Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal
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Building My Damby Sam Hwang, Class of 2005
"There are very few guarantees in life, yet one thing is certain -- if you never attempt anything, you'll never accomplish anything. We frequently are held back by fear of failure. And failure is always a possibility. It is a certainty, however, when you never try in the first place. You become what you think about most. When you continually focus on the fear of failure, failure will become real for you. Look instead at the possibilities. Look at what could happen if only you would attempt it. Sure, it might not succeed completely. Yet even then you will learn something."~Ralph Marston~
I twist the ring on my right ring finger once to the right in a complete circle, then once to the left to complete another circle around my finger. I slip the snugly fitting ring slowly off my finger with my left hand and hold it in the palm of my right hand. I let it sit there and the weight of the ring gently pushes against my palm.My brass rat is pretty ugly, big, and seems extremely clunky. The top surface, the bezel, has a carving of a beaver, which is MIT's mascot. The beaver is sitting down with the left side of its body facing out of the ring, holding a diploma in its left hand. Although the ring is not the most aesthetically pleasing thing to look at, it is a marvelous piece of craftsmanship. Two sides of the ring have the skylines of Boston and Cambridge etched into them. When I sit in a chair on the roof deck of my fraternity house, I can see the Boston skyline exactly as it is etched into my ring. The Citgo sign stands up proudly on the right-hand side and the two tallest buildings in Boston, Prudential center and John Hancock building, both tower over the other buildings in the Boston skyline. When I'm walking across Harvard bridge from the Boston side to the Cambridge side, I can see the Cambridge skyline exactly as it is etched into my ring. I see the great dome in the center, with Green building, the tallest building in Cambridge, towering over all the other dorms and MIT buildings on the right-hand side. The other two sides, the shanks, have a lot of detail as well. One of the sides has the year 2005' carved into it with the columns of the great dome in the backdrop. The other side has MIT' carved into it with the school seal and various other things that are unique to MIT such as the motto Mens et Manus' which means Mind and Hand' in Latin. The inside of the ring is the most amazing part with a map of the campus carved into it.
I like the way the ring fits snugly on my right ring finger. I can twist it around on my finger but if I leave it alone, it just sits there as if it's a part of my hand. I'm so used to the weight of the ring that I don't even notice it anymore. When I put the ring between my fingers and squeeze, I can feel how solid and hard the ring is. I like the way the ring seems to come to life when I twist it around in my fingers: when I lay it down on a table in a well-lit room, the fluorescent lights gleam off the gold and make different parts of the ring shine brightly.
Upon closer inspection of the ring, I notice all the little scratches and nicks on it for I wear it all the time. Even with the scratches however, I can still see my reflection against the yellow tone of the gold ring. The brass rat is, in itself, a piece of jewelry, but that is not why I wear it. I wear my brass rat because it reminds me of why I am here; it reminds me of the people and the lessons that I learned growing up that have helped me get here. To others when they look at my ring, they see the ring as I have described it, but to me it is a reflection of my MIT experience and at the same time, it takes me back to memories of my family, the feelings I had towards my first love, and difficulties that I dealt with, growing up.
Several times a day, I gaze at the ring on my finger, excited to actually have lived up to my childhood dream of attending MIT for college. As I look at the ring on my finger for the fifth time today, it looks as though it has always belonged there, as if it were meant to be worn by me and only me.
"We never know the love of a parent until we become parents ourselves."
~Henry Ward Beecher~
"Guys we're going to be moving to America in a couple of months" my mom told my younger brother Daniel and me.
"Umma why are we moving? Is everything ok?" I asked, being the inquisitive seven year old kid that I was.
"We're moving there for about five years so that your appa can get his Ph.D. in an American university," my mom carefully explained to us.
"Yay! We're moving to America!" my brother and I both exclaimed in joy.
To my brother and me, America meant having new places to play at, being able to eat cheeseburgers at McDonald's and doing things that up to that point we had only heard about or seen on TV.
* * *
About three months into my 1st grade year in Korea, we left on a Delta 747 Jumbo Jet for the United States not knowing exactly what to expect when we got there. As soon as we arrived in Grayson, Georgia, my mom for the first time in her life started work at a local dry cleaners, owned by the only other Asian family in town and my dad started taking Sociology and English classes at Georgia State University. Back in Korea, my dad had been a Sociology professor at Sunkyul University in Seoul. The university had given him a leave of five years to go get a Ph.D. from an American university after which they wanted him to come back to take on more responsibility as a Provost of the university. My mom had been a housewife in Korea and had taught piano several hours a day to make some extra cash for the family. In short, my parents' life in Korea had been really good. As a professor, my dad got a lot of respect from his students and the community around us and my mom had enough leisure to take my brother and me to Lotte World (an amusement park copied after Disney World) or on educational trips to the zoo or to the Korean War memorial. On many weekends, my dad would take the family on camping trips to local parks or take us out to go shopping and to watch a movie in downtown Seoul. My parents were home every night so that our family could always have dinner together. In America, however, things turned out to be very different. My mom would go to work at 6 A.M. every morning and didn't come home until 6pm after which she would cook dinner for the family and then pass out in exhaustion shortly after washing the dirty dishes. My dad would drop my brother and me off at Pharr Elementary School every morning at 8 A.M.and drive himself to his morning classes. He would study till he came home around 10 P.M. only to find a bowl of cold rice with some cold side dishes and his family already fast asleep. Although life was very different for us in America, I thought that everything was okay and that my parents liked America as much as my brother and I did. I found out how wrong I was when one night I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. After using the bathroom, then checking up on my brother to see if he was sleeping safely, I was stumbling back to my room when I heard loud voices from the opposite corner of the house, near my parents' bedroom. I thought this was strange since it was already about 2 A.M. and my parents should have been asleep hours before. I slowly started walking over to my parents' bedroom only to be alerted by the growing sound which I recognized to be my umma and appa yelling.
"I'm gonna take the kids and go back to Korea! I can't take this anymore!" my mom was screaming in frustration at my dad.
"Why can't you be a little more patient? I only need about five years to finish my Ph.D. and then we can all go back to Korea together and have an even better life than we had before we left! You know what great opportunities I'll have at Sunkyul University when I go back. Besides, we decided that this would be a great opportunity for our kids to learn English!" my dad yelled back.
"We had a good life in Korea, Insoo can't you see that you're making things harder for the kids and me? We had everything we needed and wanted in Korea. Look at us now. We live in the middle of nowhere, I can hardly speak English, I work twelve hours a day at a dry cleaners with no air conditioning because the owners are too cheap, I never see you because I'm always working and you're always at school, and we never get to spend time with the kids. Our family is falling apart because of your decision!"
"My decision? MY decision! It wasn't just MY decision! You completely supported me when I asked you about moving out here. How can you blame this on me?"
I had never heard my parents argue like this before and I became really scared. I didn't know what to do but I knew I should quickly go back to my room and go to sleep before my parents opened their door to find me listening in on their fight. I lay in bed that night thinking of the worst possible scenarios that could come up as a result of my parents' fighting. I imagined my mom really leaving for Korea with us and leaving my dad behind in America, I imagined my tight-knit family falling apart.
Luckily, my worst fears never came true. My umma and appa told us a few days after their fight that we would be living in America permanently and that appa had given up his offer from Sunkyul University and that he would begin working at the dry cleaners with my mom. Although I didn't understand why they were doing this at the time, it became very clear to me as I grew older.
* * *
I opened up the mailbox to grab the mail and take it inside as I did everyday after school. However, as I sifted through the mail, I noticed that I had gotten a large envelope from MIT. Oh could this be it? I wondered to myself. I ripped open the top of the envelope, excited yet nervous at the same time, and pulled out a packet of papers. Congratulations Mr. Samuel Hwang. We are proud to accept you to join MIT's Class of 2005. "Yes, yes, YES!" I screamed out loud and jumped into my Honda. I drove at about 65 miles per hour down the narrow two-lane thirty mile per hour zoned road to my parents' store. I got there in about five minutes, twice as fast as it would normally take me to get there. I burst through the front doors of my parents' store and yelled out "Umma, appa! I got into MIT! I did it! I'm in!"
My umma looked up at me from her sewing machine and the exhausted look on her face instantly changed into a look of extreme joy that I had seen on her face whenever my brother or I had good news to tell her. My dad came out of the back room where he was working, covered in thread and looking as if he hadn't had much sleep in the past few days but nonetheless he had an ecstatic look on his face. "Sam we are so proud of you" my mom said while my dad patted me on the back and kept congratulating me. To me, the look on my parents' faces told me everything.
Laying out all their options before them eleven years before when we had first immigrated to America, they had decided to sacrifice their own personal goals to give my brother and me a chance at a better life than the one they had lived. They decided to focus on giving us the opportunity to become as successful as possible and to live the "American Dream". Not being a parent, the depth of my parents' love for my brother and me still remains very hard for me to understand.
"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear-not absence of fear."
~Mark Twain~
"Go back to your own country, Chinese boy! We don't like your kind here," yelled a tall Caucasian who was standing about twenty meters from me. I ignored the racist remark, acting as if I didn't hear the comments, and kept on walking, trying to guide myself to my homeroom with a map of the campus of Snellville Middle School. Trailer number 4, trailer number 5 hmm I guess the trailer numbers get bigger this way, trailer 2 is probably over in the other direction. It was my first day of middle school and I had just gotten off the bus. "Hey, Chinaman! Do you not understand English? We're talking to YOU," yelled another one of the eighth graders. The group of six guys had run up to me and now they walked alongside me. I picked up my pace and started walking faster to the trailers behind the school, where from the looks of the map, which I was clutching tightly in my hands, my homeroom probably was. However, even my hurried strides could not keep me ahead of the taller eighth graders. I felt an arm around my shoulder and heard a mocking voice, "Ding dong wang fong shong. Do you understand me now?" All the other eighth graders laughed in unison, clearly amused by the look of fear and annoyance revealed on my face. "But I'm not Chine" I began only to be cut off by another one of the eighth graders. By this time, a lot of people were looking over at us. I fought back the tears that were forming in my eyes. I was being totally humiliated on my first day of middle school and there was nothing I could do. If I went to a teacher or administrator to tell on the guys making fun of me, I'd be marked as the "tattletale" and would never make it in the socially brutal atmosphere of middle school. The guys were all bigger than me and I was scared. I pictured the eighth graders beating the shit out of me and throwing me into a dumpster. They made an intimidating circle around me and there was nothing I could do but to wait to see what they would do next. From the horror stories I had heard about eighth graders picking on sixth graders, I knew middle school was going to be harder than elementary school, but I hadn't thought it was going to be like this from the first day. * * * At dinner that night, as I was sitting at the table with my umma, appa, and brother, I was unusually quiet. I looked down at my bowl of rice and took in the aroma of the different Korean dishes that my mom had prepared after coming home from work. Although the wonderful smell of my mom's food was tempting, I didn't have much of an appetite. "So, how did your first day of school go?" my dad asked Daniel and me cheerfully. He reached for the kimchee but before he could get to it, my mom slid the entire plate closer to him. I looked down at the table and the colors of the different dishes started blurring as tears continued to flow down my face. I didn't like my brother seeing me like this and I was embarrassed at what I had said about wanting to be white and that I was crying at the dinner table. My umma, sensing how I felt, sent my brother off to his room with his dinner plate. "Sam, what's the matter?" my appa asked. My umma looked as though she didn't know what to say, but her eyes said everything. I could see the pain that she felt from seeing her oldest son, of whom she was so proud, becoming ashamed of his own identity and background. I looked to my appa and he seemed to be deep in thought. My appa, so good always at finding the right words for any situation, seemed at a loss. "Sam... I I don't you should." I heard my appa's deep soothing voice, "Sam we know how hard it must be for you. We go through the same thing every day at work. Every single day that we've been here People smirk when umma or I misuse a word or try to make a sentence that doesn't quite come out right. People have told us to go learn more English. But you know what? I have never not once since coming to this country been ashamed of my identity and of being Korean. Same for your umma. We have always been proud of who we are and we have raised you to be the same." How can my umma and appa be so optimistic and positive when they're being made fun of? "You should always be proud of who you are, no matter what. How many of those kids that make fun of you do you think speak two languages? How many do you think are going to be as successful as you are going to be someday? I'd be willing to bet on none of them. The point is that." I wish I could be invincible to insults like them. Is it because they're adults? Will it get easier for me as I get older? "You have nothing to be ashamed of for the color of your skin or any of your other facial features. If anything, the kids who make fun of you are jealous because you're unique and special and they're just one of the many other white kids." * * * "What's up Ching Chong?" a familiar voice said from behind me. "Oh Little Mr. Miyagi has grown a pair of balls. How funny is that, guys?" The guy who seemed to be the leader of the group pushed me against a nearby pole and threatened me once more before swaggering away. "Listen to me, you piece of shit. A chink like you will never fit in this country Never." He jerked his head towards the gym and the other guys followed him. I walked to my next class feeling as if a great weight had been lifted off of my chest. Over the next year, their treatment of me didn't change a single bit but I became more confident in myself always keeping what my parents had told me that one night at my dining room table. I was proud of where I had come from and who I was. There was nothing that could change that. "Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose..." Every time I walk past Killian Court and stare at the great dome, I feel the sense of pride that my parents felt when I told them that I had got into MIT. This past Saturday when I was walking out of the Lowes Theater at Boston Commons after having watched Gothika, some young men drove by in a pickup truck and threw a snowball at me and yelled "Chinaman!" at me. I laughed to myself as I thought of middle school and caught a cab back to 400 Memorial drive before the snow piled up too much. When I look down at the ring on my finger, I am constantly reminded of these memories that I have made since coming to college. I am happy that, like the beaver on my brass rat, I have built my dam here, my home.
"Shut up! Can you even see us with those slitty eyes of yours?" asked another guy in the group.
"Fifth grade is fun! I like it a lot! I made a lot of friends today and my teachers are so nice," my brother replied enthusiastically between bites of his rice and curry.
It was then that tears started falling down my face and pooling at the bottom of my chin. I told myself to hold them in and be strong, but I couldn't. I blurted out, "Umma and appa I wish I could be white."
The room got deathly silent as my parents and my brother stopped eating and looked over at me with concerned looks.
"Hyung, are you ok?" my brother asked with wide-open eyes as he leaned in closer to look at my face.
"What happened at school today?" my umma asked right after, joining in with my appa.
"Some eighth graders made said called me Chinese boy... they humiliated me," I choked out between sobs. "I really really hate being Korean. It's all God's fault why why am I Asian?" I banged on the table with my right fist into the dinner table several times in frustration and anger and held my face in my left hand while continuing to cry. After a few minutes, I calmed down a bit and looked up at my parents for an answer to my dilemma as I always did.
Umma and appa you don't know how much it hurts to be picked on by older kids for something you can't change or control about yourself. I wish I could go back to Korea. Why do we have to live where there are no other Asians?The room became silent again. Then my parents signaled to each other and moved towards my side of the table and held my hands, my umma my left hand and my appa my right. I continued to look at the blurry food dishes on the table in front of me.
I heard my umma's voice cut in and finish my appa's sentence "You shouldn't let other people influence your pride for being Korean and for who you are. You are an amazing student, a wonderful son, a fantastic friend, a caring older brother I mean what more can anyone ask for in a student, son, friend, or brother? These kids only make fun of you because of their own insecurities and fears."
"But it's easier for you and mom because, because" I couldn't find the words to finish the sentence because suddenly I knew. Of course it was just as hard for them to experience racism and bigotry as it was for me. I started to feel the sense of comfort that I always felt knowing that my parents knew what I was going through and that they would be there for me no matter what. I hugged my mom and my dad hugged me from the back and the three of us sat at the dining room table silently before I left for my room to do my first night of homework before going to sleep.
While for most people it was their second day at school, for me, it was a new beginning.
"Hey" I turned around and faced my tormentors with a speech that I had mentally prepared in my head. "I am Korean, not Chinese. I am proud of being a Korean American and being able to speak two languages. You can say whatever the hell you want, but I don't care. Your stupid comments don't affect me because I can speak English just as well as any one of you guys. I don't want to listen to your whiny voices anymore, so shut up and leave me alone." I stared back at them with a cold stare that could pierce anything it came in direct contact with, although deep down inside, I was scared out of my wits.
~Walt Whitman~
