{"id":37136,"date":"2014-08-23T01:09:15","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T01:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37136"},"modified":"2014-08-23T17:39:31","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T17:39:31","slug":"talking-about-race-an-essay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37136","title":{"rendered":"Talking About Race \u2013 An Essay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Talking About Race \u2013 An Essay<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Ms. Food Queen: Cooking Across Difference<\/a>
\nJuly 2014<\/p>\n

Christine Gregory<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

In the Korean language, \u201cheug\u2013in sa ram\u201d means \u201cblack person.\u201d The word \u201cheug\u201d also means dirt. I realized this when I was in high school and confronted my mother about it. She bristled, and said that I was too sensitive. I looked to my father for back up, but he would provide none. Though he was African American and born in rural South Carolina<\/a>, he never spoke of his experiences with prejudice or bias. I recall once on a visit home from college, hoping to inspire a conversation about the cultural and racial differences in his and my mother\u2019s relationship, I asked him how he felt about being in an interracial marriage with a Korean woman. He replied, \u201cWhat are you talking about? Your mama ain\u2019t white.\u201d<\/p>\n

Growing up, we never talked about race\u2013 and it drove me crazy. From my perspective, our lives revolved around our identity, yet we never discussed what it meant to be black, Korean, or mixed. Among my mother\u2019s Korean friends, co-workers and acquaintances, my brother and I were black. They were shocked at our taste for Korean food beyond mainstream kimchi<\/a> and bulgogi<\/a>; and equally astounded by my ability to speak Korean so well! Out of sheer ignorance, they excluded us from church activities meant only for \u201cfull-blooded\u201d Korean parishioners, not realizing that they were replicating, in Jim Crow<\/a>-like fashion, the racism of prior decades.<\/p>\n

To black folks, we were mixed. Not quite African American, but brown enough to be included in social networks and friend groups that gave us a sense of community and belonging. Almost all of my friends were black or biracial. With several military bases nearby, mixed race children were not uncommon in our neighborhood. Yet our Korean heritage was still a subject of fascination. Why didn\u2019t we own a grocery mart or dry cleaners? No. We don\u2019t know Karate<\/a> (and it\u2019s Tae Kwon Do<\/a>, thank-you-very-much). No. We don\u2019t eat dogs and kimchee is not spoiled cabbage…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Talking About Race \u2013 An Essay Ms. Food Queen: Cooking Across Difference July 2014 Christine Gregory In the Korean language, \u201cheug\u2013in sa ram\u201d means \u201cblack person.\u201d The word \u201cheug\u201d also means dirt. I realized this when I was in high school and confronted my mother about it. She bristled, and said that I was too […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,395,8,20],"tags":[17788,17790,17789],"class_list":["post-37136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-autobiography","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-christine-gregory","tag-ms-food-queen","tag-ms-food-queen-cooking-across-difference"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}