope that we can continue to find ways to stay “actively connected” because in my experience there is a sense of disparity from both the Korean community as well as the other cultures that we are mixed with. Thank you for sharing my story!

Thank you to Lisa for her time and HalfKorean.com would like to wish her the best in her search for her birth mother and family!