MPR News presents North Star Journey Live
Mistaken: Minnesota’s Korean adoptees grapple with confessed systemic corruption
Arbeiter Brewing Company
3038 Minnehaha Ave
Minneapolis, MN 55406
Tuesday, November 11, 2025 – 6:00-8:00 p.m.
This event is in partnership with Twin Cities PBS.
About the Event
Earlier this year, in a stunning revelation, South Korea’s government admitted that widespread corruption had tainted hundreds of thousands of adoptions from its country. Babies who were thought to be orphaned had living parents. Some children were trafficked. Paperwork was falsified. Records were destroyed.
Korean adoptees worldwide were left reeling, including here in Minnesota, home to the largest population of Korean adoptees in the U.S. Many had already wrestled with questions of identity and racial and cultural belonging. Now even the small bits of information they had about their past could no longer be trusted.
How are Korean adoptees who call Minnesota home responding to this foundational earthquake? In November, MPR News’ North Star Journey Live will host a gathering of adult adoptees who are deeply invested in the search for truth about their origin stories.
The Host
Kaomi Lee is the greater Minnesota reporter for Almanac, Twin Cities PBS’ weekly newsmagazine show. She travels around the state to tell stories about life outside the Twin Cities, to better connect all Minnesotans with each other. Lee was born in South Korea and adopted to Minnesota as a young child. In 2016, she returned as a Fulbright senior scholar where she interviewed adult adoptees who had returned to Korea to live.
