Issue 67: "This Pursuit of Self-Acceptance Will Never Actually End, Will It" by Mike Jung

Immigrant Hustle: A Monthly Mini Memoir

Jun 17, 2025

I am beyond thrilled to introduce this month’s Mini Memoir by Mike Jung, who really needs no introduction. He is the author of award-winning favorites The Boys in the Back Row and Unidentified Suburban Object (among other brilliant works) for middle-grade readers. Others may recognize him as one of the founding members of the transformative and iconic #WeNeedDiverseBooks team.

Mike continues to encourage and uplift the literary community in so many ways (thank you, Mike!), and we are exceptionally lucky to feature him in Komerican Pie this week. Please enjoy this piece, which is brimming with Mike’s delightful humor and razor wit, and be sure to check out his amazing books, too!

“This Pursuit of Self-Acceptance Will Never Actually End, Will It” by Mike Jung

Mike Jung is the author of Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities, Unidentified Suburban Object, and The Boys in the Back Row, and has contributed to the anthologies (Don’t) Call Me Crazy, The Hero Next Door, and You Are Here: Connecting Flights. He served as a judge for the 2024 National Book Awards in the category of Young People's Literature. Mike is proud to be a founding member of the #WeNeedDiverseBooks team, and lives in Oakland, California.

I don’t know if there are people in the world who just feel self-acceptance in a “yay, I feel good and love myself because I’m amazing” kind of way, but I don’t, and as I lurch deeper into the second half of my life in my typical Frankensteinian style, I know it’s unlikely I ever will. Which is…hm… “okay” is too cheery, but “reality” is a bit stark. Truthful, maybe. It’s the truth.

Being truthful can be very hard. I’m a ~~Korean-American~~ Komerican son of immigrants, so I deal with a mountain of cultural and familial bifurcations. I’m autistic, which puts me at a neurological disadvantage when navigating those bifurcations. I’m also neck-deep in rumination about my wastrel adolescence, which is exactly as grim as it sounds.

If you’re thinking “THIS ISN’T THE BIG BUCKET OF HEART FOOD I SIGNED UP FOR, MIKE,” uh, sorry? And please bear with me. I’m breaking the rules here by not picking one specific memory—a whole flippin’ galaxy of memories spools through my brain at all times, so I’m picking a set of memories from a specific period of time.

“Exclusion doesn’t require malice, though. It doesn’t require any conscious action. All it takes is the absence of any effort to do…well, anything really. A complete lack of awareness that a given person exists does the job with 100% efficiency.”

Once upon a time (meaning 2009), before the broligarchy weaponized social media for their own interests, a certain platform allowed me to do things I never could before. I could communicate my thoughts, my whole thoughts, without being cut off. I could say things without wrenching my voice, face, and body into a simulacrum of neurotypicality. And I could show my true self via the written word, a medium that I’m really, really good at.

It was revelatory, and my current ruminations feel perversely appropriate, because my teen years were marked by a profound lack of acceptance, self or otherwise. I was relentlessly bullied, which is nobody’s idea of a good time. I was also excluded by many, many people who were not bullies at all—some of them were superficially kind to me, in fact. Exclusion doesn’t require malice, though. It doesn’t require any conscious action. All it takes is the absence of any effort to do…well, anything really. A complete lack of awareness that a given person exists does the job with 100% efficiency.

Those years indelibly shaped my self-image, and continue to influence every aspect of my life today. But lo! After years of reflection, therapy, and unwholesome self-medicating, I stumbled into the world of children’s literature. What a moment, right? I could write a whole essay about it! After all those years, acceptance creeps over the horizon, casting its light upon our beleaguered protagonist!

Here’s a hell of a thing: the vehicle of communication that yielded the series of memories I’m finally getting around to describing was Facebook. It was the first platform I used in a significant way, and as I learned my way around it, I saw an opportunity I never thought I’d have. I could say things I’d always wanted to say, honestly and earnestly, openly and vulnerably, without the fear of my physical presence obstructing my words. I could talk about what I want most from this world; to be a person who both gives and receives love.

Yeah, I know. On social media, Mike?? Where all the haters and racists go out to play? Do you enjoy suffering? Well, no. But we play the cards we’re dealt, and giving and receiving love solely in person was a card I didn’t hold. I’m too far from the prevailing standard of so-called normality, and growing up with Korean immigrant parents meant love was expressed with food, books, and relentless criticism, HAHAHAHA…*sigh*

It’s true, however, that social media is deeply hostile to people who value unguarded declarations of emotion, much like American society as a whole. Being sentimental “on main” isn’t a risk-free endeavor; at the least it can provoke insults and mockery, which is no small thing for those of us who were permanently hurt by those things in our youth. I started doing it anyway.

At first I talked about loving people’s work, because I didn’t know anyone personally, but then a very strange thing happened. People started reacting. Positively, even. They knew I existed, what they knew of me was honest and true, and when I started saying how thrilled I am to have a place among them, they didn’t turn away. They stayed, and they listened. People even started responding in kind, and have done so ever since. It’s been years!

I’m not picking one memory to share, but I could easily pick one from this most recent, shockingly new stage of my life. There’s Ellen’s kids celebrating my debut novel by drawing pictures of me as a zombie, or Anne writing “you are the best person” in a copy of her new book before sending it to me. Point Reyes with Nidhi and Angela. Last-minute, dash-across-New-York bagels with Emily and Mikaela. Chris telling everyone at a retreat how last year I said he’s going to be a star (which is true), and how he nearly cried because it was exactly what he needed to hear at that moment.

I can’t fill the empty spaces where the memories I failed to make should be, but I’m adding new memories, and the counterbalance they bring is powerful. I no longer feel doomed to being unseen, unwanted, and unloved until the end of my days. I’m starting to feel the opposite, in fact, and while I don’t entirely trust the feeling, oh, it’s so much better this way. Maybe I'm no longer someone who wants to experience love but can’t. Maybe I never was. And if I’m right about that, well, that would be the tastiest bucket of heart food anyone could ask for.