I recently had the opportunity to create a Facebook account (at the constant insistence of my friends), and one of the first pages that popped up contained instructions for creating a personal profile. Based on your motives for creating an account, you could insert anything from family, education, life events, favorite movies, etc. The possibilities were endless, but as I hovered over the first blank, I realized that this was a much bigger decision than I had expected. Millions of internet users around the world would be able to examine and judge the person I breathed life into, purely based off of the info in my profile. So I was forced to contemplate, 'Who is June Lee, or rather, what about her is worthy of posting on Facebook?'
As I pondered the millions of paths my choice of self-description could lead to, I realized that my identity lay not in my hobbies, but in my family roots. I immigrated to the United States with my parents at 18 months old from Seoul, Korea, and while I do not have many recollections of living in Korea, my parents convinced me that only a sense of identity and pride can define a true Korean. While many "gyo-po children" (Koreans living on foreign soil) arriving around this age took on new names and lifestyles modeled after the "Yankee culture," my parents believed firmly that my brother and I could lead a revolution of Korean-Americans equally rooted in two cultures.
Before our move, America had been but a name referenced in my parents' conversations, but immediately after arriving in sunny California, we were immersed fully into the "American Dream." For every new venture that expanded our involvement in American society, a similar one in Korean was sure to follow. Some of my earliest memories of preschool involve working through mini-homework packets in two different languages, one for school, and one for Saturday Korean School, where I graduated this past year. As my interest in writing and public speech grew into a passion, I would never have imagined entering only English tournaments. From essay competitions, district speech contests, to competitive academic summer programs, my life revolved around two different cultures that merged and intertwined until the distinction between them blurred, forming a single heritage unique to our family. As I grew older, the expectation that I would retain an equally American and Korean identity developed until I was expected not only to feel pride in my dual identity, but to become an ambassador for both nations to my peers. Soon, I began giving presentations to my school classmates about aspects of Korean culture in the US. After listening to a lecture given by the Korean Consul General to San Francisco, I was inspired to start my own blog, "The Korea Book," and research the future of inter-Korean relations, in addition to setting the goal of working in the foreign service to increase the US's role in East Asian security. Whether it was flying across the World Championship tournament arena in a crisp white Taekwon-do uniform, or eventually starting my own student-led cultural fairs, there was never a moment in my childhood where I felt far from the heritages my lifestyle represented.
As I reflected on the process that had led to my Facebook-induced self discoveries, I realized 'who you are' comes not just from your preferences for favorite food/ movies/ books, but also the cultural environment that envelopes you through childhood. If we had never moved to the United States, I would probably be blind to everything but schoolwork and study, much less exposed to the diversity of the Silicon Valley, and nowhere near as determined to one day become the US ambassador to Korea. For now though, my blank Facebook profile beckons.
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