My Friend Who Is Also…Korean

A small interaction symbolizing a big problem

Asian Not Asian
Jul 20, 2017 · 3 min read

Not long ago, I had a business meeting over coffee with a straight, cis-gendered, middle-class white woman. She arrived to the cafe totally bummed out.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“The world is too small,” she said. “I lost a friend this morning.” She continued to tell me about her friend with a history of bad relationship choices, who was enmeshed in a dating drama, “who is also…” she paused dramatically, nodded to me and extended a hand, palm up in my direction “who is also…Korean,” she said.

I wondered, “Is this friend Korea-Korean? Like from Korea?” Because I am American, so what is the connection to Korea? I should’ve asked her to clarify, but she was in tears, so I let it go, though it stayed with me through the day.

It’d be a great comfort if I knew she did this to everyone:

• Does she say to white people, “My friend who is also (pause, hand extended)…white.”

• Does she say to the men in her life, “My friend who is also (pause, hand extended)…a man.”

• Does she say to poor people, “My friend who is also (pause, hand extended)…poor.”

• Would she’d tell a black person, “My friend who is also (pause, hand extended)…black?”

Before she highlighted my “race,” I had been thinking of myself as a friend who understood the pain of losing friends over silly relationship dramas, as a listener, as a fellow woman, as a sister who was also sad about other women being in bad relationships, but that comment — “who is also (pause, hand extended)…Korean” — yanked me out of those identifications and stuffed me back into the box of otherness.

Maybe if I grew up in a Korean-American home, maybe if my primary culture of origin were Korean, it would’ve been relevant for her to feature my race in her comment. But, as an adoptee with white parents and little connection to any Koreanness, it just highlighted her racism instead. Koreanness had nothing to do with her situation with her friend.

There are so many more facets to who I am beyond my socially-determined race — things that I’m proud of, things I’d like to change about myself, and things that just are.

When we racialize others, we eclipse and ignore the many other complicated identities that people simultaneously inhabit and value about themselves. In too many social interactions, my race surfaces as my primary identifier, when, for me, I’m not thinking about it, as it is often submerged beneath more relevant identifiers of the moment.

Of course (of course!) I am Korean-American. And I’m so glad to be. But it’s the first and only thing I am. I am so much more.

________

*This originally appeared on APANO’s blog (The Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon) for their #APIsResist project.

Asian Not Asian

Inspired by the contradiction of simultaneously feeling like this is the most messed up, dangerous era of my lifetime while also feeling like we’ve come further than ever, Asian Not Asian is my exploration of my identity in this confusing, scary, and exciting time.

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Asian Not Asian

Written by

writer + Korean-American + adoptee + teacher + slightly obsessive fretter

Asian Not Asian

Inspired by the contradiction of simultaneously feeling like this is the most messed up, dangerous era of my lifetime while also feeling like we’ve come further than ever, Asian Not Asian is my exploration of my identity in this confusing, scary, and exciting time.

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