Made in Korea

I was born in Korea, abandoned, taken to an orphanage, put in a foster home, adopted at 6 months old - and then thrown into a white middle class world I would never visibly fit into...

The eyes seem to give me away.

Have you ever seen the movie The Jerk? Where Navin (Steve Martin) is raised by a black family, and doesn't realize he's not black until he comes across "white" music on the radio one night and, for the first time in his life, can move to the rhythm...?

When I was in college, I hung out with a bunch of Hawaii kids. A few of them were really racist against white people and would make comments about them in front of me. I would find myself angrily defending my family, my friends, and...myself - the white kid in the Asian disguise... At the time, I had a boyfriend who was half black and half white. We used to talk about how it felt isolating to not really fit into either culture...but how, simultaneously, it seemed to allow us to fit in everywhere...

It's strange when you perceive yourself one way while the world sees you as something else... and fascinating how much that perception can make a difference.

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