"Seoul Searching" (excerpt)
by Rebecca Kinney
Usually the metal bars lining the ceilings of a commuter train exhaust me. Whether in San Francisco or in Paris, I always find my arm stretched out like a human Gumby when faced with the uncomfortable reality of a full train. In Korea, however, the subway trains are better suited to fit my compact build. My arm reaches easily above to secure myself against the jarring of the train.
As I ride the subway around Seoul I find myself an “invisible foreigner” until I open my mouth. People turn to see the “American,” speaking English with a bit of Detroit twang. No “American” is detected, all they see is me. I traveled halfway around the world and I am still faced with a second round of questions after I tell people I am American. “But aren’t you Korean?” “What are you?” How is that for irony? The dominant way that people think about identity is constrictive but is still able to transcend borders, moving fluidly over place and time. I struggle to claim and create a space representative of my multiple identities, but my international status only seems to complicate things.
I began my life, transnational garbage—thrown out, abandoned. Picked up thousands of miles away and loved. I am one of thousands of Korean children who were adopted by United States citizens. This is where my traditional narrative begins, six months old and on a flight from Seoul bound for Detroit to a family already comprised of a mom and dad, both descendants of poor white sharecroppers, and a three-year-old sister who had been adopted from Korea three years earlier. However, I have begun this piece on “Asian American identity” where I am right now, at a PC bang in Seoul.