Stepping onto an American school playground for the first time is daunting for any kid, but doing it when you don’t speak the language is an entirely different level of terrifying.

When I started school in Los Angeles, my vocabulary was limited to a few scattered English phrases. While the other kids chattered effortlessly about Saturday morning cartoons and neighborhood games, I stood on the periphery, trapped behind a wall of silence. How I broke through that wall is a story I tell in Who Stole My Pork Belly? My memoir of finding a voice in a new world.

The Sting of the Silent Corner

In those early days, the classroom wasn’t a place of learning; it was a daily exercise in survival. I quickly learned the literal sting of a school system that didn’t quite know what to do with an immigrant child. Without the words to explain myself, ask for help, or defend my ideas, I was often relegated to the background.

When you can’t speak, people often assume you can’t think. I watched my peers pass me by, feeling the heavy frustration of a mind bursting with thoughts but lacking the tools to release them. The discipline my grandfather instilled in us at the Windsor House kept me moving forward, but the isolation was suffocating.

Finding the Escape Hatch

But I had a secret weapon: I already knew how to escape. Just as I had used chapter stories at four years old to drown out the marital warfare in Seoul, I turned back to the page to navigate the loneliness of LA.

Books didn’t care if I had an accent. They didn’t judge me for stumbling over a syllable. I began devouring everything I could get my hands on, matching the English words on the page to the world around me. Slowly, the chaotic noise of American culture began to organize itself into sentences, paragraphs, and meaning.

The Birth of a Voice

The real magic happened when I picked up a pencil to write my own stories. On paper, my broken English didn’t have to stay broken; it was a canvas where I could practice, rebuild, and finally command a room. Writing became my bridge between two worlds: the elite, chaotic past of South Korea and the gritty, disciplined reality of America.

I realized that while my voice might shake when I spoke, it could be absolutely fearless when written. I wasn’t just learning a new language anymore; I was discovering a lifelong calling. The girl who once stood frozen on the playground had finally found her way to fight back.

That fearless written voice eventually became a book. Read the full journey in my memoir, Who Stole My Pork Belly? Get your copy on Amazon today.