Park, Jonny Kyung-Hwan (Jonny)
My name is Jonny Kyung-Hwan Park, and you can call me either Jonny or Kyung-Hwan. I’m currently a senior in the art program. I am interested in languages as a tool of communication and mark making. Having immigrated to the U.S. from Korea during my ‘formative’ years, I have always been curious, and cognizant of how the existence of different languages in my life have shaped my development as an individual. In my first few years in the U.S., acquiring the English language to a native standard was a traumatic journey. In retrospect, I was perhaps trying to satisfy the model minority myth, aspiring to be white-adjacent on a social spectrum designed to serve the white and privileged. During the process, I subconsciously denounced my Korean heritage, and with my English constructed to a native standard and in a predominantly white environment, maybe I believed that I was white. After reading the Sybil Venega excerpt, I got a chance to reflect on my own story. “For the ...