S. Koreans Reclaim Biracial Football Champion as One of Them

Ever since Hines Ward was named the most valuable player of the Super Bowl last week, the half-Korean Pittsburgh Steeler wide receiver has been the toast of the town. People are talking about throwing parades in his honor. His name dominates the television and radio talk shows; his photo is splayed across the front pages of the newspapers.

Especially popular are close-up shots of his muscular upper arm, tattooed with his name spelled in Korean.

South Koreans' fascination with Hines is not simply a matter of pride, but of curiosity. The 29-year-old athlete is something of a novelty in that his mother is Korean, but his father was an African American GI.

In ethnically homogenous South Korea, such mixed-race offspring are generally viewed with contempt. And because social status is based on being registered under the father's name, children raised by their mothers alone in effect are treated as nonpersons.

Biracial men have been banned from the South Korean military, although the Defense Ministry announced Friday, in a move that some attributed to the Hines Ward phenomenon, that the policy is being changed.

"If he had grown up here instead of the United States, he would have had a hard time," said Park Mi Na, a 17-year-old mixed-race high school student. Park, who bears a strong resemblance to the African American father she hasn't seen since she was 2, said she has been taunted by children her entire life and stared at strangely by adults "as if I were an alien from outer space."

Park speaks no English and doesn't know the difference between Washington, D.C. and the state of Washington. (Her father, she said, lives in one of the Washingtons.) But she hopes to study in the U.S., if only to be someplace where she doesn't draw attention.

Ward's situation could have been much the same as Park's except that he has lived most of his life in the U.S.

His parents met when his father was stationed in South Korea and his mother was working as a waitress in a nightclub. They moved to the U.S. when Ward was a toddler. After the couple divorced, a court awarded custody to his father because his mother spoke little English. But Ward ran away when he was 7 to live with his mother, Kim Young Hee, who managed to support herself and her child by working three jobs.