Signs stating Garage Sale , or Moving Sale can be easily spotted during the summer months in my neighborhood.
Last week, my Japanese, next-door neighbor had a garage sale. Many old things from Japan were laid out on their front yard.
Under a bright summer sunlight, discolored Japanese traditional screens, dishes, dolls, and clothes seemed to speak of their old histories.
It is about time to get rid of some old stuff because there is not enough room in my house, said Miyako who is in her mid 50s. I brought many of these things with me to this country twenty years ago. While I was cleaning up to get ready for this garage sale, I found most of these were just in the storage and never been used. Now, they are sort of outdated and no longer useful to me.
After this brief talk with her, I thought about a cultural garage sale. What are the things that we brought with us? What are some cultural baggages that we drag along? What should we keep and what should we let go? I thought it would be a good idea to open up our mind s closet to rid of outdated clutter. That way, we can prepare more room to accept waves of fresh air-like ideas.
Recently, I had a chance to treat a Korean American mother briefly. She was well acculturated with a high-level education, holding a respectable position in her profession after living in this country for more than a quarter of a century.
I am so shaken with my son s decision, said Mrs. Min. I dont know what to do. I am about to kill myself. What have I done to him? All I can think is I am a terrible failure. She was devastated.
Last July, her son broke the news that he would marry a Caucasian woman.
But that was not all, Mrs. Min went on. What shocked me was that she was a divorcee with a child. My son is a bright young man with a promising future. He is our hope. This is an incredible shame and humiliation to our entire family. I cannot accept this. Her voice choked.
Mrs. Min, like many other Korean American mothers, devoted her time and energy for her childrens education. She showed serious commitment to her children by making a conscious decision to stay home while they were growing up. She stated that she encouraged and assisted her children to be expressive, assertive and independent parallel to the mainstream culture.
Thats why I don t understand why these kind of things are happening to me, she said. Mrs. Min could not quell her unbearable emotional disappointment.
I remember what my mother taught us what to be, and that became my life motto, she said. What went wrong with him? I cannot possibly accept him as my son, and I will not see him anymore. When we immigrated to this country, we had to adapt to many new ways of thinking and our life style had dramatically changed as well. Through acculturative process, we copied and imitated the American life-style. Without being conscious about it, we followed to a wholesale adaptation to the characteristics of the majority culture like many other immigrants in this country. Certainly, children show a faster adaptation and a higher degree of acculturation.
During the process of this adaptation to the dominant culture, we unfortunately lose our original cultural values without being quite cognizant of it. Although we want and try to hold on to our traditions, changes and acculturation will result in a divergence from our Korean traditional practices.
There is inevitable truth that we have to face. Korean American children attend American school, become more fluent and competent in English than Korean, and develop friendships with American children. In essence, American culture is our children s culture, and they will be more likely to perceive themselves as more American than Korean.
There is already a dramatic increase in the incidence of interracial marriages. For some families, these kinds of marriages will exacerbate a clash of generations. Koreans traditional views about the marriage of two families are different from Americans views of two individuals.
Our children have less knowledge and sense of filial responsibility, and as a result, Korean Americans may be terribly hurt.
The process of acculturation challenges us to reflect, modify, change and adapt to the ebbs and constantly changing flows of the mainstream cultural values.
We follow and imitate others steps until we can dance alone. Indeed, the time is near for us Korean Americans to create our own new dance. It will be mutually shared responsibly to keep our ethnic cohesion.
Like my neighbor Miyako s garage sale, I like to air out some of our outdated opinions and beliefs.
Dr. Beatrice Sool Choi is a registered psychologist at the Richmond Area Multi Services (RAMS) in San Francisco. She can be reached at (415) 668-5955 ex. 39
or RAMS
3626 Balboa Street, San Francisco, CA 94121.