P1. Nearly a year ago, I was in a police interrogation room with my friend Sang Tae as he translated to a detective what had happened to me the previous day. I had always felt safe living in South Korea. Daegu is the kind of city where you can leave your purse unattended for hours without worry, which made the experience of being sexually harassed in broad daylight even more jarring. The detective listened politely at first, but quickly became bored and began complimenting my friend on his translating skills and asking what university he attended. After a few minutes, the detective turned to me. “Unfortunately this is a reoccurring problem with foreign men who target women like you. They assume you are an illegal immigrant who cannot report the incident to the police.”

P2. Though it had happened in a busy supermarket, the CCTV camera had a blind spot at the exact place where I was grabbed. Because of this, the detective explained, it was not possible to substantiate the accusation. I felt my confidence ebb away. I naively believed that the combination of my testimony and surveillance video showing the man taunting me and following me outside where his friends waited for me would be enough to press charges. How could there be no eyewitnesses that saw him force his way into my taxi? The detective stood up and turned to me. “Let me write down your phone number and I’ll get in touch with you.” I never heard from him again.

P3. Walking out of the police station, I felt a combination of indignation and frustration. When the detective said, “women like you,” did he think my experience mattered less because it was typical for women of my skin color? Why did it matter what nationality my aggressor was? Did the detective think this was a “foreigner” problem he didn’t have to address? I couldn’t help but wonder whether the detective would have been this dismissive if I were Korean.

P4. This experience led me to reexamine my identity. Growing up, race was rarely discussed in my family. From an early age, I felt like I was in a racial limbo. I often felt “colorless”; never quite belonging to any culture or community. Although I was adopted from Colombia and didn’t resemble my blue-eyed mother or my tall father, my parents avoided talking about this discrepancy. During the two years my family lived in Peru, I never confided in my parents when my classmates teased me and told me I looked like a “filthy Indian.” I felt ashamed of my skin color and was afraid they would be too. When we moved back to the US, because I was not raised with Hispanic culture, folklore, food, or spirituality, I was often told by my peers, “You’re not really Latina,” while others would say, “You’re almost white.”

P5. While race is ultimately a social construct, it still has lasting socio-economic repercussions in people’s lives. On that day in Daegu, instead of my own identity, I was simply a dark-skinned foreigner. My experience in South Korea helped me recognize that my identity does not fully belong to me; it is, to a large extent, shaped by how others perceive me.

P6. I find myself asking what happens to a migrant woman who cannot escape such a situation. Who would speak up and defend her? A national discussion about racism in South Korea is slowly emerging, but exploitation and racism towards dark-skinned migrants continues.

P7. Experiences like this help me understand my own complex, intersectional identity. I am able to empathize more deeply with migrants and the many struggles they face.

M,

Let me say right off the bat that I’m sorry you were sexually harassed, and that the police were so egregiously unconcerned. For the rest of this letter, I’m going to be clinical and editorial, so I just want to acknowledge what you went through at the beginning.

That said, this statement is so much better! I think you’ve definitely found the right essay to write. Great job!

Your work is clear and polished, but I don’t think the structure is there yet. The problem, in a nutshell, is that you spend too much time on the initial anecdote, and not enough time on its significance. I never quite see how it fits into the broader context of your life.

Let’s do a paragraph-by-paragraph reverse outline.

P1. Anecdote: talking to the police, part 1.
P2. Anecdote: talking to the police, part 2.
P3. How you felt after talking to the police.
P4. How you felt that you were in a racial limbo growing up.
P5. After the police station, you realized that your identity was in part defined by others’ perceptions.
P6. Transition to law-schooly thoughts about helping oppressed women.
P7. Conclusion about your identity.

Forget about the transitions for now, and forget about paragraphs six and seven. Let’s focus on the core of your essay: paragraphs one through five.

The problem, right now, is that you don’t explain the significance of your experience in South Korea. Paragraph four is about how you were othered when you grew up, so it’s unclear why being othered again at the police station changed your outlook. Nor do you explain how you changed afterwards.

Remember your three-sentence outline:

1. Before/my initial understanding of my identity: growing up, I only marginally recognized that my identity was informed by my skin color.
1. The incident that changed everything: sexual harassment in South Korea.
2. After/what I think now: being brown is intimately tied to my identity.

I suggest that you try writing the essay chronologically. Articulate your understanding of your racial (or non racial) identity. Tell us how your understanding was challenged in Korea. Finally, tell us the upshot. Did you change your attitude, ambitions, or actions after Korea?

Here’s one possible outline for a new essay:

P1. Feeling like you were always in the outgroup when you grew up.
P2. You defined yourself non-racially.
P3. South Korea anecdote.
P4. You realized race was an ineluctable part of your identity.
P5. Your new understanding led to your legal ambitions.

Let me know what you think.

Best,

David