As my mom gets older, I’ve noticed that her behavior with infants sometimes verges on manic. All of a sudden, she becomes the quintessential halmeoni — cooing to the baby in Korean and singing Korean children’s songs with euphoric glee. It’s a cute sight, but it also makes me alarmingly uncomfortable because I understand my mother’s need for a Korean grandchild.

Not surprisingly, both of her hapa children are dating non-Korean hapas. For me, marriage is on the horizon, which leads to the inevitable thought of children. And what will my mother’s first grandchild be? The largest part will be one-quarter Korean and the rest one-sixteenths and one-thirty-seconds will be Filipino, Chinese, English, Scottish, Welsh, Lithuanian, Russian, Spanish, Jewish, Irish, German and Dakota Indian. Some people complain when I mention that my kid will be a sliver Dakota Indian because, in their opinion, it’s not enough to be considered that ethnicity. But in reality, they’ll be the same amount of Dakota Indian as they will be Chinese. So if it’s that small of an amount, does it mean it’s not worth mentioning? Will my kid be, effectively, nothing?
In my eyes, my children will represent an inevitable mixing of the “races” that most Americans will eventually or have already become. I put “race” in quotation marks because, throughout history, every so-called race is a mixture of different people from different regions — even the homogenous Koreans. Mongols, Chinese and Japanese have invaded Korea at one point or another. One Korean king even married a Mongolian princess. And, yes, they had children.

The Richards family: Steffen, Jim, Kyung-nyun and Kathleen (clockwise from left), circa 1977.

It is natural for people to want to identify with a group. So it makes sense that people have categories for what is most readily identifiable. As a biracial individual, I have always felt pressure from others to fit in a category. Not as much now, but when I was younger, the first or second question a person would ask me was, “So, what are you?”
Most mixed-race people find this question highly annoying and offensive. It’s usually countered with, “I’m a human being,” or something to that effect. Personally, I have always found it amusing, this burning desire to know one’s ethnicity, as if our friendship or relationship were riding on the answer.

My experience being hapa led me to become highly involved in racial politics. Because race was always at the forefront of conversations and how I was treated, I became acutely aware of how racially focused Americans are. I identified myself as a person of color, majored in ethnic studies in college and adopted radical, political views.
I also identified strongly with my Korean side. I identified with Korean values, history, work ethic and focus on family. I identified with the hardships Koreans have endured (particularly my family), and used that as motivation to succeed in life. But a problem came up when I felt that Koreans didn’t accept me.