Deeper Dive
My project is a hybrid portfolio consisting of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction. The work was intended to chart the various voices and experiences of the Korean diaspora at a time when I was deeply interested in the country’s long, ancient past and its modern future. The old stories change as a country evolves, as a population adapts, and as the myths we tell ourselves to survive evolve — but still, some undercurrent of culture, some underpinning of what can only be called the soul of a country, remains. In the absence of a physical location, I was intrigued by the question of what identifiers and qualifiers remain for one to call themselves anything at all. A language, perhaps? A culture? What does it mean to belong — whether in anthropological, historical, or even spiritual terms? Throughout my research, I focused on two Korean words considered untranslatable in the emotional canon: Han and Jung.
Those two words led me in pursuit of history, and, as usually occurs in the nature of writing, the questions led to more questions. There are no easy answers. Korea’s current fragmentation into North and South soon became a greater metaphor for the lives of a diaspora that has long gone unwritten — both in history books and traditional literature. Through interviews with my grandfather and readings of history books and literature focused on depicting diasporas — such as the works of Krys Lee, Zadie Smith, Min Jin Lee, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie — I created a portfolio that reflects my findings. Like all writing, the portfolio itself was an achievement, but any true revelation came from the work, the labor, and the love of that labor.
I hope that, through this portfolio, there will be greater acknowledgement of the unique perils of Korean history and renewed interest in the rich heritage of a people who have only recently found themselves in the global spotlight. We, as a people, are, at our core, fiercely resilient. This work was intended as a research project to prove that thesis, and to back it up with the foundation of evidence. Literature transforms the reader into a world they have never before encountered, but more often than not, the emotional truth can, with some scrutiny, pass for lived experience. My intention with this portfolio was to capture — if not the factual experiences — the emotional experiences of a group of people, and to restore, educate, and spotlight.