Umma
In response to violence and hate against Asians
Umma dressed us in hanboks
for the New Year, for Cultural Day at Heritage School,
for the pride of being Korean to sprout within us
(somehow) in that little village tucked away in the high desert.
seven years past that census-designated place…
I fell in love.
my preteen crush had a familiar face:
K-pop, K-variety shows, the K-language, even K-diets in the name of K-beauty.
but Umma tells me to stay home now.
if they will beat grandmas whose backs bow low,
my safety is—in this cruel-cold world, oh—
my safety is one thing she will vow.
and I will never tell Umma how I have already been yelled at to go back,
to take this virus with me;
how I have been tagged
“you’re so Korean!”
Umma, I will give my children their own hanboks
for the spring, summer, autumn, and winter;
for you, me, and them;
for the New Year and every day otherwise.
Katie Kim is an undergraduate English Literature student and an incoming graduate student for the Public Relations and Advertising program at USC Annenberg. Books are her jam, but she doesn’t have the patience to sit down to write a novel. Instead, she writes poems about everything from lost love to justice to the feeling of really having to poop during class.