Everything you may have heard about these Korean parents wanting a Korean partner for their children? Erase them from your mind. Not true. In fact, far from truth, judging from some of the past comments I have seen here on Kimchi Mamas.
Because I am divorced with a biracial child, my mother is concerned that I am now dating a Korean man. Actually, a man who has very similar ethnic make-up as I: 1/4 Japanese and 3/4 Korean. He even comes with a biracial daughter. How perfect, one would think...
Why is she concerned? She is concerned that a man who doesn't look like her own father will enter my Little Nabi's life. She couldn't insist on her original protest, when I had once mentioned wanting to marry a Korean man some day, that I would be a huge disappointment to a Korean mother-in-law; my man is adopted so I was able to curtail any Korean mother-in-law discussions.
When I was in college, a Caucasian friend had a hard time with African-American women who challenged her right to date an African-American man. She would show up to places with her boyfriend and be blatantly ignored or mocked or both.
I have recently become aware of a gender conflict between Asian-American men and women, regarding the fact that there are "far too many" Asian-American women with Caucasian men, that these Asian-American women contribute to the asexualization of Asian-American men. Women writers such as Maxine Hong Kingston are such Asian-American women supposedly contributing to demoralization of Asian-American men.
The fact that both my boyfriend and I have been married to Caucasians and are now dating each other, that we are not only from the same race but also same ethnic make-up has not escaped too many people's attention. It has also been alluded by some that we are only dating each other because of that fact.
Frankly?
I am tired of it. The speculations made regarding how our respective daughters would regard each of us versus the ex-spouses. The speculations made regarding why we chose each other, despite the long distance of 1700 miles between us. The speculations made regarding this being a mere "experiment" on our part, neither of us having dated a Korean or Korean-American in the past.
Is one race so different from each other that we are damned if we are engaged in an interracial relationship and yet damned if we are not? For whatever the reasons why I divorced my ex husband may be, it was certainly not due to his race or his family's race. And I certainly did not fall in love with my boyfriend because he exuded his Koreanness so pungently. I embraced my ex husband's culture and compromised so that we could be represent both of our races and culture as a couple, not to compete and oust one or the other because it wasn't a separate thing away from him but an integral part of him.
So, yes. I am dating a Korean man for the first time in my life. Trust me when I say that his race is not even on the top 10 qualities that attracted me to him.
We, the Kimchi Mama community, are above this... aren't we?
-Mama Nabi
