by Anti-Racist Parent columnist Mike Lee
My wife and I recently had a beautiful baby boy 3 months ago, and sometimes talk about how to raise him with a strong sense of his Korean-American identity. My wife and I are both Korean-American and were essentially born and raised here— she born in the U.S., and I born in Korea but immigrated to the U.S. at 1 year of age.
Growing up, I definitely had my struggles with my Korean-American identity, and I still ponder what makes me Korean besides my skin color, heritage, food I eat, and a language that I don’t even speak well. Growing up in a school where I was maybe 1 of 3 Asian-Americans in the class, it was difficult because I was always being pointed out by my fellow Caucasian classmates as being different.
In regards to raising our son, we know that it is going to be challenging, and anticipate he will ask many questions about Korean culture as he gets older, many of which we may have no answer to. For instance, what makes someone Korean and what makes someone American? How do you merge the two? Are we even good examples of being Korean-American? And what does that mean exactly?
If anything, we are probably more American than we are Korean, being raised here in the US. Fortunately, though, our baby’s grandparents are still alive and will be the closest thing he has to exposure to Korean culture. We want our son not to lose his Korean identity, but are afraid it will already be significantly diluted through us. Will sending him to Korean language school, going to a Korean-American church, or spending more time with the grandparents really make him any more Korean? We hope that he is able to take pride in his Korean American identity and would love the advice of other parents who have dealt with this issue. We are challenged by this struggle, but hope do everything we can to teach our son more about who he is.
Mike Lee currently works as a family practice physician. He was born in Korea but came to the U.S. after turning 1 year old and spent much of his life in Southern California. He blogs for Rice Daddies, and is very interested in the issue of dealing with the struggle for being anti-racist as both an individual and as a parent. He and his wife currently live in California.
Mike, I like the take I recently saw on a license plate frame:
“American by birth
Greek by the grace of God”
It is a rather light-hearted, and not necessarily civic minded statement, which encompasses the duality that one can live under/with.
Hi, I appreciate your challenge. I grew up in an area (Central Valley of California) that had a two large established Asian communities, Chinese and Japanese. I have many 2nd and 3rd generation friends whose parents identified as Chinese- or Japanese-American. When they were younger, my friends primarily identified as Asian American, scorned the language schools they were sent to as kids and sometimes strongly rejected the ethnic culture their parents tried to instill. As they’ve grown older many have traveled to the countries their families came from and grown to appreciate those cultures and the ?-american that their parents embrace.
As “the white girl” friend my gfriends parents and grandparents saw, I have to say that I really appreciate that many of these families shared their cultures with me. And took the time to include me in special events like the Obon dancing, New Year festivities. I have a very special memory of making rice cakes with my best friend’s mother and grandmother.
Please remember that while your family may feel challenged by surrounding culture, you have something special to share that will enrich that culture too.
i’m the parent of a son who’s 3.5 and we also live in l.a. me=chinese american, spouse=taiwanese american. all three of us are born in the u.s.
while i think it’s important to keep a sense of connection (groundedness?) to the motherland, so to speak, i also embrace the freedom to say: whatever i do IS asian pacific american by virtue of the fact that i, a person of asian descent, am doing it. also, as a feminist, there are parts of “traditional chinese culture” i think are best jettisoned. for example, i think conservative confucian culture extends unhealthy male privilege to firstborn sons and others, and i’ve seen a lot of american born chinese number one sons crash and burn because their families treated them like they would’ve been treated in china (i.e., like gods, extending the lineage, etc etc) and these guys were really ill-equipped to deal with the fact that 1) they were not gods, and 2) no one in america (outside of one’s neo-traditional family maybe) cares about that crap. (the lovely little movie WHALE RIDER explored the idea that ‘patriarchy is bad for men’ beautifully, but in the context of traditional maori culture. remember how the father of the family ruined his relationship with his firstborn son with unrealistic expectations, ruined his relationship to his other son through neglect, and almost destroyed his relationship with his granddaughter because he thought a girl couldn’t lead the people? WORD.)
so when it comes to culture, we’ve tried to dig beneath the letter of the law and get to the spirit of it. we’ve raised our son in ways that i think are more implicitly and hopefully progressively “chinese”: we’ve aimed for a version of progressive attachment parenting that rejects the idea that we’re all supposed to “individuate” and become “rugged individualists.” we made a conscious effort to rebuild and care for relationships with our own parents so when they became grandparents, they would have a healthy and loving relationship with us, our son/their grandson. we do lots of multigenerational things together; we have a lot of emphasis on extended family (interpreted lots of ways, hopefully queer-friendly ways too). there is a place for the old and young, always. respect, always. reciprocal concern and caring, always. balancing the needs of the group with individual needs, always. we did Elimination Communication with our son, opting to potty learn “chinese” style (but gently! with love! and so eco-friendly!). we also try to balance american “toot your own horn” ways with chinese “know more than you let on” discretion.
these modes of living may or not be particularly “chinese” so much as they’re maybe more generally “immigrant” or “non-nuclear family, anti-rugged individualism.” but overall i’d say i embrace the opportunities for invention and creativity left in the void created by the lack of traditional culture, and i use what i believe and know of chinese culture to critique mainstream american culture–to reject unthinking conventionality which exists everywhere. culture is a living, breathing thing, and it must evolve to stay relevant. so i’m most definitely NOT nostalgic for traditional chinese culture (which a lot of times seems to be uncomfortably undergirded by patriarchy, plain and simple). i won’t stand for it in my family and definitely not for my son.
I just wanted to add, as an adoptive parent of a Korean-American child I struggle with the same issues- only more so. My knowledge of my son’s birth culture has to be sought out and very consciously incorporated into our family life. In a strange way, it comforts me to know that you and your wife, as Korean American parents, also struggle with providing the best cultural education for your son. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
Hi –
I’m the biracial child of a Korean mother and a White father. I feel that the one of the most valuable things you can do for your child is to accept *yourself* as being a good example of a Korean American. Everyone will have a different level of engagement with their cultural heritage, and providing your child with the learning about Korean language, culture, etc., is wonderful and important.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from struggling with not feeling Korean enough, it’s that there will always be people who try to exclude you. We’ve both experienced the racism of being asked “Where are you from?” by Americans, and I’m sure you’ve felt the pain of someone Korean who dismisses you as too Americanized. I’m not sure there’s a formula for a correct balance there, but it really helps to have people who will love you for who you are, and encourage you on your search for learning (for you or your child).
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your kids will still be seen as “asian” or having a non-western look, even if no one can tell if you are korean or not except by last name… it is an inherently human activity to discriminate and categorize, so how can you really avoid it? they will have to learn to deal as you have learned to deal with it. koreans, asians, immigrants I find are much more racist than white americans who are too scared to be politically incorrect.