I’m Korean American. I was born in America, and I actually did live in Korea for a few years. I was born in Virginia, and I grew up mostly in Connecticut on the East Coast. And I lived in Korea from 1977 to ’82, and I went to Seoul Foreign School, which was a school for American kids. And it was really interesting because growing up as a Korean American in a mostly white suburban town in Connecticut, I got, unfortunately, I got, you know, the slanted eye thing, kids calling me terrible racist slurs, and I used to get a lot of “Can you see when you’re smiling?” kind of questions, which made me very self-conscious about my eyes.
And it was interesting because when we moved to Seoul, Korea, suddenly I was surrounded by everyone who looked like me, but because I talked the way I talk and I don’t speak Korean – I was raised to speak English and I’m very American, the way I behaved and my body language, the way I talked, and I spoke very little Korean – I was trying to learn it as a kid – the Korean kids who looked just like me, they made fun of me too, and they didn’t consider me Korean.
And I would find out later there’s a Korean term called “gyopo” which means Koreans who are not born in Korea, and it can sometimes be a little bit of a problematic term because you’re not really considered really Korean. So, I kind of grew up not fitting into either world. I didn’t fit in in my country of heritage, and I didn’t fit in in my other country of heritage. [laughs]
