Park, Jonny K

    My name is Jonny Kyung-Hwan Park, and you can call me either Jonny or Kyung-Hwan. I’m currently a senior in the art program. I am interested in languages as a tool of communication and mark making. Having immigrated to the U.S. from Korea during my ‘formative’ years, I have always been curious, and cognizant of how the existence of different languages in my life have shaped my development as an individual.

    In my first few years in the U.S., acquiring the English language to a native standard was a traumatic journey. In retrospect, I was perhaps trying to satisfy the model minority myth, aspiring to be white-adjacent on a social spectrum designed to serve the white and privileged. During the process, I subconsciously denounced my Korean heritage, and with my English constructed to a native standard and in a predominantly white environment, maybe I believed that I was white. 

    After reading the Sybil Venega excerpt, I got a chance to reflect on my own story. “For the Chicana in a white, male-dominated society, the obstacles are clear. However, within her own culture, the Chicana has to contend with specific cultural orientations towards the woman.” I have recently moved from the westside to Koreatown 3 years ago, and for the first time since my departure from Korea, there has been a significant shift in my surroundings. In many ways, I am no longer a minority because a large number of people in my neighborhood physically resemble the features of my parents, brothers, and me. However, as I am surrounded by Korean neighbors and employed at a Korean owned business with other Korean (and 2nd generation Korean-American) employees, I too, like the Venega writing, have been feeling displaced within the Korean community. “Like the Chicano, she is aware of her cultural and ethnic heritage and is trying to maintain herself as Chicana within her American environment.” Having lived the first 10 years of my life in Korea, I was aware of my origin and this brought an overwhelming a sense of displacement when I first moved to the States. And having had spent the next 10 or so years assimilating to white American culture, it feels like a strange, reverse(?) déjà vu living in Koreatown. I am not necessarily pained by or seeking pity regarding my sense of displacement, but I think Chicano studies could provide me with insightful ways to exist and make sense of my role on this side of town.