Countless Foreign Children are Growing Up in Korea

“The Voices of Youths with Migrant Backgrounds” Series: To Get on the Stage Called ‘the World’ with Equity

By Peace Road

Published: October 29, 2022

Translated by: Seung-a Han

※Editor’s note: There’s a number of young people with diverse migratory backgrounds (e.g. those who were born to and raised by intermarried couples or migrant couples who moved to Korea, those who moved to Korea at a young age with their families, etc.), yet their stories are not discussed or represented in our society. We hope to see and hear the migrant youths’ perspectives and voices directly from them, as they are difficult to find within conversations around youths and young people as well. This project was supported by the Korea Press Foundation, which is funded by government advertising fees. 

     

The Child Who Loved Stories and Acting

One Sunday in 2004, I was born in Togo, a country in West Africa. I was told that my parents had watched a musical the day before I was born. Perhaps that is why I have loved stories since I was a child.

A screenshot of the animated TV show Charac Charac Change (しゅごキャラ!, 2007), based on a story of girls with magical powers by a collective of two female illustrators, PEACH-PIT. Produced by Satelight. The scene depicts the main character’s little sister performing. I was too shy as a child to be like her, but it still represents my childhood and the dream I had.

Both of my parents worked, so I spent a lot of time on my own. I watched a lot of TV. I especially enjoyed the Japanese cartoons on the Tooniverse channel (Crayon Shin-chan, Doraemon, Inuyasha, Charac Charac Change, etc.). Looking back, some of the contents were inappropriate but I remember ardently watching them, ignoring  the inappropriateness.

I think that’s when I started really liking ‘stories.’ I loved to see the process of each character growing inside these cartoons. Learning about a character’s story made me feel like I was able to live that character’s life. This naturally led me to desire to act out different lives as an actor.

However, I learned that acting is not always enjoyable.

My First Role was ‘Korean’

‘Foreigner,’ ‘Black,’ ‘African,’ etc. These are the words that I feared the most as a child. It may be ironic to some, as their logic goes: “You are a foreigner, a black person, and an African.” But that felt unfair to me because my earliest memories start and end in Korea though I was born elsewhere. I did not want to be treated differently just because of a difference on paper. 

So I did my best to make sure I wasn’t seen as that. I tried to look as pale as I could, to make sure people didn’t see me as a foreigner. I begged my mother to change my hair to look like theirs and stayed away from foreigners so as not to be seen as one of them. I did my best to kill my identity and acted ‘Korean.’

Repeating these actions subconsciously led me to have difficulties expressing myself. The saddest part was that this was an act of erasure of the traces of my parents inside me. I deeply hurt my parents.

So I stopped. I realized that I need to take some time to become honest with myself. I asked my parents to tell me about Togo, and I tried out hairstyles that I had previously thought were “too foreign.”

It was not a big deal at all, so why I had been so scared? The world that this society showed me had been way too small to allow me to make that realization.

I then wanted to rethink the societal structure that led me to go through these difficulties, and to learn more about sociology. Looking back, my first role was a painful one, but I believe I played it well and I feel proud that it helped me grow.

A screenshot of the animated Japanese TV series Hoping to Reach You (君に届け、 2009). Produced by I.G. Production. This image represents how acting out the role of ‘Korean person’ hurt a lot but also led me to grow.

 

The Legal Status Issue that is Preventing the Path to a Bigger Stage

Togo, where I was born, became independent in 1960 and suffered through coups d'état and dictatorships. After the president who held the office for 38 years died,  bloodshed took place and his son came to power. Due to the unstable political situation, my parents had to leave Togo. My family filed for refugee status in Korea but got rejected.

After getting rejected, we were ordered to leave the country. However, our family’s refugee status determination lawsuit continued on and our departure date was repeatedly postponed. In the end, the postponements stopped and we simply became undocumented.

Then, surprisingly, on January 20th, 2022, the Ministry of Justice announced a relief measure to provide a visa to guarantee the education of undocumented children who had stayed in Korea long-term. In April, I signed up for it.

Next year, I will be on the bigger stage called ‘society’ as an adult. However, because I’m a foreigner, I have too many difficulties that my [Korean] peers do not have to go through. I am in my last year of high school and am applying for colleges, but I have not been able to focus only on my studies due to my status issues.

Currently I have submitted [some of] my university applications and am waiting for the results. If I get accepted, my admissions will be finalized only when I submit the copy of my certificate of alien registration. But I am still waiting for the certificate. If I don’t get the certificate, my dream of attending university will not happen.

What’s worse is that even if I do manage to enroll in school with my visa, the fields that I would be able to find a job in after graduation are limited because I’m a foreigner.

The Youths Who Fall When Passing the Threshold of Adulthood

Some may say, “Isn’t that natural, because you’re from a different country?” But I want to ask back, “Why is that natural?”

Even now, numerous “foreign” children are growing in Korea. Those children have their own dreams and hopes, but these are disregarded when they become adults just because they are foreigners. How is that natural?

A screenshot of the animated TV show Ranking of Kings (王様ランキング, 2021), based on the graphic novel of the same title by Sōsuke Tōka. Produced by WIT STUDIO. The scene represents my desire to be there for children when they’re on the stage called ‘life’.

So I want to make a society in which these children can dream limitlessly and not be in pain due to their identities. When they stand on the stage called ‘this world’, I want to make sure they don’t get hurt by falling or get discouraged from forgetting their lines.

I’ve thought that to achieve this, it’s important to understand and learn what current society is like, how people are living, and why people are living this way. That is why I am preparing to study sociology. I also want to work through the things I learn in that field through art; through stories and acting. So I am studying acting and singing simultaneously as well.

Besides this, I participated in the national Bilingual Speaking Contest, sharing my dreams publicly as a way to make a pledge to myself, and have been volunteering at Exodus, a center for migrants, to learn more about migrants and their children [living in Korea].

Countless foreign children are growing up in Korea. I hope that you can open the doors of welcoming so that they don’t get tripped up on the threshold of adulthood by things like visa problems, so that they may enter the larger stage. (Illustration credit: Dudusaddi)

Not Unfamiliar and Distant

The word “foreigner” seems harmless, but it gives us a feeling that it is someone who is very unfamiliar and distant. But in this world we live in, where we cross many borders, we are all foreigners. It could have been an unfamiliar and distant person in the past, but not anymore. Maybe we could see a glimpse of a better world just by changing this word. This is an idea I came up with  just now, but what about the word 'traveler’?

Who Helped with the Article: Exodus activist Seulki Kang.

*Original article: https://ildaro.com/9474