Do you know ‘Kopino’: the biracial children facing discrimination from both sides
Children with mixed heritage is nothing new, but some children face discrimination solely for being biracial.
A ‘Kopino’ is someone born to Filipina mothers and Korean fathers, but these men often abandon their Filipina partners after returning to Korea, leaving the women with no way to contact them.
There is no official data on the Kopino population, with estimates ranging from 10,000 to 30,000, as the South Korean Nationality Act does not automatically grant children born outside overseas citizenship. This makes obtaining Korean citizenship complicated for Kopino children.
Song-Hwa Chae, a university student from Yonsei University shared her experience growing up as a ‘Kopino’ in the Philippines. She is extremely grateful to not be part of this statistic, but most of the Kopino children around her is not that fortunate.