I AM KOREAN AMERICAN

Own Words

A Korean adoptee born in Seoul, South Korea, I grew up in Western New York amidst the cornfields and snow, and happily shuttling myself between math-letes, dance classes, and piano lessons (you’d never know my parents weren’t Asian!). I know what you may be thinking – Western New York… isn’t that like the Bay Area of the East Coast?! – but it may shock you that I grew up without knowing many other Asians, except for a few fellow adoptees.

After staying close to home to go to college and start my lucrative career as a non-profit social worker, I moved to North Carolina because I really enjoyed continuing to live in places where people thought I was a Chinese person who couldn’t speak English. My time living in the South wasn’t all bad though, mostly because I had the opportunity to work and go to school at the University of North Carolina, hike lots of mountains and mini-mountains, and eat a wonderfully unnecessary amount of vinegar BBQ and hushpuppies.

Not surprisingly, after living in the college town South for 3 years, I was ready to move back to the urban North and found my way to Chicago, now my new favorite American big city (sorry NYC!). These days, I work as a sexual health educator with youth in residential foster care. It’s a super fulfilling job… and if you enjoy being constantly entertained and having access to thousands of condoms, I’d definitely recommend it!

My free time is mostly devoted to reading, running, cooking (and eating!), and community activism. I’m a part of several feminist, LGBTQ, and Asian American organizations, including the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance, the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, and Invisible to Invincible (i2i) Asian Pacific Islander Pride of Chicago. I’m passionate about nonviolence and social and reproductive justice, and the community work I do outside of my work reflects this.

For those who love social media as much as I do, I blog at http://www.seoulsisterreturning.blogspot.com and tweet at @joyluckclub1218.

I am Joy Messinger.
I am Han Jung-In.
I am Korean American.