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Joel Kim Booster does not know how to do karate. He was never really into anime. He cannot speak Hangukmal. But the South Korean–born, Illinois-suburb-raised stand-up comedian, actor, and writer is still 100% Korean American.
These stereotypes and identifying traits of being a “real” Asian are ones that have followed both Joel and me through our whole lives as Korean American adoptees. Even though I didn’t know Joel personally, I learned about our shared journey of being the only Asian face in a predominantly white space during his Conan set in 2016, in which he talked about knowing he was gay before he knew he was Asian. I followed his career through a Comedy Central special and brilliant debut stand-up album Model Minority in 2018; writing some smart (and sometimes disturbing) jokes on Big Mouth and The Other Two; and a fun and poignant performance as Jun Ho on NBC’s short-lived immigrant-centered comedy Sunnyside. And now I listen to his podcast, Urgent Care, on which he and cohost Mitra Jouhari “dispense completely unqualified advice to people who apparently have nowhere else to turn”—and SiriusXM’s 88rising show Joy F*ck Club, where he discusses the “horrors and hilarities of the Asian American experience” with friends like Bowen Yang and Aparna Nancherla.
Being a fan of Joel’s from afar and seeing someone whose experiences mirrored and differed from mine in so many ways was wonderful and rare. Getting the chance to sit down and chat with him about those shared experiences, our journeys to finding our Asian American identities, the perils of dating, and more was even better. Whether you are part of the API community, the gay community, or a fellow adoptee, I hope you find something within our conversation that resonates with you.
Alyse Whitney: I was adopted from Korea when I was seven months old. How old were you when you were adopted?
Joel Kim Booster: I think the legend goes three months. But I know there were some delays because of the terrorist attacks at the ’88 Olympics, so I’m not exactly sure. There's so much that I was deeply uncurious about growing up as an adopted kid that I don't think was an affectation or as a result of not wanting to be adopted—it was my reality, and I just didn't have a ton of questions. I didn't even know where I was born in Korea until I was, like, 26, because I didn't think to ask until I was that old.
And where was it?
Jeju Island, which honestly made me way more interested in going back than I ever had been before. I did a lot of research about Jeju, and it's fascinating. Women drove the economy for centuries as free divers. It's the site of the largest female-led rebellion in history. I want to go back, mostly for cultural reasons. I really want to know where I'm from. It sounds beautiful and wildly in tune with my interests and what I like in an environment. I love a beach and have always loved a beach. But as for reaching out to my birth family or not, it’s so up in the air. I've never been super hung up about them or that curious. I've never felt the pull to be like, “I need to meet them, or find out why,” or anything like that. I love my parents…. I can't really conceptualize them as anything but my parents. Full stop, 100%. Because that's honestly how they've always treated me too.
Is Kim your Korean name? Last name?
Yes, Kim Joonmin is my birth name. I’ve always had it in my name, but I have two middle names: Joel Alexander Kim Booster.
How do you connect to your Korean culture now? Through food? That’s how I’ve done it—lots of Korean barbecue.
Yeah. But when I go to Korean barbecue with a big group of people, the waiter will always turn to me and I’ll immediately be like, “I’m so sorry!” Everyone gets mad at me. Every Korean restaurant I've ever been to, there's that turn when they realize. It's always a fraught experience going into authentically Korean spaces like that, because I feel like, “Oh, fuck—I wish I did [speak Hangukmal].” To my parents’ credit, [when I was] growing up, they did give me the option. They were like, “Hey, we can take you to classes. If you want to learn about your culture, we're open to that.” But when you're a little kid, you already feel different. It's just like, “No, no, no. I want to feel as normal as possible. I don't want to be thinking even more about how I'm different.” I regret not doing that now, but it's never too late. Once that initial wave of shame passes, it is nice to sit and just feel a part of it for a moment. And the food tastes amazing.
When you were younger, did you know any other adoptees?
Through church, I knew a handful. Starting around eighth grade, up through high school, I knew a couple. I've known a few more in adulthood too that I've met because there are a lot of us. Honestly after that first Conan set, when I talked about it, there was an outpouring of people who reached out and found me and talked to me about it. I meet them at my shows all the time.
In your time in the comedic community, have you met a lot of other Asian people—or specifically Korean people—that you connected culturally with? Or who helped you learn more about your culture and, in turn, yourself?
It's definitely come up a little bit. I learned through osmosis, in dribs and drabs, about specifically Korean culture. But the weird thing about being adopted as an Asian person in America, especially growing up in a white community, is that I find I am so much more connected to the idea of an Asian American identity. More so than I feel connected to a specific ethnic diaspora. I am proud to be Korean, and I am interested in Korean culture. But for me, when I feel connected to other Asian people, it is because of the racial experience of being Asian in America, not because of any specific ties I have to my Korean heritage. That's very personal to me. I feel an immediate kinship to Asian people. And I'm so interested in what the Asian American experience is.
There are a lot of stereotypes and Asian traits that I don’t connect with at all. I do love karaoke, but I think it’s just because I was in musical theater and not because I am Korean. I know nothing about anime and Pokémon. I was in the Facebook group called Subtle Asian Traits and a lot of it I didn’t understand, and I think that’s because I didn’t grow up with any Asian American friends. Was that the case for you?
Growing up in the Midwest in a largely white community, everything Asian was given to me and made to be mine. Anytime someone brought up karate, it was like, “Oh, Joel, that's your thing.” Or “Anime, that's your thing.” Everything, regardless of where it was coming from [in Asia], was attributed and handed to me as the Asian person in the group. I don't think that a lot of white people separate us, so it was all given to me. And so then, as an adult, finding out like, “Oh, no, no, karate is not yours—that's Chinese.” Or, “This food is not yours.” That specificity I didn't grow up with. I feel very connected to broad Asian signifiers in a way that I've had to sort of separate myself from as an adult. It's been a strange journey growing up and wanting to reject that stuff, and then wanting to embrace that stuff, and then finding out that I'm not allowed to embrace some of it. I'm only allowed to embrace part of it. It's such a wild mix of experiences floating around in my head.
When you were growing up, how did you figure out your identity as an Asian face in a white space? Were you trying to be more white when you were younger and now you’re trying to reject that part of yourself? Or blend them together?
I wouldn't even say that I was trying to reject specifically being Korean or Asian. I always felt the experience of being of color. It wasn't even that I knew I wasn't white and I was Asian, although that was part of it. Did you see Pen15?
Yeah.
That episode where they “interview” Scary Spice and Maya sort of does this character to ingratiate herself? I did not expect to be so affected by it. I was like, “Oh my God, I have never seen something that so perfectly captures the experience of growing up in an all-white community like that." Because you do do that to yourself. You lower yourself because it helps you. You know that they understand that, and those power dynamics are so ingrained in us, even as children. So it took me a long time to deprogram myself from that mentality of like, “Oh, if I just put that part of myself on display at times when I just want to be funny, then people will like me. And then I’ll try and hide it in other times, so that I can blend in.” A lot of my adult life has sort of been melding it together. It's like, “I am not only Asian when it's funny for white people. I'm Asian when it's inconvenient for me as well.” It's bringing those two parts of myself together in a big way.
Do you have a lot of close Asian friends to help you figure out your identity now?
I didn't feel like I had close Asian friends until I had a lot gay Asian friends because there was that missing. There's this broad feeling of all being connected as Asian Americans in this tenuous shared experience that we're all figuring out in the consciousness of America. But the gay Asian experience I find much more universal in a lot of ways. It’s so much easier for me to relate to, because with so many gay Asian guys that I meet, it’s this immediate thing of: “There you are. I see you. You see me. We know what we've been through and what this experience is.” It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s and started making a lot of gay Asian friends and experiencing that that I felt like I was connected to the [Asian American] community in a huge way.
Do you feel that you have three separate communities: the Asian American community, the gay community, and then the Asian gay community? Or are your closest friends Asian gays who can really relate to you on a level that other people just can’t?
I move through them seamlessly, but it’s a little separated in my mind sometimes. It's interesting to look at it, the makeup of my audiences now when I do stand-up too, because it's so clear there are three very different groups that come to my shows. There are straight Asian people that come because they're very excited to see Asian representation. Then there are gay guys that come, and queer people that come, because they're excited about that. And then there's the group that are sort of both that see all of it. I feel a big responsibility from all three groups, to speak their experiences and reflect back their experiences.
How does that affect your comedy and how you put together a set?
I wonder if every person in the audience can enjoy the whole set, or just the part that relates to them. It's such an interesting balancing act, especially as a comedian who really did put my identity forward at the beginning stages of my career. It's not something that I regret. I don't want that to be the indication here. But as I've evolved, I’ve wanted to step back and not be as self-conscious about my identity signifiers. I want to just have that running in the background and be able to tell my jokes. Everybody knows now. They get the context of where these jokes are coming from. Do I still have to feel a responsibility to be making these very specific jokes for the communities that I'm performing for? Or can they come and just enjoy the general-ness of the comedy now?
One of your close gay Asian friends is Bowen Yang, who is currently on SNL. How did you two meet?
It's funny, because a person that we both knew pretty immediately was like, “Oh, you two should be friends.” It was very clear that he didn't really give us much of a reason other than like, “Oh, you're both gay Asians; you should be friends.” In 2013 or 2014, when I first got to New York City, he connected us on a Facebook chat. And we were both like, “Ugh, no,” because of why we were introduced and avoided meeting each other for, like, nine months after that. And then it happened organically, and we were like, “Uh-oh, we can't deny this.” We share a lot of experiences that bond us in a very specific way. We're friends because of a lot of things that have nothing to do with being gay Asians. So it was a begrudging, “Oh, fuck. We are destined to be really good friends.”
In 2019 you were misidentified as Bowen when his SNL casting came out. It felt like such a setback when it should have been a celebration of you both landing big roles. Do you feel differently about the state of diversity and representation because of it?
Bowen and I always felt like there could “only be one,” so when we both landed roles at the same time, we were like, “Wow, things have really changed. How lucky are we to be coming up at this time where there's room for a lot of us?” And then stuff like that happens, and then other things that have happened recently, that does make me feel a little bit like maybe I am limited by this. They're brief moments because I never, any time in my career, have ever felt like this should limit me. I'm a fucking star, and I should be leading. I shouldn't be relegated to any box off to the side because of who I am. That has nothing to do with my talent or what I bring to the table. Then stuff like that happens and you're like, “Oh, right. I'm still living in this world where it's easy to confuse me and Bowen because the world only stops seeing us after these two signifiers.” That's really frustrating for both of us. But we’re also used to it now, which is pretty sad. People mix us up at least a couple times a month. We get DMs where people will be like, “I love your work on this thing!” And it's like, “Oh, that's Bowen.” Bow's my best friend, and for us, we seem so completely different—other than these two things.
You also look very different!
We look different. Our styles are different. We are different people and we see each other as so unique. It really is just such a bummer when we're like, “Oh, the world doesn't see us that way.” Or certain people in the world don't see us that way. It just makes us have to feel like we have to work harder and just keep going until the world changes or catches up to us.
I was the only Asian person in my high school. On the flip side, when it comes to dating, did you feel any preferences and biases because you were raised in a white community? Or more of a draw toward fellow Asian Americans?
There weren't a lot of Asian people around me when I was growing up, but I never really had a very specific type. I fucked everything under the sun, and I continue to. I do feel this weird responsibility now, because I read the stuff that people say about me online. There is this idea about Asian men in particular, gay Asian men in particular, who are out to look for a white guy and that's considered dating up for a lot of people. I think that attitude is so toxic and unfortunate. I've never had a boyfriend. I dated a couple of guys. I've fucked around with a lot of guys. I'm not really looking for one, either, but my greatest fear as someone who is now a prominent gay Asian person out in the media is that the first person I fall in love with will be white.
It sucks to read YouTube comments and be like, “Yeah, he's only interested in white guys.” Or like, “He only posts pictures of himself with white guys on Instagram,” which is all factually untrue. It's just another piece of baggage I have to take with me into the dating landscape that I wish I didn't have to worry about. It sucks that I have to be thinking about that. I get why people would be upset, but I also am like, “You love who you love.” It’s tough. I've been attracted to many Asian guys. I would love to end up with one. I think about it more when casting my love interests and stuff like that too.
Sometimes I worry that if I end up with an Asian person, I won’t be able to connect with them and their family because I am so culturally white. Is that something you have thought about or worried about?
It doesn't scare me specifically with another Korean person. I would love to date somebody whose background just in general is so different from mine. It would be almost sort of ironic if I ended up being a first- or second-generation Korean person with a huge Korean family, because that fulfills that role of someone whose cultural background is so different from mine completely. But whether or not it's that, or any other person, I just would rather date somebody whose life looks different from mine. I think. Whenever that happens, it's all going to be a new frontier for me.
Alyse Whitney is the managing editor at Cravings by Chrissy Teigen. Follow her on Instagram @alysewhitney.
