Emily’s Workshop

When I first stepped into the American classroom, I thought my fluent English would be enough to fit me in. I was wrong. It didn’t take long for me to realize that language was just one part of the picture—and not even the hardest part. I found myself second guessing every sentence I spoke, worried I sounded too foreign or too proper. I believed I had to be perfect, in my grammar, my grades, even my jokes, just to be accepted. But eventually, I began to understand that this pressure to be perfect was never about others. It was something I put on myself, and letting go of it became the first real step toward belonging.

In the beginning, I was obsessed over small things—my accent, my shoes, even the speed at which I raised my hand in class. I compared myself to everyone around me, convinced they looked and sounded more “American” than I ever could. My English was fluent, but I edited every sentence in my head before I spoke, terrified of revealing I’d only moved here a year earlier. I laughed when I missed a joke, nodded when I barely caught a reference, and told myself it was safer to blend in than to risk standing out. I wasn’t even a huge fan of K-pop or Korean TV, yet I still felt I had to hide simple habits: the slight bow I made without thinking, the Korean name teachers stumbled over on the roll sheet. Trying to be invisible became my survival strategy, but it also made me painfully aware of how alone I felt. I didn’t want to be seen as “the Korean girl.” I just wanted to be me—whatever that even meant in a place where I wasn’t sure how much of myself I was allowed to bring.

As the months passed, I started to realize that fitting in wasn’t just about speaking English fluently or understanding every cultural reference. It was about finding my place in a world that felt vast and overwhelming. At first, I struggled with the idea that I might never completely belong to either world—the one I had left behind in Korea and the one I was trying to enter in America. I felt like I was walking a tightrope, constantly balancing between two sides that often felt in opposition. In Korea, I was just another student, part of the crowd. But here, I was different. I wasn’t just a new kid; I was an immigrant, an outsider with a background that seemed foreign to everyone around me. And that made me feel disconnected. But as time passed, I began to realize that my identity didn’t have to be a choice between my Korean roots and the American culture I was slowly adjusting to. Instead of seeing these two aspects of myself as competing forces, I started to see them as complementary. They weren’t things I had to hide or suppress. I could embrace both sides of myself. I started taking pride in my heritage, in the fact that I could speak two languages, navigate two cultures, and see the world from two perspectives. Instead of shrinking away from my differences, I learned to use them as strengths, things that made me unique. It wasn’t easy, and there were moments when I felt like I didn’t fit in anywhere. But over time, I realized that I didn’t need to fit in. I needed to be myself, and that meant accepting all of who I was, my Korean identity and my American experiences, and using them to create a version of myself that was true to me.

Even as I started embracing both sides of myself, that didn’t mean people always saw me the way I wanted to be seen. I wasn’t the only Korean student at school—far from it. There were plenty of other Korean kids, many of whom had lived in the U.S. their whole lives or moved earlier than I did. So, to most people, I wasn’t anything new or particularly interesting. I didn’t stand out in the way I had feared before, but in a weird way, that didn’t feel like a relief. Instead, I started to feel like I didn’t fit anywhere at all. I wasn’t “American enough” to fully blend in, but I also wasn’t “Korean enough” to belong with the other Korean-American students who already knew how everything worked. They talked about childhoods in the U.S., about growing up bilingual from birth or going to Korean church every Sunday, and I listened like an outsider. There were times I felt like I had missed the train—too late to catch up with either culture. But gradually, I realized that this feeling of being in-between wasn’t something to erase. It was something to understand. I didn’t need to prove myself to anyone. My story didn’t have to match someone else’s to be valid. Whether people noticed or not, I had been building a new version of myself all along—one that could carry my background, my voice, and my story without apology. I wasn’t less just because I didn’t check every box on either side. I was more because I had lived through the tension between them

Looking back, I used to think I had to choose: fit in or stay true to who I was. But now I know it’s not that simple. Migration didn’t just change my location; it changed how I saw myself. It challenged me to figure out who I was without giving up where I came from. I still have moments of doubt, moments when I wonder if I’m doing enough to belong. But I’ve learned that identity isn’t a fixed label, it’s something you grow into. I’m not just “the Korean girl” or “the kid who speaks good English.” I’m someone who has lived between languages, between homes, between cultures, and that in-between space is where I’ve found my strength.