Accepting That I am Unacceptable: A Love Letter to the Girl I've Always Been

An “old soul” then, a “frivolous woman” now. This is my own story about how society trains girls to be palatable and what can be gained by refusing to be so.

As a young girl, I learned very quickly that there were unspoken rules for my conduct. Be palatable, always smile, and don’t have too many opinions. Especially not the different kinds of opinions. Those were the worst. I’ve spent a lifetime being berated and punished for deviating from the norm: by schools I attended, industries I worked in, and crowds that I thought I’d be accepted in. This is a story of my journey through accepting that I was unacceptable, and choosing myself even when no one else would.

When I was first put into modelling at the age of six, my parents thought it was best for me to hide it from my school and my peers. Despite having a full time career at one of the top agencies before my age even reached double digits, my parents, and especially my mom who had been a model herself, knew very well what would follow: judgement. So I lived two separate lives to start; my professional one, where I was respected and seen as a top child model, and my everyday one, where I was shy and kept mostly to my books. I always loved to read and gain new perspectives. Since the professional space I inhabited did not usually take kindly to the outward, rebellious expression typical of a child finding its personality, I would delve into stories and writing to expel it from my system. From the moment I can remember gaining consciousness about societal expectations, I was taught that suppressing my emotions and opinions in favor of a more palatable and submissive version of myself would take me the furthest in my career, and allow for me to gain the most widespread popularity in life. This was hammered into me by my agency—who expected us to get even a miniscule haircut approved by them—and by the media—who spent the early 2000s plastering rebellious women like Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears on their front pages with inflammatory headlines. I always loved reading these magazines on set. Not because I agreed with the tabloids’ depiction of these women, but because I was fascinated by their displays of freedom. I was enthralled by their capability to act in a way that was true to themselves, even in the face of constant harassment.

When I moved to New York from New Jersey after a year of commuting to the city for castings and shoots, my career ramped up. I also skipped the third grade, and had to make sure I learnt multiplication tables in a week or else fall behind in fourth grade, where everyone was older and thus, more intimidating. New York felt like the land of opportunity but it was also the land of the unknown. I still played with Barbies while my new friends were calling each other “bitches.” I was just starting to dress myself when my friends were begging their mothers to let them buy training bras. I had to grow up fast to catch up. And my career expected the same thing: never cry, never deviate, always act poised. Be an adult. Though I rose to the occasion, it was a lot of pressure for someone so small to handle. I loved being told I was mature and an “old soul.” I loved that people had expectations for me, and were impressed when I even surpassed them. But I was also a deeply sensitive person, who was learning that her emotions were not safe to express. I can remember feeling misunderstood by the world, even then. It only got worse when my secret was inevitably revealed. One of my peers brought a catalogue I had done for Macy’s to school one day. In the early 2000s, these pamphlets were sent to peoples’ homes to advertise the releases they had for the upcoming season. They unfolded it in front of me and set it down on the table, pointing at a picture of me smiling in a track suit. “That’s you, isn’t it?” From then on, I wasn’t the quiet girl who always had her head in a book anymore. Suddenly I was seen. But not in the way I was seen in my professional life. Rather, I was a target for bullying. Those who had never once spoken to me before, the popular kids, would come up to me giggling in gym class: “don’t break a nail!” People would murmur as I walked down the hall, but never tried to directly engage with me. For the most part, I only had a handful of friends, and only one that I felt truly seen by.

When my school caught wind of my outside life, they called my mom and I into a conference to discuss their concerns. Though I had been at the top of my class and always got my schoolwork done on set, they expressed the belief that my career would get in the way of my education and distract others from theirs. With only a few months left until graduation, they threatened to kick me out of the school. My mom had to beg for them to let my performance and hard work speak for itself and allow me to finish the year, which they reluctantly did. And it would be fine going forward, or so I told myself. Because the following year, I was set to attend Professional Children’s School. A performing arts school known for its celebrity alumni, PCS allowed for kids to pursue careers in the arts while giving them the infrastructure and the support necessary to still receive a meaningful education. As long as you were getting your work done on the online portal, you could spend weeks on set and no one would bat an eyelash when you returned. I thought there was no way that I could be outcast again, when everyone around me would be so similar to me.

When my parents went through a nasty divorce and custody battle for me, I was just entering the seventh grade. It shook me deeply and I went through an identity crisis. After my father lost custody of me, he cut me off completely, and told a twelve year old me that it was my responsibility to fix things with him, and stop listening to my mother. My mother told me not to listen to him, and I watched as she dealt with her own struggles as an immigrant single mother in the most expensive city in America. Though I was deeply hurting, I did not feel like I had any sort of safe space to be heard and to express how I felt, especially when my moms’ issues seemed so much greater than mine.

So, I went online. I became infatuated with k-pop and the online subculture surrounding it. I made friends, most of which I didn’t ever actually meet, but some of which I still know to this day. I stayed up all night watching live performances and taking notes on k-dramas to try and teach myself to speak Korean. I made many friends, one of which would even take me to Korea with her for the first time when I was only thirteen. I loved it so much that I fell deeper into my passion. I opened my own fanbase for my favorite idol and started to translate documents and attend shows. I would line up for once-in-a-blue-moon concerts for days at a time on the streets of Times Square with people twice (and sometimes even three times) my age. I would go back to Seoul every summer and spend months there. These things don’t sound that outlandish now that k-pop has become so integrated into American pop culture, but back then, no one much understood it.

My friends were supportive, but when my principal caught wind of me telling my peers I wanted to move to Seoul one day, he called me into his office. I’ll never forget how fearful I felt, because he had never even spoken to me much before this, and I couldn’t even guess what the meeting was going to be about. “You know, so many would kill to be in the position you are currently in. But you want to throw it all away to go to a place that’s basically only rice fields? A place that could fall into nuclear war at any minute? You’re going to throw it all away for a phase?” He was calling me ungrateful, and suggesting that I stop pursuing what made me feel passionate. But being within this community was one of the first times I didn’t feel misunderstood. It was one of the first times I was allowed to be frivolous and emotional, yet still learn about other countries and spread awareness of their beauty. To him, because I was not choosing the convenience of my own privilege and instead yearning to understand something else, I was being naive. I was just a silly fangirl who couldn’t possibly be serious and who most definitely wouldn’t be successful.

When my dad stopped paying my tuition mid-year out of spite, I had to transfer at the last minute to a public school in my district. I was scared because most of the kids there had already known each other for years, and I was going to be the weird newcomer. I had dreams of a high school experience like High School Musical, where even the weird kids could dance and sing with the jocks, and everyone would eventually come to support each other. But again, this was not the case. I still remember my first day of tenth grade. I felt twelve again, as people murmured about me in the halls and no one came up to speak with me. Someone told me that a rumor was spread about me coming: that a “model” would be joining. What they didn’t expect was for me to be a weird k-pop stan. I struggled immensely to make friends. I can only remember having a few and these were the kids who also liked k-pop so they didn’t see my interest as weird. The popular kids, on the other hand, would bully me, pointing to the photo on my phone background and calling the idols I liked women. Or calling me gay, for liking such “effeminate” men. They’d tell me to go to North Korea or joke about me stanning Kim Jong Un. I was tired of explaining myself to those who didn’t even try to speak to me before forming an opinion of me. And I found it abhorrent that they would so casually generalize a whole culture before even attempting to understand it. So, I pretty much opted out of trying to be understood. I focused heavily on my studies. I got a part-time job that I went to right after school, and worked until late at night to save up. I had a goal in mind. I wanted to prove everyone wrong, and prove myself right. I was going to go to university in Korea.

Finally, the time came to have our meetings with college advisors. I braced myself. I knew what was coming from them, by that point. I knew so well I could have recited it to them before they even opened their mouths. Most of my peers didn’t even know which school they wanted to attend. But I had already equipped myself with knowledge about the application process and what I had to do to get accepted and brought all of it to my very first meeting. I didn’t expect that my advisor would know the application process, but I just wanted her support. When the school put up their annual world map with pins depicting where every student intended to go for college, she was hesitant to put mine in Korea. Mine was the only pin not in the United States. But she didn’t try to stop me either. No one could really stop me, anymore. I was seventeen and headstrong. I went to take the TOPIK exam, made sure to score high on my SAT, and sent my applications overseas with bated breath. The Korean schools’ acceptance announcements were set to be after most of my peers applying to colleges in the USA would decide where they’d be attending, so I knew the path forward would be discouraging. I knew I was on my own. But by then, I had come to rely on myself first and foremost anyway. I realized that most people would be naysayers, as they had been my whole life up to that point. I knew by then that if I believed in myself, and knew my intentions, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought about them. As I watched all my peers giddily announce their acceptances and wear merch from their schools, I kept on believing that my dream would come to fruition.

I still remember the day I was accepted. The email came in while I was at a performance of The Color Purple on Broadway. It was such a beautiful show, and the singers’ talent gave me goosebumps. It was the final show for one of the leads, and as she took her final bows, my phone vibrated in my pocket. Thankfully, my happy tears for my acceptance simply came across as an emotional response to her own announcement. I ran home and told my mom and my now step-dad, who were both happy and sad. Happy that my dreams were coming true, but sad that I was leaving. As an immigrant herself, my mom always knew the day could come for me, and she didn’t try to stop me. She even came to Korea with me to help me move into my dorm room. And when she left, and I was truly on my own, I felt so free for the first time. Free from expectations and the conventions society had been attempting to impose on me since I gained consciousness. Free from prying eyes and disappointing glances and murmurs in the hall. Free to make my own choices and mistakes. There were others, like me. I made some great friendships, some of which I still have to this day. I travelled across Asia and experienced how different life could be. I realized that America, and New York especially, was not the center of the world. I saw how wrong everyone had been about my dream. I felt fulfilled.

But I was changing again. It was 2016, and Trump had just been elected for the first time. As a first generation American to South American immigrant parents, I felt mortified. Many of my peers found it funny. But my professors understood the gravity of the situation, and started to show me the world through a lens that I had never been taught in America. I started to become more radicalized. I took classes on counter-culture, where we read Steal this Book by Abbie Hoffman, and learned how to combat the effects of colonialism, imperialism, and living in a nightmarish panopticon in our own unique and creative ways. I took classes on dreams that taught us how to trust our own intuition and listen to the voices in our heads. I took classes on rock music legends who spoke out against injustices and were criticized until they died and everyone suddenly celebrated them. I took free writing classes, where I was able to hone my writing skills and my creative, emotional mindset was encouraged. All the while, I was living a life so unique to my peers back home, that most could not relate to me at all when we facetimed to catch up. But I didn’t need their understanding. I realized that no one ever came to save me, but myself. And I had gotten myself very far with that belief.

The way society operates in Seoul is very fascinating. While Korean culture itself is very community based and family oriented, the hyper-capitalist and competitive nature of the capital city demanded individualism. You should always stand out from your peers by being the best at your studies or talents. But on the other hand, dress too different or love someone you’re not meant to, and you’re an outcast. Because I was a foreigner, I was always an outsider, even if I spoke Korean well or tried to dress like everyone else. I’d be a part of the community on one hand, but always the foreign girl operating within it. When Korean natives found out where I was from, they could never understand why I would come to Korea. People would point at me in the subway, and take photos of me. They would touch my hair without my permission, and befriend me because I was different. I don’t think any of this was ill intentioned, or coming from a bad place. But Seoul was still very homogenous back then, and it was a genuine shock to people that their culture was becoming mainstream.

But because of the differences I eventually came to perceive, I didn’t feel like I could fully integrate myself there. I found the misogyny, racism, and homophobia that was very normalized to be ostracizing. I dated a Korean man once, who didn’t speak a word of English. So we spoke in Korean always. Though he liked that I was American, he would expect me to conduct myself in the way Korean girls were expected to act. Don’t curse, don’t get tattoos, don’t have too many opinions. Can you cook? Can you clean? Will you submit yourself to me? I laughed at every question. Living in New York and working in the entertainment industry made me so “woke” that I struggled to mesh with my Korean peers, and found myself forced to keep within the group of foreigners only. As an immigrant child who always struggled with her identity growing up, I felt more American than ever. Meanwhile, I began to go viral on instagram in America because I lived in Korea, which was seen as different. Again, I was in limbo.

So, I took a gap year and moved to Los Angeles. A manager had reached out to me to sign me as an influencer after seeing my growth, and I started to accept brand deals through her guidance. For a girl who loved fashion and taking pictures for fun, it felt like a dream to do this for thousand dollar checks. She said that I could use the attention to build a career in modeling or acting, and be whoever I wanted. It sounded amazing to me, who wouldn’t accept it? So, at nineteen years old, I moved into a house with two other influencers and tried my best to play the part. We spent our days taking pictures on the street and our nights in the mega mansions of the ultra rich, smoking weed and taking shrooms. It was magical, at first. I felt like I had made it.

Until I started to see the cracks. In the dark corners of the parties, abuse happened. If you spoke up, you were ostracized. Excuses were always made for the abusers, who were normally those in positions of power. Many hoped to get those eyes on them to potentially get a chance to climb up the ladder. Rather than focusing on career building, I felt that what was really hammered into young bright-eyed talent was that proximity to the wealthy and connected would get you further. If you traded in your morality and glazed over your eyes, you’d have a contract and 3 million followers in no time. But I couldn’t dampen my voice. It wasn’t in me.

At the same time, the Black Lives Matter protests were ramping up in LA after Breonna Taylor was brutally murdered in her own home. I began to speak up on my platform and asked my peers to. Only a few complied, and we went to the protests together. I witnessed the tear gassing. The sounds of the helicopters circling LA kept me up all night. One tiktoker, who went on to become a now beloved pop darling who performs leftism, unfollowed me after I asked her to use her platform to post to spread awareness. I found out her family were hardcore Trump supporters, and it made sense. My instagram itself became shadow banned and I got dms telling me that I “knew nothing.” They wanted me to show apathy, rather than strength.

One tidbit really stands out to me from my time in LA: I was in the friend group of a very well known nepo-baby rapper/actor. He was dating my roommate at the time, after I introduced them to one another. He would take us on trips to the Bahamas with staff at our beck and call. He’d offer us drugs and alcohol, and tell us about his family who he claimed everyone knew was “like the mafia.” His ultra famous friends would come around as we lazed around the recording studio all day. He used our voices on songs, promised us contracts and opportunities, and they just never came. By this time, only a few months into living in LA, I began to get suspicious of everyone and their intentions. I had seen how many dangled opportunities in front of you to get something out of you. I had evaded attempts at sexual abuse and had grown men scream “do you know what I could do for your career?” in my face as I shakily called my uber home. And I watched as these people went onto gaslight me, get shielded by their friends, and to this day, remain celebrated in the industry. I was so disgusted by what I saw and experienced, I stopped dating permanently in 2020. One thing became very apparent to me: no amount of money or accolades could fix a lonely and miserable spirit. It became clear to me that those who had less financially but had community and love were far richer than the wealthy in their big empty mega yachts. Even if they filled them with hot desperate models, most of these girls were there to get something out of them. Not to actually befriend them for who they were—which wasn’t much to write home about anyway.

On the night of my roommate’s birthday, her big shot boyfriend had made a reservation in the party room of Nobu Malibu. We gathered together, eating copious amounts of raw fish and looking out into the Malibu sunset. One of the women sitting near me was a very well known influencer, who had been around for a long time. She was much older than me, and very well connected. She spent hours talking about herself, and all the people she knew. Most notably, she spoke to us about a very infamous tech billionaire owner of AI companies and electric cars. Someone I was, obviously, familiar with. She spoke about him using his first name only, to show her obvious yet casual proximity to him, something that many in LA often did to flex. She said he was lonely because his girlfriend was pregnant, and he had a really big house with a nice hot tub, and no one to enjoy it with. She was asking us if we would go and hang out with him to keep him company. I immediately found this to be odd. What did this older tech billionaire have in common with two young girls trying to start up their careers? The way she spoke felt like a madam trying to entice naive girls to sell themselves to the highest bidder. My alarm bells immediately went off and I laughed her off instead of taking her up on her offer. Because of my refusal to comply, I guess I was a party pooper. My roommate’s big shot boyfriend stopped inviting me to his events . Eventually, those that I thought were my friends completely shunned me. And it made it even worse that I “lost” my conventional attractiveness, since my cystic acne was back in full swing. Again, the murmurs were loud. What happened to her? Even my instagram audience seemed to demonize me for something completely out of my control. I became that ostracized and misunderstood seven year old again.

In 2020, with only a few months left on my lease in LA, COVID hit. What was already a lonely time for me became a period of staunch agoraphobia. I left LA and moved to my parents’ house in New Jersey, hoping to finish my studies. Because of COVID, classes were moved online. But since I was on the opposite side of the world, this meant going completely nocturnal for one whole year to get my bachelors’ degree finished. I figured it was of little consequence to me: I was sick and tired of people anyway. LA made me distrust everyone’ s intentions and even made me second guess my own mind. I went through a period of disassociation and derealization. I felt disconnected from my body and walked around feeling like a spirit. I didn’t want to be perceived, and decided I was going to stop posting online for good. I threw myself into finishing my degree. I got a regular job. I even eventually moved to Amsterdam to pursue a Masters’ degree, after working on getting my mental and physical health back to where it was pre-LA. Things were looking up. But I didn’t know what to do anymore. I was lost. I lacked ambition. I felt like I kept battling against a system rigged against me. The people I saw coming out on top were the ones who obeyed and made society happy by doing what was expected of them. I knew very well that this would never work for me, but I thought I could try, at least to make my family feel proud of me. At least to just be perceived as normal, for once. I felt tired of fighting back, and I felt like my exhaustion made me disconnected from who I had been all along. I had to relearn to trust my own mind and instincts.

Things began to shift again when Trump was elected a second time. I felt survivors’ guilt being in Europe, watching as Roe V. Wade was overturned and Trump made promises to remove immigrants from the country at whatever cost. I knew that I was at a very important crossroads: find a job to stay in the EU and live a simple life while observing the country I grew up in being destroyed, or return home and use my platform to do some kind of good. I was running into a lot of problems trying to get a visa, even with a masters’ degree and almost ten years of experience in my field. I’d get to the last round and once they realized I wanted a visa, I’d be ghosted. At a time when Americans were looked down upon by the rest of the world for Trumps’ own actions, no one wanted to invest in keeping an American at their company. Even if I offered to pay the fees myself, they laughed it off and said “that’s not really the issue.” I knew Dutch people really didn’t like expats—they made that abundantly clear to my face while I was living there—but their disdain for Americans, even those who left the country due to its issues and agreed with their views, was glaring. I felt that, even if I did make it work to stay, I’d never be able to fully integrate. I’d always be asked who I voted for before I’d even be asked my age. Which was valid, in a sense.

But then December 4th, 2024 happened. I saw what happened as a major shift in consciousness. Suddenly, we were all talking about the same things. We were all agreeing about what was really wrong, and who was to blame. For once, we weren’t pointing fingers at our neighbors, but at the politicians and billionaires who sought to take advantage of us at the expense of our futures. And suddenly, the apathy that I felt was emblematic of my generation who made jokes about Trumps’ threats instead of taking them at face value started to dissolve. I saw that people were tired and wanted to stand up.

For someone who had been trying to not be American since before I can remember, I yearned for so long for an intellectual change in the hearts of my people. And for the first time, I saw a spark of hope for that. It was the catalyst I needed to, once again, forget what people would say about me and log back online. My account, which sat pretty dormant for years, became something I could wield. This time, for activism. I expected it to be hard—a platform I cultivated while being a capitalist pawn recording myself doing hauls and collabs with influencers would be difficult to shift to a platform used for awareness and to spread class consciousness. But as scared as I was, I knew I had to be ten times more brave.

And so, I moved back to America. I started to speak up for things that could be seen as wildly controversial. While it has been amazing and worth it, I’d be lying if I said it was easy. The misogynistic dismissals I’ve had to experience are akin to what I’ve dealt with my whole entire life. At seven, seventeen, and now twenty-seven: I am always the girl in the principal’s office, being told how to conduct myself and what to support. I didn’t listen then, and I won’t listen now. Everything I was early to—that I was criticized for—became my peers’ very own goals and interests a couple years later. I watched as society became obsessed with Korean culture, and how everyone scrambled to become an influencer, even after calling me stupid for having interest in pursuing both things. They utilized sexism to undermine my passions and then delve into them once the herd has accepted them as cool and safe to embrace.

I was never told that I was right too early, or that I paved a way then. And I don’t expect it now. But to think that I’d ever listen to people who seem so desperate for outward validation, so much so that they don’t listen to their true nature, is almost as absurd as trying to dictate someone else’ s life. I spent my life having to be polite to those who were disrespectful to my dreams, who told me I was a naive little girl. And I’ll be damned if I ever take that to heart, ever again. Just as capitalism rewards compliance in its citizens, society tells us to reprimand our own neighbors for deviating from the expected norm. Instead of being inspired by someone who chases the uncool before it is cool, people will try everything in their power to dim your spirit and make you one of them. Misery loves company, and if they can’t be themselves happily, boy will they make sure you can’t either. More often than not, misogyny is disguised as valid concerns, helpful guidance, or even shining opportunities. This is my call to action to let girls and women conduct themselves in a way that doesn’t have to make sense to everyone else. Allow women to be messy and to forge their own path by walking it. Support loud mouthed and stubborn women who do what they do in the face of a society that constantly tells them to become acceptable. While those who told me not to chase my dreams are still doing the same things as they were back then, I’ve lived out every single one of my dreams so far, with zero regrets. I encourage all women to do the same. Listen to your intuition. Seek your own approval. The rest will follow.