WHAT ARE YOU?
ley to buy clothes or
s as anyone else who
ack, you're not white,
As a child, Donna enjoyed
dressing up in traditional Korean
clothing. She is shown with her
mother and stepfathe1; Yong and
Ivan Wayman.
DONNA MAKETA RANDOLPH, twenty
Colorado Springs, Colorado
Mother: Korean-Americon
Stepfather: European-Americon
Biological Father: African-Americon
Colorado Springs is a military town. We're surrounded on al-
most every single side by some sort of military base. A lot of the
students who went to school with me were biracial. Their parents
met in their respective countries and then they settled here.
My parents met in Korea. My mother is Korean. My real father
was in the army. They got married, then they came here. But
they separated when I was three and divorced when I was six.
I have very little recollection of my real father. He was always
away in the field or overseas. I didn't see him for months at a
time, so I never really felt close to him. I think that's one of the
reasons why it wasn't a big deal for me when they actually got
divorced.
But it was a very hard thing for my mother, because her fam-
ily wasn't too happy with the fact that she had married an Amer-
ican black. So she couldn't go back to Korea. Plus, she didn't
have the money to go back.
She never got to finish high school in Korea. And when she
came here, she obviously didn't have a degree of any kind. She
didn't speak a lot of English. So she worked at a restaurant for a
,