Being a 1.5

Being part of the 1.5 generation in America is a weird thing, in my opinion. I suppose it's interesting, because it DOES give me both a familiar and foreign view of both Korean and American cultures. It works like this:

Originally, I used to draw a really heavy line between my Korean life and American life. Korea stayed at home, and only in the home, and when I was outside, I tried to be all-American. It was kind of difficult, actually. Cultures aren't really meant to be blocked off like that, are they? There were a lot of times the two seemed to overlap for me, which kind of left me confused and unsure about what to do when I thought only possibilities were going all-Korean or all-American.

A lot of the time, especially early on, I looked down on people who acted really Korean "outside," when they talked about Korean music, TV, people, etc. Since I went to a mostly White elementary school, I totally didn't know about any of these things, and it made me feel pretty clueless. Whenever I saw Korean people being more Korean than me, I'd think, We live in AMERICAAAAAA not Korea! It bugged me the most when people would talk in Korean so that no one else around them understood what they were talking about.....

On the other hand, I ended up getting caught up in Korean music and dramas later on, when I entered a middle school with a much larger Asian population, and especially in high school, when my Korean got better from watching so much TV :). After getting to know more of Korean pop culture, I found myself being one of those Korean Kids who brought up Kpop when meeting other Koreans for the first time. It was an amazingly easy way to get to know people quickly. It was kind of a special commonality I had with the people I brought it up with, since most other people in America didn't really know about Kpop.

Overall, now, I think my Koreanness and Americanness should be kept in balance. Denying any part of my heritage or learned culture would really be dishonest, but at the same time, I don't want to exclude anyone with a cultural wall. And perhaps, then, instead of seeing disadvantages, I can see the benefits of both being Korean AND being American. :D