I, Too, Am America
Produced and Directed by Joonhee Elliot Park
Filmed in State College, Harrisburg, Dilsburg, PA, and Cheonan, South Korea.
Production dates: 2005 and 2006.
Honorable Mention at the 2006 University Film and Video Association Annual Conference.
Special Screening at the 2007 Asian Film Festival of Dallas, TX.
A personal testimony of Jolie A. Lee, a Korean adoptee. One day she was Mee Ran Lee, two years old girl in an orphanage in Busan, South Korea. The next day she became Jolie Ann Drahn, living with her new American family in Idaho, USA.
Twenty-seven years later, Jolie returns to her birth country, Korea teaching English at Korea Nazarene University. In her attempt searching to define her identity, she would walk through her past to understand the present.
When I first met Jolie, she was too Asian-looking to be American, yet too American-acting to be Korean. In the United States, she still has Caucasian Americans commenting at her “wonderful English” and Asian people marveling at her “perfect English.” The Caucasian Americans always eventually ask her, “So where are you from?” and look at her with surprise when she answers, “I grew up in Idaho, mainly.” They always respond with something close to, “No, I mean, where are you originally / really from?” The Asian cultures expect her to be Asian-acting, which leads to confusion, misunderstanding and sometimes resentment and jealousy—often when she does something that is perceived to be acceptable in the Western culture but not in the Asian culture.
I thought she would be a perfect example of marginal people who are not belonging in either side of two cultures. As a Korean adoptee, I observe Jolie caught between two worlds, America and Korea. She is caught and although she seems fit in most comfortably in America, she still is not truly belong in either culture.
I present this film to every man and woman who has ever questioned their place in the world.