This is a rough transcript.

What is your name and age, and where you were born?

My name is Vida-Marie Mi-Suk [미숙] Adams. I was born in L.A. in 1977 on August 2nd. 

How do you identify, whether that's generation, race, ethnicity, gender and/or preferred pronouns?

My pronouns are she/her/hers. I identify as a Korean Blasian. But I also identify as a second-generation immigrant child, like my mom was a first-generation immigrant. So, I'm like second-gen. So, I identify with that experience of being second-gen that I think a lot of other—I don't see this a lot in the Black community. So that's a very real phenomena that sometimes makes it hard for me to connect as like a Black American. 

Can you just tell me a little bit about where you grew up, or what your childhood was like?

Up until I was six, I actually grew up in the area that would later become Koreatown. I lived off of Fifth and Oxford, in front of what is now the Gaju (가주 — California) Market. But back then, it was the Mayflower Market, and it was a white people's market. Or an "American" market, whatever. But that, by the way, that building is still there—and I just drove by it yesterday! And I was like, oh! But, I lived there until I was six, until my daycare got robbed at gunpoint. And then my mom decided we needed to move to the Valley. So, we moved to Canoga Park until I was 11.

And that was good, because they still had Korean things in Canoga Park. And I mean, you were starting to see—even though it wasn't Koreatown in L.A.—before I left, you were starting to see, like, Korean people and more Korean culture things, like foods and stuff. But to the extent that it is today, it was not—that was not Koreatown, back in the late seventies, very early eighties. But by the time I moved to Canoga Park, you know, we had Northridge and that was good. And then at 11, I moved to Palmdale, California, the lost years, where there were like 13 Korean churches and, like, seven people going to each one. And that was a hard time to be in an area where I didn't realize I was having this second-generation experience growing up with people who are very much multi-generational Americans. And I had to, kind of, I went to a Korean church just to find Korean community over there. We had only one market, and it was basically like the Korean version of a 7/11. And not a real Korean 7/11 or that CW store that they have in Korea. But like, literally all she had was ramen, her kimchi, and a couple things, and then she overcharged for it. So, everybody went to Northridge to go get their Korean food there.

Can you tell me just a little bit about your family growing up? Like your parents and/or siblings? How many family members? What did your parents do?

So, um, I'm an only child. My mom and her family; they're not very close. There's a lot of generational trauma, addiction, and racism in that family. So, I didn't really grow up with a lot of my relatives on that side. I actually have a better relationship with the relatives on my dad's side, because, I think, part of the Black American experience is accepting mixed people more readily than other communities do. Even though we weren't even that close because of distance and stuff, I have more familiarity with my dad's side of the family. But because of the whole second-gen thing, I feel like that odd cousin, but that's another story for a different day. So, um, my parents, they were—my dad was a salesman, and my mom was—I still haven't figured out what she does to this day. Like, she keeps trying to explain it to me, but it involves a lot of math that I don't understand. So, I stopped asking. Like, she even shows me: "this is what a schematic looks like for the PC board." And I'm like, "I don't know what that means! But thank you." They commuted after I moved to Palmdale, like about two hours each way, almost. So basically, from the time that I was 11 on, I kind of just—I don't want to say I raised myself, but I was more responsible for my personal behavior than my parents are. Like, if it was grades or something, yeah. They, you know, they let me have it. But otherwise, like, I came home by myself—well, I take that back. Let me correct myself. There were a few years where my grandmother, my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother], lived with us, but she didn't speak English. So, because as a teenager, I think I was a little bit of an asshole. While I loved my halmeoni [할머니], that was a nice thing that she couldn't speak English because I just did whatever the heck I wanted, you know. Like one time I came home, and my mom was trying to teach her English. So I come home and my halmeoni [할머니] is repeating, "where you been." And I was like, "oh, shit." Then, I thought, she's not gonna even understand the answer anyway. So I was just like, "okay whatever!"

Tell me more about your family. Tell me about what you're growing up with?

Most of my mom's side of the family—they're not overtly racist, but they'll say some shady stuff later. Like, I had this one aunt who wanted me to help her find a place to live in my neighborhood, but she doesn't like black people. And my neighborhood's black. So I was like, no, no, thank you.

But actually, my keun eemo [큰이모— eldest maternal aunt] was the worst. She, actually, um—there was like a birthday party for my grandmother, halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother]. I think it was the 70th one, you know, the big one. And all of my cousins were there. And I wasn't going. I didn't go because she didn't want people to know that my mom had a child with a black man. So, and—even though it was okay for her to marry a white person, and almost have their child—but my existence as a more melanated person was just not acceptable. And then on top of that, like, my mom kept that from me until I was well into my adulthood, so I didn't find out about that until after my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother] died. And I started thinking like, "how come I'm not in this picture?" Because I always just thought I wasn't in that picture because I was in school, because I was so fucking naive. Sorry about my language. But yeah, I was so naive that I just kind of assumed that that's the reason why I wasn't in that picture. So that was kind of, like, disheartening to know. And it kind of explains why she—well, her attitude was always nasty anyway, because she was the first person who started the chain for everybody to come over here. So, she thought that everybody owed her because without her, they wouldn't even be here. But the truth is that my mom never actually wanted to come here. She wanted my grandmother—my keun eemo [큰이모 — eldest maternal aunt] wanted my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother] to come because she wanted somebody to help her around the house. And my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother] said, I'm not going to leave the youngest one behind in Korea. So, that's how my mom ended up here. So, she—and she also helped some of the husbands of my eemo's [이모 — maternal aunt] come over. So she thought, "yeah, y'all owe me something." So, she had a real bad entitlement attitude, on top of the fact that, you know, like, she was the oldest. So she's like, major entitlement on top of entitlement. And then, I think she just thought she was better than me because, you know, I'm half-black. So, that was a thing.

I mean, I've had other stuff happen, you know, even in Korea. Like the first time I met up—I ended up getting involved with this queer group called "Koreans United for Equality." And I've never really said this to them, but I do lowkey feel like the first time that they saw me, they thought that I was just, like, some K-pop fetishizing Pacific Islander that wanted to join their group until I made it very known that I'm actually half-Korean. And I think that [their first assumption] was kind of the assumption. And then they were like, "okay, that's fine." Not like "that's fine," but I don't think they were ever gonna really ostracize me; but I kind of felt like that kind of, like, weirdness you know—like, you don't know why you feel it but it's there. So, I am now looking back; it was like, maybe a couple of hours where I felt like that and then they realized "nah, [she's] about this life." But you know, here and there you get a little microaggressions, you know, stuff like that. But overall, it's, you know, it is what it is. You just take the good with the bad.

At the beginning, you claimed your Blackness and your Korean-ness, even in just this interview intro. So I'm just curious about if you were always proud of both sides of your identity like that, or if that has been a journey, or if it is a continuing journey.

It's always been like that. Like, I was very fortunate to have a father who was very pro-Black. He used to be in the Congress for Racial Equality. So he was very—I think, it was CORE. I don't really remember if that's the whole, or if that's an accurate translation of the acronym, so I could be wrong. But he was very much into making sure that I understood colorism and stuff like that. I think in some ways, like he thought that there would be—I mean, back then, there weren't a lot of, like—if you were biracial, it was usually, like, black and white. Right? There wasn't a lot of, like, people that look like me, or like me, and I think that was the thing that was hard. That's, I think, the hardest thing that I had to navigate: where my lanes are in the Black community.

And also too, because while my mom wasn't very pro-Korea or, I mean, she's not anti-Korea but she's not really, I don't know. I'm not gonna say that she's not a proud Korean, but she's not like advertising, "hey, you know." But because, I think, I grew up so much with my—because the time in Palmdale was not the first time I lived with my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother]. I lived with my halmeoni [할머니 — grandmother] the entire time I was in Canoga Park. And I lived with my keun eemo [큰이모 — eldest maternal aunt] too. And I think that in small ways, like, Korean culture was always kind of like there and around. So it's like, a lot of the foundation of who I am. So, in that way, I was always proud of our heritage, even though when I wasn't seeing it everywhere. Like, before—like, I'll put it this way. Nobody knew that Korean people existed. I had a kid in elementary school tell me my mom was Japanese. And then when I corrected him, he corrected me. So, you obviously know this kid was not a person of color.

But deep down inside, I've always been proud of being both, even when not everybody understood that I was. And even if, like, I didn't speak Korean at the time, or like, because I didn't grow up learning—I still don't really know Korean. I mean, they're like little kids on variety shows that are like having full on conversations, and I can't do that. But that's because my mom was more of the "assimilating" immigrant. But at the same time, there are lots of things that I grew up being very proud of. Like, we would get these calendars from businesses every year. You know, the calendar thing. I mean, I straight up have a Korean bank savings account, just so I could get calendars. But, um, and I actually based the bank on the calendar. I don't care about their interest rates, none of that matters! Just as long as it's not the Hanmi Bank, because I'm not going to be looking at bridges all year long. But, um, so when we would get these calendars, there would be all these—like, that's when I would see, like, our old school culture being represented. You know, like, the ladies in the hanboks [한복 — Korean traditional clothes], you know, doing something like playing an instrument and just like, you know, the whole stick in their hair bun thing, all that. And then I would be like—which now is kind of cringey to me—but I would be like, oh, I want to look like that. Because that's what I started thinking I should look like, because I felt that way. And I appreciated it so much, and I don't really realize, like, back then, I was lowkey being anti-black, because I look a lot like my dad. Like, if my dad was a Pacific Islander: that's what I look like. But at the same time, like, that's how I feel like I was influenced. But at the same time, like, the only big movie with an Asian cast was Karate Kid 2. And they were all based in Okinawa. And I used to think, oh, you know, "people that look like me!" But that was also before I knew all the messed up stuff that Japan did to us. So, then I was like—now I look back, and I'm [realizing] I was so starved for that culture that I just sucked it up. Anybody that had high cheekbones, these eyes, you know. Certain face shapes, certain kinds of hair. I was so starved that I just took whatever I could get, you know? But yeah, and I think the first time I really understood my mom was because of Amy Tan, which was even sadder, you know. And then—but I have read other stuff. Then, I got to learn about, oh, about other Korean authors. So, I mean, I'm not like really well read in that area. But I remember; I think I learned, I mean, I had heard some stuff about Japan, but the stuff that really helped me more understand was this book called Echoes of the White Giraffe. It's a young adult book, but it's about a family; it's a two-part story. But I think Echoes of the White Giraffe is about a family trying to survive during the occupational period. You know, and I think that's when I was like, "wow." You know, I know it's fiction, but it's based on events that actually happened. And then you know, you learn later on the even worse stuff [that] happened. But yeah, the answer to your question, yes!

So, at what age were you first cognizant of your gender identity and orientation?

For my gender identity, I'm just going to be honest: I never really thought about it. I think, because, like, identifying as a cis [cisgender] female is such a default in the society that it never occurred to me to think about it. I mean, I will say this. I struggle with the fact that the way in which I feel feminine is not necessarily this idealized, male-gaze version of what femininity is. And I do feel like there are parts of my personality that would not be necessarily considered very feminine. But that doesn't make me feel like that I don't have any or that I'm any less cisgendered female, you know. And I think that was, that's been kind of an evolution. But I cannot say, like, I woke up one day and I had an epiphany.

Do you believe in coming out? Did you ever come out to your family?

Oh, the second half of your question. I think I was cognizant of the fact that I'm not straight when I was 19. And that's when I started realizing that, like, I had feelings for my same gender. And I didn't really do anything about it until maybe my later 20s. And even then, like, because I was growing up in the Antelope Valley, and I was still there. The dating pool is very, very, very, very, very limited. And, because everybody's got U-Hauls, and they've already used them. And they're all living in Rosamond. And so, I don't think I started—when I moved here in 2011 [was] when I was just like, "I'm just gonna, you know, live life." But I hadn't really said anything to my family. I never told my father because he was very homophobic. I never was going to tell my mom; I wasn't going to, but I ended up telling her because I ended up being a speaker or a host for this Koreans for United Equality banquet, and I invited her. And I noticed it was an LGBTQ-straight alliance. So it wasn't like everybody there was a part of the alphabet mafia. But at the same time, like, I figured I might as well just say it, you know? And then, of course, her reaction was, "you can't tell your dad." And I was like, "yeah, no, I already know that." And then, I didn't get into my first really serious, serious relationship until 2017. So I'm kinda like—but I have a short list of actual serious relationships I've been in, period. So that was probably, like, my third anyway.

What was it like? Did your mom say anything? Was she supportive? 

My mom is very apolitical. My mom is very—she's very apathetic about a lot of things. If it doesn't make her money, she doesn't care. Like, she could talk to me all day long about mortgage rates and all this stuff and the real estate market and stuff that has to do with her job. And that's really—and golfing, and going to the casino, and getting stuff for free and sales. But she's not a very, like, deep chat, deep thinker in that kind of way, emotional kind of person in that way. Or like, you know, she doesn't have an activist mindset. She doesn't care about history. You know, she's very, like, cut and dry about the things that she likes. And that's it, which makes it hard for us to have, I think, a really good—we have a good relationship, but I'm more like my father in the way that I feel about things, [rather] than [have an emotional mindset that makes it more] possible to connect with her. And that's why they had a really kind of weird marriage because they didn't really talk a lot, you know? They were like just two people that happened to enter a legal contract and raise a kid. And that's it.

Did your dad being homophobic affect you a lot growing up?

No, this is the weird thing: my dad taught me to think for myself. So I did that thing, and then he didn't really like that. And by the time I turned, like, by the time I became an adult, I just straight up told him, like, "if you are going to use biblical reasons [for] why I should not believe in XYZ, I'm pretty much atheist/agnostic, so you're gonna have to find something else." And I just let it be that.

Do you find that your cultural or ethnic background impacts the way you express other aspects of your identity, such as your gender or sexuality?

Probably, I would say that it does. Because I feel like I still associate, like—I kind of blend, I think, some aspects of what are considered to be feminine Korean beauty standards, but also [with], like, Black American beauty standards. I mean, I'm never gonna go out there and get a protective style because, like, that would look stupid on me. And it's not for me. But at the same time, like, you know, if I see, like, the way that they do makeup, and if their skin color is more like mine, I'm gonna do that same stuff. But I'm also going to do, like, certain things that I see other Korean makeup artists do, you know, and try to replicate that at the same time when I, like, do stuff like that. And some of the way that I dress maybe might be a mix of a little bit of both. You know? Like, this sweater I got because of Lisa Beasley, because of Corporate Erin on TikTok. I love that character so much. I was like, I saw this and I was like, I need a "Corporate Erin" sweater. So, this is my "Corporate Erin" cardigan sweater. 

How did you get involved with Korean advocacy work and circles?

So, um, it actually started at a Pride in West Hollywood. I think I came across the API Equality L.A. booth. And I went there. And then, the day that I went to one of their meetings, Koreans United for Equality was having a meeting too, but it was more like a—kind of like a get-together. So, it was like a karaoke thing. So I stayed later, and I stayed for that. And so, I kind of just went to that one meeting, a couple of meetings of API L.A. and then I just completely, like, just veered off into Koreans United for Equality. And I was in that group for at least a year, a year and a half or two, maybe. And it was a really good experience. And that also branched me off into, like, maybe not other organizations that I joined on a regular basis, but like [organizations] that I respected [the work of] and if I could attend [one of their meetings], I would go.

So, Koreans United for Equality also opened the door for me to learn about SUBAK, which is Socially Bad-Ass Koreans, which is the sister organization of HOBAK from Oakland, Hella Organized Bay Area Koreans. They're a LGBTQIA+ inclusive, radical leftist group that is pro-Korea unification and anti-capitalist. I also found out about another organization called Adoptee Solidarity Korea-LA, which is another organization that focuses on the adoptive practices between the U.S. and Korea, and how it harms children and later, harms adults. And I learned about, like, those issues, which I had no idea [about]. I mean, I knew it was cringey to meet Korean people adopted by non-Koreans, and then [the non-Koreans] know nothing about what it is to be Korean. But the rabbit hole they took me down was, like, how capitalism has—on both sides of the [Pacific] ocean—like, corrupted what we could have been, or what we could be. And from there, I also started following, like, other pages, you know. So, I follow this one page on—well, I try to follow other pages, but I follow a page on Instagram. I can't remember what their name is in Korean because I only see it written in English. And if it's written in English, it doesn't make sense to me. If a Korean word is not written in hangeul [한글 — the official writing system throughout the Korean peninsula], I can't say it. Because half the time when they romanize hangeul [한글 — the official writing system throughout the Korean peninsula] into English, it's just gibberish to me. So, um, and then also, a couple of years ago, I think 2019? No. 2018. I did. I went to QT Con in New York. Even they wanted me to represent KUE, but we don't exist. So, it's weird. I still get KUE's mail, sometimes. And and the KUE hasn't been around since, like, Hodges versus Obergefell. Like, we're just like, "oh, we're done!" I mean, I wasn't like, "we're done." But, you know, the two cis guys that were running it. They were like, "oh"—well, the one cis guy. [They're] like, "we're done." So I was like, "okay, well." He got on my nerves, anyways. But yeah.