Korean American Quotes

“White people can describe themselves with just American. Only when pressed do they go into their ethnic heritage. Doesn't seem fair that I have to forever explain my origin story with that silent hyphen, whereas white people don't. It's complicated. But simple. Simplicated.”
― David Yoon, Frankly in Love

“Every meal, even a somber one like this, was a celebration of what we had left, what remained on this earth to taste and feel and see.”
― Nancy Jooyoun Kim

“The sword is a handle onto the Way of the world that is offering itself to you. If you are willful it will weigh a ton and wear you out. If you lose focus it will cut open your hand. Mindfulness keeps your mind on the blade; and if you are mindful you will not think about the future or past, there will be no blocks to the flow of Tao, and the Way of the world will flow through the sword and through you. You will become the sword of the world.”
― Doc Pruyne, Persimmon

“There may be a lot of kids in this world, but the stupid ones are always stupid in the same way.”
― Yongsoo Park, Las Cucarachas

“There may be a lot of kids in the world, but the stupid ones are all stupid in the same way.”
― Yongsoo Park

“Language spoken by parents to each other: fluent Korean. I grew up hearing marriage as a foreign language—literally and figuratively. I grew up hearing the sound of Korean as a language of Korean-bound han syndrome, disappointment, fury, resignation, the sense of being trapped forever, resentment, guilt. Every other word: a door slammed.”
― Seo-Young Chu, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2018: New Fiction, Poetry, and Category-Defying Literary Gems

“As a Korean, when meeting a Korean adoptee, I feel a negative charge. It feels like rubbing the wrong parts of two batteries together, a painful repelling that is supposed to be an attraction. Korean adoptees have told me time and time again that they feel abandoned and neglected. But what they do not know is that Koreans also feel a longing for them - the longing for the lost child, the lost sibling, like when people look at the Taegeuk and see the dividing line and ignore the fact that a circle binds them together. A big reason I married Danny was because I needed to show him that we all missed him. I needed to accept him with the open arms denied me so many times by Koreans.”
― Youngmi Mayer, I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying

“When Mom-n-Dad say American, they mean white. I never call myself just Korean. I call myself Korean-American, always leading first with Korean or Asian, then the silent hyphen, then ending with American. Never just American.”
― David Yoon

“My editor asks, 'Why does it need to be painful?'

My partner asks, 'Why do you fight so much?'

My audience asks, 'But where is hope in the darkness of your work?'

My ancestors ask, 'Why do you make your hands claw around the lie of your solitude?'

My government asks, 'Why won't you let us use your body to feed the worms?'

I ask, 'What can I write down?”
― Johanna Hedva, How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom