In a place plagued by drought, the Wild West is where only the bravest would dare to tame nature. Only those with the most courageous and unbreakable spirits can adapt to thrive there. People made of resilience and emboldened with purpose. People like Kristyn, a California farmer looking to sow the seeds of education, with literal seeds. Her dream to one day have control over food access and supporting Asian American farmers, is one that she is making a reality as you read this. I have to admit, when I imagined how this interview would go prior to meeting the Namu Farm founder, I didn’t anticipate the rebel spirit behind the person I was sitting down with. Her life experience and fortitude extend beyond her years. Her mission couldn’t be clearer as she says: “Being in white areas can feel very isolating, and can be hard, psychologically, and emotionally, to deal with how communities of color have been pushed out. And, the ability to have land—I see this shifting more, and understanding this—is part of our shared history. And, erasing the contributions that our community has been responsible for helping to create, we’ve become invisible.” One of Kristyn’s recollections of her earlier years working on other farms was that she got to a point where it became obvious there was a disconnect from the vegetables she saw at farmers’ markets. She remarks on how they didn’t seem to be reflecting the communities that she was surrounded by—catering more toward the perceptions of who a farmers’ market is for. Fortunately, there were many Asian American chefs in the Bay area interested in having access to organic produce. So, Kristyn started her side project of growing primarily Korean vegetables. “Korean ingredients don’t have a good substitute. It’s something very special to speak to that relationship when something is distinctly ours. As immigrants, people were resourceful and traveled with different seeds because there wasn’t anything similar,” she explained. Kristyn shared that she’s putting most of her energy into seed preservation, and ways that she can gain access to seeds and ensure that they’re kept within loving and respectful environments. Her focus is on trials and breeding for seed production and seed banking. Up until now most seed banking has been held by governments that are only concerned about crude data and the utility of potential breeding schemes. “If you look at places that have had wars or civil unrest, governments go to take seeds from those places. But that often doesn’t show cultural diversity. It shows a narrowness to those whose tastes are being catered to.” She went on to explain that her hope is to be able to strengthen the narrative and bolster economic channels. “Reclaiming our culture through food.” Namu Farm was manifested into existence out of pure love. When I asked Kristyn what made her decide that farming was her passion, she explained that at an early age she recognized how valuable this skill was—a way to have the means to make sure that the people she loves are taken care of. For her, that meant tapping into the most primal of needs—food. She admitted that she wasn’t strategic about the long term when she was younger, and that she has found that a lot of her progress has felt accidental in very serendipitous ways. Finding that many of these opportunities were simply connections she’s become aligned with while riding a current that’s lead her to communities of many other young Asian American farmers who are returning to agriculture. Kristyn herself confirmed that the people who have been most responsive to the success of her farm thriving have been people around her own age that are wanting to teach their children about these traditional Korean foods. One of the biggest challenges that requires regular adaptation to is drought. “It’s not so much a drought, so much as a constant state of being,” she laughed. Heat and dry conditions have been the central stressors working on a farm. Soil management and finding natural ways to reduce tillage have remained an ongoing focus. Kristyn explained that they use earthworms to create pathways through the soil to mimic tilling. Namu Farms has also utilized natural farming methods from Korea and East Asia in order to disturb the soil less, and operates using the elegance that eco systems do. Endless hours are devoted simply to the time spent calibrating to the surroundings. However, the rewards are far greater than the struggle. Kristyn’s connections throughout the years have created some of the most meaningful partnerships. Namu, a restaurant in San Francisco, buys produce to use in their modern and creative eatery. She describes their food as being able to feel both new and very old by not only looking to the past to take cues about what makes us Korean, but giving the latitude to move forward, evolve, and reinvent those traditions. “Chefs provide such an amazing platform. The rise in food culture is this glamorous thing, and chefs are powerful storytellers. It means a lot in terms of farms trying to diversify,” she said. It has been incredible to learn how many different channels there are linking us to food and the history and stories behind what makes Namu Farm so vital. Not only is this a retreat to learn about plants, culture, and the effects of climate change, but it’s also become a place where children and families can find a real sense of collective ownership of. Kristyn holds community events and programs sharing about food and cooking. She shared: “In these moments when we’re experiencing this trauma, talking about food builds trust so quickly and also gives us something to talk about. In this climate where there’s been this really, kind of noxious narrative and contempt toward Asian communities, that’s always been here historically, but for kids to find these inroads of being really proud and recognizing that these stories are linked to ancestral wisdom. There’s a sense of collectivism and accountability moving forward. It’s hopeful for young people to be saturated in a positive narrative, and [they] can have this solid footing in being proud of their culture and their food.” Namu Farm: https://www.secondgenerationseeds.com/

Studio ATAO has started their end-of-year fundraising efforts to support their 2022 initiative, "The Neighborhood’s Table," that aims to combat gentrification by creating a responsible development framework for hospitality businesses in gentrifying areas to combat displacement and sustainably invest in their community. Their goal is to raise USD 20K so they can properly apply their methodology to this initiative, equitably compensate their advisors and group participants, and appropriately allocate the internal resources needed to reach multiple communities in the U.S. If you would like to donate, visit https://bit.ly/theneighborhoodstable. If you’re unfamiliar with Studio ATAO, they are a 501(c)3 nonprofit that creates educational tools, resources, and spaces for individuals and organizations to advance systems-based change through a social justice lens and the all-affected principle. You can read more about their work on their website.

"In an ideal world there would be no need for adoption. But, we do not live in an ideal world and I doubt we ever will…" I am still a work in progress. I have learnt a lot, but there is still a lot to learn and to change about myself. I’m still working on that puzzle…. This was in response to the six Asian women killed in the Atlanta shootings. For me, one of the biggest things that happened very recently was being able to begin to understand where the rage and despair came from. When COVID started making itself known around the world in early 2020, a rise in anti-Asian sentiment quickly followed. I took this very personally and was incredibly upset by it—and the question came again from Asians and non-Asians alike: “Why do you get so upset with racism?” I started making works around this notion in 2014. Collections of elegant and priceless blue and white porcelain is found in grand homes throughout the U.K., Europe, and the U.S. for at least two centuries. Yet, it is relatively recently that an Asian would ever be accepted into those homes as a social equal. This version is a strange version, full of beasties and scary things (look for the fruit made to look like the COVID virus), made in 2020 during lockdown. This question has been asked of me throughout my life, but I did think a lot about it last year and into this year. “It is hard to process racism when the perpetrators look like members of your own family.” Many Asians living in Western countries have experienced racism. As a child, they go home to a family who look like them, and even if nothing is said, there is a shared experience. A child will watch how their parents and older relatives react to and manage racist incidents and microaggressions. They will learn how to react and handle themselves, but most likely, they would be believed. I learnt very quickly to stay silent after being dismissed or told, “not to tell tales” soon after starting school. And, as recently as a month ago, in an exchange with a sibling, the penny finally dropped. I was told: “We always assumed you were one of us"; therefore, I would be immune to any racism as my family did not see me as Asian. “But this was the '60s, '70s, and '80s. The accepted way was to raise inter-country/transracial adoptees as 'color blind'; we didn’t know any better at that time.” This makes perfect sense to me now and another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. However, as a child and throughout my teenage years, I noted the difference in how I was treated compared to my white siblings or classmates. I saw people’s attitudes visibly change when one of my parents came into view and I was confused, then hurt, then angry. I am 55 now. I am a professional artist: exhibiting and licensing my art globally. I wake up with a purpose every day and am thrilled to have reached an audience in many countries around the world. I had the support and encouragement from my husband and family to follow my dream, which is something I am truly grateful for. My birth mother and I continue to communicate, and while I am sad about aspects of our relationship, I feel incredibly lucky to have her in my life. Whenever we connect, I feel so much joy. For me, I would love to change the narrative around inter-country or transracial adoption. There’s a common assumption that adoptees would face a life of neglect, poverty, and abuse if they were not adopted. In many cases, and especially in 2021, this just isn’t true. It would be more beneficial, in my opinion, to put steps in place to enable children to stay within their families or communities—where applicable. Every case is different. I have no ready answers. Since 2014, I donate time and art to a number of adoption-led organizations in Australia and elsewhere. I sometimes run art workshops for inter-country adoptees; and I get as much of a kick out of it as they do. I share my stories because if it helps someone else connect the dots then it’s worth it after my own years of struggle. I credit younger transracial/inter-country adoptee connections for educating me on a lot of things, as well as friends and my husband for telling me to pull my head in when needed. And, I’m starting to show up for causes I believe in—because I need to. I am in charge of my own happiness. And yeah, I’m pretty happy. You can read Gabby Malpas’s "On Meeting My Birth Mother" here. All artwork and text by Gabby Malpas Cover image credit: “Socks and TV,” Gabby Malpas

Reposted from Korean Quarterly Mid-February 2021, I had just lost a long-time friend. The third in three months. Preoccupied with grief, on March 16, the first words about the Atlanta spa murders only grazed my consciousness. My body connected to the upheaval before my mind did. Realization of what had happened there unfolded over time. I read a few headlines late Tuesday. Not another shooting..., I thought. Wednesday, the rest of the information trickled in. A witness quoted in the South Korean Chosun Ilbo newspaper heard the 21-year-old killer, Robert Long, scream: “I am going to kill all Asians” before shooting at one of the three spas he attacked that day. Atlanta Police Captain Jay Baker explained the killer’s motive to the nation sympathetically: “He was pretty much fed up, and kind of at [the] end of his rope, and yesterday was a really bad day for him and this is what he did.” From the police captain’s perspective, killing eight people (six of whom were Asian women) seemed like nothing more than a tough/bad decision. An accident. Our lives might just have to be sacrificed for a 21-year-old’s bad day. There were so many layers of rage and grief in reading the shooter’s declaration of hate. I am an adoptee. I grew up in a small town where I was the only minority in the entire school. I was no stranger to racial jokes and slurs, physical assault, discrimination; starting around age six. My white family’s good intentions did not understand, would/could not support my racial experience growing up. Before I learned to love my ethnicity, I had already spent four and a half decades internalizing racism that became self-hatred. Ideas about being Korean made me very uncomfortable and alienated. The closest thing that I had to Asian pride was acknowledgement of my race through self-deprecating jokes. Growing up, I had conversations about race that included whitewashing, such as “Everyone is the same/We don’t see color.” I noted inaccurate perspectives of post-racial America: “We marched for civil rights back in the '60s, so racism isn’t a problem in America anymore.” I also heard a lot of denial, because, for some, making a problem invisible is the next best thing to solving it: “Why do you have to bring that (racism you experienced) up? Are you trying to upset everyone?” “Can’t we just have a nice time? You ruin everything.” “Get over it.” “Forget about it, keep working, you will be fine.” I also was subject to outright gaslighting: “Racism is probably just in your head.” “You don’t know if that (bad behavior doled out to the only minority in a group) was racism. Don’t be like that.” “You are handicapping yourself by thinking people are against you.” I was conditioned to never play the race card. I’ve worked a myriad of customer service jobs. Dealing with microaggressions, blatant racism, and intrusive questions affected me and continued to shape my ideas about the way others saw me. The dreaded question “Where are you from?” sometimes included every ethnicity except Korean. I was asked if or [sic] routinely told that I looked Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Hmong, Thai, Cambodian, Laotian. I knew there were many Asian countries, but in America, Asians are perceived as “all the same.” Remembering Vincent Chin, I knew this could be fatal to people with faces like mine. In 2018, decades after Hallyu, I returned to the Motherland. I learned to take pride in being Korean for the first time in my life. Early 2020, I was one of the people who initially did not think the coronavirus was a threat. I perceived the first threat to be the immediate rise in violence against Asian people. When people I knew referred to COVID-19 as the “virus from Wuhan,” called it “the China virus,” or spoke negatively about China’s government, I would get upset. This was not because of national politics, but because I already was starting to fear for our safety, the safety of Asian Americans. In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) amended guidelines, advising national authorities, science and medical communities to not name diseases with terms that include: “geographic locations, cultural or population references, or terms that incite undue fear” (WHO, 2015). A disease named after a location motivates backlash against people related to that place, and backlash includes violence and murder. Yet some “liberal” white friends still did/would not connect how calling COVID the “China virus” contributes to the threat of harm against all Asians, and my own safety. Asian Americans were assaulted while grocery shopping with infants, taking out the garbage, walking their dogs, going to work, sitting on the bus. In seeing so many reports with “Asian attacked” or “Asian assaulted” in the headlines; the only commonality that I saw was an Asian face scapegoated. Over and over. I know what I saw. I recognized it. I recognized the denial by the media and law enforcement that these were “not hate crimes.” It was a very old and familiar frustration. Witnessing repeated acts of racism followed by public denials of prejudice in America. In a way, truth made public was finally validating, but it was the kind of validation that I never wanted. When Atlanta happened, my body physically reacted with shock, trauma, and grief beyond what my brain was able to comprehend. It’s impossible for me to discuss Atlanta without relating it to George Floyd, and most recently Daunte Wright. Injustice to one is injustice to all. When I just turned 21, one of my Black friends explained to me why they would not tolerate anti-Asian/any racially hateful statements. He was one of the first persons to verbalize the idea: “I don’t tolerate anti-Asian talk, because the same people that call Asians ‘ch**ks’ use the N-word behind my back.” I felt I found my family. I started to learn about solidarity. George Floyd was my age, we both worked in security around town. I felt connected to him. For that and other reasons, his public execution by police affected me. Deeply. For about half of the summer of 2020, I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours. I was experiencing hypervigilance. Since I couldn’t sleep, I read, and learned quite a bit about trauma response and the sympathetic nervous system, as I tried to make sense of what was happening internally. Following the Atlanta mass murders, I recognized this reaction returning. For the first four days, I would cry every morning, and throughout the day. By end of the week, I would only cry once a day. Progress. I constantly was frustrated and angry. I felt isolated. Alone. Enraged at the police press release that sympathized with the murder; “news” and law-enforcement that still insisted: “there is no proof that the Atlanta shootings were hate crimes.” One day, I offhandedly mentioned I felt like going down there. That thought, that verbalization, sparked the first alleviation of anxiety, stress, anger, and frustration that I was feeling. I mentioned this to a few more people. On a Korean adoptee page, somebody I didn’t know offered to let me stay with their family. The more I started to plan, the less despair I felt. I wanted to go and see for myself what was really going on. I wanted to show up in solidarity for my community. I wanted to connect with some organizations, and bring back knowledge to help people in my city. I wanted to see Koreatown in Atlanta. I wanted to eat Korean BBQ. A few nights before I left, I participated in a Zoom meeting with AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth) Korean adoptees from the West Coast, East Coast, southern USA, and Europe. It was such a relief to be able to talk about the tragedy without having to navigate any white fragility. It was no surprise that our reactions were almost identical. Though the group members were different ages, occupations, had different adopted family experiences, religious/political backgrounds; we all were crying, anxious, unable to sleep, frustrated, and exhausted. Even among those isolated from Asian communities, we felt the same, around the world. I did not have many expectations. It was raining the day I left. It rained every day I was in Georgia. I visited my first H Mart (a Korean-specific supermarket) in Atlanta, then we went to Gold Spa and the Aromatherapy Spa. Approaching Gold Spa, my mind went momentarily blank. My shock melted into sadness, seeing the gigantic word “L O V E” arranged in the parking lot, constructed with tree branches and flowers. So many flowers. Signs. Messages. Memorial offerings. I read notes about each person lost. That was the most difficult. The pain of their families was my pain. The loss of their community was loss of my community. It was the loss of our family, our community. 우리 (uri, or “our” in Korean) grief had rippled around the world. People could try to deny or ignore it, but our bereavement did not care, and did not rest. I also attended a conference at the Korean American Coalition (KAC) in Atlanta. Researching different Asian organizations in Georgia, I noticed KAC did not list an address on their website. I assumed it was for protection of the building and Koreans who were there. KAC also held a vigil, which was grounding. There were prayers from Muslim, Buddhist, and Christian denominations. Black and Jewish community leaders represented unification, spoke, offered solidarity. There was music and poetry. There was healing strength in unity. My takeaways: It is important to reach out to like-minded people, and that positive activity, even a validating conversation, can decrease negative rumination, depression, anxiety, anger. I found like minds in the Minnesota Asian Safety Squad. The MN Asian Safety Squad is a volunteer group that does community security walks around the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul, in a popular Asian American shopping district. They also offer free rides to elderly/differently abled people in need. Walking together for this shared purpose of solidarity has been very meaningful to me. In all of our struggles, we are all interconnected—like it or not. As individuals, our struggles may be different, but there are important intersectionalities. We have more in common with each other than we do with our oppressors. Now is a time for change. The old ways of avoiding racism as Asian Americans: “Put your head down, let it go/get over injustice, and keep working,” are not the path to safety that we were once led to believe. Not anymore. At this point, upholding silence and endorsing Asian invisibility has gotten us hunted and murdered. We (Asian communities and all marginalized people) need to continue to connect, adapt, and evolve. We need to be seen, heard, recognized, respected. We need to lose the “divide and conquer” mentality. Today, I had three work meetings discussing diversity, equity, inclusivity. I experienced the healing power of connecting, and gained strength in discussing our truths. Lived experience is real. People, both Asians and non-Asians, are learning about anti-Asian discrimination. Asians are coming to grips with the racism they have battled and navigated their entire lives. Atlanta has been an awakening for many people. Now is a time for world change. We have a chance to redefine ourselves, and fight for our right to exist in peace. Unity is the only way. Solidarity for the win. Lastly, demanding accountability for crime and wrongdoing is part of that. Police, politicians, and our own communities all need to be held accountable. The status quo model of how we treat marginalized communities and what we will put up with as minorities is not working. What is the definition of insanity? Repeating the same methods, expecting different results. We need to demolish and reconstruct. The disaster of COVID has left some benefits in its wake, including the opportunity to rebuild something for our future. Let’s build. "Inside the chaos, Build a temple of Love." Rune Lazuli Mae Ouhr (they/them) is a food-obsessed data systems manager, voter, dog parent, consumer of visual arts, social justice warrior, occasional gym rat. Born in South Korea, they were adopted and raised in Minnesota. They value life learning, are hopefully done with college loans and wonder what’s up with those campaign promises, President Biden? This article was previously published in Korean Quarterly, under the title: “Visiting the Gold Spa Parking Lot.” Cover photo credit: Mae Ouhr

Note from editor: “Taniya,” “Su Lee,” and “Lee Hei Sung” are all different names of the author’s during the different chapters of her life. TW: the account below contains references to mental, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; violence experienced/witnessed; and substance abuse. Intro: I have the opportunity to write the story about my life as a Korean adoptee. I was adopted twice. The first adoption was very abusive and caused a lot of trauma, but I was too young to understand that I needed help. My second set of adoptive parents did not know the extent of the abuse I went through, plus they were trying to deal with their own traumas that they experienced in their youth. I thought I was doing well throughout the years; I thought I was normal. There were times I was depressed, but I thought everyone got depressed every now and then. I did not seek help because my mood swings were stable, or so I thought. It wasn’t until I experienced the truth about my second marriage, by the way, as soon as I turned the big “50,” my life took a big turn and what I found out was an opening to Pandora’s box, which led me to the path of peace. Taniya, 2 or 3 to 9½ years old: I cannot remember much about my childhood. My counselor told me it is because I have suppressed a lot of the memories from my early childhood. I was adopted two times—the first adoption: an American couple adopted me; the husband was in the military and his wife was German. I believe I was adopted when I was around 2 or 3 years old. The couple soon divorced, and I moved to Savannah, GA. I ended up living with the wife, whose name was Veronica. I lived with Veronica and her son. Not long after, she remarried; my stepdad’s name was Boris. I cannot remember too much of my past, most of the memories were the abuse I experienced. Veronica made “Mommy Dearest” look like an angel. She was so evil. At the time of the abuse, I thought it was normal, and I did not understand that I should try to run away and get help. Veronica mentally, physically, sexually, and emotionally abused me—any kind of abuse you can think of; she did to me. I had to visit the hospital numerous times because of her abuse, which included, but was not limited to, having her beat my head with her high heels, needing stitches, having a broken arm, needing a cast, getting my stomach pumped because she had me drink glass after glass of water filled with salt, etc. I was constantly sent to foster homes because of her abuse. Neighbors would witness the abuse and call the police on her. I remember times of being choked by her, and then I would pass out and be revived by her punching my bloody face. She seemed to love to torture me because she felt the last punishment was not enough. She had me wear wigs around town, shaved my eyebrows, and dyed my hair red and told me to tell others I just woke up with it like that. She showed me pornographic pictures of Asian women and said that the women were my mom and I was found in the garbage. She told me how much she couldn’t stand me and I was going to be her slave. The punishments kept getting worse, the meals became less, and she constantly kept me out of school. By the time I was 9½ years old, which at that time I did not know how old I was or when my birthday was, I watched her get murdered by Boris. After she was murdered, my adoptive brother and I went to a facility to wait for my first adoptive dad, who was my brother’s real dad. When Mr. Martinson came to pick us up, he brought us to California. There, I met his other kids and his new wife, who did not care for us to be a part of the family. My brother and I never felt welcomed. I found out later I was going to be sent back to the state. My mom (Paula), whom I have now, wanted to adopt me. She worked with Mr. Martinson and knew the situation about me being given to the state. I ended up staying with her and her husband for two weeks. I thought they were babysitting me. My mom had such a sweet disposition about her. She was always smiling and was very artistic. She had a beautiful singing voice, was so smart, loved to read, and loved to laugh. She was so affectionate and always told me she loved me. My dad (Lee) had such a kindness about him and a great sense of humor. When I first met him, he walked from the front door and knelt down to my level, and with a handsome smile introduced himself to me and explained I was going to be staying with them for a while. I stayed for two weeks, which was awesome! I was sad when I had to leave and go back with the Martinson family. A couple of days later I was asked if I would like to live with the couple I stayed with for two weeks for a very long time. I was so excited I said “Yes!” I moved in with them, and I never said goodbye to my adopted brother. I did not understand I was never going to see him again. I never had a chance to say, “I love you,” to him. Su Lee, from 10½ years old to present day: My mom told people when she first got me that I had scabies, was malnourished, and most of my baby teeth were rotten. I lived with my new family for almost a year before I was officially their daughter. During that time, I learned how old I was and when my birthday was. I also changed my name. My new parents were so young—my dad was 26 and my mom was 24—to instantly have a 9½-year-old child. My parents were from Houston, Texas. My dad was not racist, but because of his Southern upbringing, he always identified people by their race and liked to make racist jokes. My mom is colorblind (literally); she loved all cultures. I did not understand at that time why you need to describe someone by the color of their skin instead of by what they are wearing or where they are. Before my dad died, he told me a little girl had taught him not to describe people by the color of their skin. After my adoption my dad and mom were married for about two more years. They divorced when I was 11½ years old. My mom and I moved to Texas to live with her parents in Waller, Texas, which was a small country town. I was the only Asian girl that spoke English fluently, and I heard a lot of racist comments most of the time. I always stood up for myself, and, eventually, the other kids got to know me and stopped with the racist comments. I loved school and socializing. Even when I lived with Veronica, school was the place where I could be free to play, laugh, and get a meal to eat! When I was around 12½ years old I moved back to live with my dad in California. This was the summer I was going into seventh grade. My dad drank a lot, dated, cried for my mom, and really showed his hurt when he was drunk. A lot of unhappy events happened to me while living with my dad that summer. He showed a lot of anger. He was an emotional roller coaster. The drinking resulted in him crossing boundaries he never should have crossed. That summer I was sexually molested, and I was physically and emotionally abused. Once school started, I hardly saw my dad because he worked night shifts and dated, but my grandmother (his mom) was always around—she was an alcoholic too. When I would get up for school, Grandma always made sure my grits and cheese were made for breakfast. There were mornings where I would see her with a black eye. I would ask her what happened, and she would tell me she got into a fight. There were a few black eye mornings. I loved my grandmother; she was a beautiful soul—except when she was drunk. She was never mean to me when she was drunk. Well, there were times she felt I did something to her liquor bottle, which I would empty down the drain, but she was so intoxicated that she would move on. Overall, she was mostly mean to others. Dad remarried and we moved to Santa Cruz, which was an awesome place to live! The marriage only lasted a month. He made bad choices and hurt so many people he loved. I used to hear how he served in the Marines and was a Vietnam veteran. I was too young to understand the trauma he experienced while stationed in Vietnam as an American soldier. Dad eventually started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, remarried, and decided he wanted a family. The lady he married was a hippy stuck in the '70s—she was pretty cool. I loved the rainbow and butterfly décor in her home, the reggae music she played, and her son. I told my dad he should give her a chance, and that I thought she was a great lady for him. He always gave me credit for telling him that. I was almost 17 years old. After so many years of living a single life, with no parental guidance, and all of a sudden, he wanted to be a family. I lived in a home with roommates whom my dad rented rooms out to. I barely saw him because he stayed at his girlfriend’s home most of the time. He would come home and make sure the fridge had food, and we hung out every now and then. I was fine with that because I did what I wanted to do. (By the way, I could cook all kinds of ramen noodles! I would throw hot dogs, eggs, spinach, etc. in there. I made up all kinds of recipes with ramen noodles.) When he got married, we became a family and there were rules. I was not used to this kind of living, and I rebelled. I got into trouble hanging out with the wrong crowd, so I was sent to live with my mom. My mom and I spent every summer in Texas. When I went back to live in California, there were months that went by where I would not hear from her. I loved spending my summers with her. Sometimes, she would be living with a boyfriend and other times she was alone. My mom moved to a small town in Texas called La Porte. She worked 12-hour shifts and lived the single life. I had a lot of freedom again. I was a junior in high school the year I moved back. Since I did so badly in my sophomore year at Santa Cruz High School, I only had six classes to go to, but I only went to two: P.E. and Health. I attended P.E. because my friends were in that class and Health because I had a crush on a guy. Needless to say, I had to go to night school, summer school, and I had to have a full schedule my senior year, plus I could not fail any classes in order to graduate on time, which I did! In the beginning, living in La Porte was hard. I was the only Asian female in the school who spoke English fluently, partied, and dated white guys. I made it big over there. There were racist comments in the beginning as usual, but long story short I was put in the spotlight one day in social studies class. A guy said that the President needed to send “all the slanted-eye zipper heads back where they belong.” I froze. I could not speak. I could not believe I did not say anything. The next day I gave this speech in class that extended after roll call all the way until it was almost time for the bell to ring. I talked about how the only ones that should be telling us to go back to where we belong are Native people; how those with blonde hair and blue eyes shouldn’t be the only ones considered to be “Americans”; and how there are good and bad individuals to be found in all races. After that day, the racist comments stopped. I graduated on time and moved back to Santa Cruz. I loved living in Santa Cruz, where the beauty of nature permeated the city. Most people I met were so open and friendly. Growing up in Santa Cruz, I did go through many identity crises. I loved hanging out with surfers; they were very accepting and so I could be myself around them. By the time I was 20, I moved back with my mom to go back to school and get my life together. I worked, went to school, and partied. I ended up in a car wreck, which changed my way of thinking about my life. I realized my life could be over in a snap. I almost went through the windshield, almost lost my left eye, and I had to have my tongue stitched back together. I kept losing consciousness. I could have died and there was nothing I could have done about it. Months down the road, I started working at a 7-Eleven convenience store, which is where I met my first husband who was in the Army. We dated, and three months later we were married. He was 10 years older than me with two kids: a 5½-year-old little girl named Rita and an 8½-year-old little boy named Jimmy. Before I was married, I loved kids. I used to babysit, so I thought helping to raise two kids would not be hard. Well, it was, especially since I did not have much guidance to fall back on. The children were the same ages as I was when I was being abused. I did not realize that when children experience abuse-related trauma there are three reactions they can do: fight, flight, or freeze. Most children freeze, and the memories of abuse are suppressed. There were so many memories I tried to avoid and not think about. I never wanted to become like Veronica. We moved into a subdivision where I would walk my dog. One day when I was out with my dog, there was a Korean lady in her front yard and I said “Hi” to her. She started walking with me. We talked about my being adopted, and I told her I would love to learn how to make Korean food. A week later there was a knock on the door, and it was that same lady. I asked her to come in, and she had bags of groceries with her. She taught me how to make kimbap. I was elated! I made it all the time and loved the taste. That was the first time I had real Korean food. I never saw her again, but I am still so grateful to her. Our family was about to move to Heidelberg, Germany. I went to update my social security card with my married name. I gave the woman at the social security office my adopted birth certificate. She told me that this was not proof of my being an American citizen. I was 20 when I found out I was not an American. On my passport, my first adopted family had left my citizenship open for me to decide. Luckily, I was able to be sworn in as a U.S. citizen with a federal judge. We ended up moving to Heidelberg for three years. My ex-husband was a recruiter and was hardly ever home. He traveled with his captain all over Europe while I stayed home with the children. I also had a baby girl before moving to Germany. She was my true love. The first time I ever felt her, she was a part of me, and there was a real connection. My baby had big beautiful blue eyes; they stayed blue until she was 4 years old. My sweet baby was named Danielle. It seemed her mind was wired to draw; she was such a talented artist at a very young age. When we moved to Germany, the military wives that were Korean were very clannish. They were very sweet and invited me over to their homes, which I was happy and willing to do. Once I was there, I would just sit while they spoke Korean to each other. I did not feel like I fit in with Koreans. However, I did love to cook Korean food and I learned how to make kimchi. I also bought a Korean cookbook. I was very proud of Korean food. I worked for the Civil Service in payroll in Heidelberg. The payroll department would have luncheons where everyone brought a dish of food. I would bring in kimbap every time. Once, I had two ladies from Oklahoma ask me what I was going to bring for the next luncheon. I said, “Kimbap,” and they said, “You bring that every time, bring something different.” I asked “Like what?” One of the ladies said, “Mashed potatoes, just something different.” I brought in kimbap again. Why? Because I do what I want! After a few years in Germany, I became pregnant again with another baby girl—Andrea—and once again it was true love! We eventually moved back to the States. In my early 30s, I divorced my first husband. We just grew apart. I was tired of being alone and no longer loved him. I only loved him as a good friend. Our divorce was hard on the family. I eventually remarried. I stopped talking to my dad, as I started to remember what he did to me and how sad I felt when we talked on the phone. My mom and I still continued talking, but I started to have anger towards her. I could not understand why she would send her child to live with a person she knew had an alcohol and drug problem. My mom and dad never sent me to a counselor to get help with what I experienced, which I also did not understand. I felt that both of my parents lived for themselves. I could not understand why they adopted me if they both wanted to be part-time parents. As I mentioned earlier, I did not mind being alone when I was growing up. However, it wasn’t until I became a parent that I learned how much children of all ages need their parents. It is so important to guide your children, show interest in their hobbies and their passions, and guide them along their path as they discover their purpose. I did not pay attention to my mom’s mental and emotional health until I was a senior in high school. One day, she took me to a psychologist who told me it was not my fault my mom was coming to see her. I never knew my mom was going there or that I knew where she was taking me that day. My mom went through a lot with my dad and she had other dark experiences in her past that no child should have to go through. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I realized my mom and I were not that close and her memories of our past together did not match. She always had to be right. She lacked empathy, and she could not relate to my life issues. My mom and I were not very close after I moved out and had my own family. When I married my second husband, I was so in love. We loved being together; he was so much fun with a great sense of humor, and I loved every moment with him. Years later, our marriage was full of turmoil where we fought all the time and he was hardly around. Then, finally, the truth came out, and my marriage was no longer stable and secure. I had a dark cloud around me for years. I could not set goals because I did not know what the future held. I tried so hard to forgive him, but he would not let me forget the past. I knew I needed to heal, which is when I reached out to my dad and asked him to forgive me. I learned about suffering—I learned how those who are suffering look for peace, especially those who experienced trauma. Most people live via their subconscious levels and are not able to make rational choices, which ends up hurting others and themselves constantly. I had so much anger in my life towards my dad. I wrote him a letter. I told him I did not understand the suffering he went through when I was younger. I understand it was not just the Vietnam War, but also his upbringing. My dad wrote me back, and we started talking again after 15 years of not talking to each other. We saw each other, and about three months later he died. I was so grateful that the Lord brought my dad and I back together and that we had closure. I loved him just like I did when I was a little girl; all the anger was chiseled away. The postmark on my letter to my dad was stamped “May 16, 2019 Macon, Georgia,” and I believe he received the letter about two days after that date on May 18, 2019. Exactly one year later, he died on May 18, 2020. I know that the Lord lined everything up so my dad and I could have a peaceful closure, because we really did and do love each other. I am so grateful. During my journey of healing, I was angry. I searched for answers. I linked the people who hurt me internally and I tried to find the commonalities that they all shared—all of them were hurting inside too. It wasn’t until my dad passed away that I would wake up every morning thanking the Lord for bringing dad back to me and for us having the closure we needed. Then, I started the healing process with my second marriage. Eventually, I started having thoughts of appreciation and thinking more about the present moments instead of the negative thoughts of the past. Everything I went through in my life helped me learn how to heal in regards to all the ways in which my dad, mom, Veronica, and husband had caused me to experience different levels of suffering. With my dad, the Lord showed me the grace and miracle that love is so powerful, and no matter how much suffering you feel, as soon as you open your heart to forgive, you will free your soul and breathe again. I realized my dad was always a gentle soul, but he did not know how to love until years later when he learned to give himself to others, which is what he did with the community, the children, and the veterans. I believe that he adopted me because he wanted to make up for what he did in Vietnam. My experiences with my mom taught me that people love you the way they know how to. Veronica was so evil. After she was out of my life, I remember as a little girl that I was so grateful she was gone. I did not deal with the abuse I experienced, and I suppressed most of the memories until later in my life where I began to deal with her and my memories. I believe gratitude helped me. I knew others had it worse than me and that was my perception as a little girl. My time with my current husband has taught me to face my reality, to know humans are not perfect, to know that the suffering we endure will eventually come to an end, and we have to be aware of the hurt that is inside of us and how we lash out at others without knowing it. My husband taught me to be stronger, to know that there is a limit to the hurt, and that there are boundaries. He also helped to teach me that people can change if they really want to, and if they are strong enough to face the hurt that they have caused others, they will take the responsibility to change. It is not easy to change. I have also learned that love is not owed. Just because you have parents, a spouse, your children, etc. anyone that is close to you does not have to love you the way you want them to love you. When you expect a certain kind of love, you could be let down. Love is only given the way it is learned; and unfortunately, there are limits to giving love. People love the only way they know how to give. One day, we all have to deal with our suffering, and just learning how to heal can be the lessons and the blessings. Throughout growing up I could not deal with being adopted. I accepted it, and there were times where if I really stopped to think about who my mom was I did not think I had any chance of meeting her. A representative at Holt Adoption Agency told me years ago (2005), that there were no papers about my mom, when I was born, or where they found me. I have felt hopeless, but the other day my husband did get a hold of Holt, which was not like before, and he was given other options for helping me find out more. I am getting older and time is running out to meet my [birth] mom and her family. I am trying to work on my healing before I can move on. I did join Ancestry.com and 23andMe, and I had a fourth and second cousin reach out to me. Lee Hei Sung: My Korean name was Lee Hei Sung. I was given Cheongju as the place of my family origin on 2/14/66, and Lee as my family name, but no record of my mom or dad. The only permanent address I was given is: San 46-1, Nok Bun Dong, Suh Dai Mun Ku, Seoul, Korea. I was sent to the United States of America on March 1, 1968. I have been a realtor for 16 years, and as of this year, am a board member of a non-profit organization for child abuse. All of my children are married with their own families and are doing well. I am very honored to have been asked to write my story. It has been hard to bring myself to do so, as I have had a lot of pain and healing during this journey.

Ever Wong has always had different ideas for her future than her parents. Her parents immigrated from China so she could have the best opportunities. Her father, a doctor in China, now works as an orderly because the USA would not honor his medical license. Ever now feels the pressure to pursue medicine and have the life her father sacrificed. Her real dream is to pursue dance, a field her parents would never approve of. To get Ever more connected with her roots and become the Chinese daughter they always wanted, Ever’s parents send her to a Chinese camp in Taiwan. Unbeknownst to her, this camp is unofficially known as Loveboat. Teens are searching for sizzling summer romances and at night, all the rules are broken as they sneak out of camp to explore the night markets and clubs. Will Ever return to America the way her parents envisioned? "Loveboat, Taipei" was a fun coming-of-age story that was a creative and original story. All of the characters had intriguing backstories. I appreciated that while, at times, they did act like typical 18-year-olds away from home for the first time, they also had depths that explained their choices, and we could see the family pressures they were all facing. The story moved along fairly quickly, but it did feel a bit repetitive at times. There was a lot of back-and-forth with relationships and the drama of summer camp friendships. Despite this, "Loveboat, Taipei" was paced nicely and once it really picked up around the 60 percent mark, I couldn’t put it down. There was good plot and character development, and the resolution was satisfying. Ever had substantial character development that really made this a solid coming-of-age story. She went from a girl at summer camp just wanting to have fun to a young woman with a passion she was willing to fight for. "Loveboat, Taipei" was a great debut novel that will soon be a movie! And, if you need more excitement and want to follow different characters, the sequel, "Loveboat Reunion," was recently published in January 2022.

Reposted from The Korea Times This article is the 23rd in a series about Koreans adopted abroad. Apparently, many Koreans never expected that the children it had sent away via adoption would return as adults with questions demanding to be answered. However, thousands of adoptees visit Korea each year. Once they rediscover this country, it becomes a turning point in their lives. We should embrace the dialogue with adoptees to discover the path to recovering our collective humanity. — E.D. The Netflix documentary “Wonder Boy” chronicles the journey of Olivier Rousteing, a transracially adopted French designer, to uncover his true identity. Born under France’s anonymous birth registration system, Rousteing visits with the French child protection authorities who provided him with his adoption file, which offers limited information on his birth parents. He learns of their racial identity, their nationality before coming to France, and everything else except that which set him on his journey: their names and address. According to the “sous X” registration system, a system unique to France, mothers may hide their identity by writing an X on the child’s birth certificate. Consequently, the baby falls under the protection of the state and becomes adoptable. Without the parents’ consent, the birth parents’ identities remain anonymous indefinitely. In Rousteing’s case, the French authorities offered to trace the birth parents and ask them if they would agree to disclose their identities. Despite this attempt, the birth parents declined. Anonymous birth systems exist elsewhere, such as in the United States. While state governments issue birth certificates, some states will seal the original birth certificate if a person is adopted. Once the court finalizes the adoption, a new or “amended” certificate, which bears the new name and information of the adoptee, is issued. The secrecy surrounding birth records has led adopted people to demand access to their information and prompted them to initiate efforts to reform the relevant legislation. They argue that current laws unreasonably favor the personal decision of one party, such as the birth parents, without weighing the interests of both parties. Furthermore, they contend that information vital to a person’s identity cannot be regarded as secret, and that any decision to curtail access is beyond the matters of privacy and personal choice. Whatever may come from these legislative efforts, the government owns the original birth records, so providing access is primarily a matter of deciding whether to open the records. However, Korea’s case isn’t as simple as opening records. As explained in previous articles, intercountry adoption from Korea started with government bureaus establishing an orphan registry and issuing orphan certificates. The true identity of the person, including their familial relations, was erased to complete the process of fraudulently declaring him or her an “orphan found abandoned” for the purpose of intercountry adoption. Therefore, if an adoptee seeks information about their true identity, the official document issued by the Korean government is void and useless. This “orphan” registry system has frustrated and angered many adoptees, leading them to adoption agencies. Under the assumption that their true documents rest in the agencies’ “unofficial” and “private” file rooms, adoptees have developed a diverse range of strategies to extract as much information as possible from the staff. Some of the tactics have included persistently visiting the agency or begging, pleading and even bribing them by donation. One must ask, if the government fails to maintain records of a person’s true identity via his or her official birth certificate, then how can one expect a private agency to do better? Based on my observations, in cases of adoptees’ birth family searches, the trustworthiness of the adoption agencies’ records is highly suspect. After undergoing DNA testing, some adoptees have come to discover that they were not actually related to their supposed birth families despite the agency’s claims arguing otherwise. In other cases, the agencies deliberately delayed notifying the adoptees of their test results or attempted to conceal the results. In light of these circumstances, one must consider the integrity of those records inside the adoption agencies. Do they bear truthful information about adoptees? How many of the files were either destroyed or stolen? Were the contents forged or misrepresented or even switched for business purposes? Who can guarantee the reliability and veracity of the records? Consequently, many adoptees have found that DNA matching companies are the last resort and the most reliable means to search for one’s biological family. In North America and Europe, multiple DNA testing and matching firms provide services for biological family tracing. People can provide their DNA samples to these firms, and their results will be checked within the company’s database to determine whether there are any matches. These efforts have resulted in adoptees from across the world recounting many fascinating stories of finding their birth parents, siblings and relatives. While DNA testing has provided a breakthrough in the search for origins, the fact that adoptees must resort to such measures reflects the defects of Korea’s birth registration system. Historically, under the feudal Joseon Dynasty, people belonged to clans rather than a country and were registered according to their kinship ties. The head of the clan ruled over family members, deciding their fate. As long as an individual belonged to a family, he or she was protected, and any act of disownment was like a death sentence. Children were not seen as individuals but rather as possessions of the family, and they were expected to act for the preservation and prosperity of their clan. Despite the passing of time, the vestiges of this paternalism remain in Korea’s current registration system; they are evident in current legislation, which still largely depends on the decisions (or obligations) of the parent(s) to register a child. On account of this, it is not uncommon to see news reports about cases of people discovering that they have never been registered, or instances of individuals (including unborn babies) being listed on multiple registries. In other words, birth registration failures extend beyond cases of intercountry adoptees, which reveals the pervasiveness of the flaws in Korea’s birth registration system. The prevalence of secret births has been ingrained enough in Korean society to prompt many K-dramas to employ adoption as a plot device frequently. In these stories, the main character discovers that he or she has a birth family and then attempts to restore their relationship. Despite the frequency with which these stories appear in the media, dramas, and even in academic research, people rarely ever question why so many stories about false birth documents exist or why the state has not been held accountable. Fundamentally, these problems prevail due to this country’s failure to ensure accurate universal birth registration. While Korea’s development into a highly modernized democracy continues to be touted, the fact remains that this country fails to perform an essential function that any developed nation should fulfill: ensuring the accurate legal proof of identity for each and every child immediately after birth. Click here to read the 20th article of this series, The problems we face while helping adoptees’ search for families by Kim Yu-kyeong. Cover photo: gettyimagesbank

The four words that send a chill up adoptees' spines—or at least mine. I should clarify that I am of “Asian” descent, adopted into a white family and brought up in the U.K. Looking different to my sisters who were born to my adoptive parents led to many similar types of questions, which will be covered in future articles. But, back to the questioner who presumably thinks the dreaded question is to break the ice. They probably innocently think they’re being polite and showing interest in another human, but little do they know that they’re about to accuse me of lying and question the identity of someone they have just met. I mean, we all know—because we all do it—that within seconds they’ve already put me in a box and are just wishing to get confirmation. Unfortunately for them, the lid to Pandora’s box is about to be lifted... We know differently. We know where this line of question is going to lead. We know what the next question is going to be, even if they don’t yet! We know the depth of the question and why the reflex to those four words will lead me to fire back: “Mind your own FUCKING BUSINESS YOU NOSY TWAT (NT)!” However, it seems that social norms say this is an unacceptable first retort. So, then, the inanely familiar game begins, depending on the time of day and one’s current mood, or the phase of the cosmos, determines on which path we go forth. Here’s a selection of possible scenarios, though we know (and have experienced) that there are many more…. Scenario 1: The Dumb-Arse-Non-Believer Questioner NT: Hey, where are you from? Me: The U.K. NT: No, I mean, where are you really from? Me: I was born in the U.K. NT: But, I mean your heritage? (Hinting that they’ve cleverly noticed the higher tone of melanin in my skin) Me: I was actually adopted as a baby to white parents. NT: Ahhhh, so do you know your heritage? Me: My mother was from [country] and gave me up for adoption as a baby. NT: Ohhhh, that’s so interesting… This now leads to either:  1. Have you ever met her?—Mind your own business!  2. Ahhh, so you’re [stated country]!—No, I’m British, I told you. 3. That’s so interesting. I’ve always wanted to go to [any country similar to stated country], what’s it like?—AAARRRGGGHHHH, FUCK OFF! Scenario 2: The Sucker Story: A made-up story I use to amuse myself, usually when I’m going into my second or third “fuck-off” of the day) NT: W.Y.F? Me: The U.K. NT:  N.I.M.W.Y.R.F? Me: I’m not sure, I was adopted at birth.  NT: And, you don’t know your heritage? Well, you look kind of dark-skinned, so you’re probably [insert country here—relevant or not]. (Thanks for that, as if I didn’t notice/know already) Me: Well, I was found in a basket on a church door step. NT: Awwww...that’s really sad (head slightly tilted in mock sympathy). But, at least you were adopted/saved/rescued. Do you know anything about your parents? Me: I have some newspaper clippings. NT: OMG! Really? That’s so sad, not knowing where you’re really from. Me: FUCK OFF! Scenario 3: Full Moon Version NT: W.Y.F? Me: FUCK OFF, YOU FUCKING NOSY TWAT! Scenario 4: The Believer  NT: W.Y.F? Me: The U.K. NT: Ahhh, where in the U.K.? (There we go… Take my word for it, if we say we’re from Timbuktu, we probably are!!) I’ve wrestled with this for many years. Why does it create, at minimum, 1000 emotions ranging from rage or embarrassment to bewilderment (and many others in between) and why is my answer to their question still not believed? We all feel the need to find a box to put people in; however, only when these NT questioners have received the answer they’re after, do they feel comfortable to continue a no longer wanted conversation. I think most of us (adoptees, especially) are the same. However, if I ask the question to most people, and the reply is “America,” for example, guess what? I believe them. I don’t question whether their great, great, even greater grandparents came over on the Mayflower and declare that really, therefore, they are actually European and should be treated as such. If I give a response other than the one they want or that doesn’t fit their pre-designed box, why am I the one who feels uncomfortable? I don’t want to have to go into my adoption story, or my history, with a stranger. It’s personal. After all, it’s my story. Why should I have to bear the weight of unburdening someone else’s need to put me in the right box?

Question: How is identity defined? Answer: Differently for each one of us? Or, the same. Who am I? What am I? Am I British? British-Asian? Asian-British? What box should I fill out? My family—my parents and my sisters—are white. Am I meant to know which ethnicity box to tick? I end up ticking “Other.” The questioner may think this is an act of social rebellion. It really is that I don’t know the answer. Other Growing up, I was just Monty Pye: climbing trees, making tree houses, and swimming in the rivers with my friends. As a young adult, a casual conversation I’d had, led to an apparently huge concern. As I didn’t know the answer to the above questions, the next day I was called to the college counselor to discuss this. To be fair, I think she was wise enough to realize that I didn’t think much about most things in life, and that this wasn’t some deep-seated angst, and was more about a young man not being aware of shit! However, as I’ve grown older, this has caused an inner debate more than once. Other people seem to know who/what they are. They have a definite sense of themselves as African American, Asian-American, Korean-British, British-Chinese etc. This doesn’t mean I feel insecure (anymore) as a question about who I am, but it’s more of a chip on my shoulder. Since I don’t know the answer, when asked I flippantly reply, “I’m white middle-class British.” As this really is what I feel. I was brought up as this, I understand the culture of the white U.K. middle class. I don’t know what a British-Asian is meant to feel; I wasn’t brought up with this culture. If someone talks with a U.K. accent, and acts and reacts as a British white person would in a situation, then isn’t this an identity? Why should this not be me? Why should I be told that I am not? “But Monty, you don’t look British.” So, the cycle continues. What or who I define myself as, should this not be how I’m addressed by others? I purposefully ensure I talk with a strong “proper” British accent. This is part of the opening dance in letting people compute that: “Ahhhh… he sounds British.” Why do we feel the need to have an identity? Is it for ourselves? Is it for others? Why do some have an identity crisis and others don’t? As I don’t know the answers, do I ignore this and carry on with the white British middle class routine? Or, should I seek out what others think that I should be? Please do comment and let me know that I’m not alone with these musings…

Reposted from More Than Yellow As a child, I remember looking in the mirror, staring at my body, and thinking to myself, “Why couldn’t my legs be longer? Why are my hips so wide? Why is my nose so wide? Why couldn’t I have been born with double eyelids or perfect skin?” I was so used to the beauty standards that my culture has written and deemed as perfect. I have always struggled with my image and weight as a woman, but also as an Asian American. I was trying to balance this idea of beauty by having a slender body, fair porcelain skin, sleek jet black hair, and dainty features which were considered ideal to my family and Asian standards. But I also wanted to fit in and be accepted by my Caucasian friends and classmates, so I would tan my skin (despite my family’s resistance), add blonde streaks and tease my hair, and try to present myself as close as possible to the “popular” girls at my predominantly white schools. Colorism has always run deep within the Asian society. Darker, tanned skin is associated with the lower working class, while fairer, porcelain skin is seen as ideal, and belonging to a higher class and wealth bracket. Unfortunately many people belonging to naturally fair skin groups (Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc.) would look down upon those of naturally darker skin (Vietnamese, Philippinx, Cambodians, etc.) though skin color does not and should not determine one’s status or life experiences. This false narrative of beauty we’ve been led on to believe has lured us to buy skin whitening creams with a perfectly fair Chinese or Korean model on the box, and continually question our own beauty. As an American, I was also drawn to what was considered perfect through their lens. I was always jealous of the girls with blonde flowing locks and bright blue eyes, while I was left with my dark hair and small features. Growing up in the Midwest, I did not have many faces I could relate to and there wasn’t a lot of representation in Hollywood at this time. I couldn’t appreciate my Chinese heritage, and tried to whitewash myself as much as I could, so that I could be fully accepted by my peers. I was so distracted by the perception of others that I never took the time to admire how truly beautiful I was. After years of struggling with my idea of beauty, I am coming to terms that no matter what society, my family, or our culture says, I am beautiful and so are you. Beauty comes in all forms; all shapes, sizes, colors, and perfect imperfections. Stop obsessing over these beauty standards and comparing yourself to others. It’s easier said than done, but it is possible to completely fall in love with yourself and be comfortable in your own skin. Start by thanking your body instead of criticizing it. Write down the features or parts you love, and learn to embrace the ones that you do not. Speak to yourself like you would to a friend that was feeling insecure about their flaws. You are beautiful as you are, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. #WeAreMoreThanYellow

Reposted from A-Doc At home in Los Angeles under quarantine, I find myself craving the comfort of the classic Sichuan dishes my mom cooked growing up, like pock-marked woman tofu (mapo tofu). The only problem is, I hate cooking, and the thought of doing it everyday for the foreseeable future fills me with an inexplicable rage. My mom is a great cook. She has a gift for balancing natural flavor with the fragrant chilies and peppercorn of my birthplace, Chongqing, China. She didn’t go to college and worked since she was in her late teens. After we immigrated to Canada, she worked as a cashier for the iconic Canadian donut shop, Tim Hortons. On top of her full-time job outside the home, she cooked for her family every single day of her life. After long shifts on her feet, my mom would come home and make dinner. Still wearing her uniform and smelling like donut grease, she’d walk into our kitchen, put on an apron and get to work—again. While my mom cooked, I was lost in my books, my only goal to excel in school. An artist hustling to make a name for himself, my dad would be locked in his garage studio, painting. Our absence from the kitchen enraged my mom, though she never voiced it directly. All I remember is her profound anger, even as I relished her delicious food. My dad’s studio was humble yet sacred. My mom’s kitchen was a resentful place that was never her own. She was always beholden to others’ well-being, swallowing her words in a society where your worth is only valid if you claim it out loud. Over the years, her cooking came to represent a devil’s bargain to be a second class citizen. Now, seeking the comfort of her dishes but unable to cook them myself, I’m faced with a hard truth: in my quest to succeed as a creative person, I’ve devalued my own mother and upheld the patriarchy. As if cooking her dishes is atonement, I look up a recipe online for mapo tofu. I push myself to focus on the moment, the tactile sensation of a pinch of peppercorn, the sting in my nostrils. A scattering of garlic later, the wok is speaking to me. My intuition takes over. I share some pictures of my Sichuan dishes on our family WeChat thread. My mom replies, “你终于晓得啷个过日子了/ You finally know how to live.” Why I (Yu Gu) wrote the piece: In strange ways, this pandemic has both exacerbated my generational traumas as well as created space to confront them. I hope this story of my family can contribute to a larger collective Asian American consciousness that is resilient and unafraid to reconsider harmful values. YU GU is a multinational filmmaker and visual artist whose award-winning films explore the clash between individuals and systems of power. Her latest feature documentary, "A Woman’s Work: The NFL’s Cheerleader Problem," world-premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival in competition. Variety hailed the film as, “Defiant...a tale of injustice that should speak to many.” Following screenings at over 15 film festivals, two jury awards and a college impact tour across the United States, the film will be broadcast on PBS’s Independent Lens and released digitally in January 2021. Yu co-directed the feature documentary, "Who is Arthur Chu?" (Slamdance 2017, Hot Docs 2017, CAAMfest 2017 Centerpiece). Praised as “Raw, unfiltered and poignant” by Indiewire, the documentary won two festival grand jury awards and was broadcast on World Channel in 2018. She is directing "Interior Migrations," an experimental project documenting the memories of migrant workers in Canada. The first 3-channel short documentary from this project premiered at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s "Every. Now. Then: Reframing Nationhood" exhibit and participated in "The Public – Land and Body," a site-specific installation in Toronto. Yu’s work is supported by the Sundance Institute, ITVS, Tribeca Film Institute, Points North Institute, Hedgebrook, and California Humanities. She was a directing fellow with Firelight Media and Film Independent and was awarded Best Emerging Filmmaker at the 2019 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Yu received her MFA in film production from the University of Southern California and a BA from the University of British Columbia. She is a lecturer at Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film & Media Arts and USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. Yu is a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Film Fatales and the Asian American Documentary Network.

Reposted from A-Doc The day the pandemic became mainstream, we also got a new vocabulary. Phrases like “social distancing,” “non-essential businesses,” “flatten the curve,” “pandemic unemployment assistance” all filled our virtual town halls. But the one that hit our house of four post-grad Asian-Americans hardest was “shelter-in-place.” As Los Angeles’ entertainment industry shuttered overnight, our household’s collective income disappeared. How could we shelter-in-place if we didn’t know if we could even stay in our home? As content creators without massive safety nets, what could we do? Like many other twenty year old freelancers without therapists, we turned to Instagram for emotional support and found out that we weren’t alone. Unión de Vecinos, a chapter of the Los Angeles Tenants Union, was broadcasting live, doing a socially-distanced demonstration at Mariachi Plaza in Boyle Heights right down the street. Tenants have unions? We threw a case of bottled water in the car and joined the demonstration. Soon enough we were signed up on the newsletter, group text, and sat in on the next online meeting. By the next week, I was scouring the internet about the city’s eviction moratorium, sitting in on Zoom calls being translated from Spanish to English, joining several committees under the #FoodNotRent campaign, motivating neighbors to keep their rent money to demand rent forgiveness, and prepared our own letter to our landlord. As a household, we were emboldened to join the fight for housing justice in our own backyard. We recognized that others’ needs for affordable housing and services are much more dire than our own. Boyle Heights’ predominantly Latinx community has been fighting this fight for generations. Our household’s alliance with our neighborhood reminds me of the United Farm Workers in the 1960s and the interracial coalition between Filipinos and Mexican laborers in Delano. This struggle is interracial, long term, and worth fighting for. When we do our biweekly outreaches, flyering, and banner drops, we honor those ancestors. It feels strange to say that I’ve never felt more at home than when we could lose our own. We know we are not alone. Organizations like CCED (Chinatown Community for Equitable Development), KTownForAll, and tenants union chapters in South Central, VyBe (Vermont y Beverly), and Hollywood allowed us to get to know Los Angeles in the most important way: people fighting for the places they love and where they deserve to feel safe. My household was on rent strike for months this year. I don’t think that the conversation of housing insecurity is talked about nearly as much as it should be. I wrote this story because opportunities to learn and uplift our communities don’t have obvious borders, and it’s difficult to be aware of these things if you don’t feel safe or supported. Going through what I did and writing this piece was a statement to myself that my community is my home, and it’s worth fighting for. Justin Ricafort is a Filipino-American writer, filmmaker, and game designer whose work bridges community, advocacy, and modern myth making. Justin graduated from the University of California, San Diego with a Film/Media major and an Ethnic Studies minor in 2018. During college, he was a Programming Intern at Pacific Arts Movement’s San Diego Asian Film Festival and was promoted to Guest Services Assistant Coordinator. After college, Justin worked as a Production Assistant on a variety of film, television, and media productions including Disneyland’s inaugural Galaxy’s Edge launch, the Amazon web series Bulge Bracket, and several independent features in post-production. Justin is also an avid game designer, actively exploring the indie game space and lead designing "The Everyone Shares One Butt Game" board game which was nominated for IndieCade’s 2020 Virtual Anywhere and Everywhere Festival. He is also a contributing film, games, and culture writer at From the Intercom, a website covering a variety of Anglo-Asian media. In 2019, Justin was selected as part of Visual Communications’ 2020 Armed with a Camera Fellowship as one of ten Asian-American fellows set to write and direct their own short film projects.

Reposted from A-Doc I’ve killed nearly every house plant I’ve ever tried to raise. Though I come from a lineage of farmers on my mother’s side, I was an urban dweller who knew little about tending to plants. For women of my Korean grandmother’s generation, gardening and foraging for wild edibles were a part of their daily lives. But I grew up in the American suburbs of manicured lawns and trimmed hedges. I rarely touched the soil. I bought vegetables from stores in plastic bags—the ones that will probably take 2,000 years to disintegrate. During the COVID-19 shutdown in South Korea, the second country to get hit with a critical mass of cases, I reflected on how I have been living so disconnected from nature as I watched the skies clear. I was a part of the problem. And surely, this virus was a call-to-action from Mother Earth. In Busan, the second largest city in Korea, where I currently live, I see women picking wild plants in the mountains—something my grandmother used to do. I am reminded how my current lifestyle, which usually involves being plugged into a phone or a laptop, is so far removed from my agrarian epigenetic roots. Ironically, it was my grandmother whose sacrifices brought my parents to the U.S. in the 1960s and later, my family to a life in the upper middle class suburbs of Miami. For her, having material possessions and driving cars were marks of success. Living close to the earth—raising vegetables and picking herbs— in her lifetime was the definition of poverty. In many ways, COVID-19 was showing us how much we have to lose if we are not mindful of what we take from nature without caring for it. I felt pressed to learn how to keep a plant alive and reconnect with nature. Putting flesh to trees and soil activates certain biomarkers in the body, I learned. The microbes in soil boost your immune system. I walked barefoot in the grasses of Geumnyeongsan. I even hugged a tree. I found myself germinating the seeds of a persimmon, a common Korean fruit. My family used to have a persimmon tree in the yard of my childhood home in Seoul and I remember my 60-something great grandmother climbing it. So after three weeks when my seeds triumphantly sprouted green leaves, I immediately thought of her. This pandemic is nature’s way of telling humans that we are out of sync with nature and that each of us at a spiritual level must commit to living more harmoniously with nature. I believe we as humans, particularly those of us who live in First World countries, have a moral obligation to reflect upon and to address how our individual behaviors are affecting planetary issues, like global warming, the widespread extinction of animal species, and the chemical pollution of the oceans. This pandemic carved out the time for us to reflect and change. When one person on one part of the globe gets infected with a virus, that infection changes the world. Can we reverse that? If one person in the world commits to changing their individual behavior, can that commitment change the entire world? We are all connected, whether you want to believe it or not. Pearl J. Park is an award-winning documentary filmmaker based in Busan, South Korea. In particular, she is passionate about telling the untold stories of the disempowered. Her interest is in harnessing the power of film to highlight important civil and human rights issues. Her first feature documentary was among the first to portray the experience of mental illness from an Asian American perspective. Currently, she is working on a short film about her great uncle, a former activist and political prisoner Noh Wontae, who participated in pivotal student protests during a dictatorship in the 1960s, which then paved the way for the democratization of Korea. She is a member of the New Jersey State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and is a former adjunct instructor at the Fashion Institute of Technology (SUNY) in New York City. https://www.linkedin.com/in/pearljpark/

Reposted from Banana Writers In 1966, I was born in Auckland, New Zealand (NZ). My mother had come to NZ to give birth and have the baby adopted before returning to her country of residence. My parents who had already adopted a Chinese toddler from a HK orphanage sent to NZ in 1963, received a phone call from the Catholic Society: "We’ve got another one here—will you take her?" And so it happened. I was 10 days old, with a "head the size of an orange." Mum and Dad were at an age when they really should have been taking it easy—yet here was child number 10. I am now 48 years old. I am 100% ethnic Chinese. I had always assumed I was part something else, as my face does not look entirely "Chinese." I have been asked if I am a local in countries right through Southeast Asia, the subcontinent and even in Egypt. Weird. I came to Australia in 2003 after living in the U.K. I had looked for my mother before leaving NZ in 1988, but I could not gain access to my records being under 21 and was discouraged from trying further. My adoptive mother: Mum ("adoptive" is so negative) suggested I write to the woman who administered the adoption process many years later (while I was in the U.K.), so I did. The woman was elderly, very kind and sweet but utterly discouraging, unhelpful and just wrong about trying to trace my birth mother. Whether it was her own beliefs or those of the church I cannot say. I do believe she felt she was acting in the best interests of everyone at heart. But if I heeded those letters, I would not have found my mother. She said that no good would come of me trying to trace my birth mother. For whatever reason my mother gave me up, those wounds should not be reopened and cause distress to both parties. She had made assumptions that my mother had come from an impoverished background or may have been a sex worker who had little choice about her child. With that came the likelihood of illiteracy and also the difficulty of trying to trace someone possibly living in a country with poor records. I understand the sentiment behind letting "sleeping dogs lie." However, I didn’t want to leave it there—I was lucky enough to be born in a country where record keeping was accurate. The fact that my mother made a journey from another country all those years ago to give birth was also not lost on me. I just felt I had a decent chance of getting some sort of closure. In 2004, I wrote again to the registry of births deaths and marriages in NZ. Within a week I had a name and a phone number of a relative. I called the number the same night I received the letter and was redirected to my birth mother’s number by the elderly woman on the other end of the phone—who had no idea who I was! By then, I had figured that no one in the family might have known about me—after all, my mother was sent away to hide the birth. I also realised that if she had a family (likely to be Chinese), then the last thing she would want is to have an adult daughter she gave up long ago, making her presence felt. I called. A woman answered. I stammered. I asked for the name I was given in the letter, she replied that it was she. I stammered again. Suddenly I blurted out: “I think I am your daughter” (yeh, real smooth Gab). There was a long silence. A million thoughts raced through my head—but most of all: “Oh sh*t, now I’ve done it—she’s going to hang up and I’ve ruined it all.” Finally she spoke: “What do you want?” Dear readers, all I can say was that I got lucky. I could sense the fear on the other end of the phone: fear of discovery, but there was much emotion too. Who knows what had happened to her in 1965-6 to make a journey by herself to a faraway place in a time when she needed her own mother and family most? I was quick to reassure her that I wanted nothing but to get to know her without upsetting her life. So, we started corresponding by letter and bit by bit over several weeks I pieced together our story. It was grim. Trying to square this away with my "white and righteous" logic, I was outraged and angry but I know that the world is a different place to what it was in 1965. One day, a few months later, I met her. I don’t think I am alone when I say that as a child I had an imaginary "real" mother: she was beautiful, she had a name of my invention and she was the person I wanted to meet in the entire world. When I think back on it now, the name, the looks and features I had picked out for her—well, they were all English and white! Thinking back, the mental image I’d built of my birth mother disintegrated as soon as we started communicating. We spoke a few times by telephone, shared some photographs and emails so I revised my impression of her very quickly—but to what I cannot say. On the day I met her, I was so nervous. I was about to meet a complete stranger who had occupied my thoughts almost daily for as long as I could remember. Here was my dream: to meet my mother, to look at another face and see my own. I’d rehearsed how I was going to behave, how I would sound, and what I would say to her. I wanted to show her and tell her so much. None of this actually happened! I saw her from across the street. I ran over to her, we tentatively said "hello" and I burst into an uncontrollable fit of tears (yup, real smooth episode #2), then in between gulps, apologised profusely for the scene. I don’t know why I did that. I can only think that I had built this day up in my head for so long and I had been so certain about every little detail—yet nothing was how I imagined. I didn’t know what to say or it all came out in a rush. I sat with my eyes glued to this person: “Who was she?” My mother looked like any other Chinese woman of a certain age I have ever brushed past in a grocery store or on the street. I had nothing in common with her yet in other ways—everything I had was hers. And yes, I am ashamed to confess that there was a moment of panic when it sunk in to my banana brain: “Oh. My. God. You are CHINESE!” We ate some bad food at a bad Chinese cafe and talked, shared our stories, laughed—and found we laughed at the same things. And so our relationship began. What I learnt from this experience: 1) I learnt empathy. My experience pales in comparison to hers and the resulting pain and sorrow she has carried in secret for all those years. My mother always thought I would hate her for giving me up. How could I do that after everything she went through? I know full well that if I had stayed with her, life would be very different for us both. She would never be able to marry and have the family she has. I would have very little or no education, few options and life would be grim. 2) My mother is my mother, my family is my family. My mother gave me life but my family is my family as I believe they made me who I am. I learnt my artistic temperament and life view from my adoptive mother: my mum. The way I cook, the way I make beds or don’t clean the house was taught to me by my adoptive mother: Mum. Her approach to life is the one I followed. My bro who gifted me his bike when he outgrew it (I promptly crashed it into a parked car); the bro who helped me with my maths homework (heck—being Chinese I was supposed to be GOOD at maths), the sisters who handmade so many of my clothes, the sister who instilled a love of reading and who influences my book lists to this day, my 23 nieces and nephews who I am nurturing relationships with as adults—they’re my family, these are my values. This is my culture. I have stories of Great Uncle Albert at Gallipoli and I have stories of Dad handing out bananas to enthralled kids on a train while on shore leave in Britain during WWII. I remember playing ladies with Mum when she went to afternoon tea with her friends: crossed ankles, the smell of soap and perfume, good china and cake. These are the stories I have in my memory—not ones of water buffalo, rice fields or tropical market places. It is [sic] 10 years since I first made contact. Things are progressing very slowly and close friends have expressed surprise at the way I have handled the situation, given my usual "Sledgehammer between the eyes" approach to most things in life. Forty-nine years of hurt cannot be undone quickly. There are other people in the mix to consider and at this moment in time we are working on our relationship long distance and enjoying the ride. How much of our adult persona is nurture vs. nature? I believe some things are hereditary. For example, my parents sent me to art school because they heard my mother was artistic. My mother did paint in the traditional Chinese style I found out later, but did not have any formal training. I went to art school in NZ, in the '80s. The training was very much the "European school" style, and my tutors were surprised to see me throwing classic Chinese pottery shapes on a wheel though I was not familiar with this at the time. I also cook the best fried rice of anyone I know—I really am not sure where that came from as I swear to this day that the only rice we had at our table was rice pudding. 3) Let go of the anger. Sure, growing up in white NZ in the '60s, '70s, and '80s was no picnic. I still feel a stab of absolute rage when I hear a: “F*** off back to your own country” or a racial slur which is depressingly common even today. But if I think back without the black-coloured spectacles: well, other ethnic kids, overweight kids, tall kids or disadvantaged kids—they got hell in other ways. And I got out of it pretty well—my life has definitely not been a sad one. I’m still learning to control the rage but once that process started, all this positive creativity started to flow. 4) Change my own thinking. I make a joke sometimes about meeting my mother for the first time and looking through pictures of her family and just thinking in my head: “Oh. My. Good. God…you are ASIAN!” I am working on reining in my own assumptions and prejudices to accept people as they are—though I find myself asking people: “Where are you from?”—the exact same question that drove me into a rage for years. 5) Appreciate the chance I was given at life. Today, I am working towards becoming a professional artist and the relationship I am building with my mother has been instrumental. My work is full of joy. It is my little way of contributing to the world as well as honouring my parents and the woman who gave me life. For someone who really shouldn’t be here and was a product of horrible circumstance I did pretty well. If I can bring a little happiness through my art then I’m doing my job. Oh yes, my birth mother and I both have the same wacky sense of humour and great legs, but we still argue over who is taller! Thanks for reading! Connect with Gabby: Website Instagram Facebook Pinterest

Reposted from Medium DEAR…? To be honest, after the Atlanta shootings, I thought about writing this letter to the shooter, to our allies, or someone else? I struggled with whom this letter could be addressed to. In the shooting’s aftermath, hearing from many Asian sisters, who are friends, collaborators and quite frankly like blood sisters to me, I realized whom this letter really needed to be addressed to. Working WITH badass womxn all over the globe, whom I consider to be like blood sisters too, I thought this letter could be addressed to them and all sisters affected by six of our own Asian sisters being taken from us. SPEAK INWARDS -> OUTWARDS Believe me, it hasn’t always been easy for me to speak my truth. In fact, I spent most of my 38 years on this planet telling people what they wanted to hear. I got so darn good at it, it replaced my own true voice. It wasn’t until I published my first book, "WITH vs AT: Two Prepositions That Changed My Life," and my brother-in-law said to a family member, “It’s nice to see Kyla finally speaking her truth,” that I realized how much of my own voice had been silenced by my inner people pleaser. We’ve all got some inner critic, inner people pleaser, inner something who says, “Who are you to speak out?” But when we speak inwards WITH these inner voices, speaking outwards becomes just a little bit easier. PUT YOURSELF ON THE COVER I was pretty purposeful about putting a picture of myself on the cover of my first book. And not just any picture: a picture of me without make-up, one that reflected my personality, one that showed my double chin (something I’ve always been super self-conscious about, but this was a first step in accepting it). Moreover, on a macro level, I didn’t see a whole bunch of authors in the personal development industry who looked like me. It was time to change all that. YOU DESERVE TO BE ON “STAGE” After my TED@Seoul rehearsal went south, and like really south, I ended up crying on the streets of Gangnam in broad daylight. I called my good friend and Asian sister, MK, who said (and I will never forget her words), “You deserve to be on that stage. You were chosen for a reason. You have something important to say.” You will be happy to hear, MK certainly was, that I took her words to heart. And whenever I’m terrified of getting up on “stage” in front of a lot of people who don’t look like me or being the only one on “stage” who looks like me, I recall her words. Whether it’s a “stage” you’re facing or life, I think we could all save a little space for MK’s words in our hearts. TRANSCEND FEAR FOR THE SISTERHOOD We humans are hardwired to be paralyzed by fear. It’s a safety mechanism to “protect” us. But what if it isn’t about us? Bear with me for a second. When you transcend fear, self-doubt, or anything scary, you show others what is possible for THEM. This is based on a term in psychology: SELF-TRANSCENDENCE. Here’s an example. When I was about to release my first book out into the world, I was paralyzed by fear: What if no one reads it? What if people judge me? What if people make fun of me? The what-ifs fell on me like a stack of bricks burying me beneath them. Fast Forward. Right before one of my biggest in-person workshops ever (think 400 people), a young Korean woman came up to me clutching my book close to her heart and said, “I just wanted to say, I’ve never quite seen a book like this that talks about Korea or someone who looks like you on the cover.” Drop the self-transcendence mic. I SEE YOU. I HEAR YOU. I SUPPORT YOU. Sister, you’re not alone. You never have been. There’s an entire sisterhood out there who wants you to write to them. There’s an entire sisterhood out there who can’t wait to see you speak inwards so they can hear you speak outwards WITH them. Their hearts are beating a little faster when they see you on the cover of a book, a magazine, on TV, or on a “stage.” And they’re inspired over and over again when they see you, hear you, support you transcending fear to speak your truth, because they can see what’s possible for them in you, dear sister. I am part of that sisterhood and so are you. I love you, sister. Love, Kyla, your fellow Asian sister (Dedicated to Daoyou Feng, Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Suncha Kim, Yong Ae Yue, and Xiaojie Tan.) Cover photo credit: Canva