By Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D.
As an academic who primarily swims in the world of the theoretical and empirical, I am drawn to folks who are gifted with the ability to convey compelling and relatable narratives–stories that expand the mind and move the heart. Becky White is such a person, and I was delighted to interview Becky about her captivating work on multiracial individuals. Becky is a multifaceted artist, and a shared theme across her multiple online platforms is a “love of telling a good story and a creative challenge.” Her most famous project to date is creating and directing the Halfie Project YouTube channel and podcast, and the below interview focuses on this project.
Could you briefly describe the Halfie Project in your own words, and any related work that you are doing/have done around multiracial identities?
The Halfie Project was born from two personal questions: Who am I and where do I belong? During a particularly difficult chapter of my life, I threw out these questions into the internet with an unpolished video talking about being mixed Korean. Astonishingly, I got some answers—turned out there were some people wondering the same things. From there the Halfie Project blossomed from a solitary quest about personal identity into a globally spanning project that discusses, debates, and sheds light on all questions concerning identity as a mixed-race Korean.
These questions are explored through multiple mediums, including videos, podcasts, live speaking, writings, interviews, photography, and conversations over a cup of coffee with fellow mixed Koreans.
My intent is for the Halfie Project to be a community hub; a place for mixed Koreans and mixed Korean families to draw encouragement from; a public forum to safely ask questions about difficult topics; and an interesting archive that showcases the experiences of mixedKoreans all over the world in an honest way.
The Halfie Project is part art, part research, born from the question of identity.
What motivates you to do this kind of work as a Christian?
At first blush, the Halfie Project and Christianity don’t seem connected at all, until you consider what it means to be a follower of Christ and His teachings.
A true Christian is called to be Christ-like. We see (or ought to see) this Christ-like behavior reflected in our relationships—relationships between family members, social groups, business partners, political adversaries, etc. In all relationships we should reflect a Christ-like love (and may the reader examine for themselves how that manifests in their own lives and also forgive the writer for not always fulfilling this call in her own life!)
Curiously, I’ve found that at the center of every painful topic we cover on the Halfie Project, there lies a hidden (or very obvious) desire to be accepted; at the very least, to be understood. Denied that acceptance, the individual may feel at a loss when answering the question “Who am I?” I am speaking specifically about mixed Koreans, but no doubt many mixed Asians from other ethnic groups can understand.
If you throw in Korea’s tumultuous history, the suffering many Asian nations have faced at the hands of the American war machine, and the ignored trauma that generations of Asian Americans carry, can we be surprised that our relationships with each other, with ourselves, are so complicated?
And how excruciatingly awkward can it be to try to begin to talk about those traumas because they are so close to us?
Because of my belief that Christ can forgive me, I believe we can learn to forgive those who have hurt us most: our parents, our grandparents, the full-blooded Korean kids who wouldn’t play with you on the playground, the birth mother who abandoned you at St. Vincent’s Home for Amerasian Children, the social worker who wrote your birthdate wrong, the countless strangers who dismissed your mother for not speaking English fluently, the American leaders who spew bluntly racist rhetoric… My own bitterness towards the Korean society and culture followed me for a long time. I hope I can relieve my fellow mixed Koreans of that same bitterness by providing the words to help us understand ourselves. Perhaps this isn’t explicitly a “Christian” tenet wrapped neatly in a Bible verse; but everything I do, I hope it may be founded in the honest and joyful love of Christ.
At times, Asian and Asian American Christian families and communities gravitate toward a racially colorblind approach when interacting with multiracial people. How would you respond to this approach?
I say that “ignoring differences is just as painful as a rejection.” For so long mixed Koreans, mixed Asians, have been rejected from our communities explicitly, described outright with terms like children of the dust, half-breeds, and hybrids (a term so carelessly used by the Korean mayor of Iksan in 2019). Our differences used to draw a clear line between us and them. As time has gone by, the outright rejection has softened into just ignoring our differences.
But if we were truly colorblind, we’d miss all that makes the world a beautiful place.
I say often and will continue to say that being mixed-race is not the “bad thing” we’ve been led to believe it is, that if you are mixed then you are dirty blooded, unacceptable, strange, lonely, and will never fit in.
But being different is not and never has been the “bad thing.” It is the fear of differences that has caused harm.
What kind of responses have you gotten from the faith community, if at all, about the work that you are doing?
Overall, the responses to the Halfie Project have been overwhelmingly positive.
I also admit, I write this response with a wry smile because I do not know what “faith community” means. To be a member, must you attend church weekly or abstain from certain vices? Do members wear conservative clothes and use clean language to show they subscribe to the “faith”?
Or how about this: in order to prove their faithfulness to Christ’s ways, must a faith community member adopt a baby from Korea? Because after the Korean War, that certainly was the rallying cry of the American faith community. I bring up this topic of transracial adoption because I have gotten some pushback from faith communities whenever I discuss adoption and all its unintended consequences.
In retrospect, what we see was a cruel experiment, pressure-cooked up by an impoverished and nationalistic Korea, marketed to and by the faith community in the United States under the guise of good, Christian, American ideals. Now those babies are all grown up and we are forced to recognize that this adoption experiment yielded results that are complicated, to say the least.
I bring up the wave of international and interracial adoptions out of Korea beginning in the late ‘40s because it is still relevant today; those separations from birth families, sometimes accidental, sometimes deliberate, have led to the confusion about and loss of Korean identity among many mixed Koreans today.
When this topic is brought up, responses vary from “what else could Korea have done” to “adoptees should be grateful” to uncomfortable silence.
I understand.
It’s not easy to think that one’s misplaced beliefs could cause such long-lasting anguish. It is much worse to continue to pretend that it isn’t so.
I must reiterate, my job at the Halfie Project is not to blame; but to allow those who were unwilling participants of this experiment (i.e. the adoptees) to tell their own stories honestly. Those stories can be hard to hear.
How might Christian communities do better in telling the stories of mixed-race individuals? Supporting them? Are there any practical ways that Asian American Christian leaders can contribute to your work?
The best way to support mixed-race individuals (and families) is by being the loving community the church is called to be. So straightforward in theory and difficult in practice!
For example, many mixed families are military. Is your community welcoming to them? Military kids are accustomed to always being on the move. When we add the implicit rules of the Korean community (or fill in the blank with your own Asian community), it can be even more exhausting trying to quickly carve out a space to belong during that temporary stay.
Let’s give a more concrete example. In the Korean American church, it’s very common to have congregants who have grown up together or have parents who serve actively in the church. On top of that, the Korean American church is a special kind of community rooted not just in religion but in culture. As a mixed Korean military kid, I face an uphill battle of being accepted as ethnically Korean (Korean American churches are overwhelmingly fully ethnically Korean), as culturally Korean (a mixed Korean home does not have the same exposure to Korean culture as a home with two Korean parents), and as just a church member (given the transience of the military kid life.)
What about transracial adoptees? Christian communities are often the culprits of spreading harmful beliefs about adoption, whether intentionally or not. The gospel is inextricably linked to the doctrine of adoption; but the practice of adoption is often sloppy and corrupt, and disregards the loss that is innate to earthly adoption.
So, how do we go about telling the stories of mixed-race individuals? My hope is that mixed-race people can talk about their own experiences in a nonjudgmental environment and be accepted regardless of who they are. I’ve always thought that the church ought to be that place, though that’s often not the case. Cultivate a community of love and acceptance. Then let mixed-race people speak for themselves.
What is your hope for the Halfie Project?
My hope is through the Halfie Project we may speak openly and compassionately about topics historically avoided; and by doing so, educate in a natural way. With understanding comes compassion, and with compassion comes action. Through action comes change. Through our little project that began with a single video on YouTube, perhaps we can facilitate change in how mixed-race Asians are perceived and how we explore our own identities.
May we explore who we are with the grace and dignity granted us by our Creator—an all-colorful, all-embracing, different-from-all-the-rest, and one-of-a-kind God.
Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology, Family, and Community at Seattle Pacific University. As a counseling psychologist, Paul has written extensively about Asian and Asian American experiences and how religion might intersect with these experiences, such as attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help, racial microaggressions, and model minority stereotype.
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