Summary and analysis of the essay, "Then and Now: Finding My Voice"
THEN
AND NOW: FINDING MY VOICE
-Elaine
H. Kim, Korea (1961-)
Summary and Analysis
Elaine
H. Kim is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at
the University of California in the USA. As a Korean-American writer,
she has expressed her childhood and educational experience in America. She has
analysed how gender, race, and economic class make an impact on personal life.
In
her autobiographical writing “Then and Now: Finding My Voice”,
Elaine H. Kim presents her turmoil (a violent disturbance) and personal teenage
experience as a Korean refugee child in the USA during the decade of 1950s and
1960s. She expresses the painful suffering that she had undergone in the USA
during the post-conflict situation of Korea and its people in the USA.
The
writer loved fortune-telling, and she visited many fortune tellers and shamans (priest-doctors)
in Korea. It was suggested that her destiny would bring success and happiness
to a man. But a disaster for women: she would be a better wife or a mother.
Some women's fortune tellers predict that she must have a lot of fun in her
life. One amateur (unprofessional) fortune teller said that whatever shaped her
goals and ideas happened to her between the ages of 12 and 17. She thought it
was wrong because that was the unhappiest and most difficult period in her
life.
Kim
writes that she had to go through the problem of language and culture in a new
situation in the USA. As a Korean, culturally, she had to speak the Korean
language and live with Korean culture at home, even within America. By
contrast, she had to speak English at her school in the US. Living in a
bi-cultural situation was a really painful experience for the writer.
She
further expresses how her Korean identity was ignored in her school and how she
was being called “JAP” or “CHICK”. Likewise, Elaine also unravels the other
bitter experiences that she faced during her school years. She was othered and
discriminated against amongst her friends and in American society as well, just
for not being a US citizen.
During
the Korean War of 1950, many refugees filled her house. It was very difficult
for her parents to manage food and shelter for them. Their bedrooms were packed
with many beds. When she was a teenager, she faced other problems. There was a
cultural difference inside and outside her house. People inside her house spoke
Korean, ate Korean food, and talked about what was going on in Korea. But
outside her house, no one knew much about Korea. Most people thought that Korea
was a state in Japan or China. Her father said that the printing press and
gunpowder had been invented in Korea and that a Korean marathon
runner had won a gold medal in the 1936 Olympics. However, the writer was
taught at the school that the greatest inventions were made by European and
Americans.
The
writer also cites other examples where her family was discriminated against in
American society. She writes how her brother was bitten in public places just
because of being Korean. In later days, even though she knew how to speak good
English, she was not given equal status. She was always treated as a foreigner.
So, she committed to becoming a cheerleader in her American school, thinking
that she could get recognition and equal status as her American friends.
In this regard, Elaine was always eager to assimilate herself into
American culture, keeping her interest in the English language and culture.
Even though she tried hard to maintain her identity, she was always treated as a
foreigner and othered in America.
The
writer finally acknowledges that the social discrimination and
marginalisation she faced in her teenage years in the US became the source of
inspiration for her life and showed the path of her understanding of US history
and discrimination, the voice of women, and how Koreans suffered during the
1950s.
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