My Life in Hair
“Katie Hae Leo’s essay, ‘My Life in Hair,’ is a wonderfully complex piece, which follows the author’s personal relationship with her hair through a series of short, spare vignettes…Within the narrow confines of ‘hair,’ Leo mines a wealth of personal history that encapsulates a dizzing array of identities and roles.” –Eric Tanyavutti, Portal del Sol
First published in Kartika Review/Issue 09 and then again in the Kartika Review 2011 Anthology, it was also nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Many thanks to Jenifer Derilo for selecting it.
Cover photo: Wing Young Huie
EXCERPT:
August 10, 1972
A planeload of 40 orphans lands in Chicago. Sun-Times headline reads “Tearful Parents Greet Jet Stork.” I have a clipping wrapped in plastic, yellowed with age, a stand-in for my memory of that day. I imagine all the crying, the fecund smell of our bodies, of shit and urine accumulated over fourteen hours, wafting through the open door as our escorts, each holding one of us like a package, line up on the tarmac.
In a photo taken earlier in Korea, I look thin, perhaps malnourished. My face tilts slightly up and to the right, gazing at the person behind the camera. From just outside the frame, a hand holds a card in front of my chest bearing the number “10674” and a name, Boo Hae Ryun. In spite of being only months old, my head is already covered in thick, black hair.
I wonder if our adoptive parents were shocked by all that hair. [END EXCERPT]