I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

I am Korean. I am Jewish. I am an American. I write fiction. I am a community college English instructor. I am the fiction editor of Kartika Review, an Asian American literary magazine. I am east coast (NYC, my place of birth), and I am west coast (LA and San Francisco/Berkeley).

My name tells much of who I am. My first name is Christine, a name given to me by my parents who wanted me to have an American name. They debated between Leslie and Christine, and ended up choosing Christine, because “Leslie Lee” had an awkward ring (to that, I say thank you).

My parents believed in cultural pluralism but not assimilation; to that end, they gave me a Korean middle name that no one can pronounce, and is unusual even in Korea, such that I think my father must have given me a name equivalent to “Gilgamesh.” When I ask him what my Korean name means, he smiles and says, “It’s a literature name.” Yup. Gilgamesh.

When I got married, I didn’t drop any part of my name, because I didn’t have the heart to drop any part of a name that my parents put so much thought into creating. My official real name is Christine Korean Middle Name-Lee Zilka. My official name takes up two lines on my driver’s license. Lee is my maiden name, and I write under “Christine Lee Zilka” because Christine Zilka has no Korean to it at all, and my entire name would make it so that–well, it’s rrrreally long.

My married name is Zilka–it is an Iraqi Jewish surname. My husband and I joke that if we ever have children, we would have “axis of evil” children; he’s half Iraqi, and I am half North Korean.

That’s a little of who I am. Hi.