Diamond Smith
INTERVIEW WITH EUNNURI LEE
Photos courtesy of Eunnuri Lee
When I was younger and deeply curious about what it means to live a thoughtful, creative life—especially as a woman of color navigating inherited histories, I didn’t always see the kind of work that spoke directly to that complexity. Then one day, I came across a video by creative and influencer, Eunnuri Lee on TikTok about decolonizing the mind. Something clicked. Her words were both grounding and informative, but also deeply felt. It was one of the first times I’d seen someone name the unspoken, confront the internalized, and do it with such clarity and care. Her work made space for something I hadn’t realized I was hungry for: the kind of language that helps make sense of identity, erasure, and the slow, necessary process of reclamation. Eunnuri (은누리) Lee is not simply an artist—she is a force of reclamation. A Korean-American interdisciplinary research artist, activist, and adoptee, Lee’s work unfolds at the intersection of diaspora, Asian-American hybridity, and radical belonging. With a voice both tender and unflinching, she reclaims fractured narratives and rewrites them through deeply personal and politically conscious lenses. Whether through visual art or digital platforms, her practice centers emotional honesty, collective liberation, and the unapologetic complexity of identity. In every medium, Lee carves out space for those who have felt silenced, othered, or unseen—disrupting, challenging, and reimagining the boundaries of belonging.
Diamond Smith. What does “community” mean to you personally?
Eunnuri Lee. To me, community means a space of chosen connection, healing and mutual recognition – especially for those who have historically been silenced or erased. As a queer, neurodivergent Korean-American adoptee, I’ve often found myself navigating identity and hardships in isolation, feeling like I don’t fully belong in any one place. Too American to be Korean, too Korean to be American, too connected to my culture to be recognized as an adoptee, not connected enough so I’m not like others in the Asian American community. Community, for me, is about creating and participating in spaces where intersectional identities are not only accepted, but celebrated and respected – where people show up for each other with care, where lived experiences are honored, and where art, vulnerability and storytelling become tools for collective liberation. It’s not about fitting a mold – it's about making space for multiplicity, messiness, a little bit of chaos and growth. That’s the kind of community I seek and try to foster in both my art and life.
Diamond Smith. Has learning or teaching stories helped you reclaim any parts of yourself or your history?
Eunnuri Lee. 1000% Yes absolutely. Learning and teaching stories especially rooted in diasporic and cultural experience – has helped me reclaim parts of myself I didn’t realize had been taken. As a transracial adoptee so much of my literal foundation, my history of me as a person was hidden by those closest to me. But through storytelling – whether it's through my artwork or on social media or in random conversations – I've been able to trace threads of culture, ancestry and connection. Offering my own stories to the world has been a way of saying: I exist, I remember and I’m allowed to take up space. It lets me resist erasure and in doing so I’ve built a relationship with my history, culture and heritage on my own terms, not through a lens of assimilation of expectation.
Diamond Smith. Can you share a time when a story helped you reconnect with yourself or your background (like your culture, gender, or identity)?
Eunnuri Lee. One story I can think of is actually a Korean folktale called “선녀와 나무꾼” (The Woodcutter and the Nymph). It was a story my aunt brought back for me from Korea and it is about how a man tricks a mythical heavenly maiden into becoming his wife, creates a loving family, then loses his family and is alone for the rest of his life. In the end it’s the story of why the rooster crows and how it came to be in the zodiac. Because after his family leaves him to live in the heavenly kingdom, he is left alone searching for a way back but can never reach them. His soul was so transfixed by this loss he became a rooster constantly yearning for his family even in death. I know this sounds super morbid even writing this out I’m like yeesh but the language and metaphor to the emotions I didn’t know how to express helped me flesh out the pain of adoption and losing my parents at a very young age. It gave me permission to see my own story as a part of the lineage, and to reinterpret it through art in a way that made space for mourning, magic and self-ownership. It helped me face the depth of my loss and understand that mourning can be a form of remembrance, even resistance maybe
Diamond Smith. Did you ever study ethnic studies or critical race theory? If so, how did those stories (books, history, etc.) affect you or your view of justice?
Eunnuri Lee. I sure did! I studied critical race theory in university at California Institute of the Arts, and it transformed the way I understand identity, power and justice. I had always felt that “otherness” (we can also substitute that word with lots of different words) but CRT gave me the language to name the systems behind those feelings. It taught me that my experience (and others) wasn’t just personal, it was structural. Learning about history that had been excluded from mainstream education, and reading the writing and listening to the voices that challenged the dominant narrative, helped me develop my own. It made me realize that justice isn’t just about fighting back, but a culmination of things. It’s about creating spaces, visibility, unlearning, holding and solidarity in and with each other.
Diamond Smith. Have you come across stories that reflect your culture or helped you connect with other cultures? What did that feel like?
Eunnuri Lee. One of the most meaningful ways I've connected with my culture and other cultures is through my partner. My partner of 4 years is Latin American and has shown me just how much shared memory and resilience exists between our cultures. Even though we come from different places, there's a familiarity in the way we navigate family, food, expectations, and survival. There are parallels in the silence we’re taught to carry, the reverence and respect for ancestors, the weight of colonization, and the deep importance of care – sometimes unspoken but always present. Being with him – and seeing the way their family moves, loves, gathers and remembers – has helped me see the deep similarities between Latin and Asian cultures. The emphasis on family, food as love, the ways we preserve joy through art and ritual – it’s all deeply familiar and brings warmth to my heart even though the language and histories differ. These cultural overlaps don’t erase our differences – they expand my understanding of belonging.
Diamond Smith. Are there parts of your identity or culture that you feel were erased or ignored? How do you reclaim space for them today?
Eunnuri Lee. Oh yes – absolutely especially as someone who is chronically online I see it everywhere on Tiktok and Instagram. I think when people think about Korean identity or culture today they often reduce it down to their soft power and exports like K-pop, K-beauty, K-dramas. While those are valid expressions of culture, they can also overshadow the painful and complex realities of our history that are still unresolved. People rarely talk about the corrupt legal systems regarding Korean-American adoptees, the trauma of Japanese colonization, comfort women, the Korean war, or the lasting effects of the U.S. military occupation. Erasure isn’t just historical, it’s personal and I reclaim space by telling these hard truths through my art, through my platforms, and through my presence. Just existing in my body as a queer, neurodivergent, adopted Korean – is resistance. When I create I try to honor and be mindful of the parts of my history that were hidden, stolen or made “inconvenient”.
Diamond Smith. What stories from your background or community feel like they might be forgotten? How do you help keep them alive?
Eunnuri Lee. One of the most overlooked stories in both Korean and American contexts is the truth about Korean international adoption. For decades, South Korea exported children through a system that was marketed as “rescue” but often hid coercion, poverty, and deeply political motives. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been uncovering just how many children were taken from their families without full consent, and how adoption became a tool for population control, nationalism, and even U.S. foreign policy. But most people have no idea this history exists – especially in the West, where adoption is still romanticized. As a Korean-American adoptee, I keep these stories alive by speaking about them openly, even when it makes people uncomfortable. Through my art and activism, I confront the myths of adoption and reframe it as a story of loss, survival, and reclamation. These stories aren’t just about the past – they're about how the systems still operate today, and about whose voices get erased when we call something ‘a happy ending’.
Diamond Smith. What experiences have you had with culturally sustaining narratives that reflect your own culture? And how have those encounters helped you connect with or better understand other cultures?
Eunnuri Lee. I would say one of the biggest things about my culture is that we’re not really present in the history books. Our stories aren’t widely recorded because we didn’t always have a written language. For example, my grandmother never learned to write. So much of what I know about us comes from the perspectives of others—Spanish, French, or Arab accounts—but rarely from our own voice. I’ve never really heard what it means to be us from us—our holidays, our everyday conversations, the way we live.
That’s why, when I talk to people about their cultures, I’m drawn to the parts that never make it into textbooks. And I’ve noticed, especially when speaking with people from underrepresented or misunderstood cultures, there’s often a shared frustration—about being reduced to a stereotype or checked off a diversity box instead of being truly seen. So whenever I meet someone from a different culture, I love asking, 'What’s missing from the narrative?' Because there’s always so much more beneath the surface—and I want to understand that.
One of the most overlooked stories in both Korean and American contexts is the truth about Korean international adoption. For decades, South Korea exported children through a system that was marketed as “rescue” but often hid coercion, poverty, and deeply political motives. The South Korean Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been uncovering just how many children were taken from their families without full consent, and how adoption became a tool for population control, nationalism, and even U.S. foreign policy. But most people have no idea this history exists – especially in the West, where adoption is still romanticized. As a Korean-American adoptee, I keep these stories alive by speaking about them openly, even when it makes people uncomfortable. Through my art and activism, I confront the myths of adoption and reframe it as a story of loss, survival, and reclamation. These stories aren’t just about the past – they're about how the systems still operate today, and about whose voices get erased when we call something ‘a happy ending’.
Erasure isn’t just historical, it’s personal and I reclaim space by telling these hard truths through my art, through my platforms, and through my presence.’
Eunnuri Lee