Workbook
For Korean (American) Women
A Workbook on Perfectionism, Devotion, and Learning to Want Things for Yourself
When choosing freely, find out what you're devoted to.
For the Korean American women — first-generation, 1.5-generation, and second-generation — who have spent their lives excelling for others and are now trying to figure out what they want for themselves. Women raised in households where devotion to family, educational excellence, and quiet sacrifice were assumed, not discussed.
The Name It First Experience
You learned the rules early. Work harder than anyone. Don't complain. Take care of everyone around you. You became excellent at it. And somewhere in all that excellence, the question of what you wanted got buried. This workbook does not ask you to abandon your family, your culture, or the values that shaped you. It asks you to name — with precision, on paper — the difference between devotion you chose and devotion that was assumed. Grounded in Racial Identity Development theory (Cross, Helms), Acculturation Theory (Berry), Intersectionality (Crenshaw), diasporic identity scholarship (Brah, Hall), and research specific to Korean American women's identity formation, this workbook moves through inherited perfectionism, gendered expectation, and the self-defined agreement you get to write now. The work is yours to do. This is where you write it down. You leave with The Korean (American) Women Agreement.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What expectation from your upbringing are you still meeting — not because you chose it, but because you never stopped to ask if it was yours?
- When you are praised by the people who raised you, what part of you is being praised — and what part of you is never seen?
- What do you want — for your work, your relationships, your time — when no one else's needs are in the room?
Research basis
Cross (1971, 1991) Nigrescence Model adapted for Asian American identity development / Helms (1990) racial identity statuses / Berry (1997) acculturation strategies / Crenshaw (1989, 1991) intersectionality applied to race and gender / Brah (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora / Hall (1990) Cultural Identity and Diaspora / Kim (2001) Asian American racial identity model / Chung & Bemak (2002) on Korean American immigrant family dynamics / Park (2005) Second-Generation Korean Americans on identity negotiation / cultural concepts of han (collective sorrow), jeong (attachment/affection), and nunchi (social reading) in identity formation / Kim-Jo, Benet-Martinez & Ozer (2010) on culture and conflict in Korean American families / Song (1999) Helping Yourself First on Korean immigrant cultural scripts / model minority and gender intersections in AAPI women (Pyke & Johnson, 2003).
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Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
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The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
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Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
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