The Story of Hines Ward

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by Angela MacKenzie

I freely admit that I'm not a sports fan by nature, and of all sports, football has always appealed to me the least. But even I wasn't immune to the hype surrounding the Super Bowl Game this year.
So this past Sunday afternoon, as I flipped through the TV channels, I paused on the game's pre-show programming, hoping to catch one of the many multi-million dollar television commercials or a celebrity performance. But instead, I watched CBS news anchor Katie Couric introduce a segment on Hines Ward.
Ward is a wide receiver for the NFL's Pittsburgh Steelers and voted last year as MVP for Super Bowl XL. The 30-year-old stands 6 feet tall, weighs 205 pounds and bears the obvious broad-shouldered, muscular build of a football player.
What isn't obvious at first glance, however, is that Ward is half-Korean. His mother, Young-hee Kim, is Korean. His father, Hines Ward, Sr. is African American and met Ward's mother while serving as a soldier in Korea. Ward was born in Seoul, but his parents moved to the U.S. when he was a young child and he grew up in Georgia.  He is a child of a the Korean War - one of thousands.
Last spring, Ward vaulted into the media spotlight when he returned to his birth place for the first time. He wanted to raise awareness about discrimination against multi-racial children in Korea. Before leaving the country, he donated US $1 million to create the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation to help multi-racial children.
Ward was treated like a superstar in Korea, surrounded by a media frenzy.
"If the country can accept me for who I am and accept me for being a Korean, I'm pretty sure that this country can change and accept you for who you are," Ward was quoted as saying at a "hope-sharing" meeting with multi-racial children.
Watching video clips of his experiences in Korea, I found myself captivated again by his compelling story. In one of the more touching moments of a montage of video clips, Ward stood in front of a roomful of Korean reporters and apologized to his mother for once hating his Korean heritage. Tears flowed from Ward and from his mother.
His experiences of alienation, his search for identity and his eventual acceptance of his identity echoed my own. As a Korean Canadian, I could understand his struggle with living between two cultures, but both my parents are Korean.
What struck me about his story was the poignant existence of the type of discrimination he faced. Living in a multicultural country like Canada, and particularly in Vancouver where mixed-race couples and mixed-race children are more common, I realized I had started to take multiculturalism here for granted.
Ward has become an international role model and an advocate for children who experience biracial discrimination. Hopefully his continued efforts will help the country of his birth embrace a more global and multicultural perspective, however slow that change may happen.

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