Cultural Biography: Know Thy Neighbor

Rachel Neff

Pennsylvania State University

 Jungsoo Bae, known simply as Soo, is a South Korean woman in her early forties, who

has a husband and two daughters, one is elementary school, the other in high school. She has

been living in the United States for over ten years now, and has been an American citizen since

last April. Soo is a coworker of mine at the Northside library, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Though we work together on a near daily basis, we do not often have time to discuss details of

our lives. The interviews I was able to do allowed me to understand the perspective of someone

who has immigrated and permanently settled into another country, as well as learning more

about someone I work closely with.

Before these interviews I know about Soos family situation, and the fact that she had two

masters degrees: one in urban planning, that she received in Korea, and one in library sciences,

that she received in America. What I learned after was that Soo came from a blue collar family

in the southern part of South Korea, and because of her lower socioeconomic status had strong

feelings about equality and justice. In college she joined a student organization that discussed

philosophical ideas to try and answer what and why type questions about the world, and a non-

profit organization that worked to persevere various heritage sites in Korea. During her time in

college Soo took part in helping with the protection and preservation of Insadong, a historical

district in Seoul that is now well known for attracting tourists. The work she did with this

organization, and the questions she asked about the world gave her a sense of fulfillment in life.

Unfortunately, much of this was lost when she moved over to the United States. She was

a newlywed at the time, and her husband was working on his PhD. When they first moved they

settled in Texas, and Soo fully believed that when her husband received his degree that she

would have a sense of real accomplishment. She was surprised to find that after the goal was

completed she felt an empty space inside of her. In high school Soo had not been the best
English language student, and had skated by on grammatical knowledge. Now that she was in

the United States she found that her inability to communicate in English limited her

opportunities, and the activities that once gave her a sense of fulfillment seemed out of her reach.

She also found herself needing daycare services, but without a job she could not afford to pay for

them. A friend recommended a local church that offered free daycare, and that is when Soo

became involved in the Christian church.

Korea is a largely non-religious country, and Soo herself had grown up without any

formal religious beliefs as a child. It was her attending church services in American, so she

could use the free daycare services, that actually brought religion into Soos life. The

atmosphere of the church was friendly, they offered bible studies and services to ESL

individuals, and were open to sharing food and ideas with everyone no matter what country they

came from. Soo was drawn to the the attitude of the ministers, and became a believer as well as

an active participant in church services. For the first time she was able to interact with

Americans comfortably, even if there was still a language barrier. This new connection to

Christianity also led her to a local Presbyterian Korean church in her new city in Virginia when

she moved, and allowed her to connect to a relatively large population of Korean Americans.

Her greater interaction with other Koreans living in America made her realize an

interesting trend in Korean immigrants. While the country of South Korea itself has become

more westernized in recent years, immigrants in America, perhaps as a reaction against

mainstream American culture, have held fast to the beliefs and values that South Korea held at

the time they moved. Women who moved over to the United States in the 1970s and even 1980s

have a much more conservative view than Soo, who moved overseas in the early 2000s. The

other cultural split in her own community of Koreans living in America is between Koreans who
interact frequently with Americans, Americanized Koreans, and Koreans who stay within the

bounds of the Korean community, Korean Koreans. It can be seen in a variety of small ways,

such as more liberal verses more conservative views, and more focus on independence and

unique expression verses group oriented thinking and collective agreement. Soo maintains that

there are pros and cons to what she sees as the Americanized verses Korean style of thinking, but

she has realized that she has adopted a more Americanized style compared to many of the older

women at her church.

Becoming Americanized was in part a response to native English speakers assertions

that Soo was a quiet, shy woman. Soo has always seen herself as outgoing and chatty, and

realized that the lack of language knowledge gave people a wildly different view of her than she

had of herself. She had what she called an identity struggle with who she saw herself as, and

who English speaking Americans saw her as. On top of that, she also struggled with people not

seeing her as being as intelligent as she was, or overlooking her competence because of her lack

of initial English fluency. She would be looked over in job interviews, and even after she was in

a work environment would occasionally have to deal with a patron who would question her

knowledge based only on her accent and non-native syntax. Instead of letting this eat at her, Soo

decided to use these negative responses motivate her into studying English more consistently and

improve her oral English skills.

That is something Soo found incredibly important, and worthwhile for anyone who is

coming into a new country. She was upset at first about not sounding intelligent, but realizes

now that every language learner will make mistakes, and no matter how limited ones language

skills are they must speak to native speakers in order to improve. Individuals should volunteer,
work, or join a social group, but no matter what one must surround oneself with speakers of their

target language, and talk to them in order to really learn a new language.