I was 11 years old.
I was 30,000 thousand feet up in the
air. I was flying from South
Korea to Vancouver, Canada.
And I knew that when I landed, I
would be in this new world
that I'd have to live in,
and I'd have to be a different
person.
My name is Jennifer Yoon, but I was
born Yoon Yae Gi. My
mom wanted me to be named Esther,
Sharon, something kind of 'Old
Testamenty', a good, like
Christian name.
She is a very devout Christian,
and even my Korean name had
a Christian meaning,
and I didn't like any of it, it
sounded no disrespect, but it sounded, you know, not me.
And
then, as I was sitting there in the
plane, ruminating over what
am I going to be called,
I saw her.
She was blonde, beautiful,
looked all-American lounging on a
couch, and I loved
her.
I just wanted to be just like
her.
It was Jennifer Aniston, and I
asked my mom, 'What's her name?' And
she said "Jennifer."
And I was like
I like, "Hmm I like that name."
So we landed.
And my mom led me to the immigration
office.
I sat down and this big
immigration officer kind of peered
over at me.
He asked me, "What's your name young
lady?" And I said, "Jennifer!
My name is Jennifer!"
And ever since then I've been called
Jennifer.
After I got off the plane, and I
was in this new world, it was
a complete whirlwind.
I have a lot of smells,
like the smell of Dollarama, and Home
Depot, or a Canadian Tire.
Even now when I go back I'm like,
'Oh, right.' I'm
transported back to the first
feeling I had
when I completely
felt like I was on a new planet.
And it was comforting
in one sense
to have a name that was
recognizable, that other people
could pronounce and really
see me by,
really recognize me by.
But also at the same time I think
there was a tremendous sense of
confusion with that name, because being
called a different name now,
when you call, "Jennifer!" I will
turn my head, but then
it took me a little bit
to realize, "Oh this my name" and
kind of get that
recognition for
myself of that name.
I actually did not like it for a
long time when people called me
my Korean name,
because first of all they would
butcher it.
The amount of Yaggi Yoon that
I would hear.
It's pronounced Yae Gi.
It broke my heart a little bit, and
also the other part of it was,
I think there was a sense that when
you read on a piece of paper,
Yae Gi Yoon.
I kind of felt like, whoever
was calling that name, always had
like a quizzical brow.
It was like cocking their eyebrows,
"Yae Gi Yoon?"
They expected someone who didn't
speak English,
who didn't assimilate to a culture,
and Jennifer was emblematic,
and a symbol of me saying, 'Hey
I'm a Canadian, I'm part of this
society,
I'm part of this culture.'
I was in Quebec and I was trying to
get my health care,
and just finished college.
I needed health care, you know,
and I realized on my
rent, on my bail (lease) it
says Jennifer Yoon,
because that's what the landlord
knows me by. That's what everyone in
the world,
except for my parents and the legal
system, knows me by.
And I brought this piece
of paper
to get my health card, and it took
me four months.
It should've taken like maybe a
week, tops. One meeting
to the Régie and it should have been
done.
And I kind of realized, you know,
what's the point of having this
Korean name if no one calls
me by that.
If I change my name legally
to Jennifer, a lot
of the legal headaches that I
encountered
during this episode would not really
be there.
And then I started thinking,
is there something to be lost
by changing my name from Yae Gi
to Jennifer?
And yes there is.
I think there really is.
The world that I lived in for the
first half of my life,
and the world that I live in now,
are so different, and
the ties that I have to Korea
and everything
that is there, my family, my
childhood, are getting more and more
tenuous as the years go by.
And I think my name,
Yae Gi, is one of the few things I
have left
that reminds me I come from that
place.
I am still of that world.
I absolutely feel like I have two
identities sometimes having these
two names.
I want
to reconcile the two, but –
I even thought about getting a
tattoo of my Korean name
until I spent some time in Korea and
I realized if I
worked in Korea it would be kind of
silly to have my name tattooed.
I'm
still working that out, trying to
slowly but surely integrate two
identities,
and two things that these two names
mean to me.
I think it's our heritage because
we're a country made up of
immigrants and whether we
know it or not,
our ancestors many of them changed
it. People continue to change their
names,
when they come to Canada now, and I
think it's part of our identity.
I know
having two names is really
confusing, and I know not changing
my legal name
to the name that I prefer that most
people call me by is kind of a pain,
but it is important for me to keep
it because
it's an homage,
and it's really – my Korean
name is a love letter and
in a way that my parents
wrote to me,
and they decided upon my
name.
And I don't want to let
go.