"I am here(America) because you(Americans) were there(Korea)."

I am here because you vivisected my ancestral country into two. In 1945, 

two fumbling mid-ranking American officers who know nothing about the country

used a National Geographic map as a reference to arbitrary cut a border to

make North and South Korea, a division that eventually separated millions

of families, including my own grandmother from her family. Later under

the flag of liberation, the United States dropped more bombs and napalms

in our tiny country more than during  the entire Pacific campaign against Japan

during World War II. A fascinating little known story about  the Korean War 

is that an American Surgeon, David Ralph Millard stationed there to treat burn

victims invented a double-eyelid surgical procedure to make Asian eyes 

look Western, which he ended up testing on Korean sex workers so they

could be more attractive to GIs. Now, it's the most popular surgical procedure 

for women in Korea.

My ancestral country is just one of small examples of the millions of lives

and resources you have sucked from the Philippines, Cambodia, Honduras,

Mexico, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, El Salvador, and many, many other nations

through your forever wars and transnational capitalism that have mostly

enriched shareholders in the States. Don't talk to me about gratitude. 

Quote from the book "Minor Feelings An Asian American Reckoning"

by Cathy Park Hong

https://youtu.be/TW0m4IwHnCY

CBS: Michelle Zauner on "Crying in H-Mart"

https://youtu.be/Wg1QB44pbbE

Time100: Cathy Park Hong on "Minor Feelings

An Asian American Reckoning"

*I found that I am much more accepting of how

I am treated in this country as an Asian American than

my children are. They demand equality more than

I do. They look at history more critically than I do.