[Leah Yoon Frelinghuysen] Out of many, one

I was admiring the silk damask wallpaper woven in 1898 in our historic inn’s dining room at the end of a cozy family dinner when you found a way to disturb my reverie with your appalling confrontation.

I try to imagine how our table looked to you. An Asian woman speaking in a slightly elevated voice to her elderly Asian grandmother in a room filled with more guests who looked like you than us. And I realize you took the opportunity to approach me only after my Caucasian husband left the dining room with our son to get some fresh air, so that you could feel more comfortable airing your grievances.

You came over to me and barked in my face, “You are talking too loudly and I can hardly hear myself speak to my wife. You are talking too loudly in your language. You need to stop talking.”

What type of reaction or response did you expect? Perhaps you thought I would quickly apologize or bow my head in silence at your offensive remarks? Now I ask myself why I felt the need to explain to you that my grandmother is hearing-impaired and that the busy dining room was noisy by nature. Weren’t we in the same room?

I believe my desire to calm you down and not to create a scene prompted me to say something along the lines of “Sir, my 88-year-old grandmother is hard-of-hearing, and I’m only speaking slightly more loudly than usual so she can hear what I’m saying. I am also sitting across the room from you so I’m surprised you can hear our conversation.”

To which you replied, “I just told you were speaking too loudly in your language and you need to stop.” Then you retreated back to the safety of your table where you could go back to your cocoon of racism.

I spoke with the manager of the dining room, the front desk of the inn, and anyone who I thought could help prevent seeing you again for the rest of the weekend, but it seems no one wanted to tell you that what you did and what you said was wrong.

Looking back on this incident, my one regret is not having had the presence of mind to tell you myself just how wrong you were. I’m glad my husband later came back to the dining hall to set you straight but I do wish those words came from me, not him. My moment of self-discovery lies in the fact that I was in fact, not prepared for this type of invisible yet visible racism to hit me. My prestigious Ivy League education did not prepare me for this moment.

I was born in the United States. My paternal grandmother legally immigrated to the US in the 1960s, becoming a US citizen nearly five decades ago. Before that, my maternal great-grandfather was one of the first Koreans to attend an American university in the early 1900s alongside Syngman Rhee, the first president of Korea. I have worked on two US presidential campaigns and a New York City mayoral campaign -- experiences that have cemented my commitment to improving opportunities for other Asian-Americans who want to engage in the political process.

So here’s the deal. Our family has been able to preserve our Korean identity and language across two generations while expanding our families here in the US.  If I need to speak in Korean to connect with my octogenarian grandmother, I will.  And doing so not only makes us proud to identify with our Korean culture and heritage but also makes us profoundly appreciative of what makes America great.  In case you missed the memo, we are a nation of immigrants.  Our motto is “Out of many, one.”  And, by the way, this is 2016, not 1898. Let’s make America stronger together.

Leah Yoon Frelinghuysen
Founder,
MonarchyPR, New York