The Family Survey: Whose Heritage Counts?
For a Korean class project you must interview a family member about migration and identity. Your father emigrated in 1997 and speaks Korean at home; your mother was born in Sydney to Korean parents and speaks English at work, Korean with her mother. Your grandmother, who lives with you, insists the 'real' story is hers because she arrived first. Your father says the project should focus on him because he 'actually struggled'. Your mother says she is 'not Korean enough' to be a good subject. You have one 30-minute interview slot and must submit a 300-character Korean reflection.
1. Whom should you interview, and how do you justify the choice against each family member's objection?
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Choose the mother. The project is about identity and migration, not about who suffered most. Her position - born in Australia, bilingual, Korean at home and English at work - is the most analytically productive case because it shows identity as negotiated rather than inherited.
Against the father's objection. His claim that he 'actually struggled' is a claim about hardship, not about relevance. Hardship is one data point; the project needs contrast. Also, interviewing him would reproduce the default narrative (male, first-generation, economic struggle) that the syllabus asks you to complicate. You can still cite one detail he has told you, with attribution.
Against the grandmother's objection. Seniority does not confer interpretive authority. Her account is valuable as a counterpoint - she can describe what the family expected of your mother - but a 30-minute slot with her yields chronology, not reflection on belonging. Note her view in the reflection as context.
Against the mother's self-exclusion. 'Not Korean enough' is itself the finding. Treat it as data: ask when she feels most and least Korean, what language she dreams in, how she answers '어디서 왔어요?' Record the discomfort rather than resolving it.
Ethics. Ask consent to quote, offer to show her the draft, and anonymise if she prefers.
2. Explain how you would handle the language of the interview itself, given that the mother's Korean is fluent but informal, and how that affects your 300-character reflection.
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Language choice. Conduct the interview in Korean but allow code-switching. Her Korean is home-register (해요체, some English loanwords), so forcing 합쇼체 would distort her voice and create distance. As the interviewer you still use polite forms to signal respect, while letting her speak as she normally does.
Handling gaps. Where she switches to English for a concept (e.g. 'identity', 'belonging'), do not translate over her - record the switch itself. Code-switching is evidence about how she partitions her life, and it belongs in the reflection.
Recording and quoting. Note verbatim short quotes; paraphrase the rest. Mark pauses and self-corrections (e.g. '한국 사람이라기보다는… 음…') because hesitation is analytically useful.
The 300-character reflection. Korean counts characters, so be economical: one sentence on the choice of subject and why, one on a specific quoted moment that surprised you, one on what it changed in your own self-description. Avoid narrating the whole interview. Use a reflective ending (…라는 생각이 들었다) rather than a summary.
Pitfall. Do not present your mother as a victim of confused identity. Frame her as an active negotiator; otherwise the reflection becomes condescending.