WHO IS EMPRESS HAN?
Empress Han, aka Mila C.C. Konomos is a Transracial, Transnational Korean American Adoptee who was forcibly removed from her family in 1975 to be sold & exported for the International Adoption Trade/Global Adoption Trafficking Network. Over 3 decades later, in 2009, she reunited with her Korean family.
Empress Han is a poet, performance artist, and community organizer whose work frames Transracial, Transnational Adoption within its broader geopolitical context as an extension of American imperialism, colonialism, and white violence.
Mila has been featured on CNN as well as in the L.A. Times, National Geographic, the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Reckon, and the Adapted Podcast. Her work has been featured in the ABCs of AAPIs Coloring Book by the Asian American Advocacy Fund and in several anthologies including Flip the Script: Adult Adoptee Anthology, Lost Daughters: Writing From a Place of Empowerment and Peace, Adoption Reunion in the Social Media Age, and Adoption Therapy: Perspectives from Clients and Clinicians on Processing and Healing Post-Adoption Issues. She is also a contributor at the collective writing project, Lost Daughters, discussing the intersection of race, identity, and international adoption.
She has facilitated poetry and healing arts workshops for Asian Americans Advancing Justice, Atlanta Radical Art, and City of Decatur Schools. She is currently a member of Adoptee Voices Rising, a grassroots adoptee-led organization focusing on policy and legislation centering Adoptee Rights.
She has published two musical poetry albums, Shrine and Pyre, with a third album, Ash, in progress. The albums explore themes of loss, grief, identity, race, family, and belonging. Video of her reunion, “Korean Adoptee Reunites With Her Birth Mother by Jeanne Modderman” through Character Media has had over 1 million views, and her TikTok channel has had over 3 million views.
She lives in Atlanta, GA with her partner of 19 years and their two wonderfully sensitive and hilarious children.
All Videos
All Videos
Mail Order Daughter
Kind (music video) by Empress Han
Korean Adoptee Reunites With Her Birth Mother by Jeanne Modderman
"Not All White People"
Empress Han emerged from the profound loss, trauma, & grief of being severed from one's family, people, & origins through the Global Adoption Trafficking Network.
Han is a direct reference to the Korean cultural concept of han, which has been defined as a traumatic loss of identity, both collectively & individually. It has also been described as an intense angst & longing due to unresolved injustice, pain, & suffering.
Empress Han is an assertion of claiming sovereignty over our individual identities & narratives, particularly in the context of having our stories & origins erased.
Empress Han is my reclamation of what I lost to adoption. She is my re-emergence from the erasure of my origins through transracial adoption. She is my resurrection from a death forced upon me by American imperialism and colonialism. Empress Han is my repossession of sovereignty over my identity and story. She is the recovery of my journey of self-determination after decades of living under the boot of white supremacy.
Empress Han is the transformation of my trauma, pain & grief into power, beauty, & meaning.
I hope you will find pieces of yourself in Empress Han and her journey, while discovering and cultivating your own sovereignty and authenticity.
