WHAT IS YOUR IMMIGRATION STORY?

Dan Matthews is an MC and alternative rapper from Los Angeles.

I am a Korean adoptee and so I was adopted in the 80s and then came over around that time and I am the first of my particular type of person here in America from my family's side. I would not call my history an immigration story. I've actually never called myself an immigrant, even though technically and probably the definition of how I came to America was obviously immigration. And so, all of our collective stories from the definition were all technically immigrants. I guess the way that we kind of refer to ourselves isn't necessarily saying that my story is an immigration story because I think as an adoptee, we didn't have choice of coming to America or going to wherever it is that we ended up and not that immigrants necessarily have that choice many of the times, but I think that's especially because for the adopted populations. We kind of just came over as babies. We didn't even really realize it. And you kind of just end up wherever you end up. And that obviously that is immigration, but kind of just a different way to think about it. So, for a lot of adoptees, we don't necessarily think about ourselves as immigrants, but of course we are.

The becoming American process for me was just literally living in Southern California my whole life. I think that I benefited a lot from living in a really diverse community. There weren't a lot of Asian people around me, but at least there was enough that I could kind of learn and kind of just see what that was like for my Asian friends. And then for myself, I kind of just, when you live in it, you live in it. I was just raised as an American. I had a very traditional American upbringing. I ate a lot of very, what is considered American foods. I had a lot of casseroles, a lot of pies, a lot of just very 80s, 90s Americana. And I also got to experience MTV in the same way that a lot of our peers did. I consumed American media my entire life and I think that a lot of that just turns you into the American you are. And I think that because obviously my parents are white too, that I got it even more so than a lot of my Asian American friends where I was not only around it because I was in America, but my family was also, it's what they knew and so they taught me what they knew. And a lot of that was just based off of traditional American values and what we all consider to be the American dream.

I think for a lot of especially Asian adoptees that were raised by non-Asian parents, that our experience is really unique. I think that you grow up and you're not around people that look like you, you're not around the culture that you're supposed to be around, and that not that that needs to define you, but it really does. You really grow up and you are who you are. You grow up in the environment that you do. I didn't grow up with a traditional Asian background. I just grew up thinking that I was basically just white in an Asian body, and that a lot of the values that my parents taught me were what they were taught as they were growing up. And I think that it is different than maybe people that were born in another country than come out to America, or for people that were born in America, and their parents are like first generation, or they come over at a later point too because they're instilled with the values that they grow up with when they are raised abroad. I think that one of the biggest things is that of course we don't look like our parents, and we don't look like necessarily the people that are around us. And I think that really heavily influences the way that we think about ourselves. And you have to kind of overcome that adversity. And that I do think that in the positive way, the most positive way at least for myself, has been that I think living with that adversity or just realizing what it means to have been adopted and all of the different nuances, I think it really becomes a part of my own story.

And then through that, I think it's really been a benefit to me later on in life because having to go through a lot of those struggles, you get to know yourself a lot more. I feel very in tune with who I am because I have to think about it like quite a bit. So, for my own American story, I think that being adopted has been a big part of it and just learning what all of these cultures that are around me are kind of combining and determining the person that I am.

WHAT DOES YOUR CURRENT JOURNEY LOOK LIKE?

What I think has been the biggest impact for me personally on the community is that music has been such a big part of my life, especially being in the Asian American music scene. And I feel very strongly that I've been able to grow with it. I've been able to see it evolve, and I've been able to be, again, a small part of where it's currently at right now. And I think that through my own music as an MC and being able to help bridge the stories of identity, being Asian American, being adopted and trying to find whatever clarity there is at the end of that. That's how I feel like that I'm contributing to the greater Asian American, greater population at large. And that I hope that other people have been able to listen to my music and see the work that I put out. And I think it's been pretty inspiring for them, and it's enabled them to at least have content they can relate to. And then just being able to relate to something I think is kind of at times good enough. And I think that it's a really amazing thing to have things that you can be like, oh, that kind of represents me and in a world where we feel like that we're not being represented or in the world where we don't see things that make us feel complete, I'm hoping that I make at least a couple of people feel more complete than they do.

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