July 31, 2011
Dear Dragon
I was part of an online discussion today based on a talk about identity, self, and embracing one’s otherness which developed after watching Thandie Newton’s TED talk. The discussion was mostly about how to give our kids a solid foundation in both their Korean and white-Western identities. As for me, this is an expanded version of what I had to say.
The issue for me is balance. How do I give my child balance? I want my kid to be safe and secure in his or her Canadian, Korean, and Canadian-Korean identities. Being part of a group has such benefits and blessings. When you are part of a group, you have a sense of belonging, a set of boundaries which is easier to exist in than boundless and infite possibilities. It is easier to see yourself in others, and it is comforting to know that you share a part of who you
are with others. I want to give you that gift.
But at the same time, I never want your identification with your cultural and ethnic heritage to prevent you from seeing yourself as part of the human family, or on a smaller level, to prevent you from seeing other parts of yourself in groups which are supposedly ‘different’ from yourself. I have known so many 1.5 and 2nd generation kids who have grown up hearing their parents say ‘You aren’t Canadian/American, you are __________. Don’t forget it! Don’t forget who you really are!’ They grew up with their Canadian or American peers. They went to school together, they played together, they watched most of the same tv shows together. They share a part of themselves with their peers, but in the back of their heads they hear their’s parents’ voices ‘Don’t forget it!.’ And then those same kids go to the ‘Motherland’ and are told they aren’t ____ enough because they grew up in another culture. There’s a profound disconnect that happens when there are so many different voices telling you what you are…or maybe what you are not.
So what do I, as a mother, do? Over the years I have incorporated many different idenities into myself. And maybe even more importantly, I have no qualms about entering a new room, sitting down as an outsider, and throwing myself into a new world whether I eventually begin to identify with that world or not down the road. I don’t know how I developed that ability, but I did. The problem is how to teach you how to do the same. How do I teach you to negotiate many identities with grace?
I want you to be able to say. I am Canadian. I am Korean. I am Canadian-Korean-Korean-Canadian. I want you to belong and be accepted. But in nurturing communities for you, I don’t want to prevent you from seeing yourself as part of the great human story and even the wider world of the universe. I don’t want your community bonds to prevent you from embracing additional identities and communities as they are presented to you. After all, your mother went to another country, fell in love with a ‘different person,’ and added an additional identity onto her sense of self, so what is to prevent you from doing the same?
I was thinking about your previous blog post on multiple identities, as a way to reassure and comfort myself. Thank you for posting another one. It was very timely, for me.
I’ve been feeling like a fish out of water lately. As a person not comfortable in my body. As a person not comfortable in my body among people who are at least somewhat more comfortable in theirs. As a person whose first decade of life was the 1970s, but who’s now living in this creepy & strange world called 2011. Feeling like the culture of the past is where I’m “from”, but knowing that past culture was far less accepting of a core aspect of my identity. And of course, feeling out of place as a foreigner living in a foreign country.
I feel like I’m in a Venn diagram with multiple circles, but somehow I end up outside all of them.
I feel like I’m in a Venn diagram with multiple circles, but somehow I end up outside all of them.
That^^
Actually, as maybe you can imagine, that ain’t half the story. haha
It’s a really lovely idea to write these letters for your baby, to give to him/her when he/she is ready.
I think you’re already answering your own ‘But how?’ question by writing the letters and letting your child identify with you and see you clearly first, so they’ll be confident to embrace the world’s (and their own) potentialities with an open heart. ^_^ I wish my mum (or dad) had done something like this for me, it would’ve made a difference! 
I don’t think I’ve fully worked out ‘but how’ yet, but like everything else in my life, this blog is a blessing because it gives me the opportunity to start working things out through my writing
I really do hope though that the letters will help our child ‘get’ it’s parents more as it grows up^^
Just catching up on my reading- congratulations to you! How exciting!
Thanks Mary! Super exciting^^
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