I am a GI baby. My mother, 팍영숙, met my father during the war. He was stationed in Seoul, helping the south fight against the tight reigns of the Soviet Union in the north. His name was Paul, a heroic American soldier, only with my mother for a short time before being struck down in the war. I don’t remember much about him, other than my mother crying and breaking down at the news of his death. Her cries filled my last memory of Seoul, the panic of the war, the brick buildings up and down our neighborhood being replaced with piles of rubble and dust, our lives vanishing before our eyes. One moment I was being carried in my mother’s arms up and down the street, the next I was on a boat, traveling across the world to start a new life.

A GI baby is what they call those whose fathers were Americans stationed in Korea during the war. I, like many others, are mixed. You would think I would half-fit into society in America, but it is nothing but constant struggles. We arrived at Ellis Island, being processed and then transported to a port in Manhattan, New York before making our way across the Queensboro Bridge to Queens where we’d find our people, the people who had made their way to the United States long before we had in search for a better life, a life with better education, more jobs, more opportunity, and no Japanese or Soviet rule. My mother told me that my uncle had come to New York in 1940 to study at Columbia University, a move that had been common among her classmates to avoid being forced into serving in the war under 교육에 관한 전시비상조치령, the Decree concerning education during wartime in 1943 that made education in Korea transform into preparation to serve. I was born in 1950, five years after Korea’s liberation from Japan. Coming to the United States was a way for 엄마 and I to escape the war and start over. We started our new life living in a small apartment a block away from Northern Boulevard, the busy street that is the hub for Asian life in New York. We didn’t have much, only a few belongings from Korea such as 엄마 ‘s hanbok, a small doll my 할머니 gave me before we left, and a small pink silk coin purse filled with money 엄마 had been saving. The goal was to work in a nail salon until we had enough money to buy our own store. 엄마was only able to get a job doing nails because her lack of English made it difficult to get a better job. 

Monday through Saturday she worked while I played with some of the other children, sometimes helping around the salon when we weren’t learning English from one of the mothers who had been in America for a few years now, coming ages ago to study at New York University. On Sunday 엄마 and I would walk down Northern Boulevard to attend mass. Church was my favorite. It was the only time in the week where I saw a genuine smile on 엄마 ‘s face. During the first two years of being in New York, I didn’t think much of her happiness at church, only realizing as I got older that when we were at church, 엄마 felt as if she was back in Korea. The pastor preached in Korean while we prayed and asked for 용서, or forgiveness, and sang loudly from our 찬송가, hymn books placed at the end of every pew in the big church. At the end of every service, we would gather in the main room off to the side of the sanctuary, where my 엄마 would gather in the kitchen with the rest of the 아좀마s, dragging large cases of kimchi out from the fridge, tossing vegetables and noodles together to make japchae, stirring bulgogi on the stove and rolling countless rolls of kimbap while a few other children and I would sneak in and steal a few rice cakes from the large pot of tteokbokki boiling off to the side. This made 엄마 so happy because we were with our people. Back in Korea, she was shunned because I was the product of a relationship with an American man, and in our normal everyday life, she barely spoke as other workers in the salon spoke Chinese or Vietnamese, but at church, everyone spoke Korean and embraced us with open arms. A few other children were GI babies like me, and our 엄마s shared stories about our fathers and bonded over the struggles they faced both back home and here. 

We became close friends with the Kim’s, a kind family also from Korea that came to Flushing a few years before us and became green grocers. The father, Mr. Kim, runs a fruit and vegetable store a few stores away from the salon, and I began to attend local school and bible study with their children, 지훈 and 미경. Apart from the few friends we made at church, 엄마 and I didn’t know a lot of other people. We were comfortable staying with our church friends because we practiced the same customs, celebrating Chuseok every autumn, Independence Day every March, and rarely coming together with the entire community in Flushing to celebrate the Lunar New Year every February, all having parties, cooking food, and decorating the streets. It is the one time in the year where everyone comes together, regardless of which country we have come from.  

As I grew older nearing the college age, 엄마 would let me travel on the subway with the Kim’s to Manhattan. We would only be a short ride from Flushing, but it seemed as if we would step into a whole different country. The people looked less like me, the stores sold American and European products, the bright neon signs luring people into stores were in English rather than Chinese or Korean, and everyone spoke in English rather than the familiar Korean, Chinese, or a blend of both that I would often hear in the salon. We would occasionally walk around Washington Square Park, 미경 dreaming of attending New York University, or walk up to a cluster of Korean stores and restaurants that locals would refer to as “Little Seoul,” later referred to as Koreatown. 

The more I explored, the more I learned about the world around me. Enrolling in Columbia University in the 70s meant I’d be joining the long list of Korean immigrants who came to the United States for a better life, seeking jobs and a more advanced higher education system. During my time in university, Flushing suffered from a fiscal crisis, creating a high unemployment rate and driving many people out of the area. Throughout my commutes to Manhattan to attend classes, I began to notice less white people, Flushing seemingly becoming less and less populated. All that was left were empty storefronts, empty apartments, and a whole lot of Asian people. In the years following the fiscal crisis of the 70s, as they call it, a lot began to change. 

어마 and I bought a storefront near the Kim’s that had become vacated at the departure of a white-owned business. We renovated the space and made it into a restaurant, Sook Ja’s, named after my grandmother. With the help of the Kim’s daughter 미경 who had become a realtor, we sought after a new apartment. A nice space on Main Street opened up and 어마 jumped after the opportunity, doing anything she could to secure the space and once more live on a street with vibrant neon signs and busy sidewalks, reminding her of her home in Seoul. Our old apartment off of Northern Boulevard sold for a great amount of money, most likely due to the rising popularity of the area, according to 미경. Before our eyes, Flushing, the once quiet area that became our home two decades ago, grew into a thriving area, known for great prosperity and growth throughout the years, starting from the cheap occupation of a bunch of Asian immigrants. 

My 어마 is older now, giving me more responsibility in the restaurant and saying I needed to learn how to be more independent. As I began to learn and practice adult tasks such as taking over filing taxes and consulting suppliers for the products we used in our store, my eyes opened up to an entire new world. The bubble I used to live in, where I was a happy Korean girl stuffing my face with all the food I could find that the 아좀마s made at church and earning high grades in school, soon popped. When I would consult with suppliers and find new vendors to order vegetables from, I encountered situations that made me uneasy and upset. Some would treat me as if I weren’t even human when I would meet and consult with them but treat the next customer in line as if he were a king. The difference was that he was white, and I am Asian. Some people at university would come up and question what type of “ese” I was, whether I was Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese, failing to ask if I was Korean. When I would hang out with the Kim’s, we would encounter children on the subway that would pull their eyes back and laugh at us. I would frequently return home to 어마, upset at what had happened. She would often hold me tight until I had calmed down. When I would ask what she would do when she had these experiences or missed home, she would only say one thing. Arirang. I would look at her, puzzled, as Arirang to me was just some folk song we would sing occasionally when I was younger at church bible study to pass the time. The older I got, I realized why it was her answer. Arirang describes the difficulties of passing over a mountain but means so much more. It is the crossing of a mountain to unify and come together with others. 어마 and I cross many mountains; the world to come to Flushing from Seoul, the language barrier between Korean and English, building a whole new life here, and facing the occasional acts of racism that came with looking different. Despite us being 6,862 miles away from home, 어마 would sing or hum Arirang to bring herself over the mountain and closer to Korea and away from the struggles. I sing Arirang every day now, whether it be during my commute to school, while I wash the dishes, work in the restaurant, or as I get ready for bed. It reminds me that no matter how different I am, how down I get sometimes, and how much I miss Seoul, that I am who I am. I am fortunate to be here, to join generations upon generations of Koreans in Flushing, to make history and to me.