This I Believe : Unique Identities

I believe everybody’s identity is different.

This is something I dealt with for most of my life. For as long as I can remember, I always had identities that weren't quite like the ones of people around me. When I was 3, I moved to Massachusetts. Going to a foreign place at an age before I could even properly speak in my mother tongue, Korean, I couldn’t communicate with anybody. I vaguely remember, with the help of my preschool reports that I never talked with anybody, clinging to my family in attempts to get away from the scary foreign Americans. I remember crying every night, wishing to be back home in Korea.

However, I quickly fit into my life in America. By the time I was ready to go into kindergarten, I was one of the most outgoing students in my preschool, striking conversations whenever I had the chance. I lived thinking I was American, memories of Korea already forgotten. I didn’t understand whenever my sister reminded me that we were different than our friends, calling us “Korean Koreans.” The only difference I saw between us and other Korean Americans was simply the fact that we had different passports. I thought that I would obviously gain citizenship in the future and live in America for the rest of my life.

I remember the day my parents told me and my sister that we were going back to Korea. We had just finished our favorite show, ‘Dragon Tales’ and were happily getting ready to go to bed, expecting dreams of playing with the dragons. We lay in our bunk bed and waited for our parents to tuck us in. They came in, turned the lights off and suddenly sprung the news. I remember how I didn’t understand at first, confused why my parents kept on repeating “it’s now time to go back home” when I was obviously at home. I remember me and my sister both bursting into tears after understanding, devastated by the news. I remember how troubled my parents looked but uncaring, upset with the fact that I had to leave all of my friends, the future I planned for myself, and my home.

The first couple of years in Korea were the most depressing in my life. Everybody around me were telling me how happy I must be for returning home but I felt like a foreigner in my own country. Friends that know me from the first grade remember me as the girl that cried every day. I still remember the first day of going to school in Korea. I was introducing myself to my new class when my teacher asked me where I lived before. I answered, with a nervous, crawling voice that I was from Boston. Suddenly, my teacher turned to the rest of the class and said “This is quite strange. It seems like the kids in America pronounce Boston different from us!”. She was teasing me about how I didn’t use konglish but answered with American pronunciation. All of the other students started to laugh, but I remember that I started to cry. In the years that followed, I stopped crying and started to enjoy life in Korea. However, I never dreamt of a future of staying in Korea, always assuming that I would return to America. The summer vacations that I spent in America were like returning home. 

Nowadays, having spent my teenage years in Korea, I identify as a Korean. Now that it is time to realistically think about a future in America, I am worried about fitting in as a Korean student and leaving Korea behind. However, there are times when my friends call me American or foreigner for my tastes in music, fashion and hobbies. I have now reached the conclusion that I am never going to have that same identity as the people around me. Even though I am Korean, I am not the same kind Korean as my friends. No matter how much time I spend in America, I will never be truly American. My identity, formed with my unique experience of constantly changing homes is always going to be different. But this is the same for other people too.  People’s identities can’t be divided into black and white. Everybody’s own experiences and environments form their identity, making it unique. This I believe.