Whitewashed

Ellie does not enjoy being Korean. Rather, she does not enjoy the Korean language. She's going through this thing where if someone says something in Korean, she rejects it. For instance, halmoni (Peter's mom) would always call Ellie "eepun saram", like pretty person, I guess would be the exact translation. Anyway, one morning halmoni came downstairs and I told Ellie to say good morning. Ellie answered, "I no want say good morning. I no want eepun saram." Like, she knew if she acknowledged halmoni, halmoni would call her eepun saram again.

I think the background of that, though, was that halmoni would tell Ellie, "Your name is eepun saram." Ellie would always say, "No, I big girl Ellie." You know, babies are very literal. It frustrated her that halmoni would say her name was something when Ellie KNEW that it was really Ellie. Obviously, she doesn't really get jokes or anything. Anyway, halmoni stopped calling her that, and Ellie was fine afterwards.

Another day grandma (my mom) was feeding Ellie dinner and said, "Mahsheetji?" like "Isn't it good?" Ellie looked at her very solemnly and said, "No mahsheetji, grandma. Yum yum." She knew what the Korean meant, and didn't want any part of it. Weird, huh? I don't know what her deal is.

So white people ask me all the time if she's bilingual. I say she is - in English and Spanish. She watches Dora a lot. She can count to twelve, and use appropriately the words arriba and abajo, abre, hola, gracias, de nada, delicioso, buenos dias... and she can sort of sing this song La Lechuza. As for Korean, she knows some facial parts and family members because of a book Jieun got her. She knows a few food words, but that's it. Never uses it in conversation or anything, which she WILL do with Spanish. We don't call her noona, either, just big sister.

I'm sure part of it is my influence. I'm not anti-Korean or anything, but I'm definitely not pushing her Korean heritage on her. Maybe I should more? I dunno. Peter referred to himself as appa when she was an infant, but because I always referred to him as Daddy, that's what stuck. It's like I'm subconsciously whitewashing her. I know I have very negative feelings about her being all "azn"-ized, but I wonder how her generation of Korean Americans will grow up. The "azn" kids in Houston tend to be either 1.5 or 2nd generation. Ellie will be 3rd. It'll be interesting to see how it develops.