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Daniela Alarcon

Professor Shahrazad Encinias

CAS 115

18 November 2023

A Life Between Two Worlds

I grew up in a family that always reminded me that I was half Korean and half

Guatemalan. My family felt proud to say that because they said I was unique. However, it always

seemed strange to me, since many of my friends also had absent fathers, but their mothers did

not usually mention them. With me it was different: my mom always tried to instill in me a love

for Korean culture, which initially led me to reject it. I wondered why she wanted me to accept it

if I was never going to experience the original culture. I felt it was a waste of time to try to

connect with something that was not genuine.

But at the same time, deep down I enjoyed being asked about my Asian appearance, or

people praising my ability to use chopsticks or eat Korean food. Secretly I loved that part of me,

although I was reminded that what I knew was not the real culture, but only what my mom had

adopted while she was with my biological dad.

I realized this when I started Básicos (middle school), in a prestigious institution in

Guatemala. There I met for the first time another kid who was half Korean and half Guatemalan,

like me. It surprised me because my whole life I had been the only one with that background.

Learning more about his life made me envious. He did have his dad present, spoke Korean

fluently, and had grown up genuinely absorbing the culture. It made me think I wasn't Korean

enough. So I rejected that part of myself.

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But people kept considering me Korean anyway. It may sound silly, but over time I just

accepted it. I accepted that I was half Korean. I think coming to the United States and seeing so

much diversity of backgrounds in families helped me accept myself too. At school, I met many

students proud of their parents' different nationalities. So I wondered: why can't I feel the same? I

decided to see it as an opportunity to explore and connect with that side of me I had rejected. My

mom helped me a lot in that process. I realized I had underestimated her. Korean culture is a part

of me, no matter how much I know about it. What matters is that I decided to accept it.
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