Date of Award
4-30-2020
Document Type
Honors Thesis
Department
English
First Advisor
Beverly Matiko
Abstract
The heterogenous lifestyle of Asian-Americans is one of duality. For this ethnic group, personal identity is a mix between American standard practices and inherited Asian traditions. However, even if their cultural practices are primarily American, Asian-Americans are often “Otherized” and outcast when claiming an American identity, forcing them to be regarded as “just Asian.” As such, they are Americans being rejected by America, and as a result have no other place to call home . In this project, I seek to heal the strife this rejection creates, attempting to confront these tensions and resolve them. As a hyphenated American, I am someone who has seen firsthand how my lifestyle is often split into a dichotomy. One arena where this is particularly apparent is food. My culinary choices are a microcosm of my experience, a blend between Korean and American, but primarily seen as “Korean” by others. I accordingly confront the dichotomy of my Asian-American experience by writing food-based essays that reflect on specific events in my childhood.
Recommended Citation
Kim, Teddy, ""They Called Me Kimchi Breath" and Other Short Narrative Essays: A Study in Composing Asian-American Identity in Short Nonfictional Essays" (2020). Honors Theses. 223.
https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/honors/223/
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/honors/223
Subject Area
National characteristics; Asian Americans--Ethnic identity; Asian Americans--Race identity; Korean Americans
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
DOI
https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/honors/223/
Included in
Asian American Studies Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons