I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

I am Korean.
I am American.
I am Korean AND American. Without compromise and without sacrifice.

If being here, I am invisible, or somehow wring…Being different is American. Being an immigrant is American. Having a mom and dad who spoke with a thick accent is American. Eating kimchee is American. Being whatever religion I am, as unfashionable as conservative Christian is? That is American.

And if I go back to Korea and everyone stares at me? Having forgotten most of my Korean, wearing western clothes and western hair and western make-up. You cannot take away the Korean from me. I remember me, myself, walking the streets and alleys of Seoul, being pulled along by my mom. I will forever have the stories of my uncles in “ee-book.” I hear the twang of my mother’s Taegu slangs. You cannot take that away from me. It is me.

Korean and American. I do not have to place a conditional on my Americaness. Both And. No hypheNations for me.