Beyond Skin

“So what are you? What kind of Asian are you? Where are your people from?” are some of the questions that I, and probably countless others, get asked quite often. People ask me these questions because I’m obviously Asian, based on my appearance, but it can be difficult to distinguish between people of different countries in Asia. While there’s nothing wrong with asking these questions, it often seems as though race is commonly generalized to skin color or physical appearance; there are countless articles, documentaries, movies, and works of literature regarding skin color and its representations in society. But race doesn’t consist merely of the physical aspect of a human being; race can be attributed to many characteristics, such as geography, culture, religion, language, and social affiliations. People can’t be classified into a single race, because there are so many different factors that affect them in their lifetimes.

Whenever I tell others that I’m Korean, the first thing that they ask me (both jokingly and seriously) is if I’m from North Korea or South Korea. Technically I’m from both—my grandparents are from North Korea, and they moved down to the South before the Korean Peninsula was divided into two in 1945. Because I have only lived in South Korea until I was five, I don’t remember much. But I was born there. And I remember the tall apartments that were so prevalent because South Korea is a small country, the colorful playground in front of our apartment, the art classes my mother used to make me take, and my favorite Korean desserts. The few blurry memories I have of South Korea are what have shaped me in my early childhood.

Because I was born and grew up in South Korea, it’s obvious that I have never experienced what life would be like in North Korea. But that doesn’t change the fact that half of my family comes from the North. While North Korea is now known as one of the most secretive countries in the world, I still identify with it somehow, through the stories my grandparents have told me, through the research I did in high school for my final project, and through the Liberty in North Korea club I’m currently participating in. Both North and South Korea are a large part of myself.

Then when I was five years old, my family moved to Canada, where I spent most of my later childhood. During my seven years in Canada, I experienced the difficulties of adjusting to a completely new culture, learning a new language, fitting in, and making friends at the same time. Eventually we obtained Canadian citizenship, and had comfortably adjusted to life in Canada.

After those seven years in Canada, we moved to California. I attended middle school and high school there, two major periods in my life. These were the times when I wanted to go out and do stupid things with my friends, when I didn’t want to study for upcoming tests, when I got into huge arguments with my parents, when I would get moody for no reason. I experienced the American process of taking standardized tests and figuring out what I wanted to do in the future and applying for colleges. Although I was born in South Korea and grew up in Canada, I now feel the most connection to America. I’m still not an American citizen, but after spending a critical period of my life here, it’s now where I feel most at home.

When someone asked me one day where I was from, I felt a bit confused—I had considered myself Korean for the most part, but I realized I remembered very little of it. When my childhood was brought up, my memories of Canada would come back instead. And now that I have lived in America for many years, I can’t help but feel that it has also become an important part of me. My experiences of living in a variety of countries each had some sort of meaning that made me who I am today. So race isn’t about what we look like, or whether we took a test and obtained a piece of paper declaring our citizenship. Race is beyond the color of our skin, it’s about the history of our lives, and how we have been touched by all of our diverse experiences.