Text by Jeong
When I was in second or third grade, I remember asking my caring Caucasian mother, “Why do Mexicans celebrate Cinco De Mayo? Why do they need their own ‘Fourth of July?’ That seems stupid.” She replied, “It is stupid. They don’t need it” and rolled her eyes. I learned that “ethnic” holidays should not be celebrated. Unsurprisingly, when the annual Korean heritage day event (lovingly held by Koreans for Korean adoptees) came around, I wasn’t particularly excited to attend. I felt spiteful that I should be forced into a foreigner’s ethnic celebration: I didn’t belong there with those weirdos. But my parents had been instructed to expose me to my Korean culture, so not attending was not an option. To assuage my discontent, they allowed me to bring along a friend, usually a white girl. When I realized that they gave us money there, I became more amenable to the idea. They only dispensed a few Korean coins with instructions on sebae, but, as a dutiful budding (now former) capitalist, I felt this made the trip worth the while.
Meanwhile, Chicago proudly celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, an Irish holiday, with a great jubilee every year. The city would dye the Chicago River green. Everyone donned tacky kelly green beads, top hats, and t-shirts. People drank and danced in the streets, shouting phrases like, “Everyone’s Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!” Irish people, naturally, were especially proud and wore shirts proclaiming, “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” Being Irish (pale, white European) was something of which one could be proud.
By the time I reached high school, I had disavowed my Korean heritage so much that when another Asian student asked me, “Why don’t you hang out with the other Asians?” I told them, “Because I already have friends.” I realize now that the subtle, unconscious implication was that other Asian people were my last choice. My white friends had told me that they “forgot I’m Asian” so many times by now that I had almost forgotten it too. I believed I blended in with the other white kids and since they frequently complimented me on this, of course, it must be true. If my friends did not see me as Asian, was I even actually Asian?
At the time, it was common practice to teach color blindness to interracial adoptee families. “We don’t see you as Asian, we see you as you,” my parents often assured me - the subtle, unconscious implication was that being seen as Asian was unwanted. This message, although well-intentioned, could never prepare me for how strangers would see me, how society at large would see me, or how other Asians would see me. As white people without education on racially sensitive issues and, of course, without the experience of racism themselves, they were unable to provide me with the cultural competency and language for navigating a white supremacist culture as a young woman of color. In fact, my white family largely touted the idea that racism is over: after all, we abolished slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement occurred decades ago.
In college, I regularly saw large groups of Asian people for the first time in my life. Although Asian American and Korean student organizations were finally available to me, I resisted joining any. Instead, I joined music focused groups and was quickly befriended by the other nonwhite members. In one of these groups, I met one of my best friends, Trudi. She introduced me to the Animate Arts department, and I enrolled in the program soon after. There, I met Cambrey, and she, Trudi, and I became fast friends and collaborators. We worked on projects together including a film and a computer game, which meant that we often spent hours upon hours holed up in the library or the Animate Arts lab together. As I listened to Cambrey tell me about her upbringing in Detroit and to Trudi tell me about her Grenadian heritage, I saw that they were proud to be Black. I was in awe: I had never realized that being proud of your race was an option.
Often, the topic of race arose, and I was ill-versed on the subject, to say the least. I cannot recall all of the stupid things that I said during that period, but I will never forget the look of sheer bewilderment in Cambrey’s kind and patient eyes as I insisted that “white people see me as white too after they get to know me.” One day, understandably fed up with my bullshit, Trudi turned to me and said flatly, “Look, Lynn. You’re always going to be Asian to me. When I look at you, all I see is Asian.” I remember feeling hurt and angry and incorrectly perceiving this as being reduced to my ethnicity. I could not comprehend why race was so important to Cambrey and Trudi, but I realized that if I wanted to be closer to them, to understand them better as friends, I needed to figure it out.
I enrolled in an African-American Studies course, figuring this would be the best place to start. In this class, I was introduced to the concepts of systemic and institutionalized racism, and I learned that racism was far from over. I began to consider how racism affected my life too, both consciously and subconsciously. Slowly, I started to see myself as part of a greater Asian-American diaspora. I began to align my sense of identity closer with that of people of color than whites. A transformation had begun.
Jeong (Lynn Stransky) is a Korean American artist and activist based in Los Angeles. An interracial adoptee, she explores how racial identity and perceived ethnographies shape our collective consciousness and intersect with our innate human desire for belonging through her work.
