My name is Tosha.
My Korean name is 장미나.
Photos and writing provided by Tosha Jihn
I was born in Okinawa, Japan but grew up split between Colorado Springs and Seoul.
My father is Black and my mother is Korean. I was told they met in the 80s at an Evel Knievel meet-and-greet. At the time my mom was working at a salon and my dad was in the military.
Growing up for me was a little all over the place, having mixed heritage and being raised in a military family. My parents split when I was pretty young and [I ended up] living primarily with my mom.
There were definitely challenges trying to figure out my place in the world as a Black and Korean girl.
It was another situation where I felt like maybe I wasn’t Korean enough because of hurtful comments some folks made about my appearance, or maybe I wasn’t Black enough because I have a lighter complexion and my hair texture is not the same. In my pre-teen and teenage years, I experienced being exoticized, and so I shut down for a lengthy period of time.
As I grew older I regained my confidence with the help of my friends, family members that held space for me, through art and some of my other hobbies.
When I started kindergarten, my parents eased their way into the race talk with me even more so after getting bullied in school for the first time. They encouraged me to be proud of who I am and to stand up for myself, so that kind of became a general theme throughout my life.
Around that time my parents also divorced and my mom was given custody, but I was able to see my dad during breaks from school and every other weekend when we lived closer to him. Because of this, I was raised a little bit closer to my Korean heritage. We spoke a mix of Korean and English at home, ate mostly Korean foods and spent a little more time with my mom’s side of the family.
When I was in middle and high school, I lived in Itaewon, Seoul, where I got to see my Korean family members often. Then I would come back to the states to spend summer breaks with my dad. My life living in the states wasn’t particularly stable.
Living in Seoul, I felt safe and validated - it’s where I could be closer to family and go to a school where there were other Black and Korean students like me. In Seoul, crime is significantly lower than in the places I lived in the states, so it was also really nice that my mom was more relaxed and trusting when I went out in the city alone with my friends. I feel like of the many places I’ve been and lived, Seoul was where I felt the most “at home.”
One of my happiest memories would probably be just walking home from school, stopping by the Buy the Way store to get snacks, getting street food with friends on a day off and wandering around the city, or stopping by my uncle’s shop in Itaewon to see him and my cousins… I just remember how free I felt.
There have been so many times when my mixed background has come up. Some interactions have been good, some not so much.
I’m pretty quick when it comes to letting someone know when I don’t appreciate their comments, questions or assumptions. Some folks haven’t been super thrilled when I tell them that their comments or behaviors aren’t okay.
Even if someone believes they mean well, a lot of the times the comments and assumptions they make aren’t exactly the sentiment they believe it is. I think it’s some sort of unwillingness to see one person’s actual lived experience due to the other person’s internalized prejudice getting in the way. When I was younger I used to try to stand my ground, but these days I don’t engage. I find that if they are not ready to actually listen, then I do not have to entertain them.
I think that even for folks who didn’t get to have a close proximity to their heritage like I did, it’s totally okay to explore the cultures and history [of both your sides] and what it means for you. For me, I found that learning and preserving my cultures has been healing and comforting. Aside from art, I try to preserve what I was taught by making food I remember cooking with my Halmoni and by having conversations with my mom.
With my dad, it’s definitely different. When I was little he would take me camping or we’d go to baseball games. He got me into outdoorsy activities, and because he grew up with Amish and Mennonite farms in his hometown, he taught me a thing or two about gardening and the importance of having real, fresh foods available. To this day I’m still pretty active. I do a little gardening and plant care, and still go to baseball games with him.
감 (gam) is the Korean word for persimmon and 뱀 (baem) is the Korean word for snake. Both are transformative symbols. For me, being a year-of-the-snake person, loving persimmons, having lived many lives with even more to live, the word 감뱀 just really resonated with me.
민화 (Minhwa - Korean folk art) art was almost everywhere - in the houses we lived in, my grandparents’ homes, and my aunts and uncles’ homes. I think I was in the first grade when my school counselor recommended that I tried painting and my first formal lessons were with watercolor. Because some of the layering techniques are so similar, I grew a deeper appreciation for 만화.
Visit Tosha’s shop “감뱀” at gambaem.com
