I KoreAM What I Am

"I yam what I am"

"What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do?" (Wright 260).  

This passage struck me as particularly interesting just because of how relatable it was to me. As someone who comes from a family of immigrants from Korea, I definitely have had plenty of moments where I felt like I didn't belong or even wanted to hide my culture. Even now, there are moments where I feel that people see me for what I look like on the outside rather than my personality within. They expect me to be a certain way because of the way I look or what ethnicity I am. Although society has definitely improved in the sense of Asian stereotypes, I've definitely had my fair share of fairly racist remarks.

I grew up in the small town of Decatur, Illinois. You might know it as that city that smells terribly of soybeans. If you're familiar with it, you'd know that it's a pretty small town and the community there is very largely white and black. Limiting my community even more, I went to a small Catholic school where I was one of the only Asian, let alone Korean, students there. It wasn't really that strange to me in the moment, but after moving to Champaign and walking into my fourth-grade classroom at Next Generation, I was pretty taken aback by the assortment of different ethnicities represented within the small four corners of the room. 

During lunch hour at my small Catholic school, I was surrounded by an abundance of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Lunchables, pizza, and chicken nuggets. I, on the other hand, would pull out a small thermos filled with warm rice, a package of dried seaweed, and little containers with classic Korean "banchan" (side dishes that you eat with rice). To most of the kids around me, the food being served at the cafeteria lunch line was home, but to me, it was foreign. I had grown up eating rice mixed into warm soup for breakfast rather than toasted Eggo waffles and eggs.

I remember opening up my container of kimchi (fermented cabbage) and hearing "Ew, what's that smell?" I immediately covered the top and put it away, choosing to eat my rice plain. I didn't really enjoy it but I felt ashamed of being part of this foreign culture and scared that people might judge me for eating something "weird".  Later that night, I remember asking my mom to let me get school lunch at the cafeteria rather than bringing a packed lunch with Korean food. The school lunch tasted good but nonetheless, I was always excited to go home and eat the comforting Korean dinner my mom had ready.

When I moved to Champaign and Next Generation School, for the first day of school my mom had packed me kimbap (a Korean sushi roll of sorts) and kimchi for lunch. I was surprised to see that when I opened my kimchi container, no one even batted an eye, let alone comment on it. I think this moment, as well as being surrounded by people of all different ethnicities, helped me to realize that I was proud of being Korean and of my culture. My epiphany here was similar to that of the narrator in Invisible Man. In my eyes, the narrator buying even more yams and happily enjoying his yams signifies his character development where he no longer cared about what other people thought he was and he became proud of his heritage and being from the South. 

While this is a pretty small snippet of the book, I feel like this passage is pretty essential in understanding the narrator's growth and character development. There is definitely more depth in this passage than I got into as I just referred to the I yam what I am part but nonetheless, I think this passage is super relatable and heart touching for those who have ever felt ashamed of their culture or even just experienced feeling out of place.