Amerasians: Neither here nor there

Rep. Lane Evans, Illinois Democrat, the ranking minority member on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, plans to present a citizenship bill this month making children of American soldiers and Asian women eligible for U.S. citizenship.

The Amerasian Naturalization Act of 2003 and other channels of entry already exist for Vietnamese children, but Asian-American advocacy groups say it is not enough. They hope the Evans bill will extend American citizenship to the offspring of U.S. military personnel in four other war-zone countries — South Korea, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, where Americans also served during the Vietnam War.

To many Americans, this is primarily an economic and political issue, but for a generation of children fathered by GIs, it is a big step toward deliverance from a life of racism, discrimination and homelessness.

Millions of American soldiers were stationed in Asian war zones, at front lines in Korea and Vietnam and also in the neighboring regions of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand.

When the fighting ended and the U.S. troops departed, an estimated 150,000 Amerasian children were left behind. John Westover, Chung Kwang Bok and Oh Hung Joo are three such offspring of Americans, all raised in legal obscurity, abandoned by their absentee fathers and shunned by fellow Koreans.

Racial minorities are much more visible in Asia than in the United States, owing to the ethnic homogeneity of most countries there. The CIA World Factbook cites ethnic majorities of 90 percent or more in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. South Korea is even more homogenous — non-Koreans, mostly Chinese, number fewer than one in 2,000. Children with foreign features stand out in a crowd.

Even associating with Americans is enough to stigmatize a woman as “yang gal bo” — Yankee comfort woman. The shame is so deep that many mothers are forced to raise their children in isolation and some abandon them at birth.

“It’s important to break the stereotypes that they are children of prostitutes,” said John Chun, a Korean-born lawyer who has lobbied for the Evans bill. He says many Korean mothers of GI offspring worked at normal jobs or owned small shops near U.S. military bases.

Mr. Westover’s mother owned a clothes shop, and Mr. Chung’s mother worked at a dry-cleaning business. Mr. Oh’s mother came from a well-to-do family.

Illegitimacy, however, is harder to refute, especially in the absence of the father. The U.S. Army frequently relocates servicemen on short notice and does little to help foreign offspring trace their parents. Even when the father of an Amerasian is known, he may not be alive or willing to be found.

Mr. Chung hopes someday to meet his father — a black soldier who was well-liked by Koreans. Little is known except that his family name was Henry and that he took part in the final hostilities, where he may have died.

Mr. Oh, like most Amerasians, has no information about his father.

Mr. Westover, on the other hand, is among the few who succeeded in finding their fathers. His father and mother separated when he was barely 3 months old. Although his father’s military serial number was known, the U.S. Army refused to disclose his identity, so Mr. Westover enlisted a private detective. After 33 years, he was reunited amicably with his father, who had since remarried.

“I wanted to find my roots,” he said. “I was so happy to see my father at last, and my four American half sisters.” By finding his father, he also found his surname, Westover, and adopted it as his own with evident pride.

The need for a father goes beyond personal curiosity. To this day, Korea uses paternal lineage as the basis for official registry and identification. Without family ties, individuals cannot register for school or other official activities. Marriage can be approved or denied on the basis of one’s surname.

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