I (Becky) have never met a half-Korean therapist before; I imagine if I had known one growing up, the way I dealt with many issues might have been different. We hope this conversation is as meaningful for you as it was for us! If you would like to get in touch with Jen, you can find her via IG @jwhang_mft_fi or her Linkedin. For those in NYS area looking for a therapist, you can contact Jennifer Whang on PsychologyToday.
I’m Korean/white, spent years both in Korea and the US, and I unfortunately *still* struggle with this. Even though I do speak Korean fluently and grew up with the culture (which prob further amplified my identity issues) I still always feel like a perpetual foreigner and that I will never be Korean or Asian enough because I’m mixed. Even when people would ask me where I’m from, they would be like “oh so your *mother* is Korean” almost as if the Korean blood and heritage ended with her. It’s tough but it’s nice to hear I’m not alone in this 💗
Thank you so much for this! My wife is a Korean adoptee and we have a half Korean daughter. I'm trying to get a head start on the questions that she'll have later in life. This interview is really encouraging! I hope that this conversation of cultural affirmation continues and is helpful for her.
Great video! ♥️ I'm not half-Korean but I am mixed and can relate to this. I really don't see many resources about self-love for mixed race people. Videos like this are important. 🙂
Hi, I'm mixed race aswell, and even if I hear a lot poeple praising how handsome I am, I feel actually very lonely in society and either in family, Compliments doesn't make up for all the eyes looks that tell you that you are different. I don't think its an experience I will want for my kids if one day I have some. Races that can say with assurance that they belong to somewhere can't understand that.
I'm half first generation Korean American on my maternal side and Greek, Sicilian, Irish, Scottish, and Danish American on my paternal side. I was adopted and grew up in an Irish family. My parents met my birth mother when she gave me up. They learned as much as they could about Korean culture and supported me in learning that part of myself. We were apart of an international adoption support group and grew a strong bind with other families but no one else had the same situation I had. When I was a child, kids in school would bully me and ask why I didn't look like my parents. It would make me feel insecure. I recently discovered my paternal side off of Ancestry DNA and met my paternal side, but I still want to know my Korean side because that's all I knew growing up. I don't look as Asian as I did when I was younger. When I tell people that I'm Korean they say I don't look Korean. Koreans don't think I'm Korean and European Americans don't see me as white. I'm usually mistaken as Hispanic. It's had an impact on my life and I don't know where I fit in sometimes. I'm 33 years old and still struggle with my identity from time to time. I've been in counseling since I was young and keep up with therapy today. I'm currently working on a counseling degree in social work. I want to help individuals like myself. Sometimes I feel lost and don't know who to turn to. I want to connect with someone who will understand what I'm going through.
I had zero issues with being mixed-race until I found the WMAF vs AMWF thing back in 2020. My mom wasn't the stereotype of white-worshipping/self-hating, but my dad was literally the stereotype of the weird abusive conservative loser white man. Thinking I found something so deep and meaningful, I internalized it as fact and then basically started thinking that I was inferior not only to monoracial Asian people but to white people as well. So I decided that I could "save" myself by going through an entire phase where I had extreme self-hatred towards the white side. (Unlike most other diasporic Asian people, I never struggled with hating being Asian.) My ultimate goal was to move somewhere far away where nobody else knew me, and then lie that I was a monoracial Asian person (I look very close to monoracial Asian, so the appearance part wouldn't have been too hard for me to pass off). I would make up arguments and excuses like "I don't even look white so therefore identifying as white is pointless" and "Obama has a white mom but only identifies as black so therefore I am allowed to only identify as only Asian". That, or I was saying extremely self-hating things like "when I go to college and people ask about my last name, I will lie to them saying that I was adopted and that I used to check the white box because I used to have internalized racism and would lie about being mixed" and "I'm glad I don't have obvious white features because if I did I would hate them and I would want to get surgery to remove them". This is going to sound really awful, but I even had negative mental thoughts about other mixed half white/half Asian people with more obvious white features than I (fortunately I never said or did anything beyond that). I did eventually find out that the communities (such as r/hapas and r/aznidentity) promoting these views were highly toxic incel spaces, but I still haven't fully recovered from it. While I have gotten over the extreme self-hatred, I still feel embarrassed and ashamed of being half white (fortunately I do hold very positive views of the ethnicities that make up my white side) so it has been reduced to just an insecurity. I have an irrational fear of one day meeting a monoracial Asian person who subscribes to the whole WMAF vs AMWF thing who then finds out that I am half white (this is especially ironic because of the fact that the only people who told me they could tell I was part white by my appearance were not Asian), and then they stop seeing me as "Asian" and instead they start seeing me as "deranged WMAF hapa with a fucked-up dad". (I really fucking hate that word because of how I associate it with the WMAF vs AMWF thing, and I personally believe that it should only be used by people who are from Hawaii and/or have Native Hawaiian ancestry. Things like this is why I believe AAPI harms Pacific Islanders.) I did notice that I have actually changed the way I talk about myself. I have basically stopped calling myself "half Asian"/"half Korean" and instead I basically started calling myself "Asian person who is technically half white"/"Korean person who is technically half white" and also became very hesitant to call myself mixed-race. I know all of this is extremely bad and unhealthy, but the fact that my dad fits the stereotype has prevented me from being able to fully de-internalize it. I am afraid the only way I will ever recover from it is if I talked to a therapist.
지금 이시점에서는 외국인이나 외국인의 외모를 가진 혼혈이 겪는 힘든점들이 인종차별로 보여질 수 있고 실제로 "차별"이지만 5천년동안 외세로 부터의 침략, 수탈을 당하면서도 유전적이든 정신적이든 민족의 고유성을 유지하며 독립적인 세력으로 한반도에 뿌리내리고 살 수 있었던 이유중에 하나였다. 시대가 변했으니 변해야 되는것이 맞고 조금씩 변해가고 있지만 안타까운건 민족성은 그렇게 빠르게 변하지 않는다.
We all have a tendency as humans to wonder where we fit within the schemata and whether certain perceived attributes are considered strengths or weaknesses to our self identity. Our self concept may be based upon our attitudes and beliefs or what we look like. Sometimes it may be our cultural affinity or it may be brought to our awareness by others, usually based upon stereotypes. Based on my experience this "I don't feel korean enough" is primarily a part korean female thing. I have part asian female friends needing affirmation of that part of their identity. On the other hand, I have part asian men friends whose primarily complaint is that they are reminded on how asian they are. On the whole, being part asian seems to add something to halfer women and subtract something from the halfer men. The problem for women is purely psychological. I must admit, I have never seen or heard Half Korean women ever criticized for being half white or whatever when I was visiting Korea. Rather they were praised on the whole rather than being slotted as the 'other.' No reference of not being korean enough ever entered the discussion. I think in the end, the ultimate goal is to see each individual for who they are personally rather than having to attribute stereotypes whether we feel it culturally necessary to our identity or not. As long as it does not evolve into self loathing or identity politics, who we are and what we identify with shouldn't be a deciding factor in whether we are deserving of being treated civilly as a human being.
Becky I didn't know my race growing up my Dad is the Asian parent. Afghanistan the people in that country are not the same like it is in Japan. I hope u will write back I'm an Adoptee and want to talk to u about it
Did Jennifer grow up in the U.S.? I would imagine this feeling would be much more amplified if she grew up in Korea and everyone around her was Korean and she stood out as someone that was mixed. Although these days Korean beauty pedestalizes those that are biracial. A lot of the Korean models that you see in advertising aren't full Korean, funny enough. And that's true for other East Asian countries in general. In the West, many modelling agencies also value the ethnically ambiguous look over the black/white binary.
![Dad doesn't approve of daughter watching TikTok all day [Part 1] | K-DOC](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/sbGY4TbG9rE/mqdefault.jpg)
I (Becky) have never met a half-Korean therapist before; I imagine if I had known one growing up, the way I dealt with many issues might have been different. We hope this conversation is as meaningful for you as it was for us! If you would like to get in touch with Jen, you can find her via IG @jwhang_mft_fi or her Linkedin. For those in NYS area looking for a therapist, you can contact Jennifer Whang on PsychologyToday.
I’m Korean/white, spent years both in Korea and the US, and I unfortunately *still* struggle with this. Even though I do speak Korean fluently and grew up with the culture (which prob further amplified my identity issues) I still always feel like a perpetual foreigner and that I will never be Korean or Asian enough because I’m mixed. Even when people would ask me where I’m from, they would be like “oh so your *mother* is Korean” almost as if the Korean blood and heritage ended with her. It’s tough but it’s nice to hear I’m not alone in this 💗
Thank you so much for this! My wife is a Korean adoptee and we have a half Korean daughter. I'm trying to get a head start on the questions that she'll have later in life. This interview is really encouraging! I hope that this conversation of cultural affirmation continues and is helpful for her.
Thank you for giving a platform to people like us. I'm korean-iranian, first gen and find these videos intriguing :)
Great video! ♥️ I'm not half-Korean but I am mixed and can relate to this. I really don't see many resources about self-love for mixed race people.
Videos like this are important. 🙂
Thank you for this. As a parent who is raising half Korean and half white child, this channel discussions are so valuable to me.
I'm glad you found us!
As a Halfie I found this very interesting. Thanks for sharing this moment and your experiences with us.
Hi, I'm mixed race aswell, and even if I hear a lot poeple praising how handsome I am, I feel actually very lonely in society and either in family, Compliments doesn't make up for all the eyes looks that tell you that you are different. I don't think its an experience I will want for my kids if one day I have some. Races that can say with assurance that they belong to somewhere can't understand that.
I'm half first generation Korean American on my maternal side and Greek, Sicilian, Irish, Scottish, and Danish American on my paternal side. I was adopted and grew up in an Irish family. My parents met my birth mother when she gave me up. They learned as much as they could about Korean culture and supported me in learning that part of myself. We were apart of an international adoption support group and grew a strong bind with other families but no one else had the same situation I had. When I was a child, kids in school would bully me and ask why I didn't look like my parents. It would make me feel insecure. I recently discovered my paternal side off of Ancestry DNA and met my paternal side, but I still want to know my Korean side because that's all I knew growing up. I don't look as Asian as I did when I was younger. When I tell people that I'm Korean they say I don't look Korean. Koreans don't think I'm Korean and European Americans don't see me as white. I'm usually mistaken as Hispanic. It's had an impact on my life and I don't know where I fit in sometimes. I'm 33 years old and still struggle with my identity from time to time. I've been in counseling since I was young and keep up with therapy today. I'm currently working on a counseling degree in social work. I want to help individuals like myself. Sometimes I feel lost and don't know who to turn to. I want to connect with someone who will understand what I'm going through.
I had zero issues with being mixed-race until I found the WMAF vs AMWF thing back in 2020. My mom wasn't the stereotype of white-worshipping/self-hating, but my dad was literally the stereotype of the weird abusive conservative loser white man. Thinking I found something so deep and meaningful, I internalized it as fact and then basically started thinking that I was inferior not only to monoracial Asian people but to white people as well. So I decided that I could "save" myself by going through an entire phase where I had extreme self-hatred towards the white side. (Unlike most other diasporic Asian people, I never struggled with hating being Asian.) My ultimate goal was to move somewhere far away where nobody else knew me, and then lie that I was a monoracial Asian person (I look very close to monoracial Asian, so the appearance part wouldn't have been too hard for me to pass off). I would make up arguments and excuses like "I don't even look white so therefore identifying as white is pointless" and "Obama has a white mom but only identifies as black so therefore I am allowed to only identify as only Asian". That, or I was saying extremely self-hating things like "when I go to college and people ask about my last name, I will lie to them saying that I was adopted and that I used to check the white box because I used to have internalized racism and would lie about being mixed" and "I'm glad I don't have obvious white features because if I did I would hate them and I would want to get surgery to remove them". This is going to sound really awful, but I even had negative mental thoughts about other mixed half white/half Asian people with more obvious white features than I (fortunately I never said or did anything beyond that). I did eventually find out that the communities (such as r/hapas and r/aznidentity) promoting these views were highly toxic incel spaces, but I still haven't fully recovered from it. While I have gotten over the extreme self-hatred, I still feel embarrassed and ashamed of being half white (fortunately I do hold very positive views of the ethnicities that make up my white side) so it has been reduced to just an insecurity. I have an irrational fear of one day meeting a monoracial Asian person who subscribes to the whole WMAF vs AMWF thing who then finds out that I am half white (this is especially ironic because of the fact that the only people who told me they could tell I was part white by my appearance were not Asian), and then they stop seeing me as "Asian" and instead they start seeing me as "deranged WMAF hapa with a fucked-up dad". (I really fucking hate that word because of how I associate it with the WMAF vs AMWF thing, and I personally believe that it should only be used by people who are from Hawaii and/or have Native Hawaiian ancestry. Things like this is why I believe AAPI harms Pacific Islanders.) I did notice that I have actually changed the way I talk about myself. I have basically stopped calling myself "half Asian"/"half Korean" and instead I basically started calling myself "Asian person who is technically half white"/"Korean person who is technically half white" and also became very hesitant to call myself mixed-race. I know all of this is extremely bad and unhealthy, but the fact that my dad fits the stereotype has prevented me from being able to fully de-internalize it. I am afraid the only way I will ever recover from it is if I talked to a therapist.
지금 이시점에서는 외국인이나 외국인의 외모를 가진 혼혈이 겪는 힘든점들이 인종차별로 보여질 수 있고 실제로 "차별"이지만
5천년동안 외세로 부터의 침략, 수탈을 당하면서도
유전적이든 정신적이든 민족의 고유성을 유지하며 독립적인 세력으로 한반도에 뿌리내리고 살 수 있었던 이유중에 하나였다.
시대가 변했으니 변해야 되는것이 맞고 조금씩 변해가고 있지만 안타까운건 민족성은 그렇게 빠르게 변하지 않는다.
Wonderful conversation!!
Hello from Seoul… loved your videos.. a fellow creator
We all have a tendency as humans to wonder where we fit within the schemata and whether certain perceived attributes are considered strengths or weaknesses to our self identity. Our self concept may be based upon our attitudes and beliefs or what we look like. Sometimes it may be our cultural affinity or it may be brought to our awareness by others, usually based upon stereotypes. Based on my experience this "I don't feel korean enough" is primarily a part korean female thing. I have part asian female friends needing affirmation of that part of their identity. On the other hand, I have part asian men friends whose primarily complaint is that they are reminded on how asian they are. On the whole, being part asian seems to add something to halfer women and subtract something from the halfer men. The problem for women is purely psychological. I must admit, I have never seen or heard Half Korean women ever criticized for being half white or whatever when I was visiting Korea. Rather they were praised on the whole rather than being slotted as the 'other.' No reference of not being korean enough ever entered the discussion. I think in the end, the ultimate goal is to see each individual for who they are personally rather than having to attribute stereotypes whether we feel it culturally necessary to our identity or not. As long as it does not evolve into self loathing or identity politics, who we are and what we identify with shouldn't be a deciding factor in whether we are deserving of being treated civilly as a human being.
My mom was a adoptee and raised in Arkansas so I didn't get to learn korean things
But I yearn to have korean family and friends I'm half Korean and white and I have feelings that I not korean enough at times
Becky I didn't know my race growing up my Dad is the Asian parent. Afghanistan the people in that country are not the same like it is in Japan. I hope u will write back I'm an Adoptee and want to talk to u about it
she looks latina mexican
Did Jennifer grow up in the U.S.? I would imagine this feeling would be much more amplified if she grew up in Korea and everyone around her was Korean and she stood out as someone that was mixed. Although these days Korean beauty pedestalizes those that are biracial. A lot of the Korean models that you see in advertising aren't full Korean, funny enough. And that's true for other East Asian countries in general. In the West, many modelling agencies also value the ethnically ambiguous look over the black/white binary.
@양념통닭 exactly lmao i was wondering what this guy was saying
Pls make new videos i am dying for ur videos😭😭😭😭
when you realize that tamil ppl and korean ppl are relatives
Jen is gorgeous.
I think these people can't speak Korean fluently