The Story

Before our family, none of our relatives had explored outside of our home country, South Korea. Establishing everything from scratch, my parents decided to make a move and immigrate far away to America. This was when I was just 3 years old. Being so young in age, I never would be able to fathom the difficulties my parents faced when settling in a foreign country. Even through it all, they strove to make me confident and aware of my heritage as well as helping me assimilate to this new culture. I always knew I was different in appearance, the way I spoke, the foods I’d eat, and the clothes I wore. The traditions we would celebrate at home were completely different from the other children at school, and it took me a while to come to appreciate the differences when sharing at school. Now having lived in America for the majority of my life, I wanted to share my story as a Korean-American, and relate with children who grew up in multiple cultures to embrace the uniqueness that their culture brings.

Q. What does it mean to be Korean-American?

As a bilingual, it has always been a duty to serve in the Korean language schools wherever I moved. Teaching Korean children growing up in America and seeing the same things they experienced as when I was growing up inspired me to connect and speak with them about what makes life in America different from life in Korea. Even the children who were born and raised in the states mentioned cultural differences from life in a Korean household and various settings such as school.

Some children mentioned the shame they felt for speaking their language out in public and the differences in appearance, while many others mentioned how they grew to become more comfortable in their skin and began to embrace their Korean heritage and opened up to spotting similar ideas or traditions that exist in both American and Korean culture.

The collection process excited many of the students and shined a light on both our struggles and the joys of identifying ourselves as proud Korean-Americans, as multi-culturals.