December 2019; Brooklyn, New York. (Eloise Photography)

As we close out the year, I want to share a big personal announcement with you all.

My name is Jieun.

I am reclaiming my name.

I will no longer be going by the name, "Chi." You can address me as Jieun from this moment forward.

It feels incredibly vulnerable, exposing, and liberating to share this monumental life change with you all. Honestly, I wish I could've been Jieun in all circles, for my entire life.

Over the past two years, as I’ve witnessed an exponential surge in anti-Asian racism, violence, and xenophobia, alongside the explosive representation of Asians and Asian Americans in mainstream media, music, and Hollywood, I have been digging deeper into my own anti-Asian racist experiences, and my relationships with my Korean and Asian identities. I've also been on a much longer journey — a 33-year-long journey — of trying to figure out who I am, where I come from, and how to exist in this world.

Let’s start from the beginning.

THE BEGINNING

On September 21, 1988, I was born at Severance Hospital in Seoul, South Korea. The name I was given at birth was 지은 (Jieun).

My name was given to me by my mother. Jieun means wisdom and mercy. My mom named me Jieun because she wanted me to grow in wisdom and generously share that wisdom with others. I actually only found out her personal reason for naming me Jieun a couple weeks ago, and when she told me, I cried.

It felt like a fulfilled prophesy.

Before my mom and I immigrated to America in 1990, my mom went to the immigration office to get our paperwork filled out. The person assigned to helping my mom fill out our paperwork incorrectly transliterated my name. My name should have been spelled, “Jieun Ko,” but instead, it was spelled, “Chi Un Ko.”

Back in the late-1980s, the English language was still pretty foreign to the majority of Koreans. The immigration office employees did the best they could to help people spell their names, but without an official way of correctly transliterating Korean names into English, there was plenty of room for subjectivity and error.

And that’s how Jieun became Chi.

BECOMING CHI

In 1990, once we got to America, everyone I knew still called me Jieun. But my mom was still grappling with my American name, “Chi.” She wasn’t completely satisfied with “Chi,” and she knew she would have to decide on a name before I started school — a name that my teachers and classmates would call me. For the next two years, she kept searching for a better way to spell my name.

I remember as a kid, my mom had me try out the name "Ghi" for a while. But at some point during kindergarten, my mom changed her mind and told me I would be going by the name "Chi” from now on — a name I had never even heard before.

But I would only be called "Chi" at school. At home, I was still Jieun.

You can imagine how confusing this would be for a four-year-old, who just traveled across the world, moved to a foreign country, and is now living thousands of miles away from her family, her home, and everything she's ever known, with no say in the matter — and now she has to adopt a totally different name, but only in certain spaces.

As a little girl, when I would hear the name "Chi," I remember thinking, "That's not my name. My name is Jieun." I remember not liking the name "Chi" because it wasn't my name. But it was the name that was on my teacher's roster, it was the name on all my official documents, and it was the name my mom told me to go by at school. I was only four years old, so I didn't know how to make decisions for myself yet. I didn't know I had the right to go by what I wanted to be called, despite what was on my teacher’s roster. I didn't know how to spell "Jieun" either. I had no choice but to go by Chi. So in the fall of 1993, when I was in kindergarten at Cardinal Forest Elementary School in Springfield, Virginia, I was first referred to as "Chi."

At the age of four, I had to learn how to be Chi.

Circa Summer 2002; Ocean City, Maryland.

NAME-BASED RACISM AND TRAUMA

Growing up, and even into adulthood, I was the victim of endless name-based racism, bullying, and discrimination. People would taunt me at school, calling me Chiko, Chi-Chi, Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia, Chia Pet, Cheese, Chicharrones, Chunko — the list goes on. People would say, "Do you know your name means boy in Spanish?" "Oh my gosh, is your name Chi, as in *racist motion of making centered prayer hands while bowing* Chiiii?" "Ohhhh, like Chi, as in, your inner chi?!" "Doesn't your name mean energy in Chinese?" "I have a dog named Chi-Chi!"

Until this year, I’ve always introduced myself as, "Chi, C-H-I." I spell it out for people in advance because, 99% of the time, they don’t know what I'm saying. "Jean? She? Shy? Kai?” To make things easier for people, I’ve said, "It's like Cheese without the Z." At one point, I grew so frustrated with my name that I just told people they could call me whatever they wanted. "You can call me Chi, Chiko, Chi-Chi — you can even call me Bob!" I literally said this to people.

I hated when people asked me what my name meant.

When people asked me what “Chi” meant, I could never tell them what the meaning of my name was because, in Korean, Chi doesn’t mean anything. I also felt obligated to give people a whole explanation about the incorrect transliteration of my name. I would say, "Well actually, Chi is only half of my name. Un is the second half of my name. But actually, neither are the correct spelling or pronunciation of my actual name." My mom didn't make things easier for me either — when I asked her what my name meant, she would just say, "It means you're going to make your parents proud." So I would just tell people that, and they would usually respond by laughing and saying, "Wow, that's so Asian!"

I didn’t realize it at the time, but all of these experiences were incredibly traumatizing for me. My name was constantly being tossed around, butchered, mangled, mocked, and disrespected. I would have so much anxiety every time I had to introduce myself.

Because of all the name-based racism and trauma I experienced, I became incredibly embarrassed and ashamed of my name. I hated my name. And because my name and my Asian identity were inextricably linked, I also hated being Asian. The name “Chi” made me feel undeniably Asian, which was the last thing I wanted to be, in the overwhelming white spaces I grew up in.

Growing up in Northern Virginia, being Asian felt like something I was supposed to hide, erase, or get rid of. Being Asian made me feel different from everyone else around me, and I wanted so badly to fit in and be "normal." I wanted to be Kelly, Lauren, Madison, Ashley — literally anyone but Chi. Chi felt weird, ugly, and foreign.

Sadly, those three things felt synonymous to me.

From left to right: Carrie Ann Inaba as Fook Yu, Michael Myers as Austin Powers, and Diane Mizota as Fook Mi. Austin Powers in Goldmember, released June 8, 1999. (New Line Cinema)

AMERICA’S WIDESPREAD ACCEPTANCE OF ANTI-ASIAN RACISM

Throughout my 31 years of living in America, anti-Asian racism has always been widely accepted and normalized. It has always felt like a universal truth that we all knew and understood — “We can all be racist towards Asians.” This gross, widespread acceptance of anti-Asian racism was constantly being reflected back to me, as well — at school, at my parents’ small businesses, at the grocery store, on TV, and in the movies.

It felt impossible to fight against it.

Because of the widespread acceptance of anti-Asian racism in America, there was no space for me to demand that people treat me and the Asian community with the dignity and respect we deserved. If I ever called people out for being racist towards Asians, they would gaslight me, criticize me for being “too sensitive,” and label me as “the angry Asian.”

No Asians in the movies or TV shows I watched ever stood up against anti-Asian racism either. The few times I ever saw an Asian person on screen, they usually were one-dimensional characters that were grossly stereotyped, mocked, and humiliated — Lane and Mrs. Kim in Gilmore Girls, Agent Lee in Rush Hours 1, 2, and 3, Fook Mi and Fook Yu in Austin Powers, Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid, Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles, and Mr. Chow in The Hangover. The list goes on and on.

There was no space for me.
There was no space for us.
We were made invisible.

Over time, our extreme lack of authentic representation in media, along with the widespread acceptance of anti-Asian racism in America, had a severe impact on the way I saw myself.

The way white people viewed me heavily shaped how I viewed myself, and gradually, I learned to internalize racist thoughts and beliefs against myself and my community.

I learned to hate the Asian parts of me.

I distanced myself as far as I possibly could from my Korean and Asian identities. I erased the Korean and Asian parts of me. I tried to act more white, look more white, talk more white, and be more white.

It’s like the saying goes: “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

STOP ASIAN HATE

Over the last two years, throughout the pandemic, I’ve watched countless Asian Americans get brutalized in the streets, have their homes, vehicles, and businesses vandalized, and have racist hate speech hurled at them. I myself have personally experienced multiple incidents of anti-Asian racism this year. According to the organization, Stop AAPI Hate, the number of anti-Asian hate crimes that have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic until September 2021, has risen to a staggering 10,370.

I watched 61-year-old Noel Quintana get slashed across the face with a box cutter on the L train, on his way to work, while an entire train car full of people sat in silence and watched him bleed. I watched 65-year-old Vilma Kari get knocked to the ground and kicked in the face in Times Square, as she was walking to church for Easter Sunday service, while two doormen of a nearby luxury apartment building silently stood by, watched, and even closed the door on her. And along with the rest of the world, I watched Soon Chung Park, Hyun Jung Grant, Yong Ae Yue, Suncha Kim, Xiaojie Tan, and Daoyou Feng get shot and killed in the Atlanta spa shootings.

In the early hours of March 17, 2021, when I found out that, the night before, six Asian women had been targeted and murdered by a white man in a shooting spree at several spas in Atlanta, Georgia, something broke inside me.

I hated hearing news anchors and reporters mangle these women’s beautiful names. I hated hearing the sheriff’s captain validate the murderer’s egregious actions by claiming “he had a really bad day” and “he had a sex addiction.” I hated seeing this negative light being cast over these six women, just because of where they worked.

Even in death, these women could not be respected.

For an entire year, I watched thousands of Asian Americans get slain, day after day, while the news barely reported on any of it. For an entire year, I noticed that the only people who seemed to be concerned and enraged about Asian bodies and Asian lives were the ones within the Asian American community. For an entire year, I was reminded of my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and all the racism and discrimination I had quietly endured, and all the racism and discrimination I watched my parents quietly endure. For an entire year, I was reminded of all the times I swallowed my rage — because no one would protect us, speak up for us, or stand up for us.

When the Atlanta spa shooting happened, it was the end for me.

It was the end of staying silent when people blatantly disrespected my community. It was the end of hiding my Korean and Asian identities. It was the end of code-switching. It was the end of worshiping whiteness. It was the end of centering white voices. It was the end of holding onto relationships with people who did not make space for all of me.

It was the end of being embarrassed and ashamed of who I am.

The Atlanta spa shooting was also the beginning for me.

It was the beginning of reclaiming my Korean and Asian identities. It was the beginning of using my voice to protect my community. It was the beginning of being proudly, unapologetically Korean and Asian. It was the beginning of reclaiming who I am, and who I have always been.

It was the beginning of finally learning how to center myself in my own life.

September 20, 2020; Brooklyn, New York. (Eloise Photography)

RECLAIMING JIEUN

Reclaiming my name is an act of resistance. It’s my way of proudly claiming who I am and where I come from.

To reclaim my name is to reclaim myself.

Through the reclamation of my name, I hope to shift the perception of what a normal, American name actually is. I hope to give other Asian Americans and people of color the space to resist assimilation, cultural erasure, and self-erasure, and firmly hold onto their cultural roots. I hope to give other immigrants and immigrant kids the space to be proud of their beautiful names and the rich cultures they come from. And I hope to inspire others to stay true to who they are, and not contort themselves for the sake of others.

I want to reclaim Jieun because she is me, and I am her. I want to be one person in all spaces — not one person constantly code-switching between two cultures, two worlds, and two identities. I want to reclaim Jieun because I want to proudly be who I am, and who I've always been. I don't want any part of me to be altered or erased, for the sake of making other people who are unfamiliar with Asian names feel more comfortable. I deserve to feel comfortable in this one life — in this one body I've been given.

In the words of Thandiwe Newton in the reclamation of her own name earlier this year:

"I'm taking back what's mine."

The truth is, our names are, and have always been, beautiful.
We are, and have always been, beautiful.

To my parents, I am Jieun. To my family, I am Jieun. To my aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents, I am Jieun. To any Korean I have or will ever meet, I am Jieun. I have always been, and I will always be, Jieun — to them and to me.

Jieun is a beautiful name. It is my name. And it feels like home.

Thank you for joining me in this monumental transition, friends. Please feel free to reach out to me with words of encouragement, support, and love.

Love always,
Jieun Ko

My Name is Jieun: Reclaiming My Name

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jieunandgreg@gmail.com