Behind the Mic, Edition 5: "What's Your Name?" (Part 2)

A Story of Language, Identity, and the Journey to Reclaim My Voice

English as an Alter Ego

English wasn’t just a language to me—it was an alter ego, a world where I could be someone else. It was my superpower. No one around me could do what I did. I was always at the top of my English class, despite never having spent a single day in a country where English was the official language until I went to college. I wasn’t just good at anything I do; I was better. I had to be better. My mother drilled that into me, made me believe it, and so I believed it.

In Edition 2, I wrote about having two names—one that sounded Japanese, one that revealed my true heritage. In middle school, my mother made a bold decision: we would 'come out' as Korean, using our birth names instead of our go-to Japanese-sounding ones. I had never truly blended in, but now, I couldn’t even try. This decision to 'come out' made me stand out overnight. I went from trying to blend in to standing out, from being uncontroversial to being scrutinized. But then again, we were always noticed in some way—controversial just by existing.