Matt Raimondo, Blog #1

           In my opinion, a nation is not necessarily just a concrete location in a map – rather, a nation is made up of the people living within it.  My idea of a nation can consist of any group of people that feel as if they belong in that certain location, and especially when those people identify their coexistence with others living around them.  Each nation does not have to be made of people that all feel a sense of “togetherness” over the same thing- if that were the case, then we might only exist within one nation shared by all.  Rather, nations can be made up of very different groups of people that feel together for very distinct reasons, which can certainly be seen if one looks at a modern map and considers the difference between nations like North Korea and the United States.  I believe that some people like to identify themselves with certain nations because they want to be a part of something beyond their own existence, even if it means to simply want to be a part of something collectively similar to themselves.

            In the film “Passing Through”, Nathan seemed to particularly be afflicted with the notion that he just didn’t quite fully belong with his family in the United States.  Despite a seemingly normal home life, Nathan sought to discover if he truly did belong in America among his adopted family or in his ancestral homeland, South Korea.  While he spent time abroad, he seemed to slowly come to the realization that his true home belonged in America rather than Korea.  I say this because certain experiences that we watched Nathan go through, namely his discomfort and “fascinations” associated with Koreans, the experience of his girlfriend’s parents rejecting him as not a “pureblood Korean” and the fact that he will never know his biological parents seemed to indicate to me that he didn’t have fully binding ties to Korea or the Korean people.  He seemed to not quite get the closure that he sought, specifically by missing out on the opportunity to know both of his parents personally.  Nathan himself described confused emotions throughout the film, and he seemed to ask himself multiple times why he had even come to Korea in the first place. 

Despite this lack of closure, Nathan does not seem miserable or hopeless, as he describes meeting and knowing both members of his American and Korean family as the “beginning of a journey”.  His sister seemed ecstatic to meet Nathan, and describing the process of getting to know her as a “journey” resonates positively with me because Nathan seems to want to genuinely understand what his Korean family is all about.  He seemed to indicate that he felt more at home with his adopted family at the end of the film, but that does not mean that he must choose between his two families.  Nathan spoke of how his life was full of contradictions, and maybe an adopted boy feeling more at home in his adopted country may represent such a contradiction; regardless, this film showed me that understanding why someone may feel at home in a certain nation or place may not be as clear cut as it seems.