Sometimes I forget that I’m an immigrant and that my children are second generation Americans. This is what happens when the entirety of my early memory bank is seeded only with memories of New York City; this is what happens when I have no recollection of my existence in South Korea at all. For most of my life up until maybe six years ago, Korea was a country where I was born, but nothing more.
I have written about being a 1.5 generation Asian American before: the perpetual internal and external questioning of where you belong and where you don’t, of not being enough of one culture or the other. For someone who came to the U.S. as young as I did, I often felt like I was neither a first generation or a native born American. But even the term “1.5” asserts a state of in-betweeness within an already liminal existence as an immigrant. When you don’t have any memories of your home country and never fully constructed sentences in that language, do those years even count?
Raising biracial kids adds another complex layer to our inter-generational story, especially since my first-born is white passing and doesn’t much resemble me or my side of the family. I remember that first week of being a new mother, looking at my child and marveling how “I pushed out a white baby!” Genetics is wild. I have been mistaken as the nanny far too many times while pushing her in a stroller around my Brooklyn neighborhood. Most recently, I was hilariously mistaken as her “friend” at the doctor’s office.
My younger child, on the other hand, has more Asian features (aside from her nearly 5’11” height—again, genetics is wild!) and possesses more of that ambiguous ethnic look that had modeling scouts hand me business cards on the street when she was younger. Her face is like a chameleon. She can shift between white and Asian depending on the context of the room and who she is standing next to. This is a different kind of struggle that I will never be able to understand since I myself am not a biracial person.
But I observe, with great interest, how our internal conflicts of who we are and where we belong are so strikingly similar, even if they’re rooted from different circumstances. I arrive at these questions about my identity because of my cultural struggles fitting in growing up; my daughter asks similar questions because her genetic makeup embodies two races.
Because of her appearance, she moves through life experiencing more racial stereotyping than her sibling—or so I always assume. If I take a hard look at how I’ve raised my kids, I sometimes question if I’ve ever projected my own biases onto them because of their differences. I’ve always tried to parent each of my children according to their individual aptitudes by taking their lead, but now I wonder if underneath it all lies a subconscious layer because one looks more white and the other more Asian. This revelation gets muddied because my younger child is so much like me. I understand how to parent her because she reminds me of my younger self with our similar sensibilities, quietness, and talents. But my older child, who had to be violently vacuumed out of my body literally tearing me in the process, came into the world extroverted and sassy—and I love that a child of mine is so different from me.
Still, in the same way that I sometimes forget that I’m an immigrant, I sometimes forget that both my kids are half-white which I know sounds absurd and even dismissive of their other half. I attribute this mostly to the geographic proximity to their Korean culture from my parents when they were growing up. They were around my family more and thus exposed to the language, the food, and some of the customs that hadn’t yet been diluted or allowed to fade away.
But they’ve also fully embraced their Asian heritage and culture in a way that I never did at that age. The globalization of Korean culture has made it acceptable and cool these days, but it still feels ironic to me since I tried to erase it all in an effort to blend in. It wasn’t until years later, together with my kids, that I rediscovered the joy and pride of the culture I tried to push away.
A technicality of citizenship
In an unexpected turn, my college kid has declared a minor in Korean studies alongside her science major and is considering doing a summer abroad in South Korea. The instructions on the application states that:
“any student who has at least one parent who was at any time a Korean citizen needs to call the Korean consulate because it is very possible that you are also a Korean citizen, even if you were born outside of Korea. It has happened before that students discover that they are unknowingly Korean citizens and are ineligible for a visa and/or unable to travel to Korea without a Korean passport.”
Wait, what now? How can my kid “unknowingly” be a Korean citizen when I haven’t been one for forty years?
Apparently, after some digging and a lot of confused back and forth texts, I discovered that former nationals are required to formally renounce their citizenship to the Korean government when they they become naturalized in another country. So it’s entirely possible to still be listed as a citizen in the system. I’m not sure my parents ever got this memo.
My dad, when he was alive and dreamed of taking both his children back to Korea, was adamant about waiting until my brother was out of Korean military drafting age because he insisted it was possible that my brother could be drafted while there if some kind of conflict broke out. We all thought this was absurd because my brother was born on U.S. soil. Maybe some PTSD of my dad’s mandatory time in the military was coloring some paranoid delusion that this was possible. It turns out it might not have been a crazy fear after all.
I was then reminded of a similar shocking revelation a few years ago when I called the social security office to replace my long-lost SS card. Most people can do this online now, but because I’m a naturalized citizen it required an initial call and an in-office visit (which I never did). This automated phone call revealed that the social security administration does not have in my records that I am a U.S. citizen.
Wait, whaaaaat??
Do government agencies not talk to each another? Do these very important details not get updated automatically?
Similar to Korea, apparently one has to update the social security office of their citizenship status. I’m pretty sure my parents didn’t get that memo either.
I am, in fact, a U.S. citizen. I became naturalized sometime in middle school and I have the papers, with an embarrassing photo of my middle school graduation picture with big 80s hair to prove it. I also have a U.S passport so I’m not paranoid about my citizenship status, however, I feel somewhat validated for the anxiety that swirls around my stomach every time I cross the U.S. border.
There is nothing that fuels this feeling that you are a perpetual foreigner in your own country like being held in a room, questioned, searched, patted down, or “randomly” pulled aside nearly every time I re-enter the country. It even happened last year when I was flying home from Korea before I boarded the plane, much to the confusion of my mom. A random check isn’t random when it happens that often, is it?
Related essays
Some things I found interesting this week
I Am Going to Miss Pitchfork, but That’s Only Half the Problem (NYT gifted link). The number of publications that have recently closed or cut staff is an ominous sign for the future of journalism—and since this opinion piece was published, add the L.A Times to the mix. Seriously, this is bad.
Our Rodent Selfies, Ourselves A photographer trained two rats to take photographs of themselves. They didn’t want to stop. (NYT gifted link)
Clumsy kittens, pigs in costumes and glittery unicorns: how the cult of cute took hold (The Guardian)
Ursula K. Le Guin on Change, Menopause as Rebirth, and the Civilizational Value of Elders (The Marginalian)
I am so curious about this middle school grad photo with the big hair.
I am writing my piece on race and I thought, I wonder if Jenna wrote hers yet? Then BAM, your story was first in my list of newsletters. I would love to hear your kids' perspectives on this, too, although I'm sure they are very busy people! I just love that they embraced their Korean background and want to hear how your 2nd chose to study about it.