Tag Archives: bicultural

Who I/Am

Who I/Am

By Philip Shin, age 16, California.

(A poem expressing the duality of author’s heritage with authentic questions and observations.)

parts of a whole
parts with a hole
i am: of two places, of two minds, of two halves
of land and sea, of peninsula and coastline, of damp and dry, of lush greenery, trees stretching from moist soil, spindly limbs beckoning endless sky with verdant leafy hands

of bilingual pop, side dishes galore, vibrant colors and squishable characters with rosy cartoon cheeks, harmonic beauty of nature and man, of R. of Korea, and
of cold gray steel, cracked asphalt, emblazoned skyscrapers towering, challenging the heavens
of year-round sunshine, greasy hamburgers, of beaches and business,
of So and Cal

two puzzle pieces, together forever, one tarnished, decaying, colors fading, cobwebs staining, fabric fraying

is abstract art just as pretty, captivating, whole if half the canvas is burnt away?

i step onto the shores of my homeland and think to myself, i should recognize the corner stores, the animated billboards, the raindrops cascading down, the rhythmic syllables that dance smooth waltzes about my ears, my mother tongue of biology, not adoption

i recognize not; i recognize naught

i return to foreign lands, to scorched earth, to the misty supermarkets, the earthquake-proof apartments, the sunlight beaming down, the rapid syllables interspersed with boisterous laughter and fiery expletives
my mother tongue of adoption, not biology

and i think to myself, this is my homeland, but it is not my homeland, but it is my homeland

i have:
a tongue of one world, with sparse buds of another a culture of one world, with oft-forgotten elements of another

i am:
incomplete, part of a whole, part of a red, white, blue whole
part of a red, white, blue, black whole, half faded, melted, evaporated, into sands of time

who am i?

who i am.

By Philip Shin, age 16, Korean American, California. They write: “I have loved writing for my entire life. I write for fun, but also to better understand myself and my place in this vibrant, diverse, and multicultural world… I was spurred to write this poem after a trip to Korea.”

“half, whole”

“half, whole”

By Alyson Henderson, age 16, Connecticut.
 
 
i have always been

two halves stitched together
half this, half that,
never wholly me
always half in, half out
not belonging to either
instead, i am two parts,
conflicting, like puzzle pieces
that don’t match,
forced together anyways
not one whole,
just bad stitching
the parts that don’t fit
hide under the paint,
cracked and chipped
not hiding much at all

they like to ask
if i am this half or that half,
but i say and, not or
and maybe they won’t understand
but i am always this half
and that half,
these halves are just me,
whole

By Alyson Henderson, age 16, high school junior, Connecticut. She adds: “I have been reading and writing for as long as I can remember, and it’s through reading and writing that I learned about other people’s cultures and identities as well as my own. My dad is white and American, and my mom is Korean and immigrated when she was young. For a long time, I’ve been exploring my own identity through writing, particularly my identity as a biracial person. I often feel like I have to choose between being Asian and being white, and I can’t identify as both. However, by ignoring either part of my identity, I am ignoring so much of my life. The way I see it, choosing one half of my identity is being dishonest with myself about who I am. My poem, “half, whole” explores the struggle of never feeling fully accepted as either “half” of myself, and how I have accepted that I don’t have to be put in one box and discard parts of myself for others’ comfort.”