Paperslip.org’s Co-Founder Rebecca Kimmel In The Media.
October 26th, 2026.
In 2021, I met with AP reporter Tong-hyung Kim in Seoul to discuss my investigation into my and my likely deceased twin sister’s separate switch cases. Here I am showing him my now formally Copyrighted KSS K-Number research, which I had begun in 2020.
Four years of correspondence with and Adoptee referrals to AP’s Tong-hyung Kim culiminated in 2024 the FRONTLINE / AP documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”. While I was given credit by AP in the article and interactive, my story was ultimately cut from the documentary, and I was given zero credit.
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My story is a story of systemic ERASURE:
Erasure of my real identity by my Korean Adoption Agency, Korea Social Service (KSS)
Erasure of my likely twin sister “Baby A’s” existence and death by KSS
Erasure by a few unethical journalists who refuse to credit me for my work
Erasure by a few unethical Korean Adoptee “Rights” activists and a DoKAD (a descendant of two KSS Adoptees) who all want false credit for my work
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But for years, I have been unwilling to credit myself publicly in relation to Paperslip.org.
And perhaps that is part of the problem.
So I am coming forward now to reclaim my own story.
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For years, I have been pushing to get the darker side of S. Korea’s adoption industry covered in the media. However, until recently I have been reluctant to publicly attach my name the website I co-founded in 2020, Paperslip.org, due to the vindictive behavior of my Korean Adoption Agency, KSS (Korea Social Service).
While KSS still operated Post Adoption Services, KSS was extremely vindictive toward Adoptees like myself who pushed hard for years to get our own information. Now that KSS’ Post Adoption Services has PERMANENTLY CLOSED (as of July 29th, 2025), and all files have been transferred to NCRC, I no longer fear KSS’ repercussions.
Due to KSS’ vindictiveness, I decided not to attach my name publicly to Paperslip until 2024 when the first AP article about my case was published — even though I first created Paperslip.org in January 2020. Paperslip was a password protected site only accessible to KSS Adoptees until January 2021, when I decided to make it public.
Despite being interviewed for the FRONTLINE / AP documentary “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”, I also chose not to discuss Paperslip’s work while being interviewed, since KSS Adoptees were still requesting a formerly secret file whose name I coined as the “Korean Adoptive Child Study Summary” in July 2021. Between 2021-2025, I helped hundreds of KSS Adoptees to request and obtain this formerly secret document from KSS after discovering and photographing it in the back of my KSS file in 2018. I feared that KSS would stop providing this document for KSS Adoptees if they knew that I was behind Paperslip. Now that KSS is closed, and all files have been transferred to NCRC, I no longer fear KSS’ vindictive behavior.
My Co-Founder is also a female U.S. KSS Adoptee, who shall remain anonymous. She tremendously helped me with research in the early days of the site, and through a conversation we arrived at the name Paperslip.org. She continues to be supportive behind the scenes, though I am the primary author of Paperslip content (excepting external news article translations which are shared to the Paperslip Blog).
Paperslip.org also has a number of important anonymous Contributors. In addition, I certainly would not be able to gather all of the information that I have without the contributions of the broader international KSS Adoptee community, through which I have connected chiefly through an online Facebook group for KSS Adoptees, for which I serve as an Administrator. For the contributions of the international KSS Adoptee community, I am deeply grateful.
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For years, I have attempted to bring the darker side of S. Korean Adoption to U.S. media attention.
For those who have honorably covered my story, I am deeply grateful.
Below is a list of media stories about my investigation into my and my likely deceased twin sister’s separate switch cases. We were both intended to be adopted through KSS in Seoul in early 1976. I lived to tell the tale. My twin did not.
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I AM HERE TO SPEAK FOR THE DEAD.
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Articles about (or which include reference to) my investigation of my and my likely deceased twin sister’s separate switch cases:
July 3, 2021:
Korea Times:
How falsified adoption papers make it even more difficult to search for my origin
July 4, 2021:
Channel A:
Adopted children at a loss due to swapped information... Only 5% reunite with biological parents
2022:
SUBUSNews:
“Document forgery, even lies… Rebecca’s story of being adopted from South Korea to the United States” / SUBUS News
You can turn on English automatic subtitles in YouTube.
December 24th, 2022:
SBS (Seoul Broadcasting System) Documentary:
"이상한 나라의 레베카" / Rebecca In Wonderland
The story of how my investigation into my and my deceased twin sister’s separate switch cases unexpectedly led to the reunion of a Korean birth father with his twin daughters (who had been adopted together to the same family through Holt).
September 2024:
FRONTLINE / AP:
“South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”
Please see related:
The Origins Of The FRONTLINE / Associated Press (AP) documentary "South Korea's Adoption Reckoning".
My Uncredited Interview Subject Referrals — and Numerous Other Uncredited Contributions — To FRONTLINE / AP For The 2024 Documentary "South Korea's Adoption Reckoning".
I declined to discuss my work with Paperslip when FRONTLINE / AP filmed my interviews in 2023 since KSS was still open — and I did not want to jeopardize KSS Adoptees’ chances of getting their files.
October 15, 2024:
Associated Press (AP):
A South Korean adoptee needed answers about the past. She got them — just not the ones she wanted
October 15, 2024:
Associated Press / AP:
Rebecca Kimmel’s search for her roots had an unlikely ending: Tips for other Korean adoptees
October 25th, 2024:
Best of the AP — First Winner
"A South Korean adoptee needed answers about the past. She got them — just not the ones she wanted
In this write up about the AP First award which was given to AP reporter Tong-hyung Kim for his story about my case, Tong-hyung acknowledges that my investigation into my and my likely twin sister’s separate switch cases was ground zero for his years long interest in reporting on adoption fraud — which culminated in the September 2024 FRONTLINE / AP documentary, “South Korea’s Adoption Reckoning”. Yet I was cut out of the documentary itself, and was given no credit in the documentary.
“They met in person months later and (Tong-hyung) Kim accompanied Kimmel on a visit to her adoption agency in Seoul. There, after spending hours but failing to find Kimmel’s real file, an adoption worker made a startling admission that child switching had been a common practice at adoption agencies during the adoption rush of the 1970s and `80s, and that birthed Kim’s years-long obsession with reporting on adoption fraud out of Korea.”
Fall 2024:
FRONTLINE / AP
Who Am I, Then? Interactive
My story and the story of the Holt twins whom I reunited with their Korean birth father through the DNA test 23 and Me is featured in this interactive.
July 8, 2025:
The Washington Post:
He knows he was adopted from South Korea. The rest is a troubling mystery.
July 26, 2025:
Milwaukee Independent Newswire:
South Korea ratifies international treaty to safeguard adoptions after decades of poor oversight
October 24th, 2026:
“The Guardian” journalist Alice Hutton’s Instagram post, as discussed on Paperslip:
Public acknowledgment of my KSS K-Number research by Alice Hutton of “The Guardian” comes on the 51st anniversary of my deceased twin sister’s first intake to KSS in Seoul.