"Which Country Are You Rooting for?": Conversations about Race, Culture, and Faith with My Daughters During the Tokyo Olympics

By Dr. Paul Youngbin Kim

I

love watching the Olympics. As a sports fan, watching the best athletes in the world compete at the highest level is more than enough of a reason to enjoy the Olympics. My wife Sarah and two children (Ally and Abby) are right there with me; caught up in the drama of it all and our eyes glued to the TV.

Beyond sports, this Tokyo Olympics has sparked important conversations and reflections about race, culture, citizenship, and faith in my immediate family, especially with my daughters Ally and Abby. These wide-ranging topics arise out of multiple hats I wear – father, psychologist, professor, Korean American, and Christian. And perhaps like many fathers, some of these conversations have stuck with my kids as intended (thank God for these moments in parenting), while others have resulted in a typical eye roll – "Are we talking about this again, daddy?" Furthermore, there are conversations that I have not yet had with my daughters, ones that I hope to bring up at the opportune moment in the near future. Here are some examples of these conversations.

There's the question, that I suspect, arises in many Korean American households during international sports competitions:

"Which team do you cheer for during the Olympics?"

Or similarly:

"If South Korea and the USA played each other, which team would you root for?"

Each response from my family is accompanied by a slightly different explanation. Ally, who is a dual citizen of Korea and the U.S., responds confidently that she roots for South Korea, citing her Korean citizenship as the reason. My younger daughter Abby, who is not a dual citizen, but a U.S. citizen, says she too roots for South Korea. Her reason? “South Korea is a smaller country.” My California born and raised Korean American wife feigns being offended by these responses and says that she will always root for the USA first in the Olympics, and South Korea second.

As a psychologist who studies ethnic and racial identity, I can't help but take this moment to converse with my family about what it means to be a citizen of a country (or countries, in Ally's case), and what it does not mean. I tell my daughters that there are multiple ways to be Korean American, whether it is through citizenship, or as psychologists typically define racial and ethnic identity, through things like a sense of belonging, commitment, affinity/pride, and so on. I continually share with my family that God has a purpose in connecting them to Korean and American culture, and we will continue to figure out this purpose. I tell them as Korean Americans, they will feel a certain allegiance to the U.S., but also there will be a type of emotional connection to South Korea which they may not be able to articulate. I tell them being Korean American does not make them less Korean, or for that matter, less American. I try to convey the important truth that these identities are a gift from God: not meant to be ignored, stereotyped, or minimized, but embraced, struggled with, and treasured. 

By this point of my soliloquy, my daughters are not interested and they go back to the TV Olympic broadcast, and I am banking on more opportunities to revisit this wonderful yet complicated topic of what it means to be Korean American.

We cheer for Suni Lee, the winner of gold in the women's gymnastics all-around event. My daughters quickly recognize the last name Lee, asking if Suni is Korean. I say no, she is actually Hmong American. This also becomes an opportunity to discuss Pan-Asian ethnic identity in the U.S. context. I explain that there is much heterogeneity within the Asian American community – Lee is not just a Korean last name – rather there is much that is shared among Asian cultures from cultural values, traditions, and experiences of contemporary forms of racism and stereotyping. I explain this is why we as Korean Americans can share a special feeling of pride and celebration of Suni Lee winning gold. At the same time, we recognize the different Asian story that Suni Lee and her family and community are a part of.

This is complicated. I am not sure my kids fully grasp it. But I will continue talking to them about it, as I myself also grapple with my own Asian identity. Nonetheless, there are things I would still like to talk about with my daughters. I am waiting for the right moment. Hopefully before the Olympics wrap up.

I would like to talk to them about the South Korean athlete An San, who owns three gold medals in archery in the Tokyo Olympics. My family wooed and aahed as we watched this gifted athlete shoot 10s after 10s so effortlessly. Instead of celebrating the monumental accomplishment of this gifted athlete, some in the Korean online community have criticized her short hair. I have not yet found the right moment to talk to my daughters about this ridiculous response, but if I did, I would point to it as yet another way in which sexism and male hypocrisy manifest. A world where a man who wears their hair longer than the typical male – like their own father – does not get treated the same way a woman with shorter hair than the typical female does. That female athletes at the top of their game still have to deal with this type of oppression. That female athletes who make a stance to protest against objectification of their bodies by wearing a nonstandard outfit get fined. I hope to teach my daughters that these injustices against women grieve the very heart of God, and they are sins that both individually and collectively as a society, including the Christian community, must repent of. 

I would also like to process masks, vaccines, and all the cultural and political elements tethered to these topics. While watching the Olympics on TV, my children wondered out loud about the contrast between the footage from Tokyo where athletes are handed masks to put on immediately after their event is over, and the footage of family members cheering for them back in the U.S. where virtually no one wears a mask and people are crammed into a single indoor space. When I have a chance, I want to talk to my daughters about values such as personal freedom, interdependence, and communal living, and how the very thing that makes America, America – radical individual freedom – also has an ugly side in which year two into the pandemic, we are still divided over the issue of putting on a simple cloth over our mouth to protect others and ourselves. The visibility of the strict masking requirement during the Olympics is an opportunity to tell my children about how masking is a pre-pandemic societal norm in Asia, including Japan, and how it is widely accepted as a practice and symbol of concern for others. I will tell them that both collectivism and individualism as cultural frameworks have redeeming qualities and yet potential pitfalls. In the case of masking, radical application of individualism makes it much more difficult to put this pandemic behind us. In all of these conversations, I hope to also teach my children the larger principle that it is permissible to call out the sins and shortcomings of America; that it does not mean you are less American, or that you love America less, but rather you are continuing to engage in the truth telling of naming sins leading to repentance.

I know that there are/will be many other opportunities to connect race, culture, and faith in my conversations with my children. But this Tokyo Olympics has inspired many dialogues and permutations of dialogues with my children, and have triggered ideas about many more, and I am thankful to God for these important connections.

Photo by Bryan Turner on Unsplash

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Paul Youngbin Kim, Ph.D., is a Professor of Psychology at Seattle Pacific University.