I've never really felt more Korean than Dominican, just as I've never felt more Dominican than Korean, or more American than either Korean or Dominican.
I can't recite the Korean anthem or recount important historical Dominican events.
I don't own a chogori or dance the merengue.
The only Korean I know I learned because of my mother's road rage, and I only learned Spanish when my family moved around because of Army assignments.
But I can tell you about the stares I've gotten from random passersby.
The inevitable question of, "What are you?" that comes along more often than, "Who are you?"
I can tell you stories in the various accents I grew up around while poorly pronouncing the names of Korean and Dominican dishes.
If anything, it's been a long, confusing journey in terms of reaching an understanding about my background and our family's history: it's taken a long time to come to the conclusion that I'm an absolute hyphenate.
I'm not exclusively Korean and I'm not exclusively Dominican.
I can't even be exclusively American because, as a first generation immigrant on both sides of my family, I'm sure that my American experience is different from that of my typical neighbor.
I am, then - along with my sisters - more accurately, Korean-Dominican-American:
So there are moments, whenever I spend time with my grandparents, when I sometimes seize the opportunity to hear more about our past.
If there's one thing the Kims and the Toros share, it's their emphasis on the importance of storytelling.
And, as immigrants, who can blame them? It's the stories that keep our diversity and culture alive.
Stories, really, are all we - or my ancestors - have.
My Korean grandmother, in particular, has always had the best stories.
Once, when I was 16, and we were visiting my half-Korean cousins - with whom our grandmother lived - my aunt, mother, cousins, and grandmother and I were watching the epic Korean War film Tae Guk Gi, the old woman turned to me.
She told me that, when the war broke out, she was just my age.
There was chaos: families, including her own, were ripped apart; the North Koreans and Chinese were ruthless; she was young and lost, and there seemed to be little hope.
Her small farming village being vulnerable, and her family, which was uncommonly close-knit and progressive (as our great-grandfather went against all tradition and left all of his property in my grandmother's name, rather than the next male heir) she and her mother - who were undeniably close - were separated.
Grandma was marched along like a prisoner, facing abuse, death, and starvation.
She was young and alone.
She decided to escape.
One night, when it was dark and the guards were tired and inattentive, she decided to break ranks.
As she ran through the dark alleyways of the anonymous nearby city, she could hear the dogs barking not too far behind, and the voices of the guards and the gunshots they threatened her with.
When suddenly a random door in an alley was thrown open, and a welcoming hand took her in and hid her.
Come morning, she felt that she should leave, should another crowd of Red soldiers pass through, she couldn't endanger the people who helped her.
Not long after, she found a Colombian military camp.
She spent the remainder of the war learning Spanish and doing laundry, happily out of danger.
But she still missed her mother.
When she finally managed to return home, at the end of the war, she sprinted for her family's farm to look for her.
But she wasn't there.
So halmony* went into the village, searching high and low for our great-grandmother.
For hours she looked, fruitlessly.
Finally, she asked someone.
"Your mother?" the man asked, "Park?"
Halmony nodded, desperate, hoping there was a happy ending.
But the man's face fell, and he recounted the legend that became of her mother.
After great-grandmother finally managed to return to the village, the first thing she did was search for my grandmother.
For hours.
Days.
But, somehow, she wasn't back yet.
But she couldn't believe that my grandmother was dead, no matter what the others tried to tell her.
She knew, in her heart, that my grandmother was still alive.
She just had to wait.
So, every day, our great-grandmother would go and wait at the train station.
For hours.
Every day.
Never losing faith.
Nothing else in the world could stop her.
"...But, your mother," the man concluded, "after all that waiting...She died of a broken heart."
It's sad to me that our generation might not know stories like this.
That, instead of quiet triumphs in the face of a violent, close war, we face battles with one another, often forgetting where we came from: that, though our histories are different, we were brought here searching for much of the same ending.
We forget about stories like the one my grandmother had to tell: stories of love and closeness.
Legends are harder to come by nowadays, I suppose.
But I find a little solace in the fact that we can still try to continue the telling of these kinds of stories.
That these old stories can still be passed along so long as there are people who will listen and people who remember.
We just have to remember sometimes.
*halmony is the affectionate Korean word for "grandmother." not one member of the triad any more significant than another, as I've tried, and continue to try, to become better acquainted with the parts of me that brought my family histories here.
I can't recite the Korean anthem or recount important historical Dominican events.
I don't own a chogori or dance the merengue.
The only Korean I know I learned because of my mother's road rage, and I only learned Spanish when my family moved around because of Army assignments.
But I can tell you about the stares I've gotten from random passersby.
The inevitable question of, "What are you?" that comes along more often than, "Who are you?"
I can tell you stories in the various accents I grew up around while poorly pronouncing the names of Korean and Dominican dishes.
If anything, it's been a long, confusing journey in terms of reaching an understanding about my background and our family's history: it's taken a long time to come to the conclusion that I'm an absolute hyphenate.
I'm not exclusively Korean and I'm not exclusively Dominican.
I can't even be exclusively American because, as a first generation immigrant on both sides of my family, I'm sure that my American experience is different from that of my typical neighbor.
I am, then - along with my sisters - more accurately, Korean-Dominican-American:
So there are moments, whenever I spend time with my grandparents, when I sometimes seize the opportunity to hear more about our past.
If there's one thing the Kims and the Toros share, it's their emphasis on the importance of storytelling.
And, as immigrants, who can blame them? It's the stories that keep our diversity and culture alive.
Stories, really, are all we - or my ancestors - have.
My Korean grandmother, in particular, has always had the best stories.
Once, when I was 16, and we were visiting my half-Korean cousins - with whom our grandmother lived - my aunt, mother, cousins, and grandmother and I were watching the epic Korean War film Tae Guk Gi, the old woman turned to me.
She told me that, when the war broke out, she was just my age.
There was chaos: families, including her own, were ripped apart; the North Koreans and Chinese were ruthless; she was young and lost, and there seemed to be little hope.
Her small farming village being vulnerable, and her family, which was uncommonly close-knit and progressive (as our great-grandfather went against all tradition and left all of his property in my grandmother's name, rather than the next male heir) she and her mother - who were undeniably close - were separated.
Grandma was marched along like a prisoner, facing abuse, death, and starvation.
She was young and alone.
She decided to escape.
One night, when it was dark and the guards were tired and inattentive, she decided to break ranks.
As she ran through the dark alleyways of the anonymous nearby city, she could hear the dogs barking not too far behind, and the voices of the guards and the gunshots they threatened her with.
When suddenly a random door in an alley was thrown open, and a welcoming hand took her in and hid her.
Come morning, she felt that she should leave, should another crowd of Red soldiers pass through, she couldn't endanger the people who helped her.
Not long after, she found a Colombian military camp.
She spent the remainder of the war learning Spanish and doing laundry, happily out of danger.
But she still missed her mother.
When she finally managed to return home, at the end of the war, she sprinted for her family's farm to look for her.
But she wasn't there.
So halmony* went into the village, searching high and low for our great-grandmother.
For hours she looked, fruitlessly.
Finally, she asked someone.
"Your mother?" the man asked, "Park?"
Halmony nodded, desperate, hoping there was a happy ending.
But the man's face fell, and he recounted the legend that became of her mother.
After great-grandmother finally managed to return to the village, the first thing she did was search for my grandmother.
For hours.
Days.
But, somehow, she wasn't back yet.
But she couldn't believe that my grandmother was dead, no matter what the others tried to tell her.
She knew, in her heart, that my grandmother was still alive.
She just had to wait.
So, every day, our great-grandmother would go and wait at the train station.
For hours.
Every day.
Never losing faith.
Nothing else in the world could stop her.
"...But, your mother," the man concluded, "after all that waiting...She died of a broken heart."
It's sad to me that our generation might not know stories like this.
That, instead of quiet triumphs in the face of a violent, close war, we face battles with one another, often forgetting where we came from: that, though our histories are different, we were brought here searching for much of the same ending.
We forget about stories like the one my grandmother had to tell: stories of love and closeness.
Legends are harder to come by nowadays, I suppose.
But I find a little solace in the fact that we can still try to continue the telling of these kinds of stories.
That these old stories can still be passed along so long as there are people who will listen and people who remember.
We just have to remember sometimes.
*halmony is the affectionate Korean word for "grandmother." not one member of the triad any more significant than another, as I've tried, and continue to try, to become better acquainted with the parts of me that brought my family histories here.
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