Rev. Mike Park briefly shares how living in DC has made his eldest daughter’s childhood experience with ethnic identity quite different from his own. This is the second in a series of posts from Mike on what the transition to DC has been like for his family.

One of the biggest changes my family has gone through in the months since moving to DC is learning to raise our children in a diverse and empowering environment. I remember Lydia coming home from school in St. Louis and asking “How come I don’t have yellow hair?” because she was the only non-Anglo in her preschool. And she started noticing that she was different from everyone else.

I knew how she felt, because I had been there myself: I remember my own experience back in elementary school, when I was shunned for bringing some Korean food to school to have as my lunch. So, when she recently brought rice and seaweed with her to school for lunch, I was scared for her. I thought, “I hope this doesn’t scar her for the rest of her life!”

But it turns out that the same day Lydia brought rice and seaweed to eat, another Asian girl brought an even more exotic dish for lunch. They were both totally fine. None of the other children said anything. It wasn’t strange to them. They just thought, “Yeah, it’s lunch!”

For her to be able to go to a school like this, to be around not just people who are different from her but also people who are similar to her and realize that those differences are okay, that’s powerfully empowering. I like that she’s in an environment like that. Belonging to a diverse place like DC is exciting, and I’m looking forward to seeing how it affects the way my family grows.