Go Away With … R.O. Kwon

“I’ve thought at times about the fact that I was born to people who, for many generations, lived on just that one strip of land – Korea,” said “Exhibit” author R.O. Kwon. “When I’m in Korea, it feels as though my body recalls the soil I’m made of, attending to a song in the wind, rain and foliage that I can’t quite find elsewhere.”

Go Away With … Crystal Hana Kim

Six years after she won critical acclaim for her debut novel “If You Leave Me Now,” Crystal Hana Kim has published her second book “The Stone Home” (William Morrow). The novel centers on a homeless mother and daughter who, in the 1980s, are sent to live in a South Korean reformatory center designed to break down their will to survive. 

Go Away With … Raymond Lee

“It’s always interesting to me the weight that [some Asian Americans] carry around from not having grown up with people who look like them,” said “Quantum Leap” star Raymond Lee. “I was fortunate enough to grow up in Koreatown and Glendale, where our star quarterback was Asian and the smartest three students in our class were Asian.”

Go Away With … Jessi

Born in New York, Jessica Ho was 14 years old when she moved to South Korea by herself to jump-start her music career. Because of her young age, Jessi – as she’s known professionally – lived with her grandmother, attended school and signed with a Korean music company. “My father hadn’t wanted me to go, because I was so young,” said the singer, rapper and on-air personality

Go Away With … Nicole Chung

With her first memoir “All You Can Ever Know,” Nicole Chung candidly offered personal reflections on being a transracial adoptee. The bestselling author’s latest book “A Living Remedy” (Ecco) deals with grief, classism and America’s broken healthcare system, which contributed to the deaths of both her adoptive parents.

Go Away With … William Yu

“I’m lucky to have family roots that stretch around the globe,” said screenwriter William Yu. “I was born in Philadelphia, moved to Hong Kong when I was five, then to Boston, and then to New York, before coming out here to Los Angeles. My older sister currently lives in London. While we still have family in Seoul, where my parents were born, my mother went to high school in Taiwan, while my father spent formative years in Jamaica, before the two ended up in America for college and beyond.”

Losing My Korean Didn’t Make Me Any More American

Back in my era, the teachers encouraged immigrants to only speak English at home so that we wouldn’t fall behind. But what they didn’t know at the time — or perhaps they didn’t really care about — was that in the rush to make us understand English, many of us lost our ability to converse in our birth language.

Go Away With … Young Mazino

Young Mazino plays Steven Yeun’s younger brother in the Netflix rage series “BEEF.” And he has the starring role in the upcoming series “Good Boy.” In this interview, we talk about acting, reclaiming his identity as an American, and that name of his that isn’t quite Korean. “I’ve been waiting for someone to ask,” he said, laughing. “You’re officially the first.” Read the full story here.

Go Away With … Maurene Goo

In Maurene Goo’s novel “Throwback” (Zando Young Readers, $16.99), teenage protagonist Samantha goes back to the ’90s, where she befriends her 17-year-old mother, Priscilla. Satirical, humorous and thoroughly engaging, Goo’s novel also reflects on how what was once accepted as the norm – casual racism played off as a joke – is problematic when viewed through our modern lens.

Go Away With … Heinz Insu Fenkl

“Skull Water” author Heinz Insu Fenkl recalled what it was like traveling around parts of the U.S. in the 1970s. “We weren’t allowed to enter diners in the South because we were taken for Native American,” he said. “It made my father furious that we would all have to sit in the station wagon to eat. It was also very hard for us to find motels that would allow a white man with a Korean wife and four mixed-race children to stay.”

Go Away With … Justin Chon

With his latest movie, “Blue Bayou,” award-winning filmmaker Justin Chon (“Gook,” “Ms. Purple”) explores the plight of Antonio LeBlanc, a New Orleans man who was adopted as a baby and is facing deportation, due to his lack of U.S. citizenship. Based on the real-life cases of adults who literally were sent back to “where they came from,” the movie had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, before its September 17, 2021 theatrical release.

Go Away With … BettySoo

“My whole life, I have heard the word American as shorthand for white, Black and white Hispanic (or) Latinx,” said Nobody’s Girl singer/songwriter, BettySoo. “As a kid who never grasped fluency with the Korean language, I very much felt like a person without a homeland to claim and without a homeland to claim me. I have always felt like a Texan and an American, but as I get older, I become less convinced I will ever be seen as fully Texan nor American by others.”

Go Away With … Crystal Hana Kim

“I grew up traveling to Korea often,” says author Crystal Hana Kim. “My parents are both immigrants from Korea and my mother’s side of the family still lives there. She’d take me and my little sister back during our summer breaks to visit our grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. All of those summers in Korea helped me to develop a deep love for my culture. When I began writing my novel during graduate school, I visited Korea specifically to do research. ‘If You Leave Me’ is about five characters growing up during and after the Korean War.”