I bought my plane ticket to NYC two days after reading the New York Times article about Tom Stoppard. The article mentioned his latest, and “most personal” play, titled Leopoldstadt. The theme seemed to be about finally stopping to look back after having lived a life of only looking ahead. It spoke to me.

I feel very pensive after having watched the play. “You live as if without history, as if you throw no shadow behind you.” The entire play builds to this moment and makes me reflect on how I’ve lived my life after immigrating to the United States: only looking ahead, never wallowing or dwelling on people, places, and things we left behind. I still feel this deep loss inside me, and I think it’s what made me a writer.

In the play, Ludwig says “assimilation means to carry on being a Jew without insult.” To live life as an immigrant is to live carefully, without insult. Assimilation has been the goal for my family, but I don’t know if this goal is by choice or by necessity. I think it’s by necessity but also self-limiting. It’s a social contract that we blindly signed when we moved here. I don’t know when the terms expire, or if it’s in perpetuity. All I know is that I’m in the process of remembering and reclaiming my Korean identity.

Leopoldstadt is an important play. There are the playwright’s personal reckonings that we feel, but also an important reminder that history repeats itself and that it’s our duty to know where we’ve been. It’s a reminder I needed to give myself.