Abigail Hebert

On Thursday evening in Kresge Auditorium, the Bowdoin community was joined by Nicole Chung, the bestselling author of the memoirs “A Living Remedy” and “All You Can Ever Know,” which touch upon themes of roots, family and her experiences navigating her identity as a Korean adoptee in rural Oregon.

After starting the talk by reading an excerpt from “All You Can Ever Know,” Chung spoke about her process writing the memoir, including her first attempt to write about her experiences as an adoptee in her mid-20s. Chung explained that beginning to write about being an adoptee was complicated, especially regarding views of adoption as a simple “happy ending.”

“I had spent a long time reinforcing [the “happy ending” narrative] because I thought it was what was expected. Sometimes it was hard to ask myself what I really thought deep down,” Chung said. “I’d spent a long time feeling like it was my responsibility to represent and be loyal to this family I love. People often seem to expect me to say that I either didn’t think about my adoption at all, or that it never, ever left my thoughts. Most seem to want this comforting cliché about love being more important than blood, and everyone assumed I must be so grateful, but the truth about my adoption and how I felt about it was much more complicated than that.”

Chung highlighted how her memoirs brought together adoptee readers in unexpected ways.

“I’ve gotten to have a lot of conversations with a lot of people because of ‘All You Can Ever Know,’ and some of the discussions I treasure most, actually are the ones with fellow adoptees…, [many of whom are] just starting to process and reconsider what their adoptions mean to them now that they are adults, and some of them are trying to write their own stories,” Chung said.

Chung particularly values conversations with fellow adoptees where they see themselves in her work.

“So many adoptees have told me that before this book, they didn’t really see anything like their own experience in literature,” Chung said. “Really, before my book, I hadn’t seen it either, and that’s one of the reasons I wrote about it. But I think what I didn’t really understand until after it was published, and I started talking with people about it, is how many people would find it and say, ‘Here I am too.’ So it is my very individual story, but I’ve been really privileged to learn it’s also a place where some readers have gotten to meet themselves.”

Finishing with a Q&A session, Chung touched on topics such as building a family, reconnecting with Korean culture and misunderstandings about transracial and transnational adoption.

Whitney Pellegrino ’27, one of the leaders and a founding member of the Adoptee Alliance, as well as one of the organizers of this event alongside Jen Conner, the academic program coordinator of the Asian Studies Program, first got to know of Nicole Chung through Professor of Asian Studies and English Belinda Kong’s course, Asian America’s Margins.

“I was in [Kong’s] Asian America’s margins class, and our first unit in that class was about transnational adoption.… During that unit, we read ‘All You Can Ever Know,’ and that was my introduction to her, and it was just so impactful,” Pellegrino said.

Pellegrino explained why Chung’s work felt special to her.

“[Chung’s] writing style just really struck me, and I also felt like she articulated many of the complicated feelings I’ve had about my adoption, being adopted, in a way that I just never really read or seen, and I just think that she captured the nuances of the experience,” Pellegrino said.

The process of bringing Chung to campus coincided with Pellegrino’s efforts to create the Adoptee Alliance.

“[Kong] had a relationship with Chung because she gave a talk over Zoom a couple of years ago, so they had that contact already established. I told her I really loved this memoir and that it would be great to invite her to campus, that I was trying to start an adoptee group, and I thought that those two things happening at the same time really could be a great opportunity,” Pellegrino said.

Pellegrino shared the reasons why inviting speakers such as Chung to campus is important in finding a sense of belonging at Bowdoin.

“I think that being adopted is often an invisible identity because it’s connected to your family.… [At Bowdoin], my parents aren’t here, so just looking at me, you wouldn’t be able to tell that I’m adopted. I think because of that, the identity can feel very isolating at times…. I think that having [Chung speak] will help illuminate the adoptee experience,” Pellegrino said.