In 1954, Harry and Bertha Holt, born again Christians, found their calling when they heard about the orphaned cherubs of Korea. They especially had an affinity for those children fathered by American army and civilian personnel (commonly referred to as Amerasians). In fact, the Holts chose to adopt eight Korean children themselves. Congress even passed a special Act in honor of the Holts, thus legalizing and legitimizing the novel practice of international adoption. Soon thereafter, the Holts inspired countless other Americans to join them in “saving” these “war waifs”.
When the 1970s came along, Americans read about Vietnamese children in the newspaper and saw them on the evening news. These children would also have the honor of being labeled charity cases and seen as more lost souls in need of saving. Churches, chapels and ministries across America galvanized their congregations to collect money and materials to send to orphanages in South Vietnam, patting themselves on the back for their magnanimity at every opportunity. But for many Americans, they didn’t just want to send in their checks and offer well wishes; they wanted to see a return on their investment. To acquire a Vietnamese child was seen as the ultimate act of selflessness and sacrifice, not to mention the books they could sell about their little war babies.
Americans believed they had a moral responsibility to take care of those less fortunate and open their hearts and homes to the children of a war they forgot their country started. However, the implied politicized message was that Americans were more moral than those “godless communists”, aka the Koreans and the Vietnamese, and that only Americans could provide an infinitely better outcome to these castaways.
Working hand in hand with anticommunist fervor, the Christian evangelical movement spread the assumption that the people of Asia were incapable of taking care of their own. Westerners turned their attention to the “neediest of the needy”, those children who were left to experience the aftermath of each bombardment that inevitably separated them from their families. Under the protection of the U.S. military and with the support of countless donations, these missionaries established orphanages that inadvertently took the place of indigenous methods and solutions for child welfare. With so much of the country overwhelmed by the casualties of war, ladies and gentlemen of mercy took up the mantle of healer and savior.
