Civil War

North against South
brother against—

So on and so forth…

A war by proxy
is still a war

4,000,000¹ Koreans dead
approx.

Call it genocide
by proxy

If a war by proxy
is still a war worth
dying for—

37,000² Americans killed
approx.

another 3100³ UN forces
killed

900,000⁴ Chinese
killed

All in all
over 5,000,000⁵ dead approx.

orphan⁶ (ôrfən)
n.

1. • A child whose parents are dead.
   • A child who has been deprived of parental care and has not been adopted.
2. A young animal that has been prematurely separated from its parents or its mother.

In 1951,
only one year
into the war
there were approx.

100,000⁷ orphaned children
across the entire Korean Peninsula

By 1953,
there were approx.

516,000⁸ across the peninsula,
now split in two

As the late great
Louis Armstrong

once sang—
Takes two to tango

By 1953,
there were approx.

350,000⁹ Korean
sex workers

south of the
DMZ

many living
and working

in camptowns
providing comfort¹⁰

to foreign¹¹ soldiers

some were abducted
some were drugged

some were told they
would be waitresses

some were orphans
themselves

They called those babies—
Ameriasian

By 1965
there were approx.

12,380 mixed-race¹² orphans

born of war,
scattered

south of the
DMZ

In 1955,
evangelicals¹³ arrived at

Portland International Airport
with eight – – – . . mixed-race orphans

“Fear not: for I am with thee:
I will bring thy seed from the East…

Bring my sons from far, and my daughters
from the ends of the earth…”¹⁴

By 1978,
approx.

4,494¹⁵ mixed-race
orphans

had been adopted
abroad

What began as
a rescue mission

then turned into
an industry—

200,000¹⁶ Korean adoptees
approx.

By 2004,
there were approx.

30,000¹⁷ designated
as [abandoned]

some were [relinquished]
some were [found]

some were [abducted]
some were [bought] with bribes

call it fraud
call it doctoring

call it falsifying documents
call it playing fast and loose

with subjective objective
truths

Between 1970 and 1979
there were approx.

46,035¹⁸ Korean adoptees
sent overseas

Between 1980 and 1989
adoption peaked at

65,511¹⁹ approx.

By this time,
most adoptees

were considered to be
fully Korean

some were [relinquished] some came from Seoul
some were [found] some came from Daegu

some were [abducted] some came from Busan
some were [bought] with bribes some came from places

they’ll never get a chance to know…

From 1990 to 1999
there were approx.

22,925²⁰ Korean adoptees
sent overseas

some were [relinquished] some became French
some were [found] some became Swedish

some were [abducted] some became American
some were [bought] with bribes or at least they

tried to be…

And in 1994,
there were

2,290²¹ Korean adoptees
approx.

close to a dozen arrived
at LaGuardia Airport

on the 28th
of January

and one of them…

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²²

Notes

On “Circumstantial Evidence.” The poem is structured as a statistical narrative timeline. It begins by tracing the number of casualties throughout the Korean War, then pivots to tracking the number of adoptions over the many decades following.

While certain facts about the Korean War are common knowledge, the statistical data is based on estimates that have been heavily disputed by scholars and governments alike. Most of the statistical data comes from the following sources:

1. Hahn, Bae-Ho, Kwang-Rin Lee, et al. “Korea | History, Peninsula, Rulers, and Facts.”
   Encyclopedia Britannica, 21 Sept. 2024, www.britannica.com/place/Korea/Armistice-and-aid.
2. Lopez, C. Todd. “Families of Service Members Gone Missing in Action Get Answers at
   Annual Briefing.” U.S. Department of Defense, 15 Aug. 2024, www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3875464/families-of-service-members-gone-missing-in-action-get-answers-at-annual-briefi/.
3. United Nations Command. “United Nations Command > Organization > Contributors.”
   United Nations Command, www.unc.mil/Organization/Contributors.
4. Mao Zedong’s “Order to the Chinese People’s Volunteers,” 1950 | US-China Institute.
   china.usc.edu/mao-zedongs-order-chinese-peoples-volunteers-1950.
5. Korean War – Go for Broke. (n.d.-b).

   Cumings, Bruce (2011). The Korean War: A History. Modern Library. P.
   35. ISBN 9780812978964.

6. Publishers, HarperCollins. The American Heritage Dictionary Entry: Orphan.
   www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=orphan.
7. Korean adoption history”, in Eleana Kim (ed.), Community. Guide to Korea for overseas
   adopted Koreans, Seoul: Overseas Koreans Foundation, 2004, pp. 12-19+25-47. (edited article)
8. Ibid.
9. Cho, Grace M. (2008). Haunting the Korean diaspora : shame, secrecy, and the forgotten
   war. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816666461. OCLC 311053574.
10. Lie, John. “The Transformation of Sexual Work in 20th-Century Korea.” Gender and Society, vol. 9, no. 3, 1995, pp. 310–27. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/190058. Accessed 30 Sept. 2024.
11. Sang-Hun, Choe. “A Brutal Sex Trade Built for American Soldiers” NY Times (New
    York) 2 Mar. 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/world/asia/korea-us-comfort-women-sexual-slavery.html
12. Doolan, Yuri W., ‘The Second Rescue’, The First Amerasians: Mixed Race Koreans from
    Camptowns to America (2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 21 Mar. 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197534380.003.0006, accessed 26 Sept. 2024.
13. Hurh, Won Moo. 1972. “Marginal children of war: An exploratory study of
    American-Korean children”. International Journal of Sociology of the Family 2 (3): 10-20.
14. Holt, Bertha | Women of the Hall. https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/bertha-holt/
    “Stork Announcement for Holt Family Adoptions | Smithsonian Institution.” Smithsonian Institution, www.si.edu/object/stork-announcement-holt-family-adoptions:nmah_1296338.
15. Kim, Chin, and Timothy G. Carroll. “Intercountry Adoption of South Korean Orphans: A
    Lawyer’s Guide.” Journal of Family Law 14, no. 2 (1975)
16. Tong-Hyung, Kim, and Claire Galofaro. “South Koreans Adopted as Babies Are
    Discovering Lies From Their Past | AP News.” AP News, 19 Sept. 2024, apnews.com/article/south-korea-international-adoption-fraud-investigation-e4e7d4b8823212e3b260517c5128cd66.
17. Hübinette, Tobias. (PDF) “Appendix – Table 3. Family Background of adopted Koreans,
    1958-2004”, Comforting an Orphaned Nation : Representations of International Adoption and Adopted Koreans in Korean Popular Culture, Departmental of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, 14 July 2015,
18. Hübinette, Tobias. (PDF) “Appendix – Table 1. Number of international adoptions from
    Korea, 1953-2004”, Comforting an Orphaned Nation : Representations of International Adoption and Adopted Koreans in Korean Popular Culture, Departmental of Oriental Languages, Stockholm University, 14 July 2015, www.researchgate.net/publication/277993137_Comforting_an_orphaned_nation_Representations_of_international_adoption_and_adopted_Koreans_in_Korean_popular_culture.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid.
21. Idid.
22. The last line of the poem appears as the final footnote.