Korean-American Day

My moth­er-in-law is a Kore­an-Amer­i­can in the sense that she immi­grat­ed to this coun­try from S. Korea as an adult. She’s a nat­u­ral­ized cit­i­zen and has now lived in the US longer than she lived in Korea (by a over a decade).

My wife is a Kore­an-Amer­i­can in the sense that, as you just read, one par­ent is Kore­an and the oth­er was an Amer­i­can (of Euro­pean descent, if that’s relevant).

So, it sur­prised my wife and I to learn that Sat­ur­day, Jan. 13th 2018 is the tenth Kore­an-Amer­i­can Day. This day was picked to hon­or the orig­i­nal group of immi­grants who came from Korea to the US on this day in 1903. We learned about this day from a won­der­ful sto­ry told on Twit­ter by Gary Lee, who was a for­mer staffer of Pres. Oba­ma. On Lee’s last day at the White House, the pres­i­dent greet­ed him by say­ing “An-yeong haas-eh-yeo” (안녕하세요) which means “Hel­lo” in Kore­an. More specif­i­cal­ly, this is the form of hel­lo that shows the lev­el of respect for mutu­al peers. Though the most com­mon form of hel­lo used, it’s not quite the lev­el of for­mal­i­ty that the leader of the free world would use for one of his staffers. And yet it’s exact­ly the phrase used by Oba­ma (I sin­cere­ly doubt this was lost on him, either, know­ing his atten­tion to details). If you check out the sto­ry, look at the shear joy on Lee’s face at that moment. Let’s appre­ci­ate that Oba­ma val­ues and respects oth­er cul­tures and their con­tri­bu­tions in the great­est Amer­i­can way.

So, to my wife, kids, moth­er-in-law, 해순, and to the 1.8 mil­lion immi­grants from Kore­an and their descen­dants, hap­py Kore­an-Amer­i­can day. 감사합니다