Growing up, there was Korean culture in my family, and I grew up eating kimchi and bulgogi and, you know, all the Korean foods. And, you know, we would play games on New Year’s Eve, the traditional Korea games for certain cultural traditions.
But for the most part, I’m pretty American. I’m 52 right now, and so my parents were children, they were 8 and 12 years old when the Korean War happened.
So, when they came to America, they wanted to be as American as possible, you know. They did not speak Korean in the household because they wanted me to be American, to assimilate, to speak English. That’s why I don’t speak Korean ’cause I was not taught it. I’m part of a generation where we were trying to erase and assimilate and be part of the culture, and I don’t fault my parents for that because that’s called survival, you know, and that’s the sacrifice our parents and grandparents and our older generation of Asian American Pacific, Islander family members had to do so that we now today can have Asian American studies, that we can protest, that we can do all the stuff that we did.
So, I think that that was part of how I grew up. So, that’s why I don’t speak Korean, and that’s also too why there’s a lot of Korean history and Korean culture that, you know, I’m probably as well-versed as you are. I mean when I do my books, I ask for Korean and Korean American sensitivity readers ’cause I’m like I got to make sure I got this right because I don’t even trust myself. You know, I was given limited resources, so I have to be accountable, and I have to acknowledge that.
