My Home, My Voice

I was born in Evans, Georgia to a couple with 17 years and a language barrier between them. My mother was born in raised and Seoul, South Korea while my father grew up on a farm in Cartersville, Georgia. Both lived in extreme poverty in the countryside but the similarities end there. A wedding, their first daughter, and four years later, I was born in rural Georgia. I grew up riding horses and going fishing, but that's not what I believe to be my rural experience; rather, it is the culture that surrounds me.

At 13 I moved to Chelsea, Alabama. Though technically further north geographically, it felt much more like diving head first into the deep south. I remember my mother (who was 19 when she met my father and probably felt as much of a child as I did) showing me graphic pictures of STDs at a young age to dissuade me from any kind of sexual activity. I remember my first sex education class passing duct tape around, sticking it to each person's shirt, and later comparing this used plastic strip to the bodies of women who dare own their sexuality. I remember being a freshman in highschool and my teacher passing around a figurine of a baby about the size of my thumb—this, she told the class, is what you'll kill if you have an abortion.

I remember my senior year when Chelsea High School hired a pastor to speak about the horrors of homosexuality and promiscuity. He preached about how providing birth control encouraged premarital sex and the need for women to be led by strong men. That moment, just weeks before my senior prom, was when I made the decision to speak out. I was tired of being told women were incapable of making decisions about their own bodies. I couldn't hear one more person tell me that my peers and I should not be allowed access to birth control. I contacted a lawyer who issued a cease and desist order to the speaker, who was then prevented from presenting a sermon to a middle school the following week.

This experience changed my life--I was outcasted my students and teachers alike. For a while I felt like that was the rural experience: hatred and isolation. With time and experience in social justice education I came to realize the issue isn't malice or purposeful bigotry: it's lack of knowledge. No one had ever told my classmates anything else. It was dangerous to think otherwise; I was exhibit A. Now, volunteering and educating about social justice is my entire life. It's what I read about all day, write about when I blog, discuss with friends over dinner, and contemplate before I go to bed at night. I volunteer for campus organizations such as Free Food for Thought, SafeZone, Planned Parenthood, and also as a camp counselor for Anytown Alabama through the YWCA.

I can't sit back and allow other young people in rural areas be left behind as the world moves forward. The healthcare system is failing rural Americans, particularly when it comes to reproductive rights. I know countless women in Chelsea who became teen mothers simply because they were deprived of information and later shamed into parenthood. I know that the word abortion is considered profanity in my parents house. I know that when I struggled with autoimmune issues, I couldn't find help until years later when I went to Birmingham. I know that rural Americans have the right to education and bodily autonomy.