Konnect Magazine - Asian American news, features, opinions, and other miscellaneous ramblings
Asian American news, features, opinions, and other miscellaneous ramblings
While I like my name (Kee Won Huh), it has caused me problems living in the U.S. Not my name’s fault, of course. It’s just that U.S. naming customs and documentation have taken years to catch up to accommodate the naming customs of immigrants (many of which are now American citizens). In fact, they still haven’t caught up. Here’s a short list of problems I’ve encountered:
Tae Kim, author of “War With Pigeons,†will be speaking at the “Authors on Asia†series hosted by the Pacific Asia Museum in Pasadena, California.
Tae will be speaking on Sunday, April 1, 2012 at 2pm. Here’s some additional information and reservations.
(By Tae Kim)Â Tae Kim is an American, through and through.
A successful executive and attorney with a good education, he lives the American Dream every day, but he also knows that there is another side to being Korean-American, in which it is very difficult to claim complete assimilation into American life.
“For Koreans in America, there is a strong sense of wanting to be Americans and make the most of the freedom and opportunity for success that America has to offer,†said Kim, author of War With Pigeons, a novel that chronicles how Korean families from different classes live together as Americans, as it peels back the veil of the hidden Korean society that exists outside the view of non-Koreans.
“But there is another side to being a Korean in America – an enduring adherence to the long-standing traditions of a Korean class system characterized by an aristocratic sector that rules over a working class population – and if you’re not Korean, you’d never know it’s there.†[Read more...]
