something my sister wrote

I speak, read, write, and understand Korean. But all (well...mostly) my thoughts and dreams are in English. Although I joke about those lazy Americans, fat Americans.....my self proclamation as a Korean- American is very much leaning towards the American side. I am an American. Mostly.

When I come home to visit my parents, we have hour long drives on our way to my parent's grocery store (yes....very very typically korean). One hour in the morning, one hour in the evening. I'm one of those kids that could talk to my parents forever. But my parents get very passionate, and I very exasperated, on one topic. Korean pride. When they start talking about Korea, my asinine brain sifts through images of red communistic flags. NO. We're not North Korean but that's how ardent their nationalistic pride is. They could go for hours on how smart Koreans are, how passionate, how clever, how hard working, how resilient. The only thought in my immature brain, however, is, "well...that's too bad because we live in America."

But this morning, I was told a different story. Let me share this with you:

There was a mother, a grandmother now...and her sons and their families came to visit her for the holidays. They were having chicken and korean bbq. Celebrating something, I suppose. Or perhaps not...Korea is now wealthy enough to enjoy meat if one so pleases. As the dishes were being passed around, the dutiful daughter in law began putting pieces of meat on the grandmother's plate only to be stopped by her husband. "Sweetheart, my mother doesn't like the meat. She always eats the bones."

His mother set her chopsticks down. She looked up at her children and asked, "How many of you don't like the meat and just the bones? Tell me...after all, you are my children. Surely one of you must take after me."

She didn't like eating bones. Have any of you TRIED korean bbq?? I'm not saying this because I'm korean. I'm saying it as someone who loves loves loves food. Korean BBQ is dope. But when she was raising her children, Korea wasn't as affluent as it is now. Whenever she could feed her children, she gave them everything she could. The meat, the juiciest bones, everything with any nutrients. Once her children, husband, and parents in law had been taken care of, she would eat whatever was left over and tell her children, "It's OK. Mommy only likes this stuff."

That was Korea...not 50 years ago...no..not 30. Because that's the Korea my dad remembers. After all, that's why he chose to come to America. He chose to come to a country where he could not speak the language, he could not read its letters, he could not understand the racist comments those in the Bronx would yell at him. That isn't to say, however, that he couldn't feel the hate and belittling. He chose to come because that's how hopeless Korea seemed at the time. Poverty stricken, post- war, and Koreans had far less education at their disposal than they have today.

My dad had a furniture store in the Bronx (right by Fordham where I ended up getting my Bachelor's degree) when I was a little girl. I must have been six or seven. A drunk man came in and tried to buy furniture from my dad and, of course, my dad refused and asked him to leave the store. I was hiding behind my mother's skirt because my dad was raising his voice. The man spit on the floor, called my father a stupid chink, and stormed out. To me, that was a first experience. To my father, that was an everyday occurrence.

And still, they preferred this country. Because Korea was such a despondent place. That grandmother's story was the story of every Korean woman up until the 70s, probably even 80s. Korea was lost. The peninsula's entire existence since its inception was for its survival. It's such a small small country, yet so coveted by all the powers. China, Japan, even the Westerners wanted to infiltrate.

It survived though. Today, in 2010, Korea's GNP has finally surpassed that of Japan's. North Korea's attack on its Southern brother has called for an international investigation because South Korea is now a pivotal part of worldwide affairs. South Korea's technology in just about everything has far surpassed America's, in fact....most of the world's. When my father would tell people, "Oh I'm Korean", no one had any idea what he was talking about. Today, everybody recognizes the country (I personally think mostly because of the bbq but that's not the point).

My parents' pride....makes so much more sense to me now. I always recognized how much they suffered in raising us. No. I recognized how much they suffered because they raised us in this foreign, strange country in which they were aliens for so long and we were simply born into with automatic privilege. But the Korea that I've known and heard about, in my 24 years of living, was always a forward moving country. Colleges were being set up, cars were being produced, phones were being engineered. I can only imagine what's going through my parents' minds today. 30 years in this strange country. 30 years away from the country they used to call home. As their children, we only see half of the sacrifice they've made for us. Their talking to us about Korea and their seemingly overt pride...we dismiss it so easily with a simple roll of our eyes...

But we're not listening. This peninsula with its petite mountains, lushly green hills, and the ever expansive sea...is now a country they don't recognize. The mountains are overrun with highways and skyline buildings. Overpopulated cities with each citizen carrying 4G network smartphones. So...essentially...they really no longer have a home. Where in this world do they belong? Their home is in the children they gave up everything for. They absolutely need for us to understand where it is they come from. Where it is we come from. Because they too, have now lost it. Yes, we are Americans. But we were also raised by these people who will never really ever be Americans. We owe it to them to at least try to understand their pride in their country. We may be Americans. But we still look Korean.

My mother made it a point to take prom pictures with my brother and my sister when they were in high school. It kills her pride that she cannot communicate easily with the rest of the parents. It hurts her heart even more to see those parents speak with herchildren as though they are best friends. She sits quietly in a corner or stands off to the side. My mother is quite beautiful, you know. So you see this beautiful Asian woman looking at her almost grown up child so at ease in this American world. A world she's clearly not at ease with. No one else can see the years of pain and sacrifice, humiliation and desperation. And the loss. Her world and her children's world....are..for lack of a better word, worlds apart.

Now I understand why my parents love to speak about Korea. They want us to remember.