Karin Kross Levenstein
Austin, TX
Korean adoptee, adopted as an infant by white parents. “Are you Chinese? Japanese? What are you then?” Always weighing out exactly what is meant when someone asks “where are you from?”, and then that sinking feeling (after you say “I’m from Austin” or “I grew up in DC”) when they add, “no, where are you really from?” Well-meaning comments along the lines of “but I don’t think of you as Korean”. Feeling inadequately Asian when meeting other Asian-Americans. But I have great parents and a great extended family who have given me more than enough resilience to handle all of this with some measure of grace.
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