Final answer:
When Korean adoptees leave home, they leave their status of transracial adoption, which acts as an identity anchor during their upbringing. This transition can impact their racial and cultural identity, as they have to reassess and redefine it outside of their familial environment.
Step-by-step explanation:
Shiao and Tuan explain that when Korean adoptees leave home they also leave their status of transracial adoption, which serves as an identity anchor while they are growing up. The concept of transracial adoption refers to adoptive children being raised in a family of a different race. It often provides its own set of challenges and opportunities in terms of identity and cultural assimilation. Adopted individuals may have complex feelings related to their ethnicity and the culture in which they are raised. Leaving the adoptive home can therefore mean leaving behind a critical context for their racial and cultural identity.
Adoptees' experiences can involve racial isolation or cultural assimilation, yet neither of these terms fully captures the specific impact that living within a family of a different race has on someone's identity. When such adoptees step outside their home environment, they often face the challenge of reassessing and redefining their racial and cultural identity independent of their formative familial influences. This is an important life stage for many who have grown up in a transracial context, which underlines the significance of this identity anchor.