Chapter Two – Digging up the roots
10/22/2023
A few days after I first found the photo book, my mom eventually called us into her bedroom to decide what we were going to do with the mess. I guess she just couldn’t stand to see her room filled with books that most of us never even read. I scrambled to find every single photo book or book from our family’s past. The three books I’d discovered on the first day were only a fairly small chunk of what we had. I found a lot of other picture books, which I badgered my parents about a lot.
The biggest one I found was the one titled 한국과 일본에서의 첫해. It took about five minutes for me to translate that sentence, but after some time, I figured out it meant something like “First Years back in Korea and Japan”. They had lived in Japan too… those from my mom’s side of the family. I wondered if they’d ever met my Japanese relatives because my dad said my Japanese roots came from his side of the family.
At this point, I knew almost nothing about my ancestry. I knew I had some roots here and there… I knew I had a grandparent who fought in the Vietnam War, some of my origin in Korea, but that’s it. I questioned my parents for months about their lives in Korea but my mom and dad were so busy I didn’t get many responses.
I started to realize after a while I wasn’t going to be able to get much information out of my parents, so I decided to try and switch my strategy. After a lot more arguing, convincing, and coaxing, my parents finally agreed to set up a voice call between me and Grandpa Malcolm. I had propped up a list of a hundred and fifty questions to ask him, and I really pressed him for all the details I could get. In fact, we spent two hours talking about his experience in the Vietnam War, and only twenty-nine of my questions were answered during the call. Obviously, as soon as the call was over I was begging my dad to arrange time for another one, and we did have one planned for three weeks later, but it was at that time that terrible disaster struck.
A few days before our planned follow-up meeting, I learned Grandpa Malcolm had gotten a case of COVID-19. He was taken to the hospital where he lived on the other side of town, and he died a few weeks later. Even worse— he died alone. Outsiders weren’t allowed in the hospital, and even though our family was really desperate and was considering resorting to bribery, we never got to say our goodbyes to him. He passed alone in the middle of the night, surrounded by many others who were also on the verge of death. We cried for months— Grandpa Malcolm was a great guy. Every time he visited us last year (We didn’t see him often, despite both of us living in LA) he’d come with a bag full of candy for me, Jason, and Ava to fight over, he’d always be entertained when me and my siblings wanted to talk about video games or sports or some school drama, or whatever random things I wanted to rant about. He was a lot of fun, and the candies he got from his so called “secret store” would never go in my mouth again.
Still, his death wasn’t the end of my journey, and after mourning throughout most of the summer of 2020, I entered my fifth grade year in school. Fifth grade is what many people might call my ‘Covid Year’, because the majority of that year wasn’t me sitting in a classroom, but rather me sitting on a desk, staring into a screen. I continued to push to try and find more information about my heritage. My parents didn’t give me much information, but over time, I had a bigger and bigger idea of what was going on, and I was pretty knowledgeable by the end of 5th grade.
In the summer of 2021, between 5th and 6th grade for me, I got a really big chance to not only hear stories about my heritage, but to experience it. We were going on a big vacation to Southeast Asia! First week, we were in the Philippines… Second week, Thailand… Third week, Vietnam! And we were going to see our family members there! I scrambled to get a list of questions to ask every single one of them, hoping to get even greater detail than what I got from my parents. When the time came to go to Vietnam, I had an entire notebook full of questions ready to ask every single individual family member that I wanted to ask. I asked every question I could.
As you can imagine, they got pretty annoyed. I guess I can’t blame them. The second I entered the door to their houses, I was already asking them to sit down while I pulled out three notebooks, pens, and a video recorder to record everything word for word. I guess I can’t complain with the results I got—I learned a lot. And I found even more photo books which I obsessed over instantly. I spent a lot of time analyzing them, taking notes, asking questions about them— some of these pictures were taken so long ago my relatives had no idea what was going on.
In the summer of 2022 (Summer between my 6th and 7th grade year) we went to Korea. There I did the exact same thing that I did in Vietnam. I badgered them with every question I could think of, surveyed every detail in the photo book, and learned of possibly the most interesting story in my family history. How World War II and the Korean War affected my family’s story was crazy, and I think you’ll be surprised when we get to that part.
Throughout my 7th grade year, I spent a lot of time doing research on my own. At this point in school, I’d learned to write informative essays, things which need research and planning. I used those skills I learned in school to research even more about my family history, and after seeing some of the things on the Internet, I think it’s best to say that the Internet doesn’t know anything about my family. So don’t search up Malcolm Anderson, Vietnam War Veteran or Andrea Martinez, From Los Angeles California on the Internet. The details I could get on the Internet weren’t always reliable, although I did learn quite a bit more.
So the reason I put these writings together is so I could share with you the real story— not the distorted garbage that people put up on the Internet, but the true, real story of my family. I think you’ll be surprised with how complex it is. I’ve created profiles for every person I could find as well as many of their interests. I was even able to get ahold of some of their diaries and schoolwork.
So now I present to you my greatest creation: Something that took three years of work to make, an entire quarter of my life, all for this day. Stories of decades down the line all condensed into a single book. Obviously, every person would need a book of their own, and I am sure I only scratched the surface even with all these details. But there is only so much you can learn about others, and I have found enough to say I really do understand my roots.
“When the time came to go to Vietnam, I had an entire notebook full of questions ready to ask every single individual family member that I wanted to ask.”
