Sometimes I feel like an illegitimate child of the world. Neither truly born of Korean culture or American ideals. My Korean speaking skills are pretty shabby, I prefer Big Macs over kimchi and rice, and I’m totally incompetent in the latest K-Pop hits. Yet I do complain when people don’t take their shoes off in my house, and I let my parents eat first before I touch my food. And as I look in the mirror each morning, I always see the flat nose and nonexistent eyelids that will always mark me as another ethnicity. Even if people claim America is a melting pot, I’m still the radish that doesn’t seem to quite dissolve in the soup.

It seems like Eastern society constantly pushes Asian-Americans to retain their culture. “Never forget your heritage!” Asian parents insist as they send their children to language schools and celebrate Asian holidays. Yet on the other side of the spectrum, Western society makes fun of FOBs and draws stereotypes from those who just seem “too Asian”. Expectations of Asian-Americans are pretty unrealistic – accomplish both complete assimilation and cultural preservation? It’s more likely that one will lean more toward one end of the spectrum or the other.

I probably fall somewhere near the American end. But when I tell other people I’m not too much of a kimchi fan, they gasp in shock. Of course, it’s a surprise – kimchi is to Korean cuisine as French fries are to fast food. But what bothers me is not the initial surprise, but the demand that I should chomp down a chopstick-full of kimchi to prove my “Korean-ness”. I can’t make myself like kimchi anymore than I can change the face that stares back at me in the mirror each morning (and no, plastic surgery does not count).

So what am I? Korean-American? American-Korean? Right now, I don’t relate to any cultural identity, and maybe I never will. But I see the faint beginnings of one that I may be able to identify with, as other Korean-Americans (as well as Asian-Americans) both desire and decline from certain aspects of Eastern and Western societies. We may feel like illegitimate children now, but maybe an “imperfect” marriage of Asian and American cultures will eventually become more acceptable. Maybe someday, I too will have a cultural identity to call my own, even if it’s as bland as “culturally isolated second-generation Korean-American”. But until then, I am an illegitimate child of culture, and I can’t seem to identify fully with one parent culture or the other.