In high school, I was infamous for burning the most eclectic mixtape CDs (and if you were born after the 2000s, just google “what is burning a CD?”). On the same CD, I would have “Let Me Clear My Throat” by DJ Kool, “It’s a Long Way to the Top” by AC/DC, “Come Away With Me” by Norah Jones, and “Dayvan Cowboy” by Boards of Canada. From old school hip hop to ambient, wordless soundscapes, I found bits of myself in so many different parts of the total human expression.

In college, I loved reading the romantic musings of old dead white men who ventured out to be in radical relationship with Nature, and I found God and found myself in these dense forests of language. I wasn’t white, but I received them, was fed by them, and became more fully human, more spiritually connected with the trees and the winds and the seas. I started remixing their verbose, scholarly language into my own flowery style, and people who know me know that even today, there is no such thing as a “short story” with me (I once wrote an entire essay about how during breakfast with friends, I watched a single droplet of coffee slide down the side of my coffee mug, and how its zig-zag path symbolized the path of life).

After college, as an English teacher in Roseland, I kept talking way too much, using big, serious words with my students, and they all looked at me funny, and told me, “Mr. Hong, if you want us to learn, you can’t talk like that”. I grew—though I initially judged it with my academic lens as improper—to love slang, seeing it as its own beautiful, thoughtful, creative expression. And I grew to learn the necessity of listening and seeing my students as the teachers. I began listening to the human stories of beautiful, living Black youth, who grew up in an “America” very different from mine, where the police were brutal, opportunities were scarce, and gangs were sometimes the source of community, love, and protection. I wasn’t black, but I received them, was fed by them, and became more fully human, more spiritually connected to a community of people different from me, but wholly inseparable from, deeply connected with me.

During my last year of teaching, it became a common occurrence that my students would endearingly say, “Mr. Hong, you’re secretly Black. You’re one of us.” But this was a complicated compliment. Could I ever fully understand Blackness? I loved, learned from, and was inspired by my students, by James Baldwin, bell hooks, Mos Def, and Black Thought. But could I claim them? Was I only borrowing blackness? Could my students see and celebrate my Coreanness, too? Did I really have any Coreanness to show?

So it all comes full Circle, and I am now in my mid 30s reexamining my roots and my relationship with Coreanness. My whole life I thought I was proud to be Corean. But I realized that it wasn’t that I was actively proud, but that I was not ashamed. I had to reckon with the fact that I was receiving inspiration from everyone, but for some reason avoiding Coreans/Asians in general.

So now I’m learning to love that part of me, too. I’m learning to deeply touch the roots of my identity that I cannot deny. Learning about Corea’s March 1st Movement where Coreans fought for freedom from Japanese Occupation, about Corean freedom fighters like Ahn Jung-geun, and about Corean authors like Grace Cho. But I am not static there, in the soil. I’m tending to the Corean soil that went long neglected, but also remixing the nutrients, growing outwardly and freely in my own, new Asian American way through both the country-side and the concrete, through both flowery writing and spoken word, through both Restorative Justice and streetwear. 

What can’t you live without? First and foremost, loving relationships. With both people and with Nature. Secondly, time and space to slow down and think—or to not think at all and just be present deeply and fully. And also, coffee, craft beer, chicken wings, the color olive green, and cool sneakers. And, perhaps, the letter “c”? I’m a former English teacher, and I can’t help but take every opportunity to alliterate. Sorry not sorry.

What motivates you to do what you do everyday? The stubborn belief that we each are so absolutely sacred and worthy of love. What motivates me is the stubborn belief that we are all interconnected, and that when we love others, we love ourselves. We are responsible for each other and we take care of each other. And finally, the recognition that these beliefs are not yet true in the way we live in community with one another. There is a separateness that has formed between communities of color for many reasons, one main reason being how we’ve been pitted against each other fighting over scraps. And we haven’t had an abundance of resources and spaces to truly heal within ourselves and heal with each other. We need these spaces, and that need fuels my energy as a steward of these spaces.

What is your wish for the United States? That radically loving relationships are actually prioritized as a basic need. Relationships are treated as an extracurricular, when really it is the pre-requisite. The modern goal is to gain enough wealth to be as independent and distant from others as possible. This separation from each other is killing us. Realizing this radical love requires freeing and healing ourselves from the lie that we need to constantly be busy and produce produce produce. Yes, producing outwardly is great. Without production, how do we make sure we can eat? Certainly, someone needs to tend to the garden, harvest the food, and prepare the meal. But what about our inner gardens? So, too, is producing inwardly important. How else can we make sure our spirits are fed? In the 9-5 grind, in the hourly-wage hustle, in the overstretched school day where preps can never really be preps anyway, where is the time in the middle of the day to sit in Circle, to be present deeply with each other for a few hours? Also, my hope is that we seek more than just to “get along” or celebrate our universal humanity. We also need to seek understanding and celebrating our beautiful differences.

What role do you play, or want to play in making that wish come true? Holding Circles and helping to grow an abundance of Circles by providing Circle trainings to our people. And pushing for radical cultural shift in work places to prioritize the time and space for Circles and relationship.