Today’s post is part one of a two part entry, and a little bit off topic for this blog - but it‘s important nonetheless. It’s about something that’s played a large part in my life over the years. Something that’s affected people’s perceptions of me, and influenced their reactions to me. It’s resulted in biases (both for and against me), it’s colored the humor and hate in my life, and despite all this, it’s been something I’ve pretty much ignored for most of my existence.
It’s my race.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m half-white, half-Korean. I say ‘white’ because, though that bit of my ancestry most likely comes from Germany, not a lot of the history on that side is accessible to me. My father’s side of the family hasn’t gone through a great deal of effort of trace the family tree back very far, and the matter has been made foggier by the numerous divorces and second-marriages that tied in additional blood and history. On my mom’s side, it’s Korean all the way back.
Not that it meant much to me until recently.
Last year, performing in a Stand-up Comedy competition at my school, I made the comment that “I’m about as Korean as Taco Bell.” The routine - which won me first place, by-the-by - mostly focused on my relationship with my Mom, a Korean who came to the states as the wife of a G.I., my father. I didn’t realize until sometime in my preteens that there was a history of Korean women coming to the US in such a way for nearly half a century. It was something I mistakenly thought that had little to nothing to do with ‘me.’
At the Elementary School I attended, I was the only ‘Asian’ in a majority white school, with a handful of black students and a few other mixed ethnicities for flavor. Though my skin lacked any real distinctive tint, the shape and slant of my eyes marked me as Other from the get go. Though I spoke the same language, read the same books, and faced the same problems as most of my classmates, I was different. A question I got used to hearing again and again was “Are you Japanese or Chinese?”
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| Granted, the food is pretty awesome. |
Every time I explained that “I’m half-Korean” or told someone that my Mom was Korean, I was identifying with an entire history, an epic story that, as the descendent of a Korean Immigrant I was less than a footnote in. A story that was, for much of my life, inaccessible to me.
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| That headline could say "Man explodes clowns" for all I know. |
Making friends, going to dances, reading books (and trying to write them), middle school, realizing just how much I loved making art - life was busy enough without trying to learn a language that I wouldn’t be able to use with anyone but my mom. There was no real reason for me to learn Korean since we couldn’t afford to travel, and I’d never really met or known any Korean family members except for my Aunt and cousin (also Half) who both lived in the states and also embraced American culture and the English language. As I got older, more Asians (mostly Vietnamese, Chinese, other Koreans) made their way into my school’s district, meaning that being half-Asian meant even less to the people around me. I was just another mixed ethnicity student in a majority white/mixed school. The whole situation encouraged a comfortable ignorance of what exactly it meant when I identified myself as ‘half-Korean.’
My world was shaken, however, when in the early Aughts my mom’s mom in Korea became very ill. We had spoken on the phone occasionally to one another over the years, but being that she spoke no English and I spoke no Korean, these conversations were usually limited to “I miss you” and “I love you” with one of us talking for a while as the other listened, just hearing the voice of the other. Eventually, she grew so weak she could barely speak. My mother traveled overseas to be with her before she went, and while she was there, my grandmother - my Halmoni - passed away.
Suddenly I resented my mother like never before. I felt I had been robbed of a relationship with my grandma, of knowing my family - I felt like I had been robbed of my culture, my history, denied not just the understanding of where I came from, but blocked from ever being able to identify with an entire country and its past, despite the fact that I would not exist without it.
Still, almost absurdly fast, I was over it. It was time for me to go to High School, and the way I viewed things then, there were more important things to worry about. Because of a complicated situation with my papers as well as the much stricter requirements for getting a passport following 9/11, leaving the country had become a pipe dream. Unless they came to the US, I’d never get to meet the Korean half of my family face to face. As a result, I once again went back to more or less completely ignoring my ancestry except for when it was convenient to me.
In the meantime, I continued to deal with how others perceived me due to my physical appearance.
My mom became a born-again-Christian a while before Halmoni passed away, and we regularly attended the Lutheran Church my father’s step-mother and father attended: the church I had been baptized and was later confirmed at. Still, with my Aunt’s encouragement, we occasionally attended a Korean Methodist church which hosted speakers and choirs from overseas. On such occasions my sense of ‘Other’ flipped completely around, and during every one of these visits I felt completely, inescapably, unbearably, /White/. I didn’t speak the language, and I couldn’t read the Korean translated hymns quickly enough to keep up as the massive congregation sang - so I usually ended up standing with everyone else, but lip-synching as best I could. Even after services, when everyone was relaxed and enjoying fellowship, I didn’t quite grasp the subtle differences in etiquette for interacting with my elders or when eating with others. Even the small number of Caucasians in attendance - a few husbands and wives and a smattering of their children - were always shocked to find out that though I was only half, I didn’t speak Korean at all. I watched enviously as other teenagers chatted, switching effortlessly between Korean and English. I was embarrassed, ashamed, uncomfortable and annoyed for reasons I could only barely comprehend.
With Whites, I was Asian. With Asians, I was white. I was both, I was neither - I was nothing. I had no traditions, no history, no knowledge of where I came from, nothing. At that point in my life, I started to become extremely disenfranchised with the culture that surrounded me. Too much of it seemed to be centered on aggression, ignorance, putting one’s faith in the decisions and ideals of others without testing them yourself, and submitting to the mainstream - even in counterculture. I could not accept what it seemed everyone else around me had - the idea that it was okay to just completely leave behind where you came from, and ignore everything that had come before you. I had to do something. I decided I was going to learn Korean.
My mother, overjoyed that I was suddenly taking an interest in something I’d been mostly content to ignore, gave me a notebook and started teaching me the Korean Alphabet. Having a strong interest in making codes and in the symbolism of non-English written language, I picked up Hangul (the Korean Alphabet) in a single day. I wasn’t very quick with it, but I could read and write it well enough.
Unfortunately, I had school, my mom had work, and there was no one else for me to practice with. We couldn’t afford for me to get a tutor or take special language classes - so once again, Korean fell to the wayside for me.
Determined, I spoke to my mom about one day traveling to meet her - and my - family. We attempted to get me a new passport towards the end of High School so that I might visit Korea after graduation, but a couple thousand dollars and a year or so later, the sad truth sank in: despite my citizenship as an American, with an American father who had served his country as a soldier and a mother who had worked hard and studied harder to successfully pass her citizenship tests, I just couldn’t get my passport. I could not leave the country.
For a time, I gave up completely. I was never going to see Korea for myself, I was never going to meet my family face-to-face, and I would forever be Other, detached from any cultural knowledge from either side of my ethnic makeup. I immersed myself in my various other interests, letting go of any hope of seeing anything outside of the US. For most of my life, Canada had been just an hour or two away. It was impossible for me to even cross the border. Flying to Korea? Out of the question.
Life just got in the way, and without money, there wasn’t a lot I could do. I gave up, and kept on keeping on with the rest of the world. I had a new infant foster brother to deal with, a new boyfriend, college - being Korean-American was something I’d face later.
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