by Diane Farr
My mother was far and away the strictest of all the mothers I knew growing up, but I still went to her with my hopes and disillusionments. She met every idiot I ever liked. How easy would it be for a child to slip into a bad situation if no parent was monitoring where his or her heart was wandering? Contrarily, I’m not so enamored with my own experience to ignore the fact that most Korean American adults I know have had amazing success at work and in maintaining their marriages—compared with other Americans my age. But still, this is not a cultural tradition I am willing to take on.
I’m asking Seung, in multiple ways, like a border guard trying to confuse him and get to the truth within his psyche, if he is sure he doesn’t want to keep such formal boundaries with his children. Seung promises that he has no intention of making formality more important than intimacy. Or males more important than females, or work more important than time spent together in our family. Eventually I start to believe him and I go back to the voracious make-out, right under a life-size photo of Seung playing football in tenth grade. Feeling reassured of the love we share—as two Americans who grew up in the twentieth century and want all that it has promised us—I have no interest in making it easy for my man to leave his junior high marching band jacket I’ve just put on over my otherwise naked body. Seung warns me that payback is coming: when he meets Momma and Poppa Farr.
CHAPTER 6.
MEXICAN AMERICAN LOVES PALESTINIAN ENGLISHMAN IN ILLINOIS
“Oh, believe me, we know what you are up against.”
—DAVID ZUAITER
SEUNG COMES TO wake me Sunday morning and says we are leaving. The weekend has gone swimmingly but I’m packing now, not knowing if something horrible transpired over the japchae breakfast I missed. Within twenty minutes we are en route to the train station for me to head back to New York. On the car ride to the station there is silence between Seung and me. I study his face, looking for a clue as to what has gone so wrong. At the station, Seung tells me he’s going to take the train with me, to introduce me to some friends of his for dinner, and then head back to D.C. tonight for one final conversation with his parents before leaving for L.A. tomorrow.
One final conversation about me or one final conversation for the rest of his life? I am just as confused as I was the very first time this to-love-a-Korean-or-non-Korean story line came up. Only this time I have something at stake, too. I have Seung’s happiness, which, I realize as I stand in the train station and begin shaking from nerves, is completely tied to my happiness now.
“Is everything okay with your parents? I thought it was going well,” I ask tentatively.
Seung grabs my hand. “Oh, it’s terrific. It’s going so well I thought we would celebrate with some friends who have an awesome love story to share with you, and then I’ll head back to my parents to have the big conversation with my father about us.”
I smack him. It’s only on the arm, but it’s a full-on smack. Then I start to cry. Seung’s two sentences are the best argument to support Katharine Hepburn’s idea that men and women should just live next door to each other and visit because we are so intrinsically different from one another. Seung scared the crap out of me, when his real intent was to celebrate our success. He was so thrilled by our integration with his parents that he was willing to take a long and expensive round-trip train from D.C. to New York just to have dinner with me and show me how successful we just might become via his friends.
But since Seung did not say any of this—for a moment, I thought I had lost. I thought I had been deemed unacceptable to love. Which, of course, sans the humor in this head game I’m engaged in, is enough to make any girl cry. But I know I am also spilling over with emotion, because there was a moment in this mess of a morning where it crossed my mind that if I really love Seung, I should just let him go. That I should just send him off to K-town, where he doesn’t have to choose between his family and me. I thought about the other mixed-race couples I’ve talked to and how they might be the only people who would understand that I have all this guilt if Seung chooses me because there are people he loves who wish I would just go away. And although I don’t acknowledge it, I’m sorry for that.
And on top of all this, I can’t be mad or even show how close I felt to losing Seung in this bizarre beauty contest because his last sentence really does imply that he is about to tell his parents that I’m the one—right? Clearly all the other shit we’ve been through would point to this, but that’s not how I imagined my man would find his way to asking for my hand. What I pictured is this part—where the guy tells his parents that he loves me most and then he tells my parents and then he hands me the magic box, which holds the mystical ring, which I wear forever, and we live happily ever after. That’s what he’s talking about now, right? Yeah, I may be crying over that, too.
* I LIKED SEUNG’S FRIEND SUZANNE IMMEDIATELY when she entered my New York apartment, as she was carrying a larger bouquet of flowers than any man had ever brought me. David was equally charming but empty-handed, so Suzanne was my clear favorite. We were still in the hallway of my Nolita (this is a New York acronym for “north of Little Italy”) rental when Suzanne said, “You got past the parents!” and hugged me feverishly. I looked over her shoulder at Seung as if to say, Oh, they know everything? Suzanne’s husband, David, clearly understood my thoughts and said, “Oh, believe me, we know what you are up against. I imagine you have been so worried about meeting Mum and Dad that you probably haven’t even looked at this big Mongolian foreigner to ask yourself, Is this really who I even want to be with? I’m turning my whole body toward Seung now, actually wondering if I had enough time to just consider him before the racial playoffs took over, when David jumps back in. “Don’t think about it now. We have some samples from your mother’s homeland to help you decide.” With that, David opens his backpack and shows me four bottles of red.
Now I am wondering if Warren Beatty pays this husband and his wife to travel around America and convince people to live up to the mantra in Bullworth: that we should all just keep bonking until there is no more color difference left in this country. And if they aren’t the spokespeople for this platform, seriously—who the hell are they?
Here’s what I learned about this couple and their parents over the first bottle of chianti they sprung on me. This does not need to be committed to memory to understand the remainder of their tale or mine; it is just so utterly amazing that I’m sharing it.
Suzanne’s father was raised in Mexico. He was fourteen when his father died, and he joined the Mexican military to survive. While in it, he went to college and then to medical school. He was then awarded a scholarship to Harvard University. While finishing his residency at a hospital in Boston, he met his wife, who was a nurse there. They fell in love and were married, and for their honeymoon they drove from Massachusetts to Mexico City, where they moved to practice medicine.
Suzanne’s mother, a Caucasian, educated, American woman, moved into the home of her husband’s family in Mexico, where no one spoke English and she didn’t speak Spanish. Lacking all the comforts of her American life—family, friends, language, and freedom—Suzanne’s mom spent a lot of time crying in the corner of her mother-in-law’s home.
David’s father was raised in Palestine. He was educated in Egypt and went on to medical school in England at the Royal College of Surgeons. While finishing his residency at a hospital in London, he met his wife, who was a nurse there. They fell in love and were married and immediately flew to Palestine to practice medicine.
David’s mother, a Caucasian, educated, British woman, moved into the home of her husband’s family in Palestine, where no one spoke English and she didn’t speak Arabic. Her new husband promised they would leave if she hated the Middle East, but David’s mom said nothing while she quietly cried in the corner of her mother-in-law’s home for all the same reasons Suzanne’s mother did. “She cried every day, for a long time,” recalls David, who then adds, “but she’s still living in Palestine thirty years later
, so something is working for her.”
WHAT ARE THE ODDS that the children of these two marriages would find each other and fall in love near the Great Lakes of Illinois—just after David and Seung finish graduate school together? And that David and Suzanne would then marry, have two kids, and call Seung this morning for advice about moving their family to a job in New York or L.A., since Seung has lived in both? And that five hours later these three old friends would be at my dining room table in downtown New York, presenting me the opportunity to discuss any hurdle they encountered when forming their union and family—which I am completely blowing because all I am thinking during this incredible story is:
Is Palestine an actual place?
I’ve traveled almost everywhere. Including Israel. I saw the border to the occupied territories. Is that Palestine on the other side? Am I just a victim of the American press or is Palestine an actual country now? And if it is, was it also an actual country thirty years ago when David was growing up?
I’m too afraid to ask. Here I am, neck-deep in the greatest cultural debate of my life, wondering if a really specific culture I see in the headlines every day has a homeland. What I need to do is seize this moment by faking it. Yes, I should just pretend to understand the entire Middle East conflict, and after my new Palestinian friend leaves I’ll google his country. I would estimate I can learn the location, see how much infrastructure exists, and determine for how long—in three websites or fewer.
Looking at David gives me no clues to these unanswered questions. I’m not sure what I’d expect a Palestinian to look like, but David’s looks catch me off guard regardless. He has fine, black hair with very fair skin and mostly European features. I would say he looks Egyptian-light. And while I’m making up words here, he speaks English-light. Meaning, he mostly uses American terms but has a lilt that is recognizably British. Combining his looks and sounds, I would never have guessed David is an Arab or an Englishman. But wait, let me not be a further victim of American propaganda—are Palestinians Arabs? Google is not going to answer this, so let me invite Suzanne into the kitchen.
While Suzanne and I open a (second) bottle of wine, I ’fess up and ask her to help me understand what it means that her husband is a thirtysomething man from Palestine. Her two-minute debriefing at my counter gives me a totally different insight than my personal travels through Egypt, Israel, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Palestinian people have never lacked culture or tradition, but they have been fighting over what they consider their land—in modern history—since 1967. In the United States we do refer to Palestine as the “occupied territories” on both sides of Israel. All Palestinians are not Arabs, though. Arabs come from Arabia—which technically is the peninsula at the junction of Africa and Asia. (The countries that constitute the Arabian Peninsula are Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, and Bahrain—which is actually an island nation off the coast.) They are Arabs. Geographically, parts of the Syrian Desert can be considered part of Arabia (which includes Israel and Palestine, as well as Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria), but for these people, being an Arab has more to do with sentiment. So it’s not safe to assume that any of these folks consider themselves Arab. Kind of like Texans in America don’t consider themselves from the South—they are just Texans. And now that I see how much info I’m missing on a piece of the world, maybe I should get a weekly subscription to a British paper.
Or maybe I could come up with more reasons to keep Suzanne at my kitchen sink and have her fill me in. Looking at Suzanne, it would be impossible to guess her ethnicity, either. I understand, geographically, what it means to be half-Mexican and half-American, but Suzanne does not possess one North American Indian feature. Suzanne could pass for Danish as easily as Roman as easily as Argentinean. But I’ve run out of time to ask her more questions in private before she might wonder if I’m hitting on her ... so back we go.
David is gregarious and not afraid to make inappropriate jokes, yet somehow he still seems perfectly polite. Which Seung says is because of his British education. David and Suzanne raise an eyebrow. I wonder why (inside my head) and Suzanne answers (outside my head), “It came with a price.” I’m still wondering if these people really are paid spokespersons for interracial family planning. So now I’m asking intimate questions because I want some proof/answers/ history/dish.
BORN IN PALESTINE, as the second child in a family of three, David began his education in Israel—at a nursery school run by Catholic nuns, of all people. He then attended a Palestinian school for a short while, but his mom or dad continually had to pick him up when situations erupted. “Older boys would stone passing cars in the occupied territory and all hell would break loose,” elaborates David. Not one single day went by when David’s school wasn’t shut down at some point. For this reason, David was then sent away to an upper-crust English boarding school at eight years old.
On David’s first day in England, he was separated from his parents to watch a movie in the library. “The movie was about Snoopy, and he never forgot it,” replays Suzanne—as her husband has suddenly gone mute. “When the film finished, David’s parents were gone.” David wouldn’t see his mother or father again for a long time. Nor was he allowed to write them. There are pictures from this period in David’s life, of a little boy in his uniform standing proudly and alone at a train platform in a foreign country. This image breaks all four of our hearts at my dining room table tonight. Suzanne takes David’s hand as she retells this for the grown man she loves, who she says still looks back to make sure that those who love him are not going to sneak out a back door when he leaves the room.
I look over to Seung, recalling the conversation I had with him last night—about how important it is to encourage children to talk to their parents. I can see on his face that this isolation feels all too familiar to Seung. In the summers, Seung and his sister were sent to Korea alone to live with their grandparents. And although he loved them dearly, all children seem to fare better when they can turn to a mommy or daddy with their most intimate fears and questions. And although his mother was always there for him at home, his father lived outside of the country most of his teen years. And when it came to his mother, Seung didn’t always have enough words in common to discuss what he was feeling about typical childhood growing pains. So, even though both these boys had families that loved them dearly, feeling alone as children is something they can both relate to. I take Seung’s hand and refrain from stating my case again.
David remained in England for all of his childhood until he was accepted into George Washington’s International Program in Washington, D.C., and moved to the United States. He and Seung did their graduate studies together there, and America would become David’s permanent home. He was living in Chicago after finishing his degree when he met Suzanne.
Suzanne’s family moved from Mexico to Chicago when she was twelve. Suzanne spoke English at home with her mother and has always been a natural in social situations, so her move from one country to another was not as jarring as David’s. After finishing college, Suzanne was working and living at home with her parents, as is the tradition in her family’s culture. She was twenty-five years old and David was twenty-seven when she met him on a blind date.
“A friend of Suzanne’s was dating a friend of mine,” David explains. “My friend thought we would get along based on our humor. On the day of our setup, our friends broke up.”
David called Suzanne to politely cancel, and she suggested they go out anyway. Suzanne confesses, “I never liked thin guys. And he was thin. And I had never dated a Middle Eastern person but David is so ... English and funny and felt familiar. And he just kept coming around.”
As David’s name came up continuously, Suzanne’s mom asked for “stats.” Suzanne was confused and, moreover, shocked when her mother shrieked, “Muslim?” Like most Americans pre-9/11, Suzanne was totally unaware of how Middle Easterners, Palestinians, and Muslims are often perceived by t
he Western world. She had no idea how much prejudice preceded the seemingly kind and educated group of people she met in David’s family. “But then my parents met David and they were very relieved,” says Suzanne. She asked her father what he thought of her boyfriend after their first meeting. Dad told Suzanne something in Spanish that loosely translates to, “He was the only one wearing shoes.” Meaning, he was the only contender he’d ever met for her.
Seung and I have to look at each other again and giggle. He is leaving in one hour to head back to D.C., presumably to have this exact conversation with his father. I wasn’t wearing any shoes all weekend, but I hope the Chungs will see me as a contender, too. I can’t wait to hear what they have to say—if I will be able to wrestle a word out of my boyfriend tomorrow night—but right now I’m trying to leave the dance floor open for Suzanne and David. I have a feeling Seung invited them here to warn me or at least manage my expectations of what his family might say, so I turn back to them in earnest.
SUZANNE IS COMFORTABLE in her own skin as she tells us her tale (and most of David’s) but admits that people have always chided her that she’s not “really” Mexican. She is light-skinned and well-off, and for her the most offending insult is when Latino people judge her. Suzanne speaks fluent Spanish and was raised in Mexico for twice the number of years she was reared in the States, yet most Mexicans consider her a gringa. Within the Latin community, Suzanne says, people judge one another by shade. Light-skinned Mexicans have an assumed sophistication because they are obviously not laborers and are probably of European descent. Just like many light-skinned Cubans assume a sophistication over their darker-skinned countrymen, as do many Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc. Which seems like a random thing to judge someone by, to Suzanne. Yet she softly supposes to us, with a hint of embarrassment, that her parents might have had more of an issue if she fell in love with a dark-skinned Mexican person, rather than a light-skinned Middle Eastern man.
