Excerpt from American Han by Lisa Lee, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Chapter 2: No Middle Name

My name is Jane Kim. Kim is a common name in Korea, and therefore also in the places in America where Koreans live. But for a long time when I was growing up in Napa, as far as I knew there were no Kims — or Parks or Lees or Moons or Chos — to be found anywhere outside the walls of our house. I knew that Koreans lived elsewhere, just not where we lived. I saw these Koreans, including cousins, aunts and uncles, grandparents, hardly ever. It wasn't until fifth grade that I met other Koreans in Napa: a Korean girl adopted by a white family and a Korean boy with a Korean father and a white mother from France. The three of us were simultaneously drawn to and apprehensive of each other. We thought of ourselves as rare. To see myself in someone else was an affirmation, yet somehow horrifying.

I do not have a "Korean name." Sorry to disappoint. My parents thought that a girl born in America should have an "American name." Choosing a name is the first chance to exert control about who a child will be, to apply our own hopes and dreams even if all we're hoping for is a blank canvas — a future with no history, no past. My older brother Kevin, on the other hand, as their only son, was to carry on our legacy. Kevin's birth name is Jun- ho, but when he was ten he stood in front of an old white man in a black robe at the Napa courthouse and requested to change his name. The judge saw no reason to deny an American- born boy permission to change from Jun- ho to Kevin even if he did look more like a Jun- ho than a Kevin. He was all in, no regrets. His sadness had turned to anger for all the teasing he'd been subjected to, when at the beginning of each school year the teacher called out to Jun- ho from the roll sheet, sounding it out and mispronouncing it every time, causing the other kids to snicker.

"Junn ... hoe? Hoo? Ha?"

"June. June hoe," Kevin would respond quietly, eyes down.

"Ho! Ho bag!" The most boring person always thinks they're the funniest.

It wasn't enough to say: You can call me Kevin. He wanted it on the record.

Koreans don't have middle names. So I am one of perhaps thousands of Jane Kims in America. When I recently renewed my driver's license, it was time to upgrade to REAL ID and the nice Latina at the counter with incredible nails told me that she had to input exactly what was on my birth certificate. This woman with tiny figurines of donuts and boba and sushi and pizza lacquered to her fluorescent- painted nails double- checked with her supervisor because the displeasure on my face matched her own displeasure at the idea of NMN on her own ID. I knew this because she told me, her voice all understanding. I felt seen. "You could come back with your passport?" she offered, explaining that my passport likely left the middle- name entry blank, but my pass port was expired and since my driver's license was about to expire and I'm too responsible to drive around with an expired license, we had to go with the birth certificate, which is why I'm now, officially, Jane NMN Kim.

My parents weren't thinking about names when they moved here. My mom and dad arrived in California, separately, in the late sixties. They had known each other as friends in Seoul and kept in touch after moving to America. My mom was living in Los Angeles with her mother and many brothers and sisters, her father long dead, probably rolling in his grave about his family leaving him behind in Korea, while my dad was in San Francisco with his parents, his sister and brothers and niece. Koreans tend to live together in tight quarters near other Koreans. For us, family is the point of life. Sure, we like money, capitalism, conformity, hiking, dramas, and pop music, but all of that even is about family — we're doing it for, with, in honor of, family. Because of the distance between Los Angeles and San Francisco, my mom and dad talked on the phone frequently, then spent time together when my dad had a brief stint in Los Angeles's Koreatown, working odd jobs, making connections, learning how to start a business. When they decided to marry, they eloped — both families were vehemently against the marriage.

Excerpted from American Han by Lisa Lee. Copyright © 2026 by Lisa Lee. Excerpted by permission of Algonquin Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.