Born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Taiwanese-American trombonist, Peter Lin, has been recently described by Downbeat Magazine as “solid, fluid, and smooth.” He received his B.A. in Music from William Paterson University and M.M. for Jazz Trombone Studies at Rutgers University. He is currently a faculty member at Jazz House Kids in Montclair, NJ. Peter Lin studied with jazz legends such as Slide Hampton, Steve Turre, Conrad Herwig, Robin Eubanks, Steve Davis, and Frank Lacy. He has performed with many notable artists including Slide Hampton, Winard Harper, Charli Persip, Kenny Barron, Rufus Reid, Victor Lewis, JD Allen, Valerie Ponomarev, and Radam Schwartz. Lin’s album "New Age Old Ways" is a 2019 release from his TNT (Trombone N Tenor) Quartet. This album draws on his experiences performing in New York City with the TNT Quartet and his life as a musician. This self-released album relies on his eight original compositions, each composed for the unique instrumentation of trombone (Peter Lin), tenor saxophone (JD Allen), bass (Ian Kenselaar), and drums (Nic Cacioppo). Throughout the course of the album’s eight tracks, the musicians create a fluid and highly-improvisational landscape thanks to the piano-less setup of the ensemble. With Lin’s compositional prowess, one does not feel like anything is missing from the group. The album begins with “A Path To Understanding.” This composition is Lin’s call for unity through the process of understanding and respect. Opening with a bass groove, which is quickly punctuated by Cacioppo’s energetic drumming, “A Path To Understanding” is a strong start for this release. Swinging with a lyrical melodic arc, Lin’s solo illuminates for the listener a vivid picture of the implied harmony amid the song form’s style changes. His concise trombone solo segues into Allen’s powerful tenor saxophone statements. Allen, a veteran of the NYC jazz scene, comes into the fray with his bold voice on the saxophone and an athletic, yet vocal, approach to the instrument. The composition closes with Cacioppo’s explosive drumming building over the bass line into the close of the piece. “Celestial Being” is an homage to the anime "Gundam Mobile 00." Representing the mechanized, outer space warfare of the source anime, “Celestial Being” has a brief melodic section and quickly ventures into Kenselaar’s bass solo. Blooming from the initial melodic motif, Kenselaar’s compositional approach to the bass expands upon motifs present in Lin’s composition. His solo is a trombone fireworks show, showing his technical prowess contained within a melodic improvisational framework. Kenselaar and Cacioppo support Lin’s energy in lock-step. Allen’s virtuosic contribution shines as he hands the baton to Cacioppo for a fiery drum solo that makes one’s adrenaline surge. The album continues with the title track, which conveys the idea that musical systems of expression and analysis have been recycled and reused, yet many jazz musicians today work hard to communicate in a relevant way to today’s audience. Consisting of melodic material that includes an approach to dissonance that makes one recall that of Thelonious Monk, this composition features a bass solo that showcases the synergy between Kenselaar and Cacioppo. Allen continues with a driving saxophone solo that showcases his ability to create new sounds while paying homage to the rich ancestry of the saxophone. The listener earns a well-deserved reprieve in the heartfelt ballad, “Akong.” Akong is the Taiwanese word for grandfather and this song was composed for Lin’s own akong. Playing with a rich palette of emotive textures, the admiration for everything that Lin’s akong accomplished during his lifetime is clear. There is a distinctive reverence that paints the picture of a beloved individual. The transparency of the texture during Lin’s solo provides a heartfelt intimacy befitting of such a tribute. “Song of the Amis” is a dedication to the Amis and their cultural contributions to Taiwan. The fiery display of Cacioppo’s drumming cannot be understated–the energy is infectious. “TNT Theme” harkens back to the work of Sonny Stitt and Gene Ammons. One of two interpretations of the blues showcased on this record, one does indeed feel that Lin has perfectly encapsulated the open, jam session style of the Stitt and Ammons sessions. “Red Label” refers to Johnnie Walker whisky. Though it is another take on the blues, Kenselaar takes center stage with a thoughtfully-developed improvisation on this soulful composition. The relaxed feel of this composition is a welcome addition to this album and rounds out a thoughtful program of Lin’s compositions. Finally, the closer, “Mantis Shrimp,” is an ode to the creature of the same name. A lively composition over rhythm changes, “Mantis Shrimp” consists of cascading counterpoints in the A sections and a pointillistic and dissonant B section that does suggest the eponymous creature. Allen’s final statement on the record shows his command of the instrument with his use of the overtone series, false fingerings, and his trademark bold-style of tenor saxophone playing. Lin glides over the chord changes in his solo. Lin is the inaugural voice in this new music commentary section on The Universal Asian, and he makes a commanding statement with this album. Unique in its instrumentation, the eight immaculately-crafted compositions, the band’s chemistry, and Lin’s own smooth improvisations, make this album a must-listen for every fan of energetic, improvisation-driven, hard-bop.

I See A Place (Paradise) I see a place that’s far, far away A land that we could go, perhaps today An island, maybe, for just you and me No harms, no worries, just peace I see a place that’s warm and sunny Where there’s luxury, but no need for money The birds they fly, but never disturb Is imagining this so absurd? I see a place made just for us Somewhere where there’s no need to ever fuss A getaway that’s so very nice I see a land that we call our paradise The Ocean Here I am, standing in the sand With only my notebook, pen in hand I take a seat and stare into the ocean I think for a second and write the title with one swift motion I’m writing a story, inspiration is the sea I’m reflecting Reflecting on my past, looking at my future, just me I see the waves, sweep in, sweep out They’re so care free, nothing to worry about I envy the ocean and it’s free spirited ways While I have so much stress that has built up over the days I wish I were a wave so that I could finally be free I want to be part of the ocean so free, so me Space Look to the sky Look beyond what you see Beyond the clouds and the atmosphere See the galaxy A place we have such little knowledge on Places beyond the Earth, moon, and sun Millions of stars so brightly lit Billions of places to go in little rocket ships Out in the great beyond searching for adventure High in the sky, no gravity, light as a feather Look to the sky Imagine all of space Maybe, could you believe, there’s more than the human race? Lauren is a regular contributor for The Universal Asian. To learn more about her, check out her Contributor’s Page here.

Eunsoo Jeong is a Los Angeles-based artist and creator of Koreangry, a comic/zine series based on her daily struggles as a Korean-American immigrant woman and artist searching for her identity in today’s political climate. Koreangry is a seven-inch puppet/doll/armature/character that she created, sort of her alter-ego. The Koreangry zine series is an ongoing search of my life told with this character—photographed with hand made props in a set I built. My zines include written excerpts, word-play, poems, comics, crude sketches, and experimental digital collages. Eunsoo welcomes your connection via social media! Website: www.koreangry.com Social media: @koreangry @madeinkorea1988; Facebook, Twitter

Mainstream stereotypes have created an image of what it means to be Chinese-American. Fortunately, The Universal Asian had the opportunity to chat with the co-hosts of 2Crasians podcast, Cindy Yep and Nancy Lee, about how they humorously and honestly address these realities in hopes of helping others feel camaraderie in commiserating and coping. I think it was Episode 10 or something like that, when you two shared your origin stories, but for those who haven’t heard it yet, could you give us a brief on your backgrounds? Sure. Well, the reason we met and started our podcast is because we were working together and started talking. We had such similar life stories as Chinese-Americans. But, we are second-generation because our parents came from China. Cindy: Nancy, you were born in Pennsylvania like me. My parents had taken a similar journey to yours. [Nancy’s] parents came to New York. Then, they went to Pennsylvania, and had kids. While [Nancy’s] parents stayed there, my parents took us to the West Coast. It’s just really interesting how we both had this story of both our moms being from Taiwan. Plus, there were other examples, like Cindy’s grandfather or great grandfather was a high ranking official in China and so was mine. Nancy: Yeah, and we found we had the same mythologies that our parents had, etc. So that’s how we got started. Cindy: We’d known each other for like a month. And I was like, you’re my sister. This is how it’s going to be. We went traveling together to Portugal. While we were on the beautiful beaches of Portugal, we’re like, we’re going to start a podcast. Wow. So growing up as Chinese-American, did you identify with being Chinese? Or, did you have one identity that was stronger than the other? Nancy: I grew up in a very Jewish-American town. Like all Asian parents, mine wanted us to have the best education possible. So, my parents asked the realtor where all the Jewish people lived and took us to a small town called Huntingdon Valley in Pennsylvania, right outside Philadelphia. They owned Chinese restaurants and I grew up spending weekends at my parents’ store. The weekdays were spent going to school with my white Jewish friends. Eighty percent of my school was Jewish. So, I definitely had this challenge with my identity. I’d look in the mirror—confused with sounding [one way], but also looking like this. And I was like: Why don’t I have brown hair, blue or green eyes like my girlfriends? Why are my eyes so slanted? Where are my eyelids? Plus, I always was having to apologize for my parents and be a translator for them, and I was embarrassed. When you’re young, you just want to fit in. I realized as an adult that I’m a pleaser, so I tried really hard to assimilate with the culture. So much so, my girlfriends would say, “You’re like a Jewish girl, anyway.” And, I was fine with it. But, at the same time, I was like, no, I’m actually Chinese. Cindy: I was always trying to appease people. I was class president. I was in all the clubs. At work, I did everything. I wanted to be social and popular. Then, I did a semester program at sea. The first country we went to was Cuba. Then we went to Brazil and ten other countries. By the time we got to China, which was country eight, I had gone through all these different cultures and thought, “Wow, it’s really cool to be different.” We learned about how people are so proud of their heritage and their culture, their food, their music, their entertainment, their history. So, the fact that I was able to see it through the lens of other people’s culture and accept it, arriving in China gave me this sort of weird out-of-body experience. I got there, and everyone thought I was American because I’m not Chinese enough. But, at the same time, all my classmates wanted me to be around because I spoke broken Chinese. I think the moment that was like my aha thing: I was at Temple of Heaven in Beijing and I was on a tour and they were talking about the paint used in this temple and how the paint actually has some sort of natural ingredient that [is dust repellent]. I was like, these people that are Chinese, who are my ancestors, they had the foresight to think it’s going to get dusty up there. I was so proud. I started to have this different relationship with my identity, where it’s not all one thing or the other. We can be proud one moment, and then we can be ashamed the next. We can have these injuries, then try to explore them. That’s why we make sure that we’re not always just cutting down our traditions [in the podcast]. We also talk about what’s great about being Asian and trying to lift each other up. So talking about the podcast, what is your overall aim or mission with it? When we were deciding to start this podcast, we discussed: do we say it’s Asian-American, Chinese, American immigrants? Who are we targeting? We eventually landed on Chinese-American because we’re both Chinese-American and that’s what we can speak to. Our mission is to try to explore characteristics that we have in common from our childhood and try to do it in a fun and entertaining way. We didn’t want to make it this big production of things. We just wanted to have a conversation between the two of us as friends and make it very candid and lighthearted. But through telling our stories similar to others, they can feel like, “Oh, yeah, my mom’s not that crazy?” Being able to share stories and demystify these feelings that you are the only one that feels like this allows people to understand and also realize, all our moms are crazy. To be honest, we grew up feeling different from people around us and even mainstream Asians, but saw comedians like Margaret Cho and later, Ali Wong who made us realize our “otherness” makes us unique and possibly…cool? Nowadays, there are lots of role models for outspoken “crasians” like us and we’re finding more things in common than different. Actually, a lot of the people that listen to the podcast are not Asian-American nor Chinese-American, but they are of hyphenated backgrounds. It’s about trying to interweave your mother culture with this culture that you also gravitate toward and feel very comfortable in. But, how do you intertwine the two? You guys have the tagline of “The Asian-American podcast where The Joy Luck Club meets Drunk History”; how did you come up with that? Just one of those instant magic things. Joy Luck Club is like a seminal book for anyone who’s kind of our age. They had the very serious family relationships, but we’re not that serious. So, with Drunk History, that’s where the lighthearted energy comes from. How do you decide upon your topics for the podcast episodes? We’ll have a brainstorm or just talk about something that’s been rattling around in our heads. For example, we have done two on the Coronavirus. One was like, “it’s probably not that bad.” And then the next one was like, “oh, the world is over. Oops. Sorry, guys.” In your About section on your website, it says that you have disturbing childhood flashbacks and you lovingly blame it on your immigrant parents, could you explain a little bit more what that means? God, my parents don’t even like me having this podcast. Nancy: My dad was not happy about the podcast. I think it’s something to do with the fact that Chinese-Americans are always not wanting to really ruffle feathers, and I’m putting his opinion out there. He really just wanted me to kibosh it. As a good Asian girl, I want to obey. But, at the same time, it’s something that I really enjoy and I think is a platform that helps others not feel alone in how they feel or the experiences they are going through. Cindy has so many fun, interesting stories with her family. All the old wives tales that we covered in the first couple episodes that we did were like my punchline stories that I’ve told people for years. We talk about what we know, which are our own stories. And sometimes we’ll have flashbacks and be like, oh my God. So, it’s like group therapy for us and, hopefully, others. Still, we don’t want it to become a thing where we’re just bashing our parents all the time. Cindy: My dad is Hakka Chinese from India, and my mom was born in China and grew up in Taiwan. Growing up I didn’t know things like what Hakka is, so the podcast has been a way to explore things like that and learn about myself. They [my parents] did the best they could. They are kids of their parents. We’re enormously privileged to have been born here and speak English. But still, they gave us a lot of material and it was really funny. So, we want to put it out there. What would your takeaway be for younger, aspiring universal Asians, or how would you encourage our universal Asian population to pursue their art or to do whatever it is they want to do in life? Don’t over try to produce it. Don’t go trying to perfect it. Just get it out there. If you’re not a speaker, then be a writer. If you’re not a writer, do music or something. Just, if you have something to say, just put it out there and do not overthink how people are going to perceive it or how perfect it has to be before you do it. Because, in the time and space that we are in now, there are so many things that are overproduced, and then there are things that are very raw, like ours. So just learn by doing. You have to have some way to express yourself. Check out the 2Crasians podcast and follow them Instagram!

“this is it” is the second collection of poetry from Calista Ogburn. This poetry book brings to light the rising anti-Asian racism as the spread of COVID-19 has increased. It captures Calista’s experiences of loneliness, heightened anxiety, and feeling lost during a global pandemic. “this is it” takes the reader by the hand through the most difficult times and finds hope for the future. Click here if you’d like to support Calista’s work. Calista Ogburn is a Korean and Vietnamese-American college student at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County studying Public Health with a minor in Asian Studies. She has studied at International high schools overseas which has given her a global perspective. She reaches her readers by sharing her feelings and experiences through poetry. Calista considers empathy and compassion as important values in creating her poetry and touching her audience. She relates her poems with women about identity and gender oppression, body image issues, and building the foundation of self-worth. https://www.instagram.com/calista_ogburn/

Rebel Satori Press introduces Daniel W.K. Lee's first collection of poetry titled "Anatomy of Want." As just the fifth poet of the Asian American Writer’s Workshop contributors to the anthology, "Take Out: Queer Writing from Asian Pacific America," Lee writes about how queerness further complicates topics of belonging, community, and home. For more information, you can follow Daniel W.K. Lee on Instagram @strongplum or email him at strongplum@yahoo.com. The Universal Asian will be interviewing Lee, so stay tuned for more on Lee in upcoming issues.

I had never heard of Chuseok. It was 2016, and I was living in Seoul as a research scholar for the Fulbright Program, an American government exchange program that supports mid-career professionals to teach or conduct research in countries around the world. I remember sitting alone in my grant-funded one-room apartment in a trendy area of this massive city, lined with coffee shops more akin to bespoke coffee ateliers as well as the mom-and-pop mandu, or potsticker, restaurants where you could order from a steaming window. But something was happening. I could feel it in the air. The local supermarket suddenly had huge displays—almost reverential—of Spam and cooking oil gift boxes. There was a rush of activity, more than usual, and crowds of people rushing around to grab last-minute food items for what I would later understand to be Korea’s biggest holiday. I chuckled at the Spam and cooking oil gift boxes priced at 50 to 80 USD—my American eyes saw them as a humble, if not a declasse, gift choice to extend to a party host. I would later learn that those items are appreciated and are nostalgic to Koreans, hearkening back to a time of scarcity after the Korean War where such items were only available on the black market or through connections with the U.S. military. From my desk perch, I could even hear the silence engulfing my corner of the bustling city. People were leaving in droves, packing up for hours-long car and train rides to the places where their families were from, before their generation had successfully moved up in the world to be able to call Seoul home. Stores were closing down. The only people working in convenience stores were young people who couldn’t afford to take time off or those similar to me—a foreigner with no family to meet. Once there, generations of families would gather and the women would prepare an elaborate table of traditional foods. The men and children would catch up on rest, drink soju—a distilled, colorless spirit that is consumed with meals and used to mark life’s celebrations—and eat and eat. The family would also pay a visit to the ancestral burial sites to pay their respects. As a Korean adoptee, back living in her native country after more than four decades of being abandoned and erased from her family, it suddenly struck me like a kick in the gut or sinking into a muddy pool: at that moment, my family was gathering and doing exactly these things potentially only one-hour away from me—and I had no idea who they were or how to find them. How strange it is to discover a holiday that marks the passing of time for an entire nation for the first time as a forty-something year old, who if not for being adopted internationally, would’ve also been marking my calendar and loading my shopping cart with fruit and tins of Spam in fancy packaging? Who would later be posting Instagram posts of a sleepy car ride or pouring soju out for my clan’s forebears near a grassy burial mound? It made me think about how physical proximity, being in Korea, did not bring me any closer to my biological family. How I still remained, now even more so, a foreigner, unknown to people who share her blood, who remember her, who held her for those 11 days before passing through hands and time to an unfamiliar place across the vast ocean to people who did not speak Korean nor had ever set foot in the country, who celebrated their roots by making lefse, a humble, rolled potato pancake frosted with sugar. They did not know about Chuseok, and neither had I. When adoptees talk about loss, it is not just about losing one’s natural language or the person who carried them for nine months in her womb, or the family members who may have ultimately decided her presence was not wanted. It’s also the loss of being a Korean, to feel respect for one’s ancestors, to cherish this time to be thankful for family and prosperity, to look forward to the holiday with anticipation, and to hunger for the food and opportunity to slow down. And while not all Koreans may crave all this family togetherness each year, to me it unearthed a loneliness I never knew I had. That circumstances beyond my control, no matter how many degrees I earned or prestigious international exchanges I would be granted, or how many online Korean classes I sign up for, knowing what Chuseok means as a Korean, an insider, is something I can’t ever teach myself or substitute with prepared food from a local Korean restaurant or grocer. To me, the pours of soju and eating songpyeon, a rice cake eaten at room temperature, will always feel performative, whose taste feels a bit odd, if not a reminder of all that I have lost. Kaomi Goetz is a Korean adoptee living in St. Paul, MN. She produces a podcast on (mostly) Korean adoptee stories called Adapted Podcast. Currently, she is raising money to translate its fourth season into Korean. You can find out more here: http://kck.st/35fRuWW.

Death is white. Virginia says: "In addition to the images of other people’s lives and consciousness—these biographies and stories—there are also other pictures—pictures of current events, photographs. Photographs are, of course, not arguments that appeal to one’s reasonable sense, they are simply a finding of the facts, addressed to the eye. […] Then let’s see, if we feel the same, when we look at the same photographs. Here, we have some photographs on the table in front of us. The Spanish government sends them a couple of times a week with a stubborn persistence. It is not nice to look at these photographs. It’s mostly pictures of corpses." Sitting on a coffin, on death, halfway into the grave, halfway through life—statistically—I wish to ask: In what war does it happen to be so, that the ONE party wades around in the corpse, apparently without worrying? Where the one party is allowed to raise doubt, that the war is going on at all? Where the one party scold the wounded, blame the killed? Where the one party stands so firmly on the resources, culturally, legally and economically, that it never loses more than it chose to invest itself, and where the opportunity to be ignorant is just one of it’s privileges? That’s my question. But the woman as an artist and the woman as gender are an always already dead figure. I’m a person of color. I am a woman. I am less than 1.60 meters tall and not Christian. I’m used to not being heard. I’m used to having to speak loud to be heard. I am used to being ignored, patronized and exposed to prejudice and stereotyped notions of my personality, motives or behavior based on my skin color. I am used to being passed over for the benefit of white colleagues, and I am used to hearing that I am troublesome, when I demand the same as them. I am used to being demonized or exoticized, and I am used to nothing existing in between. I am used to being categorized as white, heterosexual, masculine, and Western. I am used to the fact that all "the others" are experienced as one, unified mass. I am used to murders happening at all levels and across minority divisions. That feminists are racist, that people of color are homophobic, that religious are fascist, that homosexuals discriminate against people with disabilities. I am used to minorities being played against each other, and that this is part of the strategy to maintain a basic oppressive, racist and patriarchal system against everything that is characterized as "the other." I’m used to people not seeing it. I’m used to dying a bit every day. Virginia says: "A woman must have money and a room of her own, if she is to write. Give her a room of her own and five hundred pounds. Let her write, what she has in mind, and then cut half of the text, and soon she will have written the best book ever." A minority person, who has decided to go to war against history, must prepare for death. She must be ready to learn the nauseating art of swallowing along the way, in which she can look forward to swallowing an innumerable number of camels along with her own pride. She must learn superficial forgiveness and rhetorical ingenuity so that she—for the majority—in a warm and safe and comfortable way, can point out politely, that it has just killed her. Again. And again. And again. She must rely on the intellectual and emotional habit of the majority, because without these, the majority will not carry her forward, and without being carried by the majority, her words will gain neither weight nor power. Once she realizes that death is the ultimate space of her own, she can write. The paper she writes on is white. Written by Joan Rang Christensen, and Korean-Danish adoptee and award-winning playwright. Joan is educated at The Danish National School of Playwriting in 2004, and has had around 40 radio and stage plays produced in Denmark, England, Germany, Sweden, and the USA. Most recently, “Tonight the war comes home” (Copenhagen, 2019)—about the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. WAR DEATH THE SEA was performed by the author at museum Munkeruphus in Denmark, on August 2, 2015, in connection with Jette Hye Jin Mortensen’s exhibition "A Landscape Theater" and as a part of the exhibition “The Voyage Out” about Virginia Woolf. Photo credit: Timme Hovind

By the end of the war lies death, and around death lies the sea. Once a woman has been given a room of her own and has started writing, she may run into very deep water. On an eternity of velvet. The sea is the Farewell, as well as the Arrival. The sea is the kidnapping, abduction or escape from one’s own, unchristian land—a land of one’s own—and into Fort Europe. It looks innocent. But she, who enters the sea, never returns. There are gaps in the world. The illusion of idyll or "the healing breath." The timeless space—nature—where you can release your gaze on the sea, so that it can wander and dance on the horizon and disappear into time. It is the vertical pause button of the soul. This might as well be the 19th century. Virginia could walk around the corner, over the grass. In uplifted maiden humor or dark as a fall weather and with grinding voices in his head. 1910 or 20 or later. We wouldn’t know. Talland House, the Virginia’s family’s vacation home, was large, square and with a huge garden, that sloped towards the water. With fences and hedges divided into many smaller gardens, all at different levels. A garden is a place where the world fades into a blackberry bush and guilt is a purple beard around the mouth. To disappear between branches. To sink away in the bushes. Seeing the blue behind the hedge is the deepest secret of the world. A crack through everything where the light comes in. Denmark is so small. Denmark is just a tiny dot on a tiny globe, and the globe is just a spot, a fart, a short sigh, in the universe. I look at a picture of the universe, taken by NASA, and even though I don’t trust NASA, I trust the picture. A tiny image of a tiny fragment of a very large universe. The only thing I like about Earth, is that it is a tiny dot in the universe. The only thing I like about the universe, is that the Earth seems so insignificant, when you look at it in a picture taken by NASA. When I look at the picture taken by NASA, I feel calm inside. When I feel calm inside, it’s because I feel that we, the Earth and the humans, are insignificant and make no difference in the universe. When I look at the picture taken by NASA, I understand that emotions such as shame, guilt, anger, grief and fear are just details and as such insignificant. Evil does not exist. The universe operates with completely different strings and makes no use of anything of such meaningless size. This, I write at night: When I was a child, I feared the thought of the vast universe. Now the idea of the infinity of the universe and the insignificance of the individual makes me calm inside. Virginia says: “If you had not believed that the human nature, ordinary men and women’s thoughts and feelings lead to war, you would not have written and asked me for help. You must have made the conclusion, that men and women, here and now, are able to follow their own will. They are neither pieces in a game nor puppets dancing in a leash, while being guided by invisible hands.” That’s the dilemma of the human race. To be led through dogmas of war and death or to control one’s own movement. All life starts in the sea. From there, it grows. When we lift our feet out of the water, we can walk on earth. These are the color blades on Vanessa’s palette. A split Union Jack. A bankrupt Europe. A defaulted humanity. It is ending of nothing and the beginning of everything. Written by Joan Rang Christensen, and Korean-Danish adoptee and award-winning playwright. Joan is educated at The Danish National School of Playwriting in 2004, and has had around 40 radio and stage plays produced in Denmark, England, Germany, Sweden, and the USA. Most recently, “Tonight the war comes home” (Copenhagen, 2019)—about the shootings at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris. WAR DEATH THE SEA was performed by the author at museum Munkeruphus in Denmark, on August 2, 2015, in connection with Jette Hye Jin Mortensen’s exhibition "A Landscape Theater" and as a part of the exhibition “The Voyage Out” about Virginia Woolf. Photo credit: Timme Hovind

You cannot change any society unless you take responsibility for it, unless you see yourself as belonging to it and responsible for changing it. Grace Lee Boggs Over the coming weeks and months, The Universal Asian (TUA) will be regularly posting work by various Asian-diasporic writers, artists, photographers, thinkers, etc. on Black Lives Matter (BLM) in relation to Asians4BlackLives (A4BL). While not all of the views/opinions published in TUA always reflect those of our editors, the work that is and will be posted here under our A4BL section is in keeping with our views and support for Black lives and the BLM movement. We are deeply cognizant of the factual truth that our liberation, as members of the Asian diaspora, is bound up together with the liberation of Black lives, and that it is our responsibility as individuals and communities to proactively support and stand up for Black lives. We also recognize that there exists a multitude of nuanced layers in regards to BLM and A4BL being talked about from the Asian-Western immigrant/refugee and Asian-Western adoptee perspectives; and that how, for example, a Korean-Danish adoptee creates work about BLM will be different than how this is addressed from the voice/perspective of a fourth-generation Japanese-American. However, at the core of what is expressed and shared here is and will be a shared support of and for Black lives. If you or someone you know would like to submit work to this section please contact Kim Thompson at importedasians@gmail.com Photo credit: Kalaya’an Mendoza @kalamendoza

For folks who haven’t heard about your cultural group before, could you give us some background about the founding of In Between? In Between is an organization that unites and supports those who don’t feel strongly aligned with either their Asian or their American culture. I founded it in March of 2020, so pretty recently. I was motivated to do so because I’m a Chinese adoptee myself. I grew up with a white family, a white brother, in a predominantly white high school, and all white friends. Now, I go to UC Berkeley, and it’s 40% Asian-American there, which is way more Asians than I’ve ever seen before. I felt left out of the groups in both my scenarios. In high school, I didn’t face blatant racism, but I just felt a little different in the way I looked even though I acted the same, was raised the same. Then, I went to college, and now a lot of my friends are Asian-American and I can’t connect to them on cultural things, foods, holidays, and language—I only speak English. So, I didn’t feel comfortable joining my school’s Asian-American Association, because I felt like the only Asian thing about me is the way that I look. I wanted to create a space for people who feel this way and in the in between, hence the name. I read the bios of your executive board and it doesn’t seem like everyone is from an adoptee background. Is this group for anyone who feels like they’re in between being American and Asian? When I first started thinking about the club, I was going to name it Four A: Asian Adopted American Association or something like that, but there’s not that many people on my campus that are adopted and Asian-American. I was a freshman this past year. I was going back to my dorm and I saw my friend Hannah in the hall, and I said, “Hey! You’re Chinese-American, can I tell you about this club?” I was just expressing how I was feeling; I just can’t really relate with either group. She said, “Honestly, I know that I’m not adopted, but I feel like I understand this feeling.” Because her grandparents and parents speak Cantonese but she doesn’t speak it very well, there’s a disconnect there. She acts very differently around her family versus her friends. So, then I realized that I don’t need to limit this to Asian-American adoptees. I also have a few friends that are mixed race, and they have that same feeling. So it’s really open to anyone who feels like they lie on this spectrum of being in between. It sounds like maybe the common thread is a feeling of displacement. I love that it is open to anyone who feels that way, and that you saw this need even at UC Berkeley, where it is so diverse. So you founded In Between, but it sounds like you are already starting chapters all over the country? Yeah, so it really is funny. From March to July, there was not much growth. I didn’t even think about opening other chapters, I was just thinking this would be a UC Berkeley club. I have four other kids who are Cal students helping me with our chapter and it was summertime and I thought, “Do people even want to work on clubs in the summer? We should just wait to get everything started for the fall.” But then I don’t know, just one day I was thinking “Why? Why not make it a bigger thing?” In 2018, I flew to China. I went to Wuhan, China with a group of 30 other Chinese adoptees who were adopted throughout different provinces in China, but all live in the States now. We have a group message and we’re all pretty close. We do Zoom chats, we text all the time. So I thought, well this is the perfect place for me to target opening new chapters, because a lot of them are my age, college students. I just texted all of my friends and said, “Hey, this is a thing I started at Berkeley, does anybody want to start a chapter at their school? I’ll hop on a call. I’d love to talk to you more about it.” I had three girls from that start chapters. Plus, Facebook is an amazing platform. I’m in really niche Facebook groups, like International Children from China, Subtle Asian Adoptee Traits, very niche Asian adoptee Facebook groups. So, I posted in there, and that’s how I had more people reaching out. That’s how we started expanding. It’s so amazing to see how quickly things start and spread nowadays with everything you have accessible to you through different types of technology. Do you picture this as something that goes beyond college for you? It seems like this could grow to be for anyone that feels the way that you feel. I think I like taking baby steps. I’m not really sure down the road. Right now, I don’t foresee a future in making this my life, my career, building this non-profit. But, I do wish to continue it after college. I have a few girls who are starting a chapter at Cal Poly SLO and they are seniors, they’re about to graduate, and they said, “This is what we want to go into. We want to grow this, we want to make this big. We want to do summer camps. We want to file it as an actual non-profit.” And, they’re very motivated to do that. I think this year is not the time for that, especially since we’re so new. Hopefully in the long term, it will continue. Have you thought about what this club will be like once you’re back in school and in person? Before COVID hit, we were planning in-person events. We have different committees, so we’ll do social events, cultural outreach events, and then service events. A big part of it is this common thread, this feeling of in between. I really wanted to emphasize community and relationship building within the group, so hopefully when COVID goes away, we can do more in-person socials, a lot of food related things that have to do with our culture and we can’t do through Zoom, so I’m excited to go back so we can do all of that. Then, I’m hoping we can do service events—there are a couple of third party organizations in Berkeley that work with orphanages in China, so we were hoping to collaborate, but we’re going to take a different spin on how we do service this year, just because of COVID. Hopefully, we can focus on building community in person. What would the service with the orphanages in China look like? There’s a lot of fiscal donations that these places need. Finding ways to fundraise, to donate. This probably wouldn’t happen in the near future, but there’s heritage tours that take adoptees back to where they’re born and they need translators. Hopefully, having a few people in our club help with trips. My VP of service is fluent in Korean and he goes back and does translating when people meet their birth parents, and that is a surreal experience. So, hopefully giving kids the opportunity to do that. With COVID, there was a need for masks. Trying to reach out in those forms. Could you tell me a little bit more about your personal experience with your identity and feeling these two different parts of your identity. You mentioned being able to do the heritage trip in 2018. What other parts of growing up as an Asian adoptee really drove you to found this group. What was growing up like for you as an Asian with white parents? I grew up in Colorado all 18 years of my life, and then last year I moved to New Mexico. It’s not like every single second of my life I am reminded that I’m adopted, that’s not how it is. But, when I was growing up, in a predominately white school, I have prom pictures and it’s literally all these super white people and boom! dark hair me. I think growing up with everyone looking the same and you looking different from them… I didn’t try to forget I was adopted and Asian because you can’t forget your race and pretend you’re white. But, it was something that I didn’t love to think about. It’s not all of who I am. I would tell people because obviously it’s apparent. Yet, I didn’t want it to be a huge part of my life. I have met girls my age and older and that’s how they think also. Obviously, not all Asian adoptees think the same. I liked to pretend it wasn’t a thing. When my mom came to me with this opportunity, “Hey, there’s this trip back to China.” I was going to be a junior in high school, and I just thought it would be really interesting. I didn’t really think about how it would affect me long term and psychologically also; it’s a very heavy trip. I went on this trip and—I don’t know if eye-opening is the word—because I kind of knew what was going to happen. I would be playing with these orphans in China. I thought we were going to be with young kids, cute babies, playing and singing and dancing. A lot of the kids were 16, 17, 18. I was 17 at the time. First of all, I had never been out of the country and being in China was crazy for me. Standing in an orphanage in China, across the world, looking and talking to somebody your own age who’s been in the orphanage for 18 years and you have lived this entirely different life, and you speak two different languages. I have great opportunities, go to university, and they’re still in the orphanage. That was what really hit me. I think since—I’m getting a little emotional—I think since then, I realize I need to be more grateful and appreciative and acknowledge the first 12 months of my life and I can’t just forget that I’m adopted now. It just made me more grateful for being adopted because I could still be over there. My senior year [of high school], I was in music. I’ve always been into singing and music and my Chinese name is Yeong Cheong which is “forever singing.” I just have these moments I remember specifically thinking about my story. I was in choir one day singing this song called “Underneath the Stars.” This song is about two people who love each other who can’t be with each other, but they’re both under the same stars. It was originally written as a love song, but as I was singing, it hit me that I’m under the same stars as my birth mother and it’s the same story but in a different way. Yet, I’m probably most likely never going to meet her. So, that was one specific time in my life that it really hit me. Sometimes I get pretty emotional when I think about it, but most of the time, I’m pretty light-hearted and open about everything I feel. Then, I started college and saw so much diversity that I’m not used to. I saw people really embracing things about their Asian culture, because all their friends did, and their parents did. Like traditional foods that my friends in high school would say is weird or gross, that was the norm now. Then, really small things also, like anime and boba, that are small and not even a significant thing. But growing up in such a suburban, vanilla neighborhood, if you watched anime in my high school, you were the weird kid. It’s not even a weird thing! If you drank boba, you were so weird! Now, that’s just so normal. That’s not even a big thing about the culture, but it made me see Asian-American culture differently than I had previously. I thought, I just need to start somewhere I can be in the in between. Thank you for sharing that. That emotional connection is such a big piece of your experience not being raised by people who look like you or who know the culture that you are from. And it sounds like you didn’t have very much access to that when you were growing up compared to being in the Bay Area. How can people participate in In Between? We have national events, at least twice a month. Anybody from any chapter can join and even if you’re not a college student, if you’re post-grad or you’re still in high school, we allow anybody to come as long as you feel in between. You can follow us @inbetweennational on Instagram and through the bio on Instagram we have links for you to sign up for a chapter and register for our future events. We have a newsletter, it goes out every two weeks and updates people on the events we’re having, the chapters we’re opening, and member spotlights. If you’re interested in starting a chapter in your school, you can email us at inbetweennational@gmail.com. I’m really open to talking to people and helping them open their own chapter. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inbetweennational LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/in-between-berkeley/ Website: https://www.notion.so/In-Between-3fce06ad22c44a91ba436d78194cab81

Reposted from Ildaro.com As Koreans from the diaspora who have returned to the motherland we are acknowledged by the government as part of the minjok, but that identity is disputed by many. First, those of us who were adopted sometimes find it difficult to identify as Koreans. Then, because we usually arrive with very bad or totally absent Korean language skills, and often with bare understanding of Korean culture, people who lived the majority of their lives on the peninsula see us only as foreigners. Even those Koreans who are 1.5+ generation diasporic Koreans see us as similarly kyopo, or totally whitewashed. My experiences are atypical, though. Since I was so active in the Korean-American community and lived among other immigrants, I transitioned to Korea quite easily. I had close friends from NYURI waiting for me when I got off the plane in Incheon. We quickly and effortlessly resumed our friendship from New York. I also knew a lot of people who had also been adopted and who had returned to live in Korea. Daejeon, however, took more getting used to. For the first time in 15 years, I was mostly socializing and working among white people again. Most of the native English teachers (NETs) and English language department administration were North American white men married to Korean women. Their behavior and attitudes belied their privilege, and their plainly evident white supremacist ideology was something I had to get used to again. My bubble in New York had been thick and had lowered my defenses against being in the stark minority. What a paradox to be in the minority as a Korean in Korea! I heard co-workers repeat Fox News pundits’ claims and read ex-pat [sic] uninformed netizen chatter like: Korea was better because it was more socially conservative; taxes were rightfully lower than in North America; the government stayed out of peoples’ private affairs. I nearly fell off my chair when a co-worker from North Dakota claimed that Korea could not possibly be sexist because the president was a woman. The term “expat” became insufferable. I realized it was used to separate migrants from rich countries from those who are from the Global South, although both populations are seeking economic opportunities they do not have in their native countries. And what about returned migrants? In the U.S., I was clearly an immigrant. In the ROK I needed a visa to live and work in the country, but I had been born in Incheon (probably?), so I wasn’t a foreigner, and I certainly was not an expatriate since I wasn’t “outside my country.” I believe I have a right to live in the country where I was born without being labeled as a foreigner by either the government or its citizens. While in Daejeon, I tried to get an F4 visa, but the ROK immigration office requires U.S. citizens to show their naturalization certificate. I never needed the certificate in the U.S. after I got a passport, but ROK rules that U.S. passports are not acceptable proof of U.S. citizenship because Samoa (whose population is less than 56,000) are U.S. nationals holding U.S. passports, but not U.S. citizens. I worked for a year on a professor visa, essentially as property of my university, because I did not have my U.S. naturalization certificate to prove my U.S. immigration status. I had applied to replace it, but I was running into red tape with the U.S. Customs and Immigration Service (USCIS). It took two years, intervention from my Congressional Representative, and about USD 500 to get a replacement certificate. I was caught between the immigration services of both countries, and classified as an immigrant in both. Around the time I was wrestling with USCIS, adoptees without citizenship in their adoptive countries, mainly the U.S., were in the news again. The U.S. was deporting adoptees back to Korea and other countries that had sent children overseas to be adopted. It was a part of the draconian Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, (IIRIRA) that made misdemeanors deportable offenses that adopted people were getting caught up in. Sometimes this was fatal. In Brazil Joao Hubert was killed after being forcibly removed from the U.S. by the USCIS. In Korea adoptees compelled to live in the ROK for various reasons stemming from problems with U.S. immigration were treated as Koreans legally, but as foreigners socially. Korea has been known as the Hermit Kingdom, hostile to foreigners for centuries. I understand the reasons. Foreign invaders and colonizers were historically bad news for Korea. The state of the ROK was built on the dubious claims of pure blood and race by Syngman Rhee (who was married to a non-Korean white woman). That is the often-repeated story of why intercountry adoption began after the 6.25 war—mixed-race Koreans and their mothers were marginalized so severely that adoption agency workers “rescued” them by sending them overseas to be adopted. Another myth promoted by the adoption industry is that Koreans don’t adopt, but even Rhee adopted three children, one of whom legally ended the adoption. The antiquated view of 우리 나라  needs to expand the idea of “Korean” and reboot the definition of “foreigner.” Mixed-race Koreans, diasporic Koreans, Koreans from both Korean states are all Korean. And what about Korean-born people whose parents have no Korean blood? Who are culturally integrated but not biologically? Furthermore, why is there a hierarchy of people not “typically” Korean? Why are mixed Koreans who have a white parent treated so differently than Koreans who have a Black parent? Or “multicultural” children who are not mixed race, but who have one Korean parent and a parent from Southeast Asia? Why does society use “International Family” to mean that the non-Korean parent is from a rich developed country and “Multicultural Family” to mean that one parent is from a country that the ROK society deems less developed? While I lived in Daejeon, there was a Korean language course taught on our campus for multicultural families. Most of the students were either from the Philippines or China. A few were Vietnamese or NETs. There was one white Norwegian woman who had met her Korean husband in China. (I used my marriage to my now ex-husband to enroll in the class.) The classes reminded me a lot of the classes I had taught in New York, although more chauvinist—we learned words to honor husbands’ parents and vocabulary deemed especially useful for housewives like cleaning and shopping for groceries. The students were mostly very young and quick to learn Korean. I felt quite comfortable with my Filipina classmates, even if they learned more quickly than I did and were half my age. They spoke English better than almost any of my Korean students, and we became quite friendly despite our very different lives. I really felt a part of the migrant community. Sometimes, just like in New York, we had “Know Your Rights” presentations from the local police department. An officer told us how to get help in cases of domestic violence, and we got advice about practical matters about daily life in Korea. Although I am not a foreigner and certainly would never call myself an expat, I strongly identified as a migrant and being the recipient of migrant services. English-language Internet communities constantly ask for advice about what our rights are as tenants, workers, and non-citizens. I see discrimination against "foreigners" myself from my landlord and neighbors who claim I have noisy parties every day. The condescending and misguided attempts to “help” people whose Korean is not native-level is offensive and patronizing. Even the public rental bicycles assume that if one is using the English-language service, he or she must be 1) a tourist 2) a visitor. English-language websites for KoRail and bank services are similarly truncated compared to the Korean language services rather than the mirror images like I saw in the English and Spanish language sites in the U.S. Even so, I realize I am fortunate and privileged to be an native English speaker (even if jobs do not consider me a native speaker because I look Korean, or many other Asians to be native speakers even if they are very fluent from South Asia or the Philippines). If my native language were Bangla or Vietnamese, I know I would have even far fewer options. After two years in Chungcheongnam-do, I gambled and moved to Seoul even though I had no job. My friends and community were in Seoul, and although Daejonites are exceptionally friendly and generous, I felt isolated. I relocated and eventually co-founded an organization that does advocacy and activism around intercountry adoption issues and works in solidarity with other groups like migrant workers, unwed mothers, and queer activists as part of the larger social justice movement in Korea. South Korea has been called a very xenophobic and racist society, simultaneously granting unearned privileges to white people while still discriminating against them, which is is socially acceptable. Westerners who aren’t white are mimicked and their pop culture contributions have been appropriated by the hallyu touts, but still must contend with extremely ignorant and offensive stereotypes. Although Black Americans have told me that is preferable to being pulled over for DWB (driving while Black) like in the U.S., or being physically assaulted in ways that initiated the Black Lives Matter movement, it is still unacceptably common for Koreans to believe racist ideas about Black or Brown westerners. Migrant workers from Africa, South Asia, and Southeast Asia must fight for more basic rights such as the right to change jobs. Western and non-western workers, blue collar and “professionals,” all face wage theft and illegal workplace practices perpetrated by Koreans who take advantage of our lack of legal rights, racism, xenophobia, and native-Korean language skills. Even with my coveted job as a university employee, my prospects of promotion are nil because I’m a “foreign” professor. This kind of discrimination is illegal in most western countries and actively (although not always effectively) discouraged in many developing countries where quotas attempt to correct for social discrimination through legislation. We 재외동포 are given the F4 visa, as mentioned above. The visa restricts the types of jobs we can do, however. We are not allowed to do the 3D jobs, those that are dangerous, dirty, or degrading. Some adoptees from non-English speaking countries struggle to exercise our birthright to live in Korea due to these restrictions. Americans, Canadians, and Australians can earn sufficient salaries teaching English, but because of the ROK’s nonsensical belief that fluent, but non-native language teachers are not qualified to teach a language, plus the reasonable (but inadequate) requirement  of a university degree, adoptees from Scandinavia, French, Dutch, German, and Italian speaking countries must find alternative employment. Without a degree, some adoptees find themselves forced to do unauthorized work in kitchens, factories, farms, and or other menial jobs. Many people whose lives were spoiled by adoption to circumstances that did not give them the privilege and opportunity to get a degree. The rationale is that these low-skilled jobs should go to Korean citizens rather than “foreigners” who were supposedly privileged by living overseas. But Koreans migrated and sent remittances back or their bodies and labor were sold to create the miracle on the Han. I think at the very least we should have full employment privileges across the labor spectrum. Now as the ROK is facing the prospect of becoming an asylum for Yemenis, in addition to accepting refugees from DPRK. Who is labeled a refugee is always political, but some South Koreans’ reactions to this development just feels like xenophobia and racism. As the U.S. separates migrant children from their families (and perhaps sends them into the adoption industry system) it seems like an extension of the Trump agenda reaching Korea. I live near Seoul Station and see and hear rallies of right-wing Korean groups. They wave American flags and display photos of Park Chung Hee and Donald Trump weekly. Hundreds of thousands have signed Internet petitions in reaction to 500 people seeking relief from a war, despite so many Koreans having experience as refugees themselves during our war, the resulting poverty, or from dictatorial persecution. Only one person from South Korea has been granted political asylum by the U.S. Who is labeled a refugee is always political. When accepting refugees or asylum-seekers a government is labeling the situation that the person is fleeing from as unacceptably brutal or dire. It’s labeling another state as the perpetrator or unable to control abuse in that country. I assert it’s not really about being able to serve or support the 500 refugees themselves. Korea has a labor shortage and birth rate deficit. Koreans are taking irregular jobs in retail and factories, but the agricultural industries are struggling to find workers because Koreans won’t take these jobs. Even urban labor jobs are shunned by extremely schooled but poorly educated graduates who call Korea "Hell Choseon." Some even want to deny immigrants and migrants access to these jobs and scapegoat foreigners for their lack of prestigious or acceptably professional positions. Even with an F4 my fellow adoptees are legally disallowed from taking labor jobs. Some of my comrades were adopted into situations like mine where we couldn’t earn a degree. Although I eventually obtained a graduate degree, I had to postpone my return until my late 30s until I had finished my bachelors. All my work experience would be considered relevant, and in this land of excessive credentials and certifications, I only had a high school diploma. Documentation is a fact of life regardless of where one lives. Immigration documents, citizenship papers, and diplomas,  dictate our rights and define our qualifications around the world. Despite constant corruption scandals, the ROK tries to combat corruption with more and more paperwork. When we are legally made orphans, as required by law to be sent overseas for adoption, we are issued a family register, an orphan hojuk. This makes adoption agencies our guardians and our next of kin. When we return to Korea, even after finding actual family, since most of us are not truly orphans, we still have this relationship with the adoption agency. If we die here, they become responsible for our remains. Finally in death, Korea fully claims us. I hope to live in Korea for the rest of my life, assuming that the discrimination vitriol against foreigners here does not proceed to levels it has reached in the U.S. I believe South Korea can legislate better protections and the government has the power to turn public will around. I will continue to try my best to keep working on these issues as a migrant in Korea as a Korean.

As adoptees, many of us have had to create our own joy. We have to work at joy because it doesn’t come naturally to us. We are too busy worrying about fitting in or where we came from or even who we are. When asked what brings me joy, it’s changed throughout the years. As we grow, so do our needs and wants. When I was younger, I thought having a boyfriend would bring me joy. All I wanted was a boy to fall madly in love with me. I’d wish upon a star every night: Wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight…the wish was always a boyfriend. And then, I got one. And surprise, that which can bring great joy can also bring great sadness. When I was young, I took ballet lessons. I felt free on the dance floor and expressed my emotions through movement. I was good at it. I didn’t have to think; I could just be. In college, I taught ballroom dancing as a side gig. When I turned 18, we went to a club called The Industry in Pontiac, Michigan. I spent hours dancing at that club, drinking flaming Blue Ferraris, watching the flame disappear as it was sucked up my straw. Then, turning to help my girl, Virgie, when she instructed, “Hold my braids,” as she sipped the drink of fire. As an adult, I try to dance, but who has the time or the money? Adult ballet classes are expensive. I’d love to go to the club, but I’m nervous I’ll end up on someone’s TikTok with the #MOMDANCE. And, to be honest, I don’t want to dance to current music. I want to dance to the music of the '80s and '90s. I want to be transported through time and space to when I ate whatever I wanted and didn’t worry about my pre-diabetes and high blood pressure. But, this dancing queen now comes with strings attached. When I was younger, nothing excited me more than succeeding. I was always ready for a competition. Be it a spelling bee or a trivia contest, I would study to win. Just like Ricki Bobby said, “If you’re not first, you’re last.” I possessed a desire to prove that I could do something great, that I was worthy of praise. Outward recognition was important to me and built what little self-esteem I had. I didn’t ask for the role of people pleaser, but I wore it well. I was always chasing happiness, always trying to get to the greener grass on the other side. Happiness was elusive. It would materialize in front of me for a hot second and just when I thought I had achieved it, it would fade away slowly, like Homer Simpson into the bushes. It wasn’t until I was older, I realized I was constantly trying to make myself happy with outward possessions like food, money, and external approvals. These things never filled the hole I felt inside. An old episode of "Oprah" had a guest speaker, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach from his talk show on TLC called "Shalom in the Home." He shared how one can never find peace until they learn to fill the hole in their soul from the inside. External material possessions will temporarily fill the hole, but it won’t last. The hole returns and the person feels empty again. Only by finding inner peace can one fill the void permanently. I think everyone has a hole in their soul. Everyone has loss and feelings of insecurity. For the adoptee, we have our own baggage and our own hole carved out by abandonment, isolation, and feelings of inadequacy. Growing up not looking like anyone in your family can create a feeling of loneliness and isolation—that idea that you can feel alone in a crowded room. Some adoptees have trouble accepting that they were abandoned, while some find their birth family but are denied a relationship, being abandoned twice. We spend years trying to fill the empty hole from the outside. It’s been a long road to get to this point in my life where I don’t feel the dull ache of yearning and uneasiness. I find joy in my relationship with my husband. Our marriage hasn’t been perfect, but I’m proud of where we’ve been and where we are now. I feel loved and accepted for who I am and feel lucky to have a partner in life. I love to dance and still find moments at live concerts to dance in the aisles and feel the joy of my youth surrounded by people my age, doing the exact same thing. And while I’m still a bit competitive, I’ve learned the value of supporting others and experiencing joy through success as a team. I don’t have to be the best, nor do I see it as a realistic goal. I am fine with my imperfect self and do the best that I can with what I’ve got. There are still those moments I stumble, moments I don’t think I’m being a very good sister, or mother, or wife. But I’ve learned to give myself a little grace. Adoption isn’t the perfect answer to someone’s infertility or failing marriage, in fact we come with more questions than we do answers. We are not a quick fix to a couple’s issues. We have our own issues to battle through. But, finding joy is possible through thoughtful introspection and years of therapy. I can continue to fill the hole in my soul from the inside.

Angela Wu is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Empowerment Coach who is passionate about de-stigmatizing mental health in the AAPI community as well as helping women of color reclaim and raise their voices in order to embody their empowered authentic selves! In her therapy practice, she helps individuals find healing from trauma, anxiety, depression, grief, as well as navigate acculturation and intergenerational issues, difficult life transitions, and relationship issues. Her approach to therapy is strength-based and anti-oppression. In her coaching practice, she helps Asian women break barriers that keep them feeling stuck, find and strengthen their voices, and reclaim their empowered selves in order to take up space and combat the harmful narratives that subjugate Asian women. She has developed a group coaching program called “Take Up Space” to help individuals unpack their Asian experience in order to better align with their cultural identities. She also provides speaking engagements and leads training to spread awareness around AAPI mental health issues. Angela Wu was a former high school teacher (Teach for America 2012 Corps member) and taught in Title 1 high schools in Miami and San Francisco. She received her Master’s of Science in Education and Social Change from the University of Miami. It was through witnessing her students struggle with toxic stress and racial trauma caused by structural inequities that led her to pursue a degree in counseling at Fuller Theological Seminary School of Psychology. Her passion for working with culturally diverse and underserved communities with various mental health needs led her to work at the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health Agency. With the rise of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, she has seen the need to be a resource for the Asian community. This led her to start her own therapy and coaching practice. As a 1.5 generation Taiwanese immigrant, Wu has experienced first-hand the challenges that come with acculturation stress—racial trauma, burdens of being the cultural broker, code-switching, navigating between two worlds but belonging in neither, the model minority myth, imposter syndrome, intergenerational trauma, immigration issues, identity formation, internalized racism, etc. As an Asian American woman, she has experienced and fought against the fetishization of Asian women and combatted the expectation that Asian women are to “be seen and not heard.” By raising her voice to educate on issues that minorities face, Wu advocates for myself, her community, and marginalized groups. In her own journey of healing, she was able to reclaim parts of herself that had been lost, rejected, and stolen. She has challenged barriers that held her hostage, and Wu has used her voice to find liberation. She has learned to unlearn dysfunctional familial patterns and has broken generational cycles. She is able to occupy a liminal space, an intentional space of belonging and of not fully belonging, in order to be someone who connects to all of humanity. Wu believes that deep suffering can lead to profound healing if encountered with the right tools, space, and people. Her own experience of liberation and healing motivates her to help others find that for themselves! You can find Angela here: Website Facebook Instagram LinkedIn

Reposted from Ildaro.com Introduction: As someone who became a migrant through intercountry adoption, Kristin Pak has a unique perspective into the dominant American culture and its prejudices against migrants. As someone who has re-migrated back to Korea sans the privilege native language fluency, she is also a part of the migrant community in Korea. Continuing work that started in New York, she is attuned to the struggles of migrants and advocates and organizes for more human rights in Korea as she did in the U.S. In 2005 a Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives from Wisconsin introduced a bill that would make assisting “illegal” immigrants a crime. The introduction of the bill triggered massive demonstrations and determination in the immigrant communities in the U.S. to declare our right to dignity and basic human rights. We also came together to fight against the blatant xenophobia and racism that the bill enshrined. That year I was working at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum in Manhattan, telling visitors about the Jewish, Italian, Irish, and German families who had immigrated to what was a vibrant Chinatown in the mid 2000s. The museum also offered tours of the neighborhood where we pointed out the Fujianese streets in contrast with the Cantonese and Vietnamese businesses that were more common. Another stop on the walking tour was the Chino-Latino bodega, because right around the museum was where the Puerto Rican Loisaida and Chinatown met the dwindling Little Italy. As museum educators, we talked about New York City being the most densely populated square miles in the world during the beginning of the 20th century. Many of the guides were also immigrants from Colombia, China, Cuba, Jamaica, and me, the Korean. I was active in an organization called young Korean American Network then. Simultaneously I volunteered for Also-Known-As which is a post-adoption services organization. Also-Known-As’s constituency included families who had adopted children from China, Korea, Guatemala, Sri Lanka, and other countries, but our adult members were nearly all Korean. The two organizations often collaborated and yKAN usually had a representative proportion of people involved who were adopted from Korea, in addition to the more typical members who had immigrated with their families, or were born to immigrants. yKAN is also how I joined a poongmulpae (Korean drumming group) at New York University. In 2003, we celebrated Seollal (Korean New Year) by hiring a drummer who played sulchanggo and spun a sangmo. 2003 was also the year of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The winter before the invasion there were massive demonstrations against the war in Washington, D.C. I went down to the National Mall and watched a poongmulpae marching in the freezing cold, and I loved the loud metallic music. When I saw the drummer playing later that winter, I asked him where I could learn to play. He directed me to NYU and I joined them in February. The drummer showed up again at the annual concert where the group, NYURI, plays outdoors in Washington Square Park. He played the modeum buk, and later during dwitpuri I found out he was an international student from Korea, who had been involved in the student movement in the 1980s. By January of the following year we were married. I also started to disengage from yKAN and Also-Known-As. The organizations had started to feel too out of line with my politics. The Korean American community is overwhelmingly Christian and very conservative. I found that I prefered to surround myself instead with more “radical” peace activists, community organizations, and left-leaning Koreans who critiqued the capitalist American Dream. Some brought their activist culture with them from Korea, and critiqued the capitalism that the white-collar professionals of yKAN and Also-Known-As adored and embodied. That also set me apart from most of the active AKA members, who were overwhelmingly adopted into upper- and middle-class families. I had been adopted by a factory worker and a retail store clerk, neither of whom went to college. We lived in a poor city where about 75 percent of the kids in my schools were on federal school meal programs. Unlike most of the people I met who were adopted from Korea in subsequent years (and excluding the New Yorkers, of course) my city was not majority white. I just did not relate to their experiences of growing up in white suburbia. My neighborhood was white, but English was only dominant as the lingua franca. Walking from my house to my best friends’ houses, I heard Polish, Canadian French, Albanian, Italian, and Portuguese. The walk took about ten minutes, tops. In other parts of the city there were parishes that said mass in Puerto Rican Spanish and Lebanese and there was a sizable Jamaican community as well. All the immigrants were attracted to the city in Connecticut by the brass factories that gave it its nickname, the Brass City. In September, the first day of school brought back classmates who had been sent back to their parents’ countries to stay with their grandparents over the summer vacation. Their identities were firmly rooted in the Caribbean and Europe. A few students, who didn’t go back, were from Vietnam. I talked with them in the cafeteria as we waited on line for French bread pizza (Friday in such a Catholic city meant a meatless option was still served long after Vatican II). There weren’t many students from Asia in my school, just a few Vietnamese kids, some Filipinos, and as far as I knew, four Koreans. I sometimes hung out with the boy whose Korean mom got really excited when she met me, but generally only had short lunchroom talks with the Vietnamese girls. One of them and I became acquainted and got me a job working at the factory alongside several non-English speaking workers and suddenly my Spanish and Portuguese (I took Portuguese all four years in high school) got a lot better. Where, in high school, a lot of racial tension meant that the white, Black, and Latin students self-segregated, in the factory we had no choice but to work side by side on the line. I went to university for a few years in Washington, D.C. until my adoptive father died. During those years, I found out about a B.A./M.A. program in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages). If I took five classes while I was an undergraduate, I would need just a few more after graduation to get a master’s degree. In the meantime, I would earn a TESOL certificate. The Tenement Museum piloted a program for English language learners to discuss their lives as immigrants in the historically immigrant neighborhood. Although I had been trained in English teaching methods, identified strongly as an immigrant, as I discussed this with a co-worker, she told me about an opening at the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens teaching an accent reduction class to priests at the Office of Migration. Still nominally Catholic then, I became a favorite teacher for the priests from Africa, Latin America, and Asia. I used this experience on my resume to apply for another job that a different co-worker told me about at Forest Hills Community House in Queens. I began teaching in Jackson Heights in 2006. During the interview with the director, I told them that I knew that my native English language skills were a privilege that I wanted to use to fight against the anti-immigrant sentiment which was sweeping the country. They liked this rhetoric, I think, because I got the job. I started teaching as an hourly employee and met a strange student from Mexico. He came into class one day very happy because after years of trying, he finally got a green card. Then, he went back to Mexico. I would learn that about half of the students in the program were unauthorized immigrants. Most were visa overstays, like most unauthorized immigrants in the U.S., but a large number had crossed by land from various countries to get into the U.S. (One memorable exception was the marine merchant from Burma who jumped ship.) As Jackson Heights is the most linguistically and generally diverse district in the world, where about 180 different languages are spoken, a large gay Latino community shares the area with Nepalese, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Sikhs, I was just one among tens of thousands of immigrants in Jackson Heights. I learned about the rules and practices of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as we frequently had “Know Your Rights” workshops for the students. Our in-house paralegal would answer our questions about applying for various visas and waivers, and even helped my friend, who was also adopted from Korea, to bring her fiancé from the Philippines to the U.S. after they met while she worked in the Peace Corps. We also had an Action Group that the teachers and students could join political efforts like marching against the SECURE Communities program from DHS/ICE, which would report the immigration status of anyone arrested by the NYPD. Many of my students would join the Action Group, and I became the teacher liaison. We fought for fair housing, language access at the public hospitals, and funding for English language programs in the state and city budgets. By this time, the DREAM Act and DACA was political news. I learned that Koreans were in the top ten of the applicants seeking to become DACAmented. Also making news was the story of some people who had been deported, or otherwise compelled, to live in Korea after being sent to the U.S. to be adopted. Then, I heard about a Korean citizen, who was sent to the U.S. to be adopted, who had been arrested several times. His English was still punctuated with Korean turns of phrases because he left Korea as a pre-teen and never totally nativized his English. He was facing removal from the U.S. because although he was a legal permanent resident, a status which normally doesn’t expire, he was deportable due to the draconian 1996 Clinton-era IIRIRA Act. I offered background to others who were testifying at hearings as experts about the immigration system history and current practices which I had heard about from the thousands of students I had had at Queens Community House and the Catholic Migration Office. Russell’s verdict ended well, with deferred action. Basically that means that he has an order of removal, but it is suspended due to his lawyer’s arguments that it would be inhumane to send him back to Korea. I was promoted to Assistant Director of the Adult Education English Language program and was going to be sent to train to be a Bureau of Immigrant Affairs certified legal representative, but I decided to move to Korea instead. The war against immigrants had taken its toll. The program lost two-thirds of its funding; it was clearly time to go. I knew that as an overseas Korean, a dongpo, I would be eligible for the F4 visa. I eventually was hired at a university in Daejeon. I decided to move to Korea, and  I would soon find myself in my students’ position—a functionally illiterate adult living without the dominant language skills, unaware of my rights or the laws of the country where I would live. (to be continued) Cover image: New York, NY 2007