Elaine H. Kim. Korea (1962 - )
Summary in English
This essay is a bitter satire on the American based on racism and sexism. The essayist, Dr. Kim tries to represent how the non-western, non-whites, Jews, women and the African-Americans are suppressed, insulted and deprived of their rights, freedom and justice by the cruel and selfish whites. To support her argument, she recollects her childhood experience where she was discriminated for being Asian and a woman. She claims that she has a bitter experience of all kinds of discrimination in American society which she hates too much. Dr. Kim is an American born Korean-American writer. She loves fortune telling of all kinds-Chinese or Korean astrology, plan reading and visiting Buddhist temple. When she was young, a male fortune teller told her that her life would be full of disaster. On the other hand, a woman fortune teller told her that her life would be full of fun. She assumes that both are right. Dr. Kim attends in the party sponsored by the Korean Community Centre in Oakland where she meets ten fortune tellers. She asks one of them to tell her fortune. He says that all her goals and ideas are shaped between the ages of twelve and seventeen. Then, she disagrees because that period is the unhappiest and most difficult period in her life. She says that it is not true because in her teenage she faced many hardships and challenges. Between the ages of twelve and seventeen, she was living in America with her parents during the devastating war in Korea in the 1950s. She could not enjoy a lot in her house because her house was full of Korea refugees. It was very difficult for her mother to feed the crowd and do the washing-up. Similarly, between those ages, she was studying at American school but that was also not good. She claims that she was double discriminated for being an Asian and for being a woman. Her white friends used to insult, dominate and humiliate her. So, she takes the period 1950s, as the period of violence and outright discrimination for many people of color. Her future says that there was a mismatch between the people and culture in her house about what was going on in Korea. It was the time when millions of Korea were killed and millions of families were displaced. But in the outside world, the America used to believe that Korea is either in China or Japan. Similarly, they used to claim that most of the great discoveries and invention are made by the Americans and Europeans. She was taught suck kind of education at school. At school, the writer as a girl and being an Asian, she was called "Chink" or "Jap" as an insult. Even after being invited by white friends, their mothers would send her not to visit again. In those days, most Americans treated Asian as foreigners and she was no exception. Determined to be popular, her goal was to become a cheerleader which was impossible for non-Americans like her. She worked hard and became a cheerleader. Though she became cheerleader which made her parents very happy, she still felt regretted for being Korea. However, the selfish and cruel American white discriminated, dominated and tortured the Asians, non-Western, non-whites, Jews and Afro-Americans. Thus, by learning about history, she learnt about racism and struggle for equality and social justice, which helped her better understand the circumstance for her teenage years, the US's involvement in Korea war, the reason of her parents to come to America and why America treated her as a foreigner. So, the experience of her childhood stimulated her to work and education people against racism and sexism.
No comments:
Post a Comment