As Cho Seung-Hui stormed through classrooms and gunned down students and faculty at Virginia Tech last Monday, I was only a few hundred miles north in Washington, D.C., where I was meeting one of my heroes, Norman Mineta, one of the most successful Asian American politicians in history. Recounting his experience living in an internment camp during World War II, Mr. Mineta expressed the urgency to develop a coherent Asian American voice within the national discourse.
It was only later when my roommate Paul, a fellow Korean American, informed me of the shooter’s ethnicity that we impulsively began to fear a potential backlash. This paranoia was symptomatic of our community, the product of our self-created “out-group” identity. This was evident in many Korean American responses to the shootings. In Los Angeles, Reverend John Park publicly expressed shame and responsibility for the murders. Another Korean American later confessed: “I cannot even approach my co-workers to talk. I feel so ashamed.” A report noted that Korean students at Virginia Tech locked themselves inside their dorm rooms, too afraid to come out. Another stated that there were Koreans preparing to leave the country.
To allay the fears of the Korean-American community, South Korean ambassador Lee Tae-Sik spoke at a candlelight vigil a few days after the shootings. He implored the audience to “repent,” suggesting a 32-day fast, one day for each victim, to prove that Koreans are a “worthwhile ethnic minority in America.”
Let me first point out that Mr. Lee, a South Korean, crossed some serious diplomatic boundaries when he decided to speak on behalf of Korean Americans. Furthermore, no group of people can prove that they are a “worthwhile ethnic minority” by starving themselves. And most importantly, neither I nor anyone else should “repent” for something we didn’t do. The irony, we have since learned, was that there was no backlash from American society. It maintained what I came to realize: There was nothing Korean about what Cho Seung-Hui did.
What has become painfully evident by the aforementioned responses is the insular nature of the Korean American community and its inability to cope with tragedy. There are many cultural explanations for this, but the most important might be the Korean concept of han, which denotes a collective feeling of oppression and isolation in the face of overwhelming odds. If the L.A. riots are any example, Korean Americans respond to a crisis in their community by lamenting within their enclaves, hoping their problems will disappear.
This sense of culpability all Korean Americans feel is not because of Cho’s actions, but because of the possible consequences. We fear that Cho will indirectly become the mainstream image of Korean America, and we desperately search for an alternative champion.
But who? Certainly not a South Korean diplomat—we are not South Korean. And definitely not Korean ministers, for we reside in a secular nation. The truth is, the proverbial voice Mr. Mineta urged us to develop doesn’t exist yet. According to recent polling data, Korean Americans have one of the lowest levels in political participation among ethnic groups. But just as Japanese Americans developed political connections following internment, Korean Americans are now realizing the importance of social participation. Fellow UC Berkeley student Vivian Lee said it best: “We need to figure out how to become productive American citizens, not productive Korean American citizens.” How? Well, certainly not by fasting and repenting. We should start by engaging the greater community, through politics, or science, or any venue, and strive to make it better for all Americans.
My roommate Paul later confessed that he believed that this column would be my most important of the semester. Knowing that he doesn’t regularly read them, the gesture was humbling because it expressed the faith that my column would embody his voice—our Korean American voice—which has been desperately needed amidst the chaos of the last ten days. Paul’s confidence in the column is the same as Norman Mineta’s confidence in the Asian American voice: that through it, we can overcome this dark day, not as Koreans linked in shame, but as Americans united under tragedy.
(This is my weekly column that appeared in the Daily Californian. You can also read it here)
