My family landed in DTW in March. I was just four years old, two years wiser than my brother, aware that things were different but unsure of what that meant. I’d later find out that GM had acquired South Korea’s Daewoo Motors, sending many families to the States to work for the newly joint company in Metro Detroit. A few of my dad’s coworkers had moved their families here before we did, so they helped us settle down by filling us in on the local town and school information, inviting us to a Korean American church, and becoming our very first community.
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To my parents’ joy, the local preschool accepted me into their classrooms even though I had missed the first seven months of the school year and could not actually speak English. Luckily, my parents had prepped me with the English alphabet in Korea before moving, so even though I cried every day and didn’t play with the other kids, the powers moved me on to Kindergarten.
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Around that time is when my family started attending KPCMD: the Korean Presbyterian Church of Metro Detroit. KPCMD is the second largest Korean Christian church in Michigan, known for two things: not interacting with the other Korean churches, and having a lot of money (it’s nicknamed the Korean Presbyterian Church of Medical Doctors). My parents weren’t particularly religious before moving here, but by 2002 my mom was serving as head of crafts in the Pre-K teachers department and my dad had joined the finance team. My dad’s coworkers invited us into their “mustard seed” group, where families in similar areas and life stages met weekly to do bible study and make their children friends.
I loved going to family group throughout the five years we were a part of it, especially when it was at Xenia’s house. Not only did she have an awesome name (as did her younger sister Skyla, who was basically wedded with my brother since our families met and Xenia and I became best friends), she had a super hip dad who owned a gaming and anime store and built a dance studio in their basement to practice his bboy in. I would always compare it to my own as I counted with disdain the number of steps it took to get from one corner of my house to the farthest other.
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“Umma, why can’t we move to a bigger house?” I would groan to my mom.
“Minji-ya, our house might not be tall, but it’s wide. Also, a big house doesn’t mean everything--Yumi’s house is big but her mother always compares her to you, not her house to our house. That’s why she’s so mean to me.”
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Yumi and I were in Mrs. King’s kindergarten class together. Having started her piano lessons a few months after I did, she was always a practice book behind me. We both joined the Voice of Angels choir at church the next year, in which I received the solo for “Happy Birthday Jesus” in the Christmas skit. To top it all off, we both had a crush on Michael, the one boy in our family group, who chose me to piggyback one day when he was showing off his boy strength. I don’t remember exactly when Yumi left KPCMD, but I still remember her birthday because it was the first of the November babies--Yumi’s on November 5th, Xenia’s on November 14th, Michael’s on November 28th, and mine on November 30th--and by that time, all our friends were tired of going to birthday parties every week.
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