Interview With My Mother, Younghye Han

Younghye Han received her BFA in Traditional Ink Painting from Ewha Woman’s University and ran her own painting and drawing academy for children for five years in Seoul, South Korea.  She has been working as a seamstress and running Mainz Dry Cleaners in Manteca, CA with her husband for more than 20 years. She recently had her first exhibition at the Chicago Artists Coalition in collaboration with her daughter, Aram Han Sifuentes, an artist who combines fiber art with social practice to engage labor, cultural history, and immigrant communities. Cultural ReProducers is honored to present conversations with both artists, a testament to the intergenerational creative impact of mothers, daughters, and granddaughters. 

You can find our interview with Aram Han Sifuentes here. The interview below was conducted as part of the exhibition Younghye Han: My Mother’s First Exhibition, and begins with an introduction Aram wrote for the show: 

Younghye Han, Nara on a Pillow, 2016

My family immigrated to the United States in 1992. A trained artist in Korea, Younghye Han left that behind and has spent the last 24 years, working 12 hours a day, 6 days a week, as a seamstress and running her own dry cleaning business in Manteca, California. It has been 24 years since her last painting. Inspired by the birth of her first granddaughter in 2015, she began drawing and painting again. This is my mother’s first exhibition. It features her works made in Korea, her most recent pieces, and my responses to her last unfinished drawings made in the first year we immigrated to the United States. 

These are the questions I’ve asked my mother. Some of these are questions I’ve asked again and again throughout my life and the answers have changed and evolved throughout the years, further complicating my mother’s story. Some of these are questions I’ve never had the courage to ask her before. This interview was translated from Korean.  

Aram: How did you decide to become an artist?

Younghye: When I was seven or eight years old, I found out about an art contest at my elementary school. I went home and told my sister who yelled at me and told me to get money from our parents to apply. So I was crying when I asked my parents. They gave me the money and I went to school after hours to apply. This was my first time I participated in an art contest but I won a big prize. From then on I applied every year and continued to win big prizes. Later on I asked my sister why she yelled at me to apply. She said that she would see me draw and I didn’t draw like other kids my age. They would draw stick figures but I wouldn’t. She said I drew high heels particularly well and saw that I had talent. My sister wanted to study theater and our parents were opposed to it and didn’t let her pursue it. Then in high school our family went bankrupt and I wanted to go to college. I knew that artists wouldn’t be able to make much money straight out of school. So I was deciding whether or not to go into art or to go into nursing. Even though it would be hard, I decided to go into art. So I took the tests and got into art schools. My mother wished I wouldn’t pass. She didn’t even believe it when I passed the tests.

Aram: Why did you decide to move our family to the United States?
 
Younghye: Even though your father and I received our education from very good universities, our English wasn’t very good. So we thought that you and your sister could do anything if you knew English well. This is why we decided to move to the U.S.

Aram: What type of job did you think you would work in the U.S?
 
Younghye: I knew it would be difficult. But I just wanted you and your sister to learn English. Then you both would be able to do anything and get any type of good paying job. I didn’t think about myself so I didn’t know what type of work I would do. I just thought about your future. My parents weren’t able to help me so I wanted to make sure that I could help you both in any way.

Aram: You didn’t think about it?
 
Younghye: I thought that if other people could do find work and make it in the U.S., then I could do it too.

Younghye Han, Nara Sitting, 2016

Aram: Why a dry cleaners?
 
Younghye: When we came here, it seemed that the only jobs available to us were to run a liquor
store, ice cream shop, or dry cleaners. We didn’t want to work at a liquor store because during this time the LA riots were happening and they were targeted so we decided not to go that route. And I can do anything with my hands. I knew how to sew already and thought that working at a dry cleaners would be easier.

Aram: Did you think you would be able to practice art here?
 
Younghye: I knew that I would make art again at some point in my life before I die. It was too hard working at the cleaners. I gave up even though my mind was there and I thought about it often. But when I saw Nara, I started to make art again because I felt so inspired.

Aram: How did you feel about me becoming an artist?
 
Younghye: Now I feel happy about it. At first I was so worried. It is not an easy job and there is no stability. I know since I was an artist. It was so hard for me so I didn’t want that for you. It is too hard. Now that I have worked too hard for many years, I’ve lost my happiness. While raising you two and working so hard, my life and happiness has become lost. Now I am thankful toward you. Through you I was able to find my art again. You Facetime me every day so I can see Nara and you talk to me in Korean. I always thought that if you are kind, then life will be good to you. I gave up on this but this has come to me suddenly.

Aram Han Sifuentes, Mom’s Drawings of Roses (1992) Encased, 2016, Mulberry paper and wax

Leaving the Kids at Home

Residency Report is an ongoing series of posts from artists who've undertaken creative residencies with their families. As important as it is to have options that include young children, sometimes it just makes more sense to go without them. On her website, writer Debbie Urbanski describes her process for pursuing a residency while leaving her young children home with family.  She graciously allowed us to share this excerpt:

Heading off to my first writing residency at Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts in Ithaca, NY a few months ago, I was terrified. I was leaving my kids for the first time ever, having never spent even a night away from them. I felt guilty and wondered what had I gotten my family and myself into. It helped to read some firsthand accounts of other writing residencies online, but I couldn’t really find anything written by a parent of relatively young children (mine are 4 and 7 years old).  In brief, despite the nervousness, anxiety, and guilt, my first writer’s residency was one of the best milestones in my writing life so far. My family survived and so did I.

There are a few rare residencies that allow your family to stay with you. Part of me thinks 'awesome!' But part of me thinks 'no!' That would slip the writer back into the role of caregiver and make it difficult, yet again, to focus on one’s work.

Why leave the family behind to pursue a residency program?
* To have uninterrupted time to focus on one’s writing / creative work.
* To meet other artists and have sustained adult conversations about art.
* To remember what it’s like to be a writer first (versus being a parent first).
* To take the next step in one’s career.

In my case at least, being a mother is a constant buzzing distraction, one that bangs its fists against my writing room door begging for attention. I always think that being a mom makes me a better writer, but being a writer makes me a worse mom. A lot of times in the day, I’ll be honest, I want to be writing (or reading). My weekday schedule means I wake up ridiculously early to walk and then make breakfast for the family, and get the kids up, and get my husband up, and coordinate making lunches, and make sure the kids are stable enough for the day. I’m lucky enough to have time to write in the morning, but that time ends when the alarm on my phone goes off, which means I have exactly 11 minutes to get to school to pick them up. It’s a jarring transition. Fragments of my stories are always hovering around me, fighting for my attention. I haven’t been able to write on the weekends for about 7 years.

Choosing the right program
There are some great resources out there to find the right residency for you. In my case I figured I could escape for 2 weeks maximum. My ideal criteria was that residents would be fed, since cooking occupies way too much time in my ordinary life, and ideally I wouldn’t have to pay to go. If this is your first residency, I’d also recommend trying to find one close to home. It was a great comfort to me that I might be only an hour away in case my kids needed me. Or I wimped out.

I wish more residencies offered two weeks. I wish more residencies offered stipends to help with childcare costs. A mentorship program would be nice, where they pair you up with another artist mother so you can ask questions (like, am I insane?) before you go. Saltonstall allowed visitors on Sundays which was great, so the kids got to see where I worked (though these visits were not uncomplicated). Not all places allow that.

Preparing the kids
My kids were 4-½ and 7 years old when I went. I don’t think I could have left them any

 Dad Camp

sooner. Even at 4 ½ years, Stella’s conception of time is fuzzy, and she would ask heartbreaking questions like, “Will you be home for my birthday?” (which was 3 months away), but it’s probably different for every family. I just felt like I couldn’t wait any longer. That said, it’s true, when Saltonstall called to offer me the residency part of me wanted to say,”actually I’m not ready for this.”

We called my residency “Mom’s writing camp” -- and my husband added that Mom had won an award to go there. So my kids were excited. We were also talking about summer camps for them, and they found the idea that I had my own camp to be kind of wacky. Our school generously allowed Stella (age 4) to move to full day pre-school with after care for 2 weeks, so the kids were taken care of weekdays until 5:30. Friends generously offered to help out with rides if we needed it or invited Harold and the kids over to dinner. And we have a great babysitter who was able to help Harold out a few nights too when he needed to work late or take a break. Grandparents who lived locally would have come in helpful, but no such luck for us.

We called the kids hanging out with Dad during those two weeks “Dad Camp” — and the talk of ice cream trips, mac & cheese, and lots of PB&J got the kids pretty excited.

Re-Entry
Re-entry was challenging on a lot of levels. The kids missed Dad Camp in a lot of ways (no chores! no making lunches! ice cream!) My husband had enjoyed being a single parent in a

catching up post-residency

lot of ways too (no negotiation! less clean up in the kitchen! more eating out!). I missed having adult conversation every night for dinner (it’s true, I cried the first family dinner I had, where the conversation was mainly about why Stella was kicking me under the table about every minute). I missed having entire days for writing and I felt dragged down by the amount of housework that my life requires.

Because the residency ended on Mother’s Day weekend, we decided to stay for a few more days down in Ithaca and hike. Perhaps we were too ambitious -- there were some spectacularly unhappy scenes. But there were some nice moments too, like getting to read with my kids again. I think it would have been equally as shocking for me to suddenly appear and be thrust back into the everyday schedule of chores and tending to the kids. It took maybe three weeks for us to work out the kinks, maybe longer.

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 Debbie Urbanski is a writer living in Syracuse, New York. Her work focuses on aliens, marriage, cults, belief, and family, or some combination of those themes. Her fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Kenyon Review, New England Review, The Southern Review, The Sun, Alaska Quarterly Review, Tin House’s Open Bar, and the UK science fiction magazines Interzone and Arc. You can find more of her work at http://debbieurbanski.com