Lincoln Kwan Miller
©Christine Shields, 2022.
Clothing and shoes from Lincoln’s Korean orphanage, 1963. Courtesy of Lincoln Miller.
Lincoln Miller is 61 years old and lives in Portland, Oregon. He was born in Seoul, South Korea, and adopted when he was 18 months old by a Caucasian family and grew up in Des Moines, Iowa. He had five brothers and sisters who were all older and not adopted. He and his wife, Dardi Troen, have one son, who is now 20. He has owned a photography printing and gallery for the past 20 years.
Alex interviewed Lincoln in May 2022. The phone interview has been edited by both of them.
“When you’re adopted, you have a ‘fairy-tale effect’ of thinking your prince or princess [biological parents] will save you from a place of not belonging.”
Alex: The photo you sent is the clothes you wore when you came to America. Can you tell me about that?
Lincoln: That’s right. I arrived from Korea. They’re the only worldly possessions I had when I came over, so my mom saved them all these years and gave them to me a few years ago. I didn’t know she had saved them, and I had an emotional response when I saw them. It provided a thread of connection which gave my past some tangible reality.
What year were you brought to America?
1963. I was 18 months old.
Do you know if the Korean adoption program was popular back then?
The Holt Agency was in full force with adoptions from South Korea at that point. I wasn’t adopted through that organization, but a different one. But at that time, South Korea was a huge exporter of kids for adoption and there was a general push by society to crusade for adoption from “deprived” countries.
Do you know why Korea and the United States started this international adoption situation? This was before the Vietnam War heated up.
There might have been some connection to the Korean War and the relationship that was developed and carried through, but I think it was mostly because South Korea was very open to that idea. As in a lot of Asian countries, kids who were born out of wedlock or not considered “pure” are just rejected, so the parents and the kids become relegated to lower rungs of society. Kids born out of wedlock are unwanted and there’s a process and encouragement by society and the government to put them up for adoption. Orphanages in Korea, in particular, are always being fed lots of kids for adoption.
Lincoln and his father in Des Moines, Iowa, 1963. Courtesy of Lincoln Miller.
For Eli, we don’t know anything about his mother, but I’m assuming that she might have been pressured into it. You know, relinquishing him to adoption or probably being unmarried. He wouldn’t have been able to get the equivalent of a social security number in China.
Who knows the specific circumstance. I would like to believe it was only a last resort. It definitely adds to their feeling of abandonment and being unwanted.
Do you mean you feel like that on a societal level? The hypocrisy of a family-focused culture rejecting a child?
From a perspective of adoptees, any child who’s adopted can’t help but have feelings about not being wanted and therefore have feelings of abandonment and be angry or sad. Could be a lot of emotions that go with that, but it’s just an inherent feeling of being rejected and inadequate.
It might be that the mother wanted to keep you and just couldn’t.
I would like to believe this, who knows?
So, when you saw these clothes was it hard to relate to yourself as such a small child? You know, basically helpless?
Yeah, there was some of that feeling. It was more a reaction to the fact that this was the only thread of connection to where I came from. I feel a sense of sadness when I look at them knowing how I was being passed around and the sense of confusion I must have felt.
There wasn’t any paperwork?
There weren't any other items that came along with me, just the clothes on my back. And that’s what hit me the most: this was the only connection I had and there wasn’t anything emotional about it. It was just the clothes. It gave me a sense of the symbol of where I came from, but it didn’t give me any clues. I think all adoptees share this sense of disconnection and alienation to their adopted family because of the lack of a biological connection, homeland, and family history.
It’s almost like you’re a refugee, you know? Here not by choice.
When you’re an adult or older child, you have things that mean things, a stuffed animal or a photograph or whatever that you take with you, as a memory or a connection to your past. I had seen the clothes when I was younger living in my parents’ house, but I hadn’t seen them in probably 30 years.
Lincoln after his naturalization ceremony in Des Moines, Iowa, approx. 1966/67. Courtesy of Lincoln Miller.
How many siblings were there by the time you arrived in the family?
There were five. I was the same age as the youngest brother, Eric.
And you grew up in Des Moines, Iowa?
Yes, my father was a university professor and my mom taught first grade. Des Moines and my neighborhood were very white and segregated. I was sheltered from racism until starting school
I’m remembering my childhood and knowing other families who had adopted kids. And there was the overwhelming sense, like, we’re all the same, like “it’s a small world after all.” There are no differences, although obviously there were. Did your family try to raise you like all the kids are the same, there’s no difference, except you have different skin color?
Definitely. That was the prevailing feeling of the ’60s and ’70s. This sense that we are all the same so should be color blind was all good in rhetoric, but the fact that I was the only Asian in my elementary school and one of two or three in my middle and high school was hard. I was constantly teased and made fun of. My parents weren’t equipped to handle this fact, and I didn’t feel supported. I navigated this mostly on my own and repressed many of the feelings from this era. They felt like not talking about it was the best approach at the time, and that was reinforced by the adoption agencies. It’s changed over the decades, and parents of adopted kids now are more aware of the need to point out and celebrate the differences as well as teach kids how skin color does make a difference.
Did you and Dardi ever talk about adopting?
It came up, but we have similar feelings about it. We have a negative concept of it from personal experience, so we never really seriously considered it.
Adoption has always existed. Do you think that there should be a better system because it’s probably going to be even more common [now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned]. In your case, you were malnourished when you arrived, right?
That’s tough. Unlike the prevailing concept, I don’t see adoption as inherently good for the child. Of course, it’s relative, and yes, it’s better than the child dying of hunger or in major neglect and abuse situations. I’m jaded and feel like adoption is more for the parents and the better solution would always be an option of not having an unwanted child (abortion).
Yes. I was malnourished. I had chicken pox. I was in bad shape.
Lincoln and Dardi in front of Lincoln’s orphanage in Seoul, Korea. Courtesy of Lincoln Miller.
People are trying to make a healthier environment for the adopted child and the birth mother. So, open adoptions are seen as the best possible environment. Do you feel like international adoptions are inherently flawed?
I don’t have an opinion on open adoption. I think it’s very specific to the situation, but I think the system is inherently flawed if you’re talking about transracial adoption. Back in the day, when I was adopted, there were so few people who were similar to me anywhere. Being adopted into a white family for me, in the early ’60s, was a hard situation because of the theories about how to deal with it. Families didn’t tend to talk about it despite the fact that you stood out so much in society, especially back then. Adoption isn’t necessarily a problem by itself, but the ideal situation is to have an adoption be the same race, so the child has that support and feeling of looking the same. I think that’s ideal. No matter what the situation, there will always be struggles with the adoptee feeling different and alienated.
Emiel is biracial. Does he feel caught between two cultures?
No, I think things have changed. I have tried to always be there for him regarding any issues he may be feeling or have experienced. I have asked him many times throughout his life how he feels about being biracial. He always says it hasn’t been an issue or problem. I believe him and feel he’s comfortable in his skin. The world is so much more cosmopolitan, especially in urban areas. I don’t think his friends could tell he was Asian. I think he looks kind of exotic, and he didn’t have any instances that I know of him being teased or whatever.
Can you tell me about your portrait show?
It was an idea I’d been throwing around for 10-plus years. It was from a need to address my past and my identity. Dardi and I were sitting around talking about it at one point, and she brought up the concept of doing self-portraits and that clicked in my head. It was such a scary thing to do because it was so vulnerable. But it was the perfect thing to do because it was so vulnerable, so it had this irony about it. I had ideas of wearing clothes that didn’t fit me or the setting. I started exploring feelings about how situations became so hard for me. When I was growing up I felt so out of place, or they were always situations that led to being teased or feeling like an outsider, or again, feeling alienated. Those became the central themes to guide where I decided to photograph. It’s all about identity and how your past and your environment affects that.
Who took the actual photos? Did you have a timer?
I set up a tripod and used the timer.
You could control the narrative. There’s an element of chance, but you had a lot of control over the final imagery.
Yeah, it was control over what was uncontrollable when I was growing up. So, there was that feeling of power.
Do you want to go back to Korea?
I don’t feel any urgency now. Besides the conference and doing my trip to the orphanage, I felt as alienated as I do in the States, maybe even more. Because you have that feeling like you should feel like you’re around your people, but I had none of those feelings.
Projects
Small Town. ©Lincoln Miller.
“I had never considered myself as the primary subject in an image. But then I started thinking why not? A terrifying thought, because I have spent my life dealing with feelings of alienation and trying to fit into my skin. I’ve coped with this by attempting to become invisible, hopeless for the apparent but superficial reason of my physical appearance. This show is about the irony of feeling different yet wanting to fit in and a reflection on how our external environment helps define who we are.”
12/5/2018 - 1/29/2019, Pushdot Studios