Retaining a Korean Identity

Some years ago at one of our frequent family dinners, my paternal grandmother grumbled something in Korean to my mother. Now, after twenty-plus years of exposure to Korean and other foreign languages buzzed about, I've grown quite adept at tuning out most of it, but this time my ears perked up; I heard my name mentioned. I asked my mother, "What did she say?" She muttered, "Nothing, never mind. Eat more spinach." Undeterred by her concern for my dietary habits, I insisted on knowing what my grandmother had said about me, because I could tell by her tone that it was not very flattering. After some persistence, my mother told me my grandmother said that I have no "cultural identity." I could see my grandmother eyeing me from across the table, silently challenging me to deny it. Being somewhat confrontational by nature, I immediately shot back, "She's right. I don't need cultural identity. I have my own identity as an individual." That, however, was in English, and my mother chose not to translate, so its effect was lost upon my grandmother.

My parents were born and raised in South Korea, and in 1973 they immigrated to Los Angeles, California. That is where I was born and raised. In the first few years of elementary school, I was one of only a handful of non-white, non-Latino kids. I recall being told by the blonde girl who ruled the playground to go play with the other Asian-American kids since we were all the same. I recall this now with humor, but at the time I think I was quite bemused by it. By then, I had accepted there were differences in people, but this was one of my earliest introductions to the notion that people were the same based on "where they were from," to rephrase the question often put to me then...

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...efore I did not know any Korean, now I possess some linguistic skill, yet I am not sure what I am going to do with it. Do I let my grasp of it loosen the way I lost hold of the French I learned in high school? Or am I required to hold on to it and make use of it, since it is a part of my heritage and ethnic background? Right now I am sitting on the fence, as the phrase goes. I have not decided yet what I will do with my recently acquired Korean language skills. I wonder if actively maintaining my language skills would mean rejecting the principles of individualism and non-conformity I fought for as a teenager. I never could care for being a hyphenated American (Asian-American, African-American, Italian-American). This matter is not yet settled, and it may be some years or decades before I come near any conclusion. I do not anticipate a quick and easy answer.