by William Landers, ETA ’20
There is one question that everyone asks me, if not with their lips, then with their eyes: “You’re Korean. Why don’t you speak it?” I’ve known how to say hello and thank you in Korean for as long as I can remember, but that barely counts. Many of my peers quickly gain confidence in their Korean, at least enough to survive. Yet I often feel lost in the noise.
Back home, the force that Toni Morrison called “the white gaze” obfuscated me as a foreigner, an infiltrator. That gaze, the way that white identity depends on othering to survive, drowned my own voice beneath a wail. It screeched that I don’t belong. Just ask the classmate who was curious if I could translate Gangnam Style, the teacher who asked me what country my parents were from or the university orientation staff who offered to guide me to the check-in desk for Chinese foreign students. It matters not to the white gaze that I took only French and Spanish classes in school. It matters not that my parents are whiter than Swiss cheese. It matters not that I am a native English speaker and could navigate to the correct check-in desk unattended. It matters only that I look like a foreigner in a white space. I used to think that I could blend in by silencing my Korean half, softening the hard stares by appeasing them. But my labored performance played to a deaf audience.
If history does not repeat, then it certainly rhymes. I expected a new status quo in South Korea, but life here often rhymes with my past. While the white gaze casts me as a foreigner back home, I am seen as a native here. While many Americans view me with suspicion, most Koreans simply don’t regard me with interest. I am invisible. At least, until I am spoken to. The interaction often follows a predictable beat: a question posed in Korean, a louder second attempt and a disbelieving third crash through the air. Sometimes, it sounds like apologetic confusion. Other times, the intonation reveals frustration or dismissal . But it always grates against my ears. The crescendo peaks as each waiter, shop owner or random pedestrian’s eyes ignite with expectation and then darken with disappointment. My face speaks first, but it lies. I blend in as long as no one talks to me, but I can always hear the strange music produced between those predictable beats and rhymes.
Languages can bridge cultures. I want that bridge between my American and Korean halves. Yet, my history’s rhymes give me pause. I hear them in each confused and frustrated Korean voice. I hear them in each frivolous complaint lodged by an offended white foreigner, as if being stared at were the highest form of discrimination. I hear them in the confident intonation of my peers, who employ their growing lexicons with light joy instead of heavy baggage. I hear these rhymes blend in a melody, together saying I belong neither here nor there. That I will never be good enough, so I shouldn’t bother. Maybe I need some earplugs. Maybe then, I could learn decent Korean. Maybe then, I could build some bridge to my alienated heritage. It’s too bad the melody is in my mind, and the ringing in my ears would only get louder.
[Featured Photo by Julia Wargo]