“No, really, where are you really from?” and other questions that remind I am not just American
I really thought writing about my experiences growing up an American-born Korean would be cathartic, but I was wrong. Since 2020, at the height of the quarantine memes, when the world was hyper focused on issues of race and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, a mix of emotions has ravaged my heart and mind. The same mix of emotions when I read coverage of the Derek Chauvin trial, where experts continue to testify the excessive nature of the force used in arresting George Floyd. The bubbling stew of anger and sadness that steams within me when I see report after report of our elderly being viciously attacked for their Asian appearance. The anger and sadness I feel knowing the same people who believe protecting the right to bear arms have no empathetic response when the same guns they allow and protect are used to gun down people enjoying the night out a Pulse in Orlando FL.
Freedom is a veil thrown over the eyes of minorities. You’re not free to be you. You must be veiled, stifled, forced to “look like us” and “sound like us” in order to be accepted by the majority. And while Asian American’s do not experience the same fear for their lives that our Black brothers and sisters do, however we are still constantly reminded we do not belong here. Instead of understanding Asians as individuals, we’re tossed within a box that can be easily understood. Instead of being empathetic, we’re told to suck it up and accept that we “have it good”.
Read what I’ve been forced to answer since childhood. Feel the humiliation in having to respond with the “right answer” to each of these questions. Repeat these questions to yourself. Realize that the question being asked says more about the person asking than the response reveals about the person who is being asked.
“Ew, what is that [smell]? You eat that?”
Nothing is more damaging as a kid when your friends sniff a little bit of your mom’s cooking at the lunch table, only to start gagging and announcing to everyone within earshot that there’s an unfamiliar scent present at their table. Nothing makes it worse when you actually explain what it is, and their limited culinary understanding leads them to believe it HAS to be gross and inedible for most of mankind. “They don’t know what they’re missing out on” was how I explained it to myself, but I know for many people I know, the more common internal utterances were “why couldn’t my mom just pack me a ham sandwich instead”…
Although the recent boom in Korean cuisine has assuaged my childhood embarrassment, I can’t help but think back to days when people thought the food I ate was weird, or didn’t look right to them. To see others now enjoy the deliciousness that is 김치 (gim-chi) despite the deep, earthy, fermented smell of many 김치 varieties, brings me so much joy. There is a joyously adventurous spirit now, when breaking bread with friends. We can share, or discover, authentic cuisine’s from around the world, devoid of the compromises that make the dish permissible to make and eat around most other people.
And to this day, I’m careful with what I bring into the office. Because the worst thing you could do is ruin someone’s day by leaving the odor of your delicious, home-cooked meal, inside the microwave and break room…
“Where are you from? No, really, where are you really from?”
How often do you think about where your family comes from? The country that your parents and their parents grew up in? Do you ever consider it strange when someone you’ve met for the first time asks you this question?
Throughout most of my schooling, I was either one of few or one of one Asian-American children. But being brought up in a small private school and being a faculty child meant most people knew I was Korean. It was when I stepped foot in a larger public school, and started meeting people who knew of only one or two other Asians in their lifetime, I started getting questions like this. Kids I didn’t know, had never met, would come up and ask me where I’m from. Being born in Queens, NY, and raised in New Jersey, meant I could puff out my chest a little and be proud that I’d grown up no differently than them….
It’s the second question that really hammers it home. “No, you clearly look like you’re not from where I’m from. So tell me, where are you ACTUALLY from?”
I’ve visited my parents’ home country only a few times in my life. Aside from family on my mom’s side, I have very little reason to go on a regular basis. I remember going to White Castle in Flushing after school, or visiting Disneyland in California, even have memories of driving down the East Coast in our minivan to visit family in Atlanta, GA. Just like any other kid might in the US. But no, I don’t look like just any other kid. I’m different…
I have come to embrace who I am and where my family has come from. A war-torn country, family that had to uproot their lives and cross the border in order to survive, which led to flying overseas and building a new life in the USA. The resilience, determination, and shear will to make life work out is a story a lot of second generation immigrant kids know all too well. Which is why I now proudly respond “North Korea”, and give them a little lesson on what my family had to go through for me to be proudly born and raised in America. And from there on out, I’m respected as a peer, someone who is just like them.
But I can’t help but be reminded that no matter what, since I look different than everyone else, I will never be like them. American. I hope it will be different for my kids, and their kids…
“You don’t have an accent when you speak English. Were you born here?”
When my parents saw me enrolled in the ESL program as a kindergartener, they must have had flashbacks to their struggles as immigrants. They spoke mostly English at home after that, with the emphasis on Korean language fluency gradually declining with my siblings. Korean fluency become a “nice to have” rather than a “must have”.
Being told that I did not look like the person I sounded like on the phone was a harmless comment. It’s true, I speak English with zero accent, proper enunciation, correct verb conjugations and (mostly) correct use of adverbs and articles. But I truly believe the constant caricaturing of Asian stereotypes and the repetitive nature of “Asian” jokes continues to fuel the prejudice against anyone who look Asian. It turns from arms-length joking to violent hate when you need an outlet for the frustrations.
Because being reminded that despite sounding like them, I can never hide the fact that I do not look like them.
Born in Queens, NY, but raised in New Jersey. But will I ever be just an American?
