Andrew (Yung-Wha) Bek
2nd place adult essay
The New American Dream
The New American Dream is not so different; to live freely and safely and to have opportunities for ourselves and out children for educational, economic and social freedom. The shift that is happening is towards keeping our origins in sight as we move ahead together as Americans. The stories of my father, myself and my son illustrate what I believe. We can choose to be everything we are, and don’t need to lose parts to fit in.
My father, Chang Moon Bek, was a Korean who was forcibly relocated by the Empire of Japan in the 1930’s. His father, mother and he and his brothers and sisters were taken along with thousands of Koreans to Japan to labor for the Japanese. They were economic slaves, treated as non-citizens and considered inferior by the Japanese. When America and its allies won WWII, Korea’s forty year annexation by Japan was ended, and most ethnic Koreans returned to Korea, minus their language, native Korean names and most of their already meager belongings. They had suffered through the bombing and privations of WWII along with their Imperial Japanese masters, and were eager to return to the “Land of the Morning Calm.”
Shortly after their return, the Communist North Koreans and their Chinese allies invaded and overran South Korea. The United Nations, led by America, intervened and several bloody, destructive years later negotiated an armistice. The country was destroyed and divided by the years of back and forth war and famine. As a boy, Chang Moon met an American Army Colonel who recognized his intelligence and initiative. Colonel Tom Gunby sponsored him to attend high school and later, college in the USA. Chang Moon attended PeabodyHigh School and VanderbiltUniversity in Tennessee. Life as a Korean War refugee in Dixie in the early 1950’s could not have been easy. Language and obvious racial prejudice were just some of the problems he faced, along with the long separation from his family. Despite these challenges, Chang Moon did well in high school and even played on the football and baseball teams, once he figured out the foreign games’ rules. He broke his collarbone on the first play he was involved in. As a team mate later stated, he sacrificed his body for the team. I have no doubt he recognized that America was the best place in the world to live, but fitting in was very important.
He met and married my wonderful Southern mother while attending college in Tennessee. My American grandfather and grandmother were understandably upset by this development, but they accepted my father completely once they got to know him.
When my father graduated from college, his student visa expired and he was forced to return to Korea. My mother and older brother accompanied him back to Korea, which was still recovering from the Korean Conflict. As a U.S. educated engineer, Chang Moon was not allowed to return to the USA since his skills were needed to rebuild South Korea. He taught math at the SeoulForeignSchool, and the 1959 Crusader Yearbook was dedicated to him, based on his accessibility and his immense understanding of American youth.
During this time, I was born in Seoul and cared for by my Mother, Korean Grandmother and Aunties. I have heard stories of my uncle buying us food in the black market, since Korea was still in ruins in 1958. My father was trying to get permission to attend graduate school in America, and he and my Mother had to scheme to find a way to leave the country. I was never told the whole story of how he left Korea the second time; only that my Mother, brother and I flew to the USA on a planeload of Korean orphans. When the plane was met by the social workers, they assumed I was one of the orphans and tried to take me away. Of course, my mother cleared that up quickly! Eventually my father did make it out of Korea somehow; as it turned out, never to return. He wanted to become a physician but our growing family necessitated a quicker course of study. Chang Moon graduated from MSU and was offered his first job at the Dow Chemical Company. We lived in Midland, Michigan, and lived the American Dream of the 1960’s. My mother went to community college to become a nurse, and our family eventually grew to seven kids. Although Midland in the 1960’s had a small population of Asian scientists and engineers, we were a definite minority and faced some prejudice. I remember fighting on the playgrounds when someone would call us a racially bigoted name, and that my Father was denied membership in one of the community service clubs based on his race. My father was recruited by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and we moved to Lansing. He fought against industrial pollution of our waterways, and we lived a quiet, “normal, middle class” life.
We lost most of our Korean heritage since at the time assimilation was considered more important than preserving the old ways. We did have some blending of American and Korean upbringing, including Southern “soul food” and Japanese-Korean foods. We were instilled with Confucian family values that emphasized the family first, then our country, then ourselves.
When I was a high school senior I got my parents’ permission to join the United States Marine Corps. I saw the Corps as the best of the armed forces. I wanted to travel, learn a skill, have some fun and go to college. The summer I graduated, I hitchhiked to New England with my best friend to commemorate the US Bicentennial. This was the beginning of my reawakening as a “hapa,” or half-Korean. Later that same summer, I borrowed the money to return to Korea and meet my uncles, aunts and cousins again. Being half Korean in Korea was an experience. I was not allowed to visit the 38th parallel in Panmunjom, since a horrible border incident occurred in the DMZ that summer. After my “other homeland” visit I entered the US Marine Corps and served in Japan and California. I believe my bi-racial background and experiences growing up have made me a very patriotic American. Until I was eighteen, I had dual citizenship. I renounced my Korean citizenship and took the oath of allegiance to the United States shortly before I went back to Korea. My parents were worried that I would be snatched by the Koreans and made to serve in their compulsory armed forces. While in Marine Corps basic training I faced racial prejudice since the USMC had fought in Vietnam, and the drill instructors were combat veterans of the recent conflict, and the unsatisfactory ending weighed heavily on the Marine Corps collective psyche.
Now, as an adult and as a parent I understand what my father went through and lost to give me and my family the opportunity to be Americans. My son is one quarter Korean, and we are learning about that part of our heritage together. I understand the importance of education and travel, and how service to our country and community makes us stronger, more engaged and productive citizens.
When I was a boy, Michigan and Shiga, Japan became our sister states. This program was Eisenhower’s idea for transitioning from the occupation of Japan into the democracy they enjoy today. Lansing had a sister city, and we hosted delegates frequently. Now, as an adult, I have become involved in Marquette’s sister city program, and have visited Japan and hosted delegations from our sister city. My son has been a part of this experience and I believe it has broadened his outlook as it certainly has mine. It’s all part of the emotional healing that needs to happen between Koreans, Japanese and Americans.
I returned to Korea again this year, and visited with my remaining family there as well as my uncles, aunts and cousins who have immigrated to America and are living the New American Dream in the Silicon Valley area of California. My uncles, aunts and cousins are Americans now, and I am very proud of them, and grateful to the United States for all it has made possible for us. My family in California has not fully assimilated, instead keeping their language and customs and blending them with their new home’s traditions. I am proud to do my duty as and American citizen. It is my dream that the two Koreas will reunite someday, and that democracy and prosperity will come to North Korea. I believe that I can make a difference, and am grateful to America for the chance to do so.
The New American Dream is to be fully engaged in the prosperity and success of our country in a global economy, mindful of our responsibilities to the other citizens of the world, and to celebrate our ethnic origins while respecting the blending and merging of so many diverse cultures that is America.