[Music]
my name is audrey
young i'm 22 years old
and i was born in guangzhou south korea
i grew up in koreatown
i went to a catholic school from
kindergarten through 9th grade
and so that catholics go upbringing and
my korean american church really defined
my social life
and also extracurricular activities i
think i had a pretty
uh sheltered life like it's very
particular like the catholic school
experience
and then i went to boarding school so i
went away from home
in koreatown and went to connecticut
for four years and then i went to pomona
college
coming back to california i didn't
really want to come back to california
but that made the most sense financially
so
i did that and it was a really good
experience
my mom was a school teacher or she
taught in a hagwon and she met my dad
after going on blind dates 30 times
and they met and in 15 days they got
engaged
and my dad was studying at ucla at the
time he was
like on the process of getting a phd my
parents like had
their like honeymoon phase like in
america in this apartment actually and
it was almost time for me to be born
my grandpa had cancer so they had to go
back and they had me there and they
brought me back
so i was just born in korea but i never
really lived there
my dad actually doesn't live here um
our family is like kiraki like we
he lives in korea and he's lived in
korea for 10 years
and my mom and my sister and i live here
they're not technically divorced
he from what i know he started the ucla
phd program
but he quickly like developed an
interest in
computer network engineering three three
years later
so he started a business that company
lasted for a while but it sort of went
down in 2008
but stayed as a shell company to
maintain our immigration status
my dad went to korea
around the same time because he needed
to help his parents
with their land and then the south
korean government was trying to take it
away
is how my father has described it to me
and
so he felt the filial duty to go back
and help his parents out and from what
i've observed
like i think just the work that he did
like helping his parents out also served
his own like
ambitions and interests so he stayed
um and it's sort of uh still
contentious between my parents like
they're
never gonna get divorced it seems but um
it's still like
being figured out and i'm still like
piecing together things so
yeah yeah i was in third grade when he
went back
and he would like come back every year
or so
but it became more and more infrequent
and
in high school i think that was
sort of the time when he sort of went
like completely
radio silent for a bit because
i still don't know all the details but
um the economy was really bad or his
work wasn't going very well so
and that period was when like my mom had
to start working
she had to start working a little before
that but and
and i was like trying to go to boarding
school and trying to figure that out
realizing i'm not a citizen i'm not i
don't have a green card
so i have to work harder for
financial aid because i can't do fafsa
so i think that's when it sort of like
sort of came came like i became curious
more so i started asking more questions
i think
there's just the term money like ton was
such
a present thing like never
i never identified as low income i don't
think i really felt
ashamed of it as well like i think i was
we had a healthy relationship but i
understood that
we are of a low-income household never
really asked why
or what not all i knew was that i needed
to
work hard and get a scholarship if i
wanted to do what i want to do which is
go
to boarding school in that specific
point in my
time and i also realized that not
being born in the states was a huge
hindrance
i didn't quite understand the details of
why but i just knew that
not having a green card meant getting
scholarships was much harder
and that sort of led to the series of
questions like why don't i have a green
card
i've been living here my whole life i've
never lived in korea
and it sort of came like very slowly
like
once the anxiety of getting into college
was resolved first of all i started
asking more questions
i got my green card last year last
january so
the anxiety sort of like spiked as i was
reaching graduation
because i was quickly realizing that
after college like i might have to go
back to korea
and like i might not be able to come
back so
i think the curiosity was sparked
in high school because i had to apply to
high school and i had to
get financial aid that's what like
brought it into my consciousness
most i think undocumented students or
people experiencing
similarities in immigration status
realizing
like applying for college but i learned
of it
as i was applying to high school so i
feel like i've had a longer like four
years of longer relationship with that
question
even though i was not mature enough to
sort of
seek out answers the last time
i went to korea was this past summer and
before that the last time i went to
korea was
in third grade when my dad sort of
permanently moved to korea
i didn't know that it was going to be
permanent as i said
i was just living my life of like going
to camp or whatnot i
i just didn't question why we didn't go
back to korea
but it turns out when you have when you
leave the country
you have to renew your visa
we were just extending our visa status
our visa had expired
but you can't extend your status if you
leave the country
so it sort of became this weird like
um product of a lot of immigration laws
that
i had to stay in america i couldn't
leave the country so
i didn't leave the country for 13 years
and i was as i was approaching
graduation of college
i was being hit with the fact that like
if my status
in america wasn't resolved i would
either become undocumented
or i could like get like a f1 visa a
student visa and go to grad school
which was like what i was trying to do
or
i go back to korea and i try to renew my
or like get another visa which was like
a 50 50 chance
and yeah so those were the options and
i just didn't know what it was like like
america is all i knew
with my conscious adult life so
we weren't really talking to my dad very
often
i still am not in very like close
contact with my father
my mom said that it was because our like
like phone card expired but that's like
not really
even an excuse like i think she was just
tired
in her relationship with my father and
that's like didn't lay a bridge
for me and i didn't have like an adult
relationship with my dad until i went to
korea last summer
so it was just like if i go to korea i
assume i'll
live with my dad but i don't know what
he's doing
i don't know what's going on i don't
know what korea looks like
i don't remember anything so it was
anxiety-inducing
i was just trying to stay here just
trying to get into grad school
i didn't really have time to like
think it through why i was anxious and
scared and
trying so hard so i see sort of
two paths
for my five-year plan i
really want to live in korea for a while
as a korean-american because
i think i was i know
i was never supposed to grow up here my
parents that was not part of the plan
for my parents
they were planning on going back with me
and my sister
after my dad was done it feels like sort
of
a mistake when i went back for the first
time i f
i just felt like there was a ghost or
not even audrey
like who could have existed but never
did
um and just learning about everything
that is south korean culture as an
adult was so different but also so
familiar
so i want to give time
to that part but also i have this life
that i have lived
in america and i think coming back from
korea really
like highlighted the fact that los
angeles is my home
because it has felt like a homecoming
and
and i want to grow as the audrey that i
am
here as well so
it's sort of like a toss-up like i don't
know if i will
like actively have found a job
in korea so i can pursue that part
of my life i guess or i could
be in la or maybe in new york i don't
know
i think if i hadn't if i had become
undocumented or
if i hadn't been able to leave and visit
korea
i think i would have had a very not very
but
a more understandable korean-american
experience of like oh like you know
find a job develop a career become a
professional
hopefully be successful enough to be a
speaker at nclc
like sort of give back to the korean
american community
knowing who i am but when i went to
korea
i think my fluency really helped me
immerse um and i was there for three
months
and in five years i would have gotten my
citizenship
for america so i would be able to live
in korea without coming back
which is funny it's just all very funny
so short answer is that i see two paths
and i don't know which one is going to
happen and maybe i won't even
take either i don't know where life is
going to take me obviously
my name is audrey young chang and this
is my korean american story
[Music]
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