Pandemic Parenting as Adoptees: Managing Up, Passing of Food, and Better Luck Tomorrow

Dr. Kimberly McKee joins us in a lively conversation that touches on her experiences with her blended family through the pandemic, relationship with her birth family, and upcoming research on API adoptee women and girls in the media. Kim generously shares her perspectives on the challenges and privileges of being a working mom, an adoptee in reunion, and in partnership with a fellow Korean adoptee. She is a fierce advocate for Asian Americans and adoptees through her academic work and teaching, the philosophy of “fed is best”, and taking the time and space to be very intentional about cultivating her ever-evolving relationships with her young son and two step-children.

Book Recommendations:
I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont
Who’s Knees Are These? by Jabari Asim
Who’s Toes Are Those? by Jabari Asim
Kimchi, Kimchi Everyday by Erica Kim
Mr. Watson’s Chickens by Jarrett Dapier
Older Sister. Not Necessarily Related. by Jenny Heijun Wills

Kimberly McKee Bio
Kimberly McKee is an associate professor and chair of the Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural studies Department at Grand Valley State University. She is the author of Disrupting Kinship: Transnational Politics of Korean Adoption in the United States (University of Illinois Press, 2019) and co-editor of Degrees of Difference: Reflections of Women of Color on Graduate School (University of Illinois Press, 2020). Her current book manuscript, tentatively titled, Adoption Fantasies: The Commodification of Asian Adoptees from Girlhood to Womanhood (Ohio State University Press, under contract), considers the reverberations and effects of sensationalist and fictional adoption portrayals in the lives of adopted women and girls. The monograph interrogates the limits and contours of multiculturalism and colorblindness, analyzing racialized and sexualized popular culture representations of Asian adopted women and girls from 1992 to 2015. McKee serves as a co-chair of the executive committee for the Alliance of the Study of Adoption and Culture. She received her Ph.D. in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from The Ohio State University.

Co-Hosts: Nari Baker & Robyn Park
Music: Mike Marlatt & Paul Gulledge
Editing: Federico aka mixinghacks
Artwork: Dalhe Kim

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