(gentle piano music)
- My name is Rebecca Rose White,
but everyone calls me Becky, except for my dad.
I'm 30 years old and I was born
a little outside of Omaha, Nebraska,
but my birth record says Omaha.
I was there only until like,
two or three months of age,
and then, we moved away!
So my mom is from South Korea,
and my dad is from the United States.
So my parents met in Korea
when my dad was there for military.
And then, they got married in Korea
and then they moved to the U.S.
and I was born pretty shortly after.
So due to my dad's work,
we were moving around a lot.
My dad's work was very specialized,
and so we didn't live in typical areas
where there were a lot of other military kids around.
So we didn't meet a lot of
mixed Korean kids or mixed Korean families.
So I didn't really have anyone to
relate my experience to.
But we grew up having a Korean mom
who was very much like a dragon (laughs)
which is funny 'cause that's her zodiac sign.
And also my dad who is very cerebral, very academic.
So while we had this one spectrum of
very verbal and,
just very academic intelligence over here,
we had my mom who was really scrappy
and street-wise and lots of common sense.
As you can imagine, those two mindsets
or understandings of the world
clashed quite a lot.
And I, and my two sisters were very often
caught in the middle of that.
We were all very loving,
everyone loved each other, of course.
But in a way we suffered,
I guess, I don't want to say abuse,
but we bore the brunt
of my parents' inability
to relate and connect with each other.
And then the trauma that my mom carried
her whole life.
So, those were actually big factors
for why I eventually came to Korea.
To learn more about my mom and myself,
learn Korean language
so that I could better understand (chuckles)
what happened. (laughs)
I was extremely independent,
this is important to remember.
So, I didn't strongly relate to anything.
I didn't really strongly relate to myself
as American or white or Korean.
I was just so firmly me,
that I could flit in and out
of anything I wanted to;
any situation, any society, any groups.
In a way that was my strength and also my loneliness;
but when I first started realizing, oh
people do look at us differently.
Oh, my mom cooks different food.
I feel like you can either fight back against that
and say "why? I don't want to be this!"
and hate that part of you,
or you could really dive into it
and be more interested in it,
or in my case, it was like,
well, this is my reality so,
I don't see what's strange about it.
I think the thing that bothered me most
wasn't really white kids,
you know, not really getting things,
or making racist comments, or
just pointing out how different we were.
I think what bothered me most was
my Korean friends who would point that out
That I think affected me more.
Because I knew that was a side of me
that was almost hidden,
or I didn't have the advantage
or benefit to learn that.
'Cause my mom didn't want us to
not be American enough to not succeed.
And she would tell us:
you have to be better than everyone else
because your white family will look down on you.
And she would tell that when we were young.
But when my Korean friends would say things like:
you're so American.
That would hurt me more, I think,
than white people saying anything.
So the school where I first met these Korean kids
and, we weren't all friends, let's just say.
But we stuck together,
because everyone else was white.
And they were the only Asians,
and I was the only other semi Asian, I guess.
Like I said before, I just kind of
fit here, fit here, fit there,
and I decided I'm going to fit here!
And so I just kinda, joined the group.
I do think that was my first realizations,
when they would speak Korean with each other at the table,
and I couldn't connect or understand or follow along.
And some of them, there was one girl in particular,
who would point that out or make fun of me,
or say things to me specifically in Korean,
knowing that I wouldn't understand
what she was talking about.
And that was really difficult to acknowledge.
And actually later on,
I met up with one of them in Korea, years later.
I called her up, I said,
"oh, hey. I'd like to see you, I'm in Korea."
And we were speaking in Korean over dinner
and she just couldn't get over that.
And that was also really like, I don't know,
disappointing I think,
because I'd worked really hard.
And for me, I was becoming, I felt more full.
I was finally filling out
these dark spots of my identity,
or empty spaces previously before,
unexplored spaces.
And all she could see was that same
16 year old girl who was fake Korean, I guess.
So, yeah. I don't know if my appearance had a big part
to play in that, at that time.
As I've grown older, most definitely.
Some culture shocks I experienced -
- (Producer) Yeah.
- when I came to Korea?
Hmm.
I don't think I even thought of myself in the space of
cultures or, this side and that side.
I was really just...
how I thought was how I thought,
regardless of other factors.
Maybe I like to think that, 'cause obviously
I would have been influenced by my upbringing
and those who are around me.
But instead of, for example,
if something happened where I would think, oh, that's just
that's just how it's done in Korea,
this is Korean culture, Becky.
You gotta understand it.
Instead it was more like, oh,
well this situation that happened to me today
with that person,
well, I got to figure this out.
Oh, I guess this is just how that person thinks.
I think more than culture shocks,
'cause everything for me is just kinda rolled off,
like water off of an oily surface.
It's just like, oh, well,
that's just what happens here.
But there are things that stand out to me,
and that would be the injustices that I
witnessed along the way,
and how those affected me.
For example, the school that I was in,
my first day of arrival,
and the ones I named, pitting me against
the English speaking teachers,
so that she could control me,
as somebody who spoke English but looked Korean enough.
And so she purposely would separate us.
And is only in retrospect I would realize:
wow, she was (chuckles) manipulating this...
manipulating me, to benefit her,
and to keep the english speaking teachers down.
This was one thing I recognized.
And then her firing me
before the contract was up,
on grounds that, of course,
we're not contractually legal.
But me not knowing this, just let it go.
And then I would really grapple with that later and think,
why didn't I take this up?
Why didn't I read the contract better?
Why didn't I go to the court?
Because I would have won.
And then I thought, there's just so many people
who don't know,
who are taken advantage just like that.
But it's later when I look back at it and realize,
that probably the uppers saw a big advantage.
I spoke English, I spoke Korean decently well,
I looked at the way that I do,
I was capable of interacting with people
all over the world,
and they wanted to take advantage of that.
But in order to, I suppose, control that,
I had to feel like their pawn or, powerless,
so that they could use it to their own whim.
I do believe, in Korea, it has to do with
because I didn't speak Korean fluently.
I really think this is a significant factor.
And also because I looked very Korean,
but I also didn't look very Korean
and so I existed in this sort of,
middle space,
where they wouldn't embrace me as their own,
but I also wasn't an alien
who had their own people to be embraced by.
So I had no one to fall back on, I think.
And be protected by.
So, I think a lot of this has influence,
why I began The Halfie Project, ultimately.
Yeah.
So, throughout this whole journey as I've been here,
we like to use the terms of discovering identity,
discovering myself, establishing my identity,
self discovery, and all of those things are very true.
But I believe that in order to,
really come to terms with who you are,
because you're not a single being,
I am not just an atom
flowing around in this space.
I have connections. I have people to rely on.
And I think it's taken me a long time to figure out,
I don't exist as a single being,
but I am the result of generations,
of so much history, of so much culture,
of so many people.
When you feel like you're not embraced
by any of those people,
you sometimes want to just shut it away.
I had to come to terms with that.
And that for me, is more of this defining of identity.
Learning that, looking into your history,
looking into your culture, looking into your background,
asking your parents, trying to find out those things that
all together make up who you are.
That, to me, is more discovery of identity,
which can be really incredibly painful,
especially, I think, for people who exist
in that middle space.
And so, the Haflie project for me was a way,
to see if I could (chuckles)
assuage the wild beast, I guess,
or try to find a way to come to terms
with this inner struggle.
And so, I just threw the questions out there
using the YouTube channel and my limited connections.
And it's crazy because people were answering back
and saying, "I have that same question".
And that has to do with just our global society today
and the use of social media and all of that.
And the more that I was asking,
the more I realized how much trauma
many half Koreans have faced.
And it doesn't always have to be
violent, abusive trauma,
like the first generations after the war.
I also think that there are quiet, mundane,
daily traumas,
that a lot of mixed kids have faced.
Not just mixed kids too, but adoptees.
And because you internalize it,
and you start to, kind of give a reason
for why you feel this miserable,
you excuse yourself, and think like,
well, it's just me.
And then you stop asking,
'cause it's just too hard.
So having someone like myself,
who was, I think, somewhat of a juggernaut.
As in, I just wanted to break the walls down,
because I was so tired of feeling this way,
allowed a space for those people who felt that way too,
to speak.
And, by speaking and asking and exploring,
and then, being
validated in feeling that way;
it gives you more strength to continue on.
To keep asking, to keep seeking, to keep figuring out.
And, therefore learning more about yourself
and establishing a sense of identity.
So, I imagined for a lot of mixed kids
that's really significant,
'cause I didn't have anyone to ask.
And, I believe there's just been
so much wrong, so much dis-balance
in the Korean society, everywhere.
In American Korean societies, here in Korea,
other parts of the world, among the Korean diaspora,
and especially with mixed kids,
because of this struggle with identity
and trying to find their place.
A lot of those things that happened to me,
have led me to where I am today.
My name is Becky White,
and this is my Korean American story.
(gentle piano music)