{"id":118,"date":"2023-04-28T11:55:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/?p=118"},"modified":"2023-04-28T11:55:41","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T15:55:41","slug":"exploring-korean-american-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/2023\/04\/28\/exploring-korean-american-identity\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Korean-American Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/files\/2023\/04\/Picture1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-158\" width=\"512\" height=\"769\" srcset=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/files\/2023\/04\/Picture1.png 683w, https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/files\/2023\/04\/Picture1-200x300.png 200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 512px) 100vw, 512px\" \/><figcaption>Interviewee: Christopher Choi <br>Interviewer: Tegh Khosla<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Synopsis<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Christopher Hans Choi is a 21-year-old second-generation Korean American born in Chicago on December 2, 2001. Chris is currently a junior at Colby College, majoring in English and minoring in cinema studies. He has a strong passion for filmmaking and screenwriting and plans to pursue that in the future. His early years were spent in southern California. In 2013, when he was in sixth grade, his family moved to a town in Texas near the US-Mexico border because of his father\u2019s job as a pastor. This interview covers the topics of immigration, Korean American churches, education, Korean food, cultural or generational differences, and multicultural identity. Chris talks about his experiences growing up in a Korean American church and expresses his perspective on the church as an institution. He highlights negotiating his Korean American identity through language, food, and family or community experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chris also addresses how he is revisiting the two sides of his identity and his relationships with the people in his life. Chris and I met in our first year of college, and we were roommates our sophomore year. He is overall a very good friend of mine. I conducted the interview over Zoom due to the circumstances of spring break and both of us going home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My name is Tegh Khosla, and I am also a third year at Colby College majoring in Biology and East Asian Studies with a concentration in Korean language and an interest in Korean culture and history. This interview was conducted per the instruction and guidelines for a history course on modern Korean history taught by Professor Inga Kim Diederich of the History Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/files\/2023\/04\/ChoiChristopher_2023-03-23.mp3\"><\/audio><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/files\/2023\/04\/Khosla_T_Transcript.pdf\">Interview Transcript<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Biography <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Christopher Hans Choi is a second-generation Korean American born December 2, 2001, in Lake Forest, Chicago. His parents immigrated to the United States in the 1990s and met in Chicago. After he was born, his family moved to California outside of Los Angeles when he was a little over a year-old. When he was four years old, he moved back to Chicago briefly while his mother was finishing school there to become a social worker. In 2013, Chris\u2019s family relocated from California to Texas due to his father\u2019s work as a pastor. Growing up, Chris navigated between the Korean church community and mainstream \u201cAmerican\u201d society. Chris acknowledges that his Korean skills are not as strong as his English due to his experiences navigating his identity. He faced bullying in school, clashing values with the church community, and disagreements with his parents. Despite the ups and downs, Chris has reconciled his past identity struggles, reclaimed his Korean identity and relationships with his family, and formed his own relationship with his religious faith. Growing up eating the foods his family cooked for him, Chris\u2019s most memorable Korean foods are\u00a0<em>Hong-eo<\/em>\u00a0(skate), any\u00a0<em>Jjigae<\/em>\u00a0(soup),\u00a0<em>Sundae<\/em>\u00a0(blood sausage), and\u00a0<em>Miyeok-guk\u00a0<\/em>(seaweed soup). His home is in McAllen, Texas and Chris attends Colby College in Waterville, Maine. He is a third-year student majoring in English and minoring in Cinema Studies with career aspirations in film and screenwriting. He is set to graduate in May 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis Christopher Hans Choi is a 21-year-old second-generation Korean American born in Chicago on December 2, 2001. Chris is currently a junior at Colby College, majoring in English and minoring in cinema studies. He has a strong passion for filmmaking and screenwriting and plans to pursue that in the future. His early years were spent [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11303,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[567941],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11303"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":357,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/voices\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}