I’ve been sitting at this café for over two hours waiting for my next class to start. I started journaling this summer, so I took out my notebook and started to write. and when I was done, I guess I wasn’t really done, because this blog post kind of turned into an extension (or a prologue?) of my journal entry.
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I was born in Shinjuku, Tokyo, one of the largest metropolises in the world. I lived blocks away from Koreatown, an area of Tokyo that has one of the highest concentration of foreigners in Japan.
My mother’s parents are originally from Jeju Island in South Korea. My mother has only ever lived in Japan, but she is considered a zainichi kankokujin (literally “Koreans living in Japan”). This is a specific term used to identify people of Korean descent who came to Japan during or shortly after World War II. Zainichi Koreans in Japan today still face prejudice and discrimination, because some believe that Zainichi receive underserved benefits from the Japanese government, that they (we?) are recipients of privileges that take away from the well-being and prosperity of real Japanese citizens. Many still hide their Korean identities for (very real) fears of discrimination, which my mother and her family had to do as well.
My father’s side of the family is from Bogota, Colombia. My father, aunt, uncle, and grandparents immigrated to the United States fifty years ago in pursuit of the American dream, a better life for themselves and future. My dad grew up in Queens, New York and came to Japan in his twenties and lived as a gaijin (foreigner) there until he moved back to New York a few years ago.
Immigration, race, identity, integration, privilege, transnationalism, multiculturalism… before I had the vocabulary to discuss and write about these “issues” at Wellesley, my family had lived it. I was, I guess, living it as well.
Immigration has been and will forever be concepts ingrained in my families’ history, and the story of how my brother and I came to be. We are products of a complex clash of cultures, products of the struggles and triumphs of our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, who learned to speak languages as foreign to them as they were to their new homes, survived hatred in the form of racism and ignorance, worked hard not because they loved their jobs but so that their kids would have to work even a little bit less.
So when people (I) talk about immigration and emigration issues, the losing and gaining of citizenship, of belonging and not belonging to a nation/community, I can’t extricate myself from the stories.
When we discuss the issues Denmark and surrounding countries currently face with the largest refugee crisis in the world since WWII in class, when I read stories of families making their way from Syria to Sweden, I’m reminded of what an incredible thing it is for me to be here in Copenhagen right now.
The hard work (and luck) of my family has allowed me to study at Wellesley College, and my brother at Brown University. And now, I get to live in a country faaar away from anywhere I consider home or connected to my roots for four months not because I am looking for a lost family member, not because I had to run away from a warzone, not because I need work, not because my life was in danger… but because I can and want to.
So, I am grateful. As I sip on one of the best cups of coffee I’ve had since I’ve gotten here, and look out the café window toward the grey-blue copenhagen sky, I’m reminded of how grateful I am.
