An Immigrant’s Disorientation
I found over 1,000 pages of my art from my old sketch pads dating back to when I was 5 years old.
With over twenty 18x24 sketch pads from 2006-2011, each one documents the evolving stages of my baby-craftsmanship.
As I flipped through each sketchbook, ranging from imaginative illustrations to humorous narrarations, each page encompasses the bold, unapologetic creativity that can only be channeled by the dauntless wonders of a child.
My earliest sketchbook entry, February of 2006, a year after I moved to the US, is drenched in Korean identity. Energetic drawings integrated with Korean onomatopoeias, these pages are flashes of myself before the installation of my American identity.
As the sketchbooks trail into 2007 and 2008, when I first start to go to kindergarten in the US, English words begin to emerge, scattered across Korean lettering. As I was thrown into school with no prior English knowledge, my girlish enthusiasm of learning a new language bounces out of my pencil and into my sketch pads. My signature morphs from Jee-one to Emily, a new American name inspired from a children's television show running in the background in our family living room in efforts to blend into our new lives. My lettering becomes straighter, still playful, but more cautiously within the lines.
Being a young girl launched into a foreign world was traumatizing, beautiful, intense and reckless. Navigating this journey as an only child pushed me further to take Western maturity into my own hands, and as I grew into adolescence, I frequently sacrificed my cultural integrity in desperation to assimilate to my new reality.
"I sung karaoke at Bean's house. It was my first time doing karaoke, and I felt like I real singer"
I think of this continuum of cultures shaping identity a lot. As an immigrant, the conflicts of assimilation and preservation of culture has been a shameful pressure yet vitalizing voice in my heart.
Culture embodies traditions that have been molded through generations, holding invaluable stories and experiences. Embracing the inevitable disorientation of being a part of the diaspora has served as a foundation for my art and identity, holding onto a conscious effort of cultural preservation.
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