You should embrace who you are: there's nothing wrong with wanting to reinvent yourself, but it's important to never-forget your past. (On My Mind).

* In my novel, In Full Bloom, the protagonist Ginger Lee flees her hometown of Milwaukee and her Asian-American family and moves to New York City to start a new life. She is bright and ambitious and could be anything she sets her mind to. But instead, in an attempt to distance herself from her Korean roots, she winds up completely sabotaging herself.

Many of us have been tempted at one point or another to do a partial, if not total, makeover on ourselves. As an Asian-American who was born and raised in Wisconsin, I tried very hard to assimilate. And I was successful--by the time I got to college, I was called a banana, a term used to describe an Asian who is so Westernized that she is only yellow on the outside. Then, instead of going to law or medical school as many upwardly mobile children of immigrants do, I decided to pursue a graduate degree in English literature.

Two years later, I was finally forced to confront my uneasy relationship with my own background. There I was, learning the Old English of Chaucer when I couldn't even pronounce the first name of any of my grandparents. I was having such an identity crisis that I dropped out of the program, moved to New York City, and took the first job I was offered.

It took a broken leg and the resulting month at home for me to stop spinning my wheels and take stock of my situation. I realized that to create a successful new life, you have to come to terms with the one you're trying to leave behind. So I decided to take the time to learn about my family and Korean history. Suddenly, my American status wasn't a fluke but the logical result of personal and political events that led my parents to leave their country. This understanding not only brought me closer to my folks but also, for the first time, gave me a red sense of belonging.

Now there's nothing wrong with reinventing yourself. But ...