Born in Korea
| Made in America

If you have the opportunity to meet Kara Schroeder, she is the fun-loving girl that splits her time between dancing on bar tops and helping businesses and foreigners throughout South China. But there is another side to Kara’s life story that is as moving as it is inspiring, as traumatic as it is up-lifting.

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Kara was adopted from Seoul, South Korea in 1976, at around age 11 months by Mr. and Mrs. Schroeder from sunny Minnesota. However, as a stark contrast to the generosity of this family, growing up in Minnesota was very difficult for Kara. She was subjected to bullying, while struggling with identity, drug addiction and depression, which led to hospitalization at age twenty.

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Later years brought little respite. At age 23, she lived through a relationship with a man who abused her physically to such a level that Kara had to have a surgery that resulted in no longer being able bear children. Later marrying someone else in 2006 and going through a traumatic divorce in 2010, she picked up the pieces quickly. However, Kara’s brother Mark (also adopted from Korea) took his own life in 2011. If all this seems like a large load to bear, it was and still is. Beneath Kara’s brilliant sense of humor and infectious laugh lies both trauma and tragedy.

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Kara moved to China on the 1st September 2013 and met some wonderful people, which has also lead her to living an unconventional life. In many ways, it has helped her reach a potential she wasn’t even aware of. This is a story about Kara’s next journey to find her biological family in Seoul and discover more about herself. But it goes deeper than that. It’s both a metaphor for identity and a window into personal struggle, strength, perseverance and positivity.