Words from Above

In my first post, I explained how I came to personally understand my mother language. I knew from a very young age that I looked different and for some time spoke differently than most people. I tried to conform to other people and act as if I was like any other person. But I still have a hard time fitting in at times because I haven't found my niche yet. I'm still trying to find out who I am and who I want to be. Since I was born in the United States and not my mother country, I am considered a Second-Generation Korean. Sometimes, I wish I was born in South Korea because then I wouldn't feel so disconnected to my own kind. At times when I feel down, I tend to vent my anger toward my parents, asking them "Why, why didn't you stay in South Korea?" Before they answered my question, my father gave me a minute to calm down and without a blink of an eye simply said,

"To give you a better life, we wanted you and your siblings to live a better life than the life we lived in South Korea.

"If your mother and I stayed in South Korea, your mother wouldn't have been able to become a nurse or I, a dentist...we wouldn't have let alone been able to provide food and a nice home like this."

"_my name__, the opportunities that this country has to offer to every single citizen, regardless of race or gender is given to all who choose to pursue it."

And what my parents said is true, this country, this democracy in which we live in day by day provides every single person the choice to be whatever they want to be whether you're a boy from a poor family or an immigrant. This country has been and still is the land of opportunity and hope. I never realized how lucky I am to live in this country until I heard those words. My parents are living proof of that. For four years now, I've been taking Japanese at school. I've learned that Japan, a male-dominated society allows few or no opportunities to women in employment or even in treatment among the opposite gender. In other parts of the world, problems may not be like Japan but equality among social classes or even religion.

I'm still learning every day, what "mother language" means to me....

"Language is something that one can't live with or without. It is essentially the way a person communicates amongst one another."

My mother language is not only another language, it is my identity and my life.