Mom once owned this kind of optimism, but it was now long gone. She was still struggling with life without Dad.
Mom once had a dream for her future, and she thought she found it when she met my dad. But now, almost two decades after they married, she was living a very different vision of life. Even as her small body continued to age, she regularly would remain standing for ten to twelve hours every day, working five and sometimes even six days a week. Her positive energy at work never ceased while she cut and styled hair at a boutique salon in Tempe, Arizona. To make sure her skills and techniques were up to date, she would frequently travel to New York City. She quickly learned and was highly adaptive. Mom brought a colorful energy to any room she entered. She appeared strong to anyone who saw her outside our home. Yet if you saw her in her favorite bright red shorts at home, you’d notice her many blue varicose veins scattered throughout her legs, from her ankles to her thighs. Evidence of the blood backing up in her veins from standing all day long. Mom had worked hard all her life but never complained about it.
Mom’s focus turned to us. We were the reasons she chose to keep living.
“You should be a dentist,” she told me one day.
It was a common thing for immigrant Asian parents to want you to become either a doctor or a lawyer, but at the time I thought it was such a random suggestion.
“The last thing I want to do is to be digging into people’s mouths,” I said as I laughed. “You know I’m a germ freak. Gross.”
I knew ultimately she just wanted me to be happy. This meant being protective of me, like when girls called our home asking for me. If Mom answered the phone when a girl called, she would signal her annoyance by giving me the evil eye. With her face scrunching up, one eye raised, and her lips elongated, her tongue would hit the roof of her mouth and this long “sssssssssss” sound would come out. You could tell it was a shortened version of another salty Korean word. The sound was a unique combination of disgust, irritation, and warning. I would normally just mimic her look and return the same sound right back at her, causing her to erupt in laughter. She couldn’t stay mad at me for long. I knew how to make Mom smile. After she’d hand me the phone, she’d walk away, trying to hold back her laughter and affectionately mumbling her normal Korean curse words.
My dad remained absent. The man who had once stood tall, full of confidence, now seemed reticent and unstable. Because he was gone, I was forced to take on adult roles when I was still immature. I struggled as I was in the height of my teenage years trying to still prove to myself that I mattered. The ongoing racism I experienced in Arizona, combined with the sense of betrayal from Dad, fueled an unhealthy performance mind-set, where I continually tried to prove people wrong. At the same time, my anger and resentment toward my father relentlessly kept growing. We felt abandoned as children.
As my mom observed my deteriorating relationship with my father, she was quick to say that the issues in our family were between him and her. Not between my father and us, the children. One day after I made a harsh comment about Dad, she pulled me aside, looked into my eyes, and spoke in a serious tone.
“Dabid, he’s your father. No matter what, he’s your dad.”
I looked away for the moment and remained silent as she dramatically highlighted her comment with a long pause. Then she gave me that dramatic Korean stare to put an exclamation point on her admonition.
Mom felt my agony. Mom and I had this nonverbal connection. I don’t ever remember having long conversations with her verbally, but I felt I could read what she was saying through her eyes. When she looked at me, she knew the internal mix of emotions waging a war inside me: hatred for my father for what he had done to her and my determination to protect her. My anger fueled a greater love for my mom and a stronger pressure to care for her.
“Mom, someday you won’t have to work anymore,” I had told her back in fourth grade. “I’ll buy you some nice fur coats. I’ve got you.” Fur coats weren’t politically incorrect at the time but they were a symbol of extravagant luxury, which I felt my mom deserved. It was me saying, I’ll take care of you. You’ll never have to worry again. You deserve it, Mom.
The big question hanging over my head was who would take care of me. I was part of a mixed-race family that had imploded. Stigmas were associated with being a child of divorce. The Christian sentiment was that the likelihood of you becoming like your parents was high. My parents’ divorce proved to the racists that people should stick to their own color. I didn’t just hear that from white people; I heard it from Asians as well. Many thought people should stay within their own culture. And the truth was, even among some of my Korean elders, I knew that it was considered a shame to be with someone who didn’t come from an honorable, respected whole family.
From a pragmatic perspective, who was going to help advise me through some of the hurdles of picking a university, a career, and a life partner? Who was going to provide a safety net if something went awry? The feelings of loneliness kept growing. My sister, brother, and I weren’t close enough to try and figure it out together. Mom was savvy, but she didn’t know the nuances of American culture or have the access to things Dad did simply because he was white. I know Mom was concerned about me as I was soon to leave the nest and venture to college.
I didn’t recognize that Dad didn’t have a safety net, either. He had once taught in our church, but after his affair, he was disgraced. At the time, I didn’t consider how much he was going through but he must have walked around carrying a heavy load of shame. Once a popular leader whom all the young adults adored at church, he was now an outcast. He knew the rules. He never showed up at City Church again.
Coming back to church and the City Academy seemed oddly comforting, considering the chaos of my family life. The strict rules reminded me of the two-a-day football practices in the summer where people yelled at you. Like our football coach, the school’s leaders were testing us to see if we could conform to the strict discipline and rules without complaining. The leaders knew it would build our character. Their motto was “No griping tolerated.” Like football, there was a chain of command and penalties for doing something wrong.
I went back to City Academy with a renewed determination to excel despite the legalistic culture. Eventually I graduated “Most Improved Student.” I don’t remember studying that much. My class had around twenty graduates, which made the peer pressure and identity challenges more manageable. Mom showed up at my graduation in her finest dress. On special occasions such as this one, Mom put on makeup with her special perfume. She traded the high platform shoes from work for more fashionable high heels that made her taller. She would always sit about midway back in the auditorium, usually by herself. And no matter where she was, if I was speaking or getting recognized, Mom was there.
As I stood with the other students in our graduation regalia, my tassel flopping around and the cardboard graduation cap barely fitting my large head, I saw Mom. Inevitably, Mom started to softly cry. She always cried at our performances or when we were recognized for any achievement. It made me cry, too, because I knew this was one of her dreams for me.
Dad was a no-show. Who knows why? There was never an explanation.
Mom’s next dream was for me to go to a university; I would be the first of our family to graduate from one. I already had my college picked out. There had been a clear choice from the moment I began to visit campuses, seeking to find the best place for my future. Many Asian parents envision their children going to Harvard, or any Ivy League school. To go to a community college or even a state college would be an utter failure. One parent I know named their child “Harvard” and another parent called her daughter “Mercedes” because this was their aspiration for their kids. Education was considered the ticket to success. Asian parents sacrificed prestigious jobs and friendships in Korea and took on work as custodians and small business owners in American urban neighborhoods considered dangerous at the time, so that their children would have the best opportunity to succeed. They bravely immersed themselves in unfamiliar cultures that were challenging to navigate with little English proficiency and cultural understanding.
When it came to selecting colleges, we were taught by our Christian leaders to be extremely careful about avoiding a “secular” school, which would be too “worldly” or liberal for us. Secular colleges, we were reminded, promoted communism and big government, which we believed would lead to the one world government that would rule and control all of us in the future. We would slide down the slippery slope of secularism and ultimately move away from God. All these negative things were considered signs of the end times. With the real discussion of a nuclear arms race with Russia and the culture of apocalypse from the Christian world I grew up in, it was no wonder my nightmares and paranoia continued into adulthood. I always felt this underlying anxiety of death. The belief was that as time moves on, the world continues to get increasingly worse. Apocalypse literally awaits us. While Mom may have understood some of these theological points, in her reality she had already survived the Korean War and poverty, discrimination and now a divorce, and she was resolute to at least see us succeed. She would sacrifice her life for ours.
Every Christian high school had colleges coming by to recruit students. During our senior year, we visited possible schools. Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina, stood at the top of the list. It was the school that speaker Bud Bierman came from—the one who spoke at the camp in Telluride, Colorado. At the time it was the largest Christian university in the United States. It was considered the West Point of evangelicals, with the discipline, military culture, and rules to match. During our school tour, we were impressed by everything we saw. The university seemed well organized, and the student body looked mature, cool, positive, and purposeful. The clean-cut, freshly shaved, youthful energy seemed physically palpable as you walked throughout the campus. Well-manicured trees and green lawns felt like a utopian dream for students from a small Christian academy in barren Arizona.
The large student body wasn’t the only reason Bob Jones stood out above the rest. The school had academic street cred and legitimate bragging rights. BJU always ranked at the top of the debate, speech, and musical competitions, competing sometimes with prestigious schools. Bob Jones required the students to take public speaking courses and attend both operas and Shakespearean plays every semester. Then there were chapels every weekday and on Sundays. Even though they were strict with rules, they seemed solid with their liberal arts education. They even boasted having the world’s largest sacred art museum in the Western Hemisphere, filled with works by renowned artists. As students, our orientation included lessons on how to eat properly at mealtime and how to appropriately interact with other students, including possible marriage partners. There was a no physical contact rule that students bristled about but parents appreciated. Some called it the “6-inch rule.”
This leads us to one more reason we were interested in Bob Jones that none of us acknowledged but everyone knew. Where we grew up, the goal was to get married as soon as possible so you wouldn’t “burn in your lusts.” Many of my friends got married right out of high school. Going to college meant I was getting married late! My hormones were raging. It was appropriate then to enroll in the schools where the best opportunities for possible meaningful relationships were. Since Bob Jones University was the biggest Christian university in America at the time, it felt like a no-brainer for me. My numerical odds were best at BJU.
I wanted to be different than my parents. To prove to myself and to others that a marriage can last, grow in love, and even be interracially partnered and thrive. When I finally decided to attend Bob Jones University, Mom couldn’t have been prouder. She didn’t know much about the Christian school except that it was a respected university that those we surrounded ourselves with at the church highly recommended and revered.
Soon after arriving on campus, I mailed Mom a postcard with a grand picture of the school showing its multicolored fountains at night and a large auditorium in the background. I wanted her to know how great the school was. I knew she was proud of me even though she would never tell me. Like any of the letters or postcards I sent her, my note was brief and written in big letters so I didn’t have to write much. Like with our phone calls, I wasn’t one to use many words.
Mom, I miss you. I love you! Your son, Dave.
I knew the words themselves didn’t matter. Not to Mom. Some things can’t be described in words. The main thing I wanted her to know was that I was working on her American dream.
CHAPTER TWELVE Grits and Gravy
Three days after arriving at Bob Jones University, I had no doubt I was truly in the Deep South. I discovered a rule I had vaguely heard about called the No Interracial Dating Policy, which specified that you could not date anyone outside your race. I didn’t investigate this as I thought it wouldn’t apply to me at all because of my biracial roots. Since I was half-white and half-Korean, I had assumed I would be able to choose my race. The identifiable races to them were Caucasian or white, Black, and Asian. East Indians were considered white. At the time, I was so self-absorbed and overly concerned about my well-being, I didn’t even consider how my Black brothers and sisters were experiencing injustice. The racism they experienced was far more discriminatory and brutal. Very few Black people chose Bob Jones University. And among the very few Asians who did, none would dare challenge this No Interracial Dating Policy.
When I arrived, I realized that my understanding of this rule could be wrong. I felt the need to verify that this was indeed a legitimate rule but that it did not apply to me. With trepidation and rising anxiety, I rushed to my adviser’s office in the morning before classes began. I felt a sense of panic suffocating me.
I came all this way to go to college with my friends and I might not even be able to date someone who doesn’t look like me?
Sure, City Church and City Academy had rules that I questioned, like no rock music or going to Hollywood movies, but they never pulled the race card. I had experienced racism and prejudice during the fourth grade in public school and generally everywhere I’d go in public in Arizona all my life, but not in what I considered my church family.
My assigned adviser, Dr. Boyd, was an older Hebrew scholar and Old Testament theology professor. Always hunched over a little, he wore thick plaid jackets accompanied by a tie, and spoke in a deep voice with a Southern drawl. He was a man with a large presence, always a bit disheveled with his glasses and whiskers. He was brilliant and seemed like one of those curmudgeonly type of professors, the ones who always look like they’re in pain about having to teach freshman newbies like me. His presence was intimidating as he had this perpetual scowl.
I knocked on his door.
“Come in,” he said in his resonant bass tone. He turned his large wooden chair away from his desk to face me. Forced a look of interest. “What can I do for you, Mr. Gibbons?”
“Thank you for meeting with me, Dr. Boyd. I don’t want to waste your time. I just had a question about the No Interracial Dating Policy. Does it apply to me because my dad is white and my mom is Korean? He’s my genetic birth father. I know I look one hundred percent Korean, but my biological dad is white.”
A huge smile went across my face. “Well, Dave, I don’t think it’s a problem since you are half-white and half-Korean.”
