Kimchi Mamas

Roots (part 3)

Read parts 1 and 2, here.

Well, as you can probably guess, my youngest gomo (aunt) decided to immigrate to America. I have never ever asked her about this and I don't think she even knows that I know this story so I don't know exactly why she decided to immigrate... but I have some educated guesses. My youngest gomo is pretty driven and she's also very smart. She probably would not have been able to go to college had she stayed in Korea because of the fact that she is a woman and that she is the youngest in the family.

My oldest uncle (kun appa) is the only person in my family that was educated. He was the first son so of course he was bestowed this privilege. Actually, he was educated to become a priest (see Roots part 1 re: my family's Catholic heritage). He's no longer a priest though but that's a different story for a different time. My father, I think, barely went to junior high school or maybe a bit of high school. (My mom didn't graduate from high school either.) My other uncle and other aunts also did not go to college. Education in Korea during those days, and even now, is very expensive. Especially college. So had my youngest aunt stayed in Korea, she would not have been able to pursue her studies... something that she wanted to do very much.

Korean School

A guest post by Christine Yum Lenz from Small Town Girl Grows Up.

"A, ya. Uh, yuh. Oh, yoh." I heard my daughter practicing her Korean vowels in the dining room.  Three weeks ago, she started Korean school near our home in Silicon Valley.  I've always wanted to be fluent in my mother tongue but never got past restaurant-level Korean.  My parents chose not to make me speak it at home perhaps to not confuse me.  I developed my own blend of Konglish featuring a colorful array of slang and swear words (thanks Dad!) through home osmosis and Korean classes.  On my first visit to Korea at age 12, I nodded silently at my grandparents while they uttered simple sentences about not eating too much or how I looked like my father, limited by my language comprehension to address any deeper topic.  I felt foolish sounding like a 5 year old so I generally didn't speak that much.  During my second visit to Korea several years later, I endured verbal abuse from taxi drivers who chastised me for not knowing my "own" language and teasing from my cousins.  Remembering these experiences, I became determined to give my daughter the opportunity to learn Korean. 

On our first day of school, I marvelled at the sheer quantity of Korean kids - 700 in all - little black-haired heads bobbing around the large high school campus.  I felt at home and self-conscious at the same time.  Most of the other parents were recent immigrants and spoke only Korean.  I definitely felt out of place but as I gripped my daughter's hand and looked for her classroom, I became more determined to "take" our place in this community.  I saw only one or two Caucasian parents so my 6'3" tall husband stuck out a bit but it really didn't bother me.  I was focused on my daughter and how she was handling herself.  I wondered if she knew that she looked different.  She seemed nervous and shy but also curious about these rambunctious kids who were speaking a language that she heard her mom and halmoni speak.  The class was comprised mostly of Korean kids including one little fellow who promptly told me that he was 4 years old. I watched him take out his little pencil case and start lining up his erasers.  I noticed a few hapa kids with their parents and felt small sense of relief knowing that there were others who felt a little out of their element.  The teacher was very kind and addressed everyone in English while explaining the curriculum.  I said goodbye to Sophie and left with a hopeful feeling.

Sophie going to Korean school has brought back a lot of memories of my own Korean classes which were taught in our church basement in the late '70s.  My parents were recruited to teach the classes - to my great embarrassment - along with several parent volunteers.  My dad was an old-school, you-will-obey-me-now-not-later, 1950s style teacher.  He pounded tables with rulers and even flagpoles (watch out front row!) to get everyone's attention and make his point.  My friends, Grace and Becky, reminded me that he broke several rulers throughout the course of our class.  Despite all the theatrics in the classroom, I learned how to "read" Korean (mainly by sounding out words) and could understand my parents' conversations pretty well but not a KBS news show.

Now when I do homework with my daughter, I find that I need to speak Korean albeit poorly to support her lessons.  At 40, I am trying to get over old fears and insecurities.  I also realize that I want my daughter to learn Korean to not turn out like me.  Though I was born in the U.S., I was considered and treated as a "foreigner" because of my looks but I was also treated as an outsider in Korea because of the way I spoke or did not speak.  I hope that by giving my daughter exposure to Korean language and culture that she will gain a sense of ease that I struggle with in my own community.  I also hope that she will gain insight into the Korean people - one half of her heritage - and a fresh way of looking at the world.

Christine grew up in Sunnyvale, California and has been blogging about motherhood since 2006.

Musings On Race: How Far We've Come

In light of yesterday’s beer-fest hosted by President Obama to quell racial tensions around the recent arrest of Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., I have found my thoughts turning, once again, to race, ethnicity, and identity. This morning I listened to a call-in show on my San Francisco NPR station wherein this topic was addressed. Specifically, listeners were invited to share their thoughts on the Gates arrest and its aftermath, which President Obama says is a "teachable moment" on race in America. One caller on the show observed that her young child seemed to have no concept of race – that she had school friends of all colors, and based her decision on whether or not to befriend someone on their behavior and character, and not on their skin color.

All In a Name...

The summer after I finished fifth grade, my family moved from Flushing, Queens to the suburbs of Houston. For the past three years, I had attended P.S. 20 just two blocks from our high-rise apartment building. We played in the asphalt-covered playground at P.S. 20 and sometimes hit tennis balls against the handball court wall. By this age, I had done enough research to know that this was not the childhood I was meant to have.    

One or two Judy Blume books would have been enough to teach anyone about the proper American childhood. I had read them all. For starters, we were supposed to live in a house. Our own house. Not in some apartment building where the downstairs neighbor banged on his ceiling the minute you ran from the bedroom to the kitchen. And this house, our house, was supposed to be in the suburbs. And everyone was supposed to have a lawn. With sprinklers. And the house was supposed to come with at least one pet, preferably a quadruped. 

Comfort Food

When Cadence finally started eating solids other than Cheerios, it was Korean food that she learned to love first.  To this day, she devours my mom's chigaes (soup/stew), and when all else fails, she seldom says no to rice and kim (nori).  Although she still shies away from the spicy foods, I'm amused at how she never tires of chigae with rice.  That has always been my comfort food and something I just don't get tired of.

After we immigrated to the U.S. when I was almost 6, my mother didn't cook Korean food exclusively.  She would try new "American" recipes, and when she found something she could make, she'd make it constantly for a couple weeks.  Pepper steak, corned beef hash, reuben sandwiches, and polish sausage with sauerkraut were the most frequently served non-Korean dishes that I can recall.  I suppose I could mention the fried SPAM sandwiches, but for some reason, I would have to categorize that under Korean food.

Despite my mom's forays into "Western" cuisine, I still loved Korean food the best and would often eat chigae or guk (soup) and rice for breakfast before school.  Quite honestly, anything beyond a sandwich, or to be more specific, anything that required the use of a fork and knife, made me nervous to eat in public well into adulthood. 

When I was in the 8th grade, I went to an awards banquet for our school district at a hotel with my mom.  I think this was the first time I ate at a sit-down cloth napkin type of affair.  I had no idea what to do, and I remember feeling my cheeks flush.  I looked to my mother for guidance, but immediately realized she was as lost as I was with the fancy tablecloth and napkins and multiple utensils.  Somehow, we got through the meal by copying what the others at the table were doing, but I never forgot that feeling of "otherness."

I've been doing a web-based read-along of Brené Brown's book on shame resilience for women called I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't): Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy and Power.  As I've been reading the book and looking through the online discussions on Brené's blog, I've been thinking about what my personal shame triggers are, and I realized that a big one is this feeling of being "other," of not knowing proper etiquette, of not understanding certain idioms, this fear of doing something "improper." 

Brené's book points out that talking about our personal experiences of shame is helpful in working through our shame, and that the antidote to shame is empathy.  I know there's a lot more to my "shame baggage" than merely not knowing which fork to use and when or the fact that I'd rather eat chigae and rice (and yes, kimchi) for breakfast than pancakes or waffles.  Nevertheless, it's a start...

- Sarah-Ji

Team Do! Boo!

Shortly before I got pregnant with Cadence, I was part of a coterie of Korean American young women led by the inimitable Mia Park.  We called ourselves Team Do!Boo!, which doesn't make sense to most people if they're not fans of Mates of State, but it meant something to us then.  We had grand plans to take over the world, but never quite got around to it.  What we did do, however, was to get together and learn how to make Korean food.

Most of us had grown up in the U.S., either as adoptees or 1.5 or 2nd gens.  I'd say we were 80% pathetic when it came to our knowledge of cooking Korean food.  The first time we got together to make mandoo (Korean dumplings), Mia had an envelope on which she'd scribbled instructions from her mom as well as a bag of packaged frozen mandoo that we used as reference.  Nevertheless, we kept trying our hand at different dishes, and we even managed to make our own jars of kimchi once.

After I had Cadence, it was harder for me to get together with these ladies, but whenever I did, I would realize how much I missed them.  Even though we all had diverse backgrounds, there was a sense of camaraderie and acceptance that we shared with each other that I don't know how to explain.  I never had to worry about how bad my Korean was, as only one of us was fluent.  There was no need to "look good" for each other, whether in physical appearance or jobs, possessions or partners, since most of us had non-mainstream sensibilities.  We were open about our individual ignorance regarding Korean culture, and we tried to learn together.  We explored feelings of identity--as Korean Americans, as women, as Korean American women. 

I had a chance to see a few of the old gang last Saturday when we went out to a Korean restaurant to celebrate someone's adoption anniversary.  The photo above is one of the dol sot (hot clay pot) bibimbaps at our table.  To me, that image symbolizes what the Team Do!Boo! gals mean to me.  They are my comfort food, the ones who can make me feel good and right at home even after months of not seeing them.  And for that, I am grateful.

+++++++++++++++++++++

Edited to add: I just found the old Team Do!Boo! mission statement:

team do!boo!

do boo is the korean word for tofu, an essential ingredient in asian cuisine that is used in a variety of ways...team do!boo! is a collective of young korean american women from different backgrounds who share a rich heritage and a passionate sense of individuality...some were born in the u.s...some were born in korea...others were adopted by nonkorean families...these individuals have come together to collaborate creatively and socially, to spur each other on (team) towards positive action (do!) with spunk and pride (boo!).

Ah, memories...the good old days when I didn't use capital letters...

-Sarah-Ji

The Unofficial Official Koreatown

Just as KoreAm Journal has a cover article in their March issue about the gentrification of Los Angeles' Koreatown, the New York Times is writing today about cross-ethnic tensions over the Bangladeshi community's push to name a certain section of what is assumed part of Koreatown, Little Bangladesh.

One of the things I love about Los Angeles is that even admist supposedly clear-cut neighborhood identities, there is usually significant diversity. This is especially true of Koreatown. It remains, however, the center of social and civic life for much of Southern California's Korean community. So go ahead and call me biased, but Koreatown is Koreatown.

- Nina

History

This past week I had a conversation with my mom about how I learned about Asian American history.  There is no doubt in my mind that had my mom not prompted and prodded me to write my history papers on different parts of Asian American history, I would have learned nothing about the history of my own people in America.

In particular, I asked her if she remembered when she told me about the Vincent Chin murder.  She thought that it was in high school, which is kind of reasonable considering it was a brutal hate crime.  BUT, I am fairly certain that I was in 5th or 6th grade.  I specifically remembering thinking how dumb the whole thing seemed - dumb being my 5th or 6th grade way of contemplating hate crimes.

I wonder about how I will share stories of Asian American with my children.  I think that our stories still fall outside of the mainstream and don't always receive the attention and care that is needed.  I think that hearing about things through the voices of family, imagining things that my grandparents might have gone through - those are all important ways of sharing our past with our children.

I already have some books, but the stories are so hard to find.  And some of the stories are so sad!  I think it's important to teach my children about things like Japanese internment ("Baseball saved us" comes to mind), but at the same time, it's such a hard conversation to start.  Especially with a four year old who asks WHY to just about anything I say.  (I can picture it now, "Why did FDR think that Japanese Americans were spies?") 

How do you plan on teaching your children about Asian American history?  What questions are you nervous about answering?

~ eliaday

Post-divorce Nationality Battle

As many regular readers know by now, I am still a Korean citizen.  By nationality.  By passport.  By "hell no, you can't vote in this country because your country and this country do not have a dual-citizenship pact".

I am a permanent resident, tax paying legal alien.  Those of you who were ready to dial Homeland Security, you may step away from the phone now.  And no, you can't get me deported just because you find my posts annoying or because I rub you the wrong way.  My ex wanted to get me deported because I wanted to divorce him.

Speaking of... I usually save rantings about my ex for my own blog but I thought I'd share this on Kimchi Mamas since it's kimchi-related.

Mutt like me

It's no secret that I'm over the moon that Barack Obama is our President-elect, but for those of you who don't know me or read my blog, I've been a supporter since he first announced his candidacy some two years ago. I've written about what it means to me as a biracial American to have someone like me ascend to the presidency. Of course - inserting necessary caveat - I've supported him not because of his race, but because he is the right person to lead our country right now at this moment in our history, fraught with both peril and unfathomable potential.

And I know, I know that he cannot be expected to carry the weight of all that he is to all of us. As the first African American, the first minority, the first biracial president in our history. It is too great, too momentous. I read a beautiful open letter from Alice Walker to Obama written just after he was elected and she said, "But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear." The word "historical" is being thrown around like "bipartisan" these days, but all that history making, all that symbolism and standard-bearing, it creates some sticky expectations.

So, I admit, I have expectations. And when Obama was talking about his daughters' promised dog during his press conference on Friday, I was troubled by his use of the word "mutt" to refer to himself.