THE SLOOT IS BACK . . .

I missed the Koreans winning the short-track speed-skating events, and so I feel I have fallen in the ranks of my slootiness.

BUT, I'm back with a vengeance tonight for the men's figure skating.

That is, I was until I opened up the Internet -- my Safari homepage is set to The New York Times -- and found out that the Russian dude already won the gold.

Damn time zones.
Damn Internet.

***

REPRESENT . . .

We seem to be everywhere these days. By "we," I mean us pesky Korean-Americans.

We as a class have not been in this country very long. Even on the West Coast, the bulk of us have only been in this country for a maximum of about three generations. Four, if y'all got here real early. I feel like I, and many Korean-Americans I know and have met and have discoursed with, struggle -- consciously or subconsciously -- with feeling at home here. This is where I was born and raised, and I would not dream of picking up and putting down roots elsewhere, Shrubbery nothwithstanding. But there has always been something in me, something in us, that has not yet let us become fully integrated socially, politically, economically. Huge strides are being made, and I can't wait to be part of this wave of home-ness. Feeling like I belong here. Feeling like I am accepted here by the soon-to-be-no-longer-white-American majority. Feeling like I, like we, have a voice in society, in politics, in academia, in every sector of this great nation we all call home. I long for that.

And so it's incredibly gratifying to see faces like mine everywhere, all of a sudden. Not the least of whom is Hines Ward, he of the Super Bowl MVP award. Folks like him continue to be reviled back in the Motherland for being not only 'merely' half-Korean, but half-black, and half-the child of an American G.I.. Well ... they were reviled. Now, it cracks me up in a sad and bitter sort of way to see how my people are lauding him and offspring like him as being "Korean heroes." The irony. Slays me every time. But here, in my country, it warms the cockles of my heart -- really, truly, deeply -- to see his face, to hear his story, to see his name.

And of course, just the other day, Korean-adoptee Toby Dawson gets on up there and brings home a bronze medal for the United States. He's on the lookout -- driven by curiosity, he says -- for his birth family back in Korea. I had to do a double-take; we can recognize each other anywhere, and I'm often asked, "how can you tell Koreans apart from Chinese apart from Japanese?" I dunno. We just can, mostly. And so when I saw him up on that podium, I knew, and I was proud. And I was glad for his family here, and for his birth family back in the Motherland, and for all of us who can look at people like him and think, "now, it is beginning to be true: anything is possible."

It's such a small thing, really. Some will think I make too big a deal of it, this whole race thing, this whole assimilation thing, this whole "am I or aren't I a real American" thing, this whole culture and Motherland thing. But it is a big deal, and it should be a big deal ... until it ceases to be.