(gentle piano music playing)
- My name is Hope Sacco.
I'm 18, sorry, I turn 19 in a month,
so I was getting that mixed up,
and I was born in Hartford, Connecticut.
I grew up in St. Louis
so I was there from ages three to six,
but I then moved to Baltimore
when I was seven, for my dad's job.
I guess I would definitely say that
I grew up in Baltimore.
Like I think that,
living in Baltimore has mostly shaped who I am,
but when I think of, like my formative years,
I think of St. Louis.
I just remember my parents always telling me
to like be kind
and having a lot of fun all the time,
but also like wanting to preserve that main value
of like being a good and kind person.
And I think that, that's definitely affected who I am.
I go to a high school that,
or I went to a high school that's 83% black, so,
and I think there's like five Asian people there,
and that's including me, and I'm mixed.
So I definitely felt like I couldn't
navigate that identity in high school.
And I thought that representation at my high school,
of like people of color was really important,
at least, or like,
having diversity in extracurriculars and stuff.
So that definitely affected
like how I spent my time in high school.
I felt like there was a lot of inequality
manifesting in like, the school itself.
So I kind of tried to work to fix that when I was there.
I was the lead editor of my school's newspaper.
So I tried to kind of find more ways,
like more community outreach,
to kind of reach out to different communities,
like specifically the Asian community at my school,
because I felt like
we're really underrepresented and like,
we need to value those voices in our newspaper.
It was a lot.
I also, yeah,
I think that a lot of my experience in high school
has been like touched by race.
I went on a civil rights trip,
in like the spring of last year before COVID,
or maybe in like the winter of last year before COVID,
and that was what spurred me to do that,
through my school newspaper,
because I saw like people making these immense sacrifices,
and you're like, oh, what am I doing for my community?
So that was what made me want to do it,
but it's still hard.
Like, even if you're not
making those huge sacrifices where you're like bleeding,
you know,
and then I that's when I feel bad
saying that it's hard,
like my experience as a minority,
or half of a minority is hard
because I'm not experiencing stuff like that
but it's still, a lot sometimes.
I think what's unique about being biracial
is that,
well, one,
you never feel like you're
enough of like what you are,
like I'm never gonna feel like I'm white enough or,
or Caucasian enough,
but I'm also never going to feel like I'm Korean enough.
And then I think it got to the point where
I asked myself, like, what could I do to rectify that?
I think that most of my childhood was mostly monocultural
in like the sense of being American,
because I had an Italian and Irish dad
and my mother was adopted, when she was five,
so I never really experienced Korean culture
in the sense of like my household.
And I feel like a lot of what connects
Korean people to their culture is like their families.
And I was disconnected from that side of my family.
So yeah, so coming to
Sejong camp was like a way that I
tried to become closer to my Korean identity.
But I don't think I'll ever feel
like balanced,
in a sense.
And I guess I think that's an issue that every
mixed person
experiences.
My experience at Sejong has definitely been complicated.
I owe this camp so much, definitely,
for like, making me feel more safe in my identity.
But, an I think that it's a really good place
for people that are Korean, even me.
But I think my experience is still a little different,
like being here, it really emphasizes the, oh God,
I'm not Korean enough thing.
I'm like physically, I'm just not Korean enough.
You know?
And I think that everyone comes here
because they feel like that internally,
but for me, it's like, oh God,
I'm in this environment where no one looks like me in it.
And I guess sometimes I feel like my experience
can't be shared here as a mixed person.
I mean, I know everyone will be so accepting
and like want to hear about it,
but my experience was kind of different
so I don't know how much other people can relate to me.
Yeah, I would definitely say I have to work harder
for my Korean identity.
That's not really fair though.
Like I think all mixed people
have to work really hard for their identities,
or to understand their identity.
I wouldn't be here
if I didn't think that it was worth it
to understand my Korean identity;
it's hard to be in this environment
and think that it's not worth it.
I started going here
in, probably when I was about 12,
because that's when my family went to Korea.
So that's when I got to like go back to my mom's home,
or like, where she was born.
An experience like that is pretty magnifying.
I don't know how I could have gone through that experience
and not have wanted to get closer to my Korean identity.
Like, I saw, the shack where my mother was raised
and it was like concrete and covered in graffiti.
And I'm just like sitting there
like feeling so disconnected from it,
and just feeling so disconnected from Korean culture,
and just like my mom's story.
Like, I feel no connection
to like the shack where my mother was raised.
Like, I don't know.
It just all feels really foreign to me, I guess,
because my mother was adopted,
and I wasn't really raised like,
learning about what her life could have been
like if she wasn't adopted, I guess.
I definitely think she feels guilty sometimes
in the same way that I do.
Like I'm not Korean enough.
Definitely, like,
and that she's not the Korean ajumma,
or like the Korean mom,
who's like making us fancy little bento box lunches.
I think that that might've been part of it.
I definitely think that was part of it,
but I hate to think she would think that way,
because, I don't know,
that's, I don't,
I don't blame, her for that at all.
You know, when people see me, they don't, like,
they're a lot of the reactions I experience from people
or like, discussions that I have with people,
they don't know that my mother's an adoptee.
Especially to people like, to Caucasian people,
I'm just Asian, (laughs) like, and I think,
and I found that really difficult at my high school.
I had not the best friends in high school,
but when I would talk about my Asian experience,
they would say things like, oh, Hope thinks she's Black.
Like Hope thinks she's a minority.
I wouldn't, yeah.
I don't know where they would get that from.
But it's so interesting to me.
Like when I'm here,
I think that people see me
in a totally different way.
Like when I'm around Korean people,
they definitely see me in a totally different way
than like white people do.
Like to white people,
I think that I'm just like, Korean.
Like I, I'm not, they don't consider me white,
but here they probably consider me whiter, than,
I, it's so weird.
But as far as how
being the daughter of an adoptee has affected me,
I'm really lucky to say
that my mom has done a lot to compensate
for the fact that she was adopted.
And I feel bad that she felt like she had to do that.
But, I don't know, that's not something
that I blame her for,
and upset, for her for, like,
I think there's a lot of things she brings to the table
that she wouldn't, you know, she was like that,
like her adoptee experience,
makes her value, or understand,
like the difficulty of understanding your identity more.
And like definitely influenced her work
and makes her like a more empathetic person.
I don't think she
realizes sometimes
like the value she has an, I don't know,
in being,
a mother who's an adoptee.
Like she's so much more empathetic to me
about the difficulty of being a mixed person
and like understanding that experience,
because she's adopted,
in a way that I don't think she would,
if she wasn't adopted,
because she had that same struggle of being like,
oh God, I'm not Korean enough.
And she doesn't want me to have to, deal with that.
I don't think she realizes it all
that my sister and I definitely look up to her
and all the work she's done, like for adoptees.
I mean, my mom also talks about
having really difficult formative years,
like in elementary and middle school,
because she did go to an all white school,
and she was never the girl
that got asked to school dances and,
was like liked by anyone.
She was like the Asian girl.
And that makes me really sad.
She also refuses to watch "16 Candles"
because of Long Duk Dong,
stuff like that,
but yeah,
definitely makes me more empathetic.
You know, it's, it's funny.
My dad and mom, when my mom was pregnant with me,
my mom was saying to my dad, like,
I'm worried, she's not going to have any friends.
Like, I'm worried she's not going to be liked.
And my dad's, like,
I just hope she doesn't have like any serious issues.
(laughs)
But my mom, I think that her,
that experience definitely affected her,
like worrying about her kids having that same experience,
which makes me sad.
I think I'm empathetic to the adoptees
at camp because, it's,
I guess I didn't even realize
that this kind of applied to me until recently,
but kind of mourning
another life you could have had that
you have never experienced,
like another family or,
and I guess I kind of,
somewhat have that experience like,
oh, I never got to know my mother's family,
or like,
what if I had been surrounded by more Korean family,
but not in the same way I don't think,
not in as intense and directly as a way.
I don't know. I can't, that just seems really difficult.
And I don't, I don't know.
I remember my friend,
talking to me about that a little bit,
but it made her upset to talk about her birth family,
and like not being able to contact them or something.
I just, I can't imagine that.
Just wondering like what choices
could have caused things to go differently.
That's, that's a plaguing question.
And I hate that adoptees have to
ask that question a lot
in a way that so directly affects their lives.
I've really been wanting to talk to the other
biracial kids at camp, because,
I don't know, at least at a young age,
I felt really distant from my identity.
I don't know, it was more like a
monster I shut away in a closet.
Not a monster,
just maybe something I shut away in a closet,
just because it wasn't something that
directly affected me yet.
But I think
it's better to have these conversations earlier on.
For me there's other wh-aisians at this camp,
but I find myself,
putting myself in the position
of like an outsider looking at me,
because I'm like, wait, like,
is, what is that person?
Like, what race are they?
Or like, what's their ethnicity?
And then, I don't know, I just find it ironic.
And there's some kids here who are mixed,
but look, white passing.
And then I'm asking questions to myself like,
oh, I wonder more about their background and stuff.
And I'm sure that people look at me
and have those same questions.
So I just find it ironic
when I'm witnessing other mixed people.
Like, yeah.
My name is Hope Sacco,
and this is my Korean American story.
(gentle music fades)