Are you a halfie?Posted in Anthropology, Articles, Asian Diaspora, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive on 2019-05-12 23:37Z by Steven |
The Korea Times
2019-05-13
 Sunya (left), Loren (right) and their two children Anika and Neptune. |
Since the mid-20th century, South Korea has clung to a message of homogeneity and race as a cornerstone of its national identity. It has advocated genetic purity (and at times superiority) as it looks in the geopolitical mirror and asks the most existential of questions.
Yet the story delivered through school text books and the broader public consciousness has often come into conflict with the reality of history. It also ignores the generations of halfies living both here and abroad, often the product of the tragic Korean War that tore the peninsula in two.
While that particular conflict is labeled “the forgotten war,” many see halfies as “the forgotten race.” Throughout the early years the first generations faced discrimination, sometimes growing up in single-parent households, orphaned, or simply socially reviled.
To be a halfie anywhere is difficult. To be a halfie in Korea is a tale unto itself…
Read the entire article here