Still Coming Back Home
Park Margarita on Koryo-Saram culture, Korean language, and building her future in Uzbekistan
Park Margarita was born and raised in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. At twenty years old, she had already completed her second year at Bucheon University, where she studies Korean language and management.
When Margarita talks about her education, there is little sense that she sees her Koryo-Saram background as something that set her apart from the students around her. She remembers herself as a successful student and believes she had the same educational opportunities as everyone else. She did not recall financial difficulties or discrimination preventing her from continuing her education.
Her education has also been multilingual. Margarita has studied in Russian, Korean, English, and Uzbek. Of those languages, Uzbek has presented the greatest difficulty because she does not speak it well. Otherwise, she told me, language had not significantly interfered with her education.
Behind that experience is a network of people Margarita describes as consistently supportive. Her friends help when she encounters difficulties, and she describes her family in much the same way: they understand her decisions, help her, and support her in what she wants to do.
When I asked what, looking back, might have given her a better educational experience, Margarita did not point to a school, policy, language, or missed opportunity.
“I think everything depends on the person. What happened, happened.” For Margarita, the more important question seems to be what comes next.
Building a Future in Uzbekistan
Margarita’s university major combines Korean language with management, but her plans are not necessarily to build a career in Korea. She wants to become an entrepreneur.
When I asked what kind of work she imagined for herself, Margarita told me that she would eventually like to open her own business, probably in the beauty industry— a salon or a similar beauty service.
I followed up with what seemed like an obvious question. In Korea?
Her answer was immediate. “No, in Uzbekistan.”
It’s a small exchange, but it says a lot about the way Margarita imagines her future. Studying Korean does not necessarily point toward migration. Neither does attending a university with connections to Korea.
For Margarita, Korean language can be part of a life she intends to build in Uzbekistan.
“I’m From Uzbekistan”
That attachment to Uzbekistan appears even more clearly when Margarita talks about home. She was born there. She grew up there. And when I asked whether she felt that she was part of Uzbekistan, she did not describe belonging in terms of citizenship or ethnicity. She described it as the feeling of wanting to go home.
“Even if I’m in another country, I still want to come back home, because I’m from Uzbekistan.”
That sense of home also shapes the way Margarita thinks about migration. She has relatives living abroad and says that most have adapted to their new surroundings and enjoy living there. But when I asked whether she herself had considered migrating to another country, her answer was simply no.
For Margarita, connection to Korea and connection to Uzbekistan do not appear to require a choice between the two.
Keeping Koryo-Saram Traditions
That becomes particularly clear when Margarita talks about culture. When I asked whether she had ever felt pressure to assimilate into Uzbek or Russian culture, Margarita said she had not. Instead, she described her family and community as having successfully maintained Koryo-Saram traditions.
“We’ve managed to preserve Koryo-Saram traditions.”
At family or community events, she explained, they continue to observe what she described as their customary Koryo-Saram practices. Her answer is interesting precisely because she does not describe preserving Koryo-Saram culture as being in conflict with considering Uzbekistan home.
She can be studying Korean. She can participate in Koryo-Saram traditions. And she can still say, without hesitation, “I’m from Uzbekistan.” Those things coexist in the way Margarita describes herself.
“Probably Everything”
Toward the end of our conversation, I asked Margarita which parts of Koryo-Saram culture she hoped younger generations would preserve. She paused over the question only briefly.
“Probably everything— because I really like our culture, and I’d like it to keep going and continue existing.”
Margarita also hopes that young Koryo-Saram in Uzbekistan will have more opportunities to interact directly with young people in Korea. When I asked what institutions could do to better support the community, she suggested greater cooperation with Korean universities so that students in Uzbekistan could communicate more with their peers in Korea.
For a student already studying Korean language and management, that kind of exchange would connect two parts of her world without requiring one to replace the other.
A Different Kind of Koryo-Saram Story
Margarita’s story is quieter than some of the older women’s in this project. There is no dramatic migration in her own life. She does not remember discrimination preventing her from pursuing education. Her family supported her choices. She has not spent years wrestling with whether to leave Uzbekistan. When asked whether she wants to migrate, she simply says no.
That ordinariness is itself important. For earlier generations, questions of education, migration, language, and cultural preservation could be shaped by circumstances they had little power to choose. Margarita’s interview captures one young woman’s experience in a different moment. She studies Korean because it is part of her education. She hopes to preserve Koryo-Saram culture because she likes it and wants it to continue. And she imagines using what she learns to build a career for herself.
The place where she imagines doing that is not somewhere else.
It is home. Uzbekistan.
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