And so it begins...

I was telling Chris the other night that I am in a weird place, maybe not weird for international adoptees, but it feels weird to me.

While looking at my coursework from over the years, I have noticed a number of both psychology and sociology courses that deal with race, ethnicity, culture, or some combination of the three. (I have neither a major nor a minor in psychology, sociology, or any ethnic studies type of discipline. In fact, my major is organizational studies, and my career history, until 4 years ago, was healthcare related.) Until recently, I had been taking these courses thinking that I was trying to prepare myself for work regarding healthcare disparities, health and social policy, or even organizations and cultural competence. However, I have realized that like a few old friends who were psychologists, my need to examine my experiences, my baggage so to speak, is what has driven my academic pursuits. From the experiences that I have had growing up in a predominantly white area, while being somewhat protected by my parents' white privilege, to my exposure to people who judged me solely based upon my appearance, I have attempted to understand the cognitive and social processes that gives strength to racism, whether covert or overt. Years ago, I discovered that prejudice and discrimination was most painful when it came from other minorities, especially those who looked like me. Those negative experiences with the Asian community closed my mind to accepting my ethnicity. Many years later, I am now at a place where I feel I am ready to open myself up to discovery, whether that be of biological roots or just exploration of Korean culture. I do not expect this to be easy nor happy, and I realize that I may end up with more questions and possibly angrier. However, I am at a place where I feel I need to face the "it" that is my adoption and my ethnicity and the culture that is tied to it.

So, if you are so inclined, I invite you to join me as I struggle to continue making sense of my newly accepted (within the last 2 years) status as a person of color, how society reacts to me and others like me, and my journey toward learning about my cultural heritage. I hope that somewhere along the way, the rantings and musings found at this address will help someone else who has had similar experiences, because I know there are others like me out there who just need to know that someone else understands.