By Stephanie Samsel
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
I knew I should have been more excited at the thought of meeting her the first time, but I wasn’t. In May 2017, the pressure to have an unexplored part of my Korean identity be a gleaming and life-changing memory grew with my grandmother’s nearing arrival.
My immediate family and I hardly knew a lick of Korean. My grandmother and her two sons, with whom she flew into Dulles International Airport, barely knew any English.
Three weeks passed. Then three days. Then they were mere minutes away. My mom guided her mom through the front door.
“Mommy, mommy,” my mom said. “This is Stephanie.”
If only I knew my grandmother’s name—but I didn’t have the language to ask.
Shorter than 4 feet 11 inches, she stood with warm, shaking hands that caressed mine. Her tear-ridden eyes, which looked so much like my mom’s, compelled me to say something, anything. My tongue knew little more than “thank you,” or “hello,” if I were being charitable. But I butchered that attempt, judging by her stare.
Time seemed to slow as I whipped out my mom’s translating app. Typing “Hi, grandma” took a painstakingly long time, or maybe that was just because I needed to manage with one hand since she was holding the other. Each second I peeled away from her incomprehensible speech felt embarrassing. But her eyes continued to bore into mine, and she cried all the same.
***
Sixteen years earlier, my mom received a letter that would be life changing. It came from her Korean mom, who wished her well and yearned to be reunited after giving her and her brother up for adoption 24 years ago.
My mom and her younger brother Matt have spent most of their lives in Maryland, where they were adopted at ages 9 and 5.
I never knew my mom was in contact with her biological family before I was born, let alone maintained contact virtually with them.
“The language barrier between us hasn’t bothered me at all,” she told me. “Love can be nonverbal.”
Our childhoods could not be more different. While my 9-year-old self played basketball during recess, my mom at that age spent six months in an office with talking flashcards to learn basic English.
At home, my mom wasn’t allowed to speak Korean in front of her four new siblings. Uncle Matt said their parents did not want the others to feel left out or bad-mouthed. But he never minded, considering he was just 5 years old.
Like my uncle, I am no stranger to racial imposter syndrome. We have grown up seeing ourselves as only white, as much as the world likes to ask if we’ve looked in the mirror.
In middle school, my English teacher asked if I had anything to say about the Chinese Revolution. I baffled her with my reply “no” – as timid as it was – and never before wished I could camouflage more. The wound reopened in 12th grade, when another asked, “Have you ever considered writing about your race in your college essay? I mean…’cause you’re certainly not white.”
Little do they know, I call Morristown, Tenn., my second home.
It’s more than just my dad’s hometown. It’s where I admire what looks like a hand-painted view of the Appalachian Mountains every summer, beneath exploding fireworks shot from so close to the deck that I catch fallout in my eyes. Everyone shares an accent most Marylanders would call hillbilly, but I love it and each smiling face that has it, even though hardly any of them look like mine.
If my pale skin and dark hair can make me feel the slightest bit alienated there, how could I expect to connect more with someone who spoke a different language?
***
Joining our new guest inside a hotel room in Washington, D.C., my family gathered around the neutral carpet and egged her on.
Grinning from ear to ear, my 70-year-old grandmother In-Soon Kim did the splits as seamlessly as an instructor. Uncle Matt’s and my family whooped so much that night that “splits” never needed to enter our translating apps. Grandma knew what we were cheering for.
As brief as they were, moments like that made up for Grandma’s mournful expressions about the past. She spoke to her Americanized children as if they were still little kids, Uncle Matt said.
But laughing without getting lost in translation made me feel — even for just a minute — like we had always known each other.
That weekend may not have solved my identity crises, but it never needed to. Not for me. While it was meaningful for me, it makes me happier that it was especially poignant for my mom.
She plans on visiting her family in Korea for the second time next year. Her brother Soondong texted that the family “will do their best to have a meaningful time” together, but I know they already did.
In our own way, each of us did. And no translator can replace that in my book.