Becoming a Korean, Part 1: Attachment

For most of my life, I was surprised to look in the mirror and see a Korean staring back at me. I’m not kidding. You already know how I grew up wearing denim and listening to Garth, just like all the other Okies. As late as 2014, I self-identified as white. I wanted so badly to be “just like everyone else” and to fit in. But why?

I fancy myself a quasi-academic, so buckle up for a second. According to Dr. Gabor Maté, we have two core needs in life: attachment and authenticity¹. Attachment is the need for physical and emotional closeness. As infants, we are helpless dependents who choose attachment every time, in the name of survival. We seek to please our caregivers because they are a source of food, shelter, and love. In adolescence, we seek attachment with our peers, which is why everyone in Bartlesville owned at least one pair of Doc Martens in 1996. Our need for closeness drives us to hide parts of ourselves that might prevent others from accepting us.

Authenticity is the need to be true to our inner voices, conventions be damned. Maybe you have blue hair or “too many” tattoos. Maybe you drum in your garage even though you’re not in a band. Maybe you really enjoy organizing your Tupperware lids. It’s your unique blend of proclivities, talents, and heart. Society isn’t always kind to the authentic. Imposed values, like “boys don’t wear skirts” or “crying in public is embarrassing” dictate our culture and unspoken rules. When you’re authentic, you throw out those rules in favor of being true to yourself.

This tension between being accepted (attachment) and being ourselves (authenticity) plays out in nearly everyone’s life. Why is your house full of modern farmhouse decor and Stanley tumblers? Your toddler is messier than your dog, but you’re out here wearing these all-white sneakers. And most recently, the pumpkin spice craze has gotten so big that my grocery store thinks it’s a good move to sell pumpkin-flavored ALFREDO sauce. WHY.

We are all trying to fit in. Whether it’s making your kid lug a 20lb water bottle since all the other parents are doing it, or joining TikTok, or becoming a bandwagon fan for the Kansas City Chiefs (shout out to my fellow Swifties), we are all slightly insecure, awkward humans trying to find our people.

In my case, all of my people were white. And none of them knew anything about Korea. Now, I’ve had a lot of roles in my life. Teacher, school leader, consultant, daughter, sister, wife, mother - and I had numerous examples for how to be each one. Korean? I had no one. As a child, my thinking wasn’t developed enough to realize that I could create my own path of self-acceptance and authenticity. I just thought I was weird and different. Like any child who has an irregularity - say, a cleft lip or stutter - I tried to hide that part of myself, to better attach to those around me. Except that “part” was my entire face and physical appearance, and ignoring it did some messed up things to my sense of self-worth.

As an adult, I have learned that this innate need for attachment caused me to sacrifice my authenticity as a Korean. I wasn’t able to articulate that in graduate school courses on diversity and inclusion, in years of facilitating racial awareness in the workplace, and not in many hours with a Korean therapist. The first time I really put those pieces together was when my date to the 9th grade dance emailed me 22 years later.

Stick with me as we head back to the late 90s. I was a marching band nerd in high school. Chalk marks in parking lots, drumline warmups at 6am, IYKYK. I was also a devout Christian, cheerleader, and college sorority girl. If it involved finding identity by blending in with a large group of people, your girl was there. Apparently people who begin life with abandonment have a stronger need to attach than most. Go figure.

Anyway, in 9th grade, I developed a crush on a saxophone player named David. I asked him to a dance, we went, and things fizzled. We were acquaintances through high school and college, but we weren’t close. Then in 2020, he emailed me. His family was thinking of moving to Texas, and he wanted to hear my thoughts on being raised in an all-white town since his wife is Asian, and their children are multiracial.

No one had ever asked me that question. A few years before he asked it, I would have brightly smiled in denial and said it was “fine!” Since the birth of my first child, I had come to realize just how not fine I was. His email caused me to spell it out: the strong need of attachment and fear of abandonment, how I lived in deep denial of who I was, why we choose to live in a diverse city for our children’s sake now.

Emails turned into more emails which turned into Zooms which turned into in-person hangouts as their family explored life in Austin. If you’ve ever wondered why it didn’t work out with your 9th grade crush, consider that they might re-enter your life 20 years later to help you work through your deep struggles with internalized oppression. Did I lose you with the jargon? Briefly, internalized oppression is a damaging form of attachment that means wishing you were white like “everyone else”. Do some googling if you want to know more, or subscribe since this blog is going to discuss race basically every time.

At this point, you might be thinking, wow, Emily is such a smart and evolved human. Nope. Just this morning, I left our minivan door open while it was raining and didn’t notice it for hours. Anyway, I didn’t magically arrive at this place of enlightenment, I didn’t self-study my way there, and it didn’t happen by accident. The two main reasons I was able to free myself from my attachment complex were a Korean who everyone mistakenly called “un-suck” and a Black woman from Atlanta.

Stay tuned for Part 2. If you know someone who also struggles with abandonment trauma, attachment issues, or internalized oppression, please share my writing with them as a mirror.

1. Maté, Gabor and Daniel, Maté. 2022. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. Penguin Random House.