I feel in those situations less like a representative of Korean America and I feel more like the representative of the other.” “I felt that at least when I was in college - the starkness when you’re the only Asian woman in the room over and over again. And so, of course, that definitely has political implications.”ĭid you ever feel like your Korean identity was something you had to carry with you? But then I realized if I’m centering myself as a reader, then that’s a Korean American immigrant queer woman’s body, and this body has not very often been centered in American letters. “People so often ask, ‘Who are you writing for?’ and I used to think my answer to that - was boring. That experience helped define her as a writer, she says. ![]() “I think a giant difference that took place almost immediately - and then it held true for a long time - was for the first time in my life, I would so often be the only Asian woman in the room,” she said. ![]() ![]() But that changed abruptly when she went off to college at Yale. Surrounded by so many Koreans, Kwon rarely felt like her identity was under the microscope. Kwon (“The Incendiaries”) was born in Seoul and raised in Cerritos, home to a large Korean community. You can be a Korean, you can look Korean, you can try to cook Korean food and have it turn out like s. They say it all the time: There’s no definition on how you need to be Korean. I cannot connect the dots, and most likely it’s me probably being scared to do it. “I’ve been very vocal about the idea that I don’t feel good and I don’t feel right to cook Korean food. How have you come to understand your Korean identity through food and cooking? I felt like I needed to go to a certain college, drive a certain car.” I felt like I had to be more excited to date boys. I never felt like I had to be more Korean. That was just an internal struggle I always had. But that had nothing to do with my ethnicity, my race, where I come from and who I am. I did feel pressure that I had to fit in a very gender-norm world, in that sense, and what success looked like. “I didn’t feel any pressure that I had to be more Korean. At the end of the day, it’s a connection.”ĭid you feel any pressure as a child to “be more Korean?” “They helped me define who I was through that label and identification, and for that I will always be grateful. “That community really reinvigorated my appreciation for who I am,” she said. After she won Season 10 of “Top Chef,” though, the exposure opened her to new communities that have welcomed her warmly, including fellow Korean adoptees. ![]() Growing up, she didn’t feel pressure to “be Korean.” But her identity is something she’s still grappling with. I feel like a lot of grandmas show their love through food, so the fact that she saved all this mukeunji for me just so she can cook it with pork - that’s love.”Ĭhef Kristen Kish was adopted from South Korea when she was 4 months old and was raised in Michigan. “Every time I’d go over to my grandmother’s house, she’d always save this mukeunji that’s been resting in her kimchi naengjanggo for months, because she knows how much I love it. What is one of your fondest kimchi memories? Just to be able to have such a Korean word all over the posters at the gay clubs and bars and then later when I got on ‘Drag Race,’ to be able to be part of this massive underground gay culture, which is now going mainstream, to be able to represent Korean culture is basically what I’ve wanted to do and what I wanted to accomplish.” “The main reason why I chose my drag name Kim Chi is because I’ve always felt Koreans were very underrepresented in pop culture, so I wanted to pick a name that was as Korean as possible. How much does your Korean identity influence your stage presence? That was my connection to Korea, and I connected more to that culture than American pop culture.” “What really cemented me as being proud to be Korean was a lot of Korean pop culture. “I always knew deep down in my core I was Korean,” she said. Vacillating between two cultures was jarring at times, but Kim Chi always felt grounded in her Korean identity. As the first Korean American contestant on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” Kim Chi wowed audiences and helped shine a spotlight on Korean culture while also uplifting a community of “Seoul queens” in the underground South Korean drag scene.īorn Sang-Young Shin, Kim Chi moved back and forth between South Korea and Michigan until she entered high school.
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