- Hey, everyone, it's your girl Jenn

and I am so excited to film this video for you guys

because the month of May is Asian Pacific Heritage Month

and in the spirit of that, I thought that it would be

very timely to do the Asian American tag.

I wanted to share with you guys my experience

growing up Asian American and my friend Amy gave

this whole concept structure and made it very simple

by creating questions and so I just wanna

dive right into it so let's get started.

I am Korean-American.

I was born and raised in Southern California.

So my parents immigrated from Korea

and they first moved to Chile

and that's where my mom had my brother

but after my parents got their green card,

they were able to come to America and they had me.

And so I would categorize me and my brother

as first-generation because like, my parents didn't speak

any English so we were truly the first generation

to really grow up American here.

The first experience when I realized that I was different

from the rest of the kids, was when I was

in first or second grade, my mom packed my favorite food

which was kare rice which is basically just curry

with rice and it has vegetables and meat

and it's so delicious and I remember

being so excited to eat it for lunchtime

and when I opened the Tupperware, I remember a kid

looking at it and just being so disgusted

and he just called me out, he was like,

"Jennifer packed poop for lunch!"

and I remember being so mortified and so embarrassed

and I just completely lost my appetite

and I don't, I didn't even eat that lunch

and when I got home, I told my Mom that I never wanted her

to pack things like this again.

I told her that I only wanted her to pack like Lunchables

and sandwiches just like normal American food

so that I would fit in.

When I was younger, there was a period where

I was super proud to be Korean.

It happened when I was around like nine years old.

My mom took me and my brother to Korea

for the entire summer, and we stayed at my aunt's

and it was such an amazing experience because for once

like I realized like that everyone looked like me

and I felt really, just like, I just felt like I connected

with everybody and I remember always hanging out

at this park where all the kids used to hang out

and I made a lot of friends because everyone was so

fascinated at the fact that I was American.

And so I would bring like chapter books that I'd packed

and I'd be like (speaks in foreign language),

and everyone was like so impressed and it was just,

it was just a really great time for me

and that's when I was really just like proud of my culture

and when I brought that back to America, like that,

that pride stayed there for a little bit

until I went to middle school and middle school was

when everything just kind of changed for me.

I feel like it was a lot of factors just hitting

all when I was like 11.

It was puberty, it was the fact that I was like chubby

and then the fact that like there weren't that many

Asians in my school.

I remember there was a group of these boys

that walked the same route as me home

and I remember hating when we would like cross paths

because they would always say something to me

and they would say something so like racist.

They would say things like "Hey chink do you wanna

do my homework?"

or "Hey, you dropped your calculator" and now,

I wish that I had the strength to just clap back at them

because at the time, I just didn't say anything,

I was so scared

I was, I was genuinely afraid of my, for, I was afraid

for my life and I wish that I had the courage

to just like stand up to them and be like

"Hey yes, I did drop my calculator, thank you.

"I'm really, really gonna need this when I'm just

"calculating all my finances in the future"

but unfortunately, I wasn't like that.

I think this also crossed at the same path

when my parents made me go to Korean school on Saturday

and I was so pissed that they were making me and my brother

go to school an extra day.

Like we already had Monday through Friday

and now they're adding like a whole new curriculum

for Saturday and like we also, they also made us go

to church every Sunday so I felt like I had

no days off, like ugh!

So we had to go to Korean school and there was this

one instance with a teacher that just really stuck with me.

She was telling us that when people ask us what our

ethnicity is, we need to say that we are Korean-American.

The Korean always has to be first and I remember being very

unsettled by it because I felt like in my heart that

I was American so I rose my hand and I told her my piece

and she said, "No, you are always going to be Korean.

"You're Korean-American."

And I just said like, "Why can't I just be American?

"I was born here, I speak the language, I don't understand."

I just felt like this big distance between my culture

and what I was brought into.

I associated being Korean as a negative thing because

number one, the bullying sucked and number two, I would

see the way people would treat my parents.

Like my parents didn't speak English very well.

I would just see the way people would treat my parents

because of their accent.

People lose their temper, people get frustrated,

people treat you like you're an idiot when you have

an accent and it just really frustrated me and my Mom

is already kind of a shy, timid person and I think

when she was thrown into this world in America

as like a foreign person, I think that

just made her reclusive even more.

One stereotype that I absolutely struggled with growing up

was the model minority stereotype.

The fact that all Asians are amazing at crunching numbers

and they're just really great academically blah, blah, blah

and I think from an outsider's perspective

people might think wow like, that's actually a really

good stereotype, like people just think you're really smart

but it puts a lot of pressure on you especially

when you are not academically smart.

Like I, growing up I tried my best to be a good student.

Like I would literally spend hours and hours doing

my homework and all this stuff and it just

wouldn't register to me.

Like I was always like a B minus, C student, like one time

I got a D and like, in an Asian household like that

is unacceptable, like my B minuses were such disappointments

to my parents and they would always compare me to like

other kids and because I wasn't the best student, I felt

this distance between my Asian American peers that were

very studious so I just found like a new group of friends.

Like friends that I can connect with artistically

and creatively and obviously like there was

Asian Americans there too but it was like a whole mix

and it was really cool like we would,

you know burn CDs for each other, we would go to shows,

we'd go thrifting and I felt really blessed that I was able

to have my own community in high school.

Yes I can speak Korean.

I would probably say I speak the equivalent of like

a seven year old, maybe a six year old now.

Like I know how to get by.

I know, you know, how to ask for directions, order food,

have like light conversation but anything with depth,

I'm just like ugh like, I don't know.

When I watch the Korean news, I'm just kinda like,

I don't know what they're saying.

They have to talk a lot slower.

It was a lot better when I was living with my parents

obviously, like I speak Konglish with my parents

so I'll speak Korean and then I'll just fill

in English words where I don't know the Korean words.

I just don't understand like where did all those years

of Korean school go, like, did I just bury them in a box?

Like it's, I don't know but I want

to change this desperately and so I'm just gonna do

like an open call now.

I'm looking for a Korean tutor if you are based

in the Los Angeles area, I would love for you

to DM me on my Instagram, it's IMJENNIM.

I guess you just tell me your name, your age,

what school you go to or if you did and just like

what kind of program would you put me on for, ya know,

my Korean tutoring session.

Being Korean-American absolutely affected my relationship

with my parents.

There was a lot of frustration and anger because

of all the miscommunication that would happen.

There were so many times where I would just try

to talk to my parents but there are just words

that I just didn't know and vice versa and we would

just have yelling matches.

I would scream at them being like,

"Why can't you (bleep) learn English"

and they would just say like, "Why don't you know Korean,

"like you are Korean."

And so it always felt like this battle and growing up

my entire life, I felt this huge disconnect

from my brain and my mouth, like I felt like I couldn't

say exactly what I was feeling or I couldn't articulate

and put into words so writing was a nightmare for me.

I hated writing because I would just look at the paper

and be like, "I just don't know what to say."

I don't know, like maybe was it because I was juggling

two languages, like I don't know.

I mean, but I just look at other people and I see like

you grew up with like four languages and you're fine

so I don't know, maybe it's just like a personal thing

but I've always had trouble communicating and so

with my parents with that language barrier, it was just

like an extra level of just ugh, just fogginess

and I just, I was just very angry growing up

and I feel really bad for my parents because

when I was a teenager, I was not, I mean I was

kind of a nightmare so now I wanna chat

about the power dynamics because I feel like

that was kind of off with my parents because when we were

at home, obviously my parents were in charge so we'd listen

to them but when we were out and about, we would always

be translating and speaking, especially for my Mom

and it's because my Mom is a very shy and fearful person

and I don't know if she was always this way because I

didn't know her when she was younger but I think it's

because of the judgment that people would give because

something really traumatic happened

to her while she was out here so

So when I was in preschool,

I remembered my Dad picked me

up from school and I knew something was wrong

because normally my Mom picks me up from school so we

go home and I go to my parents' room and I see my Mom

just lying on the bed with a towel on her face

and so I asked my Dad like, "Is everything okay?"

and he says, "Oh she's just napping."

We found out later that someone had robbed the store.

My parents had a really small shop that sold

women's clothes in El Monte and someone had a knife

and he told her to give her the money in the register

and my Mom refused because that was all the money

we had and so she said no

and he sliced her face and of course he took the money

and she was a very fearful, fearful person after that.

She never spoke and I think it took her a very long time

to recover from that and when she told me that story