Customer Reviews

Language of Blood: A Memoir

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1 star:		(3)

 

 

I actually met Jane Jeong Trenka before reading her book. She's one of the nicest, most understanding people I've ever met and reading her book only makes her more human and therefore more lovable.

As a Korean Adult Adoptee trying to break new ground with support groups and helping adopted childrens' programs in the North East, I find this book to be a wonderful escape from the "sugar-coated" world I present adoption through to the kids I work with, because I can so closely relate to it.

It is for this reason that I recommend this book to any adult adoptee or any person who is a relative or close friend of any adult adoptee. It gives us a glimpse of what we feel: longing, sadness, loss, curiosity, anger, resentment, and many more feelings beyond those that words can describe.

This book is an important milestone in the journey of our development for adult adoptee support groups and should be regarded as such. There are no words to describe how much this book will mean to some of us.

I first became aware of this book after I began researching my own adoption.I grew up in a very white suburban area, and was one if not the only minority in the area. I found this book extremely helpful in helping me come to terms with my own adoption and identity. An Asian American adoptees' voice is rare in the literary world, but Trenka does a beautiful job in describing and retelling the life of an adoptee.

Jeong Trenka's memoir succeeded in being everything but a typical memoir. These are no mere stories. Her life is no mere series of events. By mixing her prose with drama, poetry, and imagined interactions, Jeong Trenka creates a journey much like that of Maxine Hong Kingston's "Warrior Woman": a blend of legend, history, and true life. Emotionally genuine, spiritually alive, fresh and new. A great read.

Jane Jeong Trenka has an important story to tell and the craft to tell it. Her writing is clear, lyrical, filled with vitality. I like the chances she takes with structure, the odds and ends of text she borrows from diverse sources to inform her narrative. I'm interested in the shift of voice that occurs over the course of the book, the anger and power that builds as she discovers a more authentic sense of self. My 7-year old Chinese daughter conceptualizes her birth mother mostly as a tummy, someone who has not yet assumed the shape of a fully realized woman. But I have no doubt that this will change. Jane Jeong Trenka's story offers me an insightful guide for navigating these complicated waters, not for doing it "perfectly," but remaining open. This final word of the book continues to echo in my mind.

I really liked this memoir. It is about the adoption of a Korean baby by a Minnesota family and that adoption's consequences. I liked the juxtaposition of Jane going back and forth, in her mind and heart as well as in reality, between the U.S. and Korea. I have often wondered about the international adoptions of Asian children, and the practice continues unabated today with Russian children being adopted in America. I don't think anyone who hasn't been through the experience could possibly relate to the horror of being taken from your mother, and then from your homeland. How terrible it must be, even for those who appear to have made the adjustment perhaps better than Jane. It appears that Jane's Minnesota family had no instruction, or even interest, in learning about Jane and her sister's background, either prior to the adoption or in the many years following, and unfortunately I think Jane is correct in her final conclusion that the American mother can't love her beyond a certain point because she just simply is not the child that the American mother wanted. Very sad. The book has moments of history and of humor in a book whose structure goes beyond the typical memoir. I finished the book wishing that I personally knew Jane, because she sounds very human and wise and open-minded and loyal and appears to have all those traits that draw people to her. I will be interested to learn if she has children of her own......

Having lived in Korea for 7 years, having close ties to rural MN and being the white mother of two half-Korean children, this story resonates deeply for me. Racism is part of the everyday life of Asians in the US and it is hard for white people to understand this, especially when our children are the victims. Trenka illuminates what it is like to grow up when even your parents do not understand an important aspect of your life. They did their best, not knowing what their daughter needed. Trenka shares how she is able to makes sense of her story and come to appreciate and accept herself.

The story is a about a young Korean adoptee, raised in a small Minnesota town, who struggles to find identity. Although growing up with Asian skin (but American in every other way) in a small, rural community was difficult, her self-identity becomes even blurrier as she becomes reacquainted with her Korean birth mother.

While the book mostly follows a linear progression through Jeong Trenka's life from her early childhood to her post-collegiate days, each chapter's place in that timeline is rather fluid, including elements from her past, her present, her future, as wells as bits and pieces from myths and stories. What adds to the story's chaotic feel, is that Jeong Trenka also uses such devices as screenplay text, poems, and even crossword puzzles to help drive the story.

The major internal conflict in this book is that Jeong trenka's struggle to identify herself as one something. Just as she struggles with what name to put on her marriage certificate, so she struggles with incorporating the various parts of her identity into one being.

Having wanted to escape from her small hometown, Harlow, from an early age, and having dealt with the prejudices of the people around her for most of her life, it is not surprising that her first visit to larger-than-life Korea should instantly feel right to her.

What was lacking in this story, however, was any juxtaposition of American prejudices measured against Korean prejudices. The author never mentions the "foreign-ness" that many overseas-raised Koreans feel upon visiting their birth country for the first time. No mention of the snickers and snide remarks by the Korean people towards Koreans unable to speak their mother language or those who have now become too Western.

In any case the story is Jeong Trenka's to tell, and it is a deeply emotional one for the author. Despite its rather frenetic pace, her story telling ability is lovely, and the book finds it's strength in Trenka's poetic choice of words.

While many of Jeong Trenka's struggles are internal and not necessarily ones that the reader may identify with, this is still a great story about the difficulties of not fitting in, and finding contentment within oneself, where ever it may come from. Jeong Trenka's melodic writing abilities are enough to keep the reader with her as she tries to figure out who she really is.

Reviewed at OnceWritten.com

I am the adoptive mother of a daughter from China.This book is a tender and painful reminder of the awesome responsibility we take on when we bring the child of another mother into our culture, and into our family. Jane Jeong Trenka gives voice to the conflicts and questions that many of our young children cannot voice, but which may surely arise in some form later. I will share this book with other adoptive parents, and treasure my signed copy to give to our daughter as she grows.

Trenka goes beyond lyrical with her poignant and emotional writing. Yes, her chapter titles are in Chinese, yet do you ask why? Anyone who knows about the Korean language realizes it is all about context -- characters gain meaning from surrounding characters. With only one word, too many meanings are apparent. Educated and traditional Koreans still use Chinese characters to lend definite meaning to be perfectly clear. She is not only trying to find herself in English and Korean, but wants her chapters clearly delineated as well. A tale of adoption, identity, language, love, and loss, this exceeded my expectations. As a function of Memoir, she is allowed to write her heart and soul, research optional. Her experiences are beautiful, disturbing, frightening, and exhilarating. This is a must read for anyone looking for personal narratives peppered with creative uses of many literary forms. Her first work is so beautiful, I can not wait for her next book.

This book is nothing short of revolutionary. A critical addition to the growing representations within adoption and Asian American discourses. Most books about adoption are by white adoptive parents, who of course have their own agenda and interests. Jane Jeong Trenka's questioning of the status quo--the master narrative about adoption, race, and kinship--is extremely important if we are to place adoption in the largest human context possible and get away from a simple-minded "Love Makes a Family" neoliberal capitalist under-theorized multiculturalism. And the writing is gorgeous and inventive. Her musical training shines through in the rhythm, pacing, and lyricism of every chapter. A must-read!