Through the Fog: Sarah, Laura, & Joy

Gathered for our final interview in New York for Through the Fog, and together in candid reflection, Sarah, Laura, and Joy map the winding and disorienting terrain of coming into the Korean American adoptee community later in life.

Tracing their connection back to the 2025 Korean American Adoptee Network Conference in Atlanta, Joy recalls feeling pulled by the sisters’ lightness, initiating a relationship she describes as “hitting the lottery.” For Joy, who grew up as the only Asian child in a predominantly white Long Island town, and for Sarah and Laura, who spent decades feeling unanchored within their missionary upbringing in Seoul, finding each other offered a rare sanctuary.

A central thread of their dialogue dives into the visceral toll of adoption trauma, the somatic release of stored grief, and the evolving relationship with their pasts. Joy reflects on the overwhelming emotional weight of her past return to Korea (spending five months volunteering at the orphanage where she had been placed) while Laura speaks to the meaningful yet destabilizing reunion with a biological sister after 53 years. In shedding the exhaustive negotiations of "fitting in" vs. “belonging,” of tethering and anchoring affects, and cultivating spaces of unpretentious, mutual belonging, they affirm how community plays a critical in honoring ongoing practices of self-compassion, where recognition becomes its own language for mourning and healing.

Special thanks to the Thomas and Wonsook Foundation for their generous support in making this project possible. And to Joy Lieberthal Rho, founder of IAMAdoptee for her consultation and post-support services for this project.

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