So I 20(F) am Korean american but specifically I was born and raised in Seoul. I grew up speaking in Korean 24/7, it’s my native language though I did learn english because my dad is also Korean american. I moved to the US with my family around 13-14 ish. My english is good, I can speak it with no problems or even an accent. reading and writing isn’t really an issue for me either but unfortunately I have some audio processing issues no matter the language. My hearing is fine I just have some issues processing what i’m hearing occasionally, so if I struggle with Korean you can imagine it’s especially relevant in english which isn’t my native language technically. I can handle conversations usually but whenever i’m watching anything and it’s an option I really prefer to watch things with Korean subtitles, honestly I always pick Korean over english, I feel like I still sort of have to think when I read english and don’t have to put any effort in for Korean. It just feels more natural for me, though english would be fine.

I was recently hanging out with a group of about 6 people not including me. I really only knew 2 out of them and if i’m being honest i’m only close one of them. We were doing a “watch party” for a movie series binge, just ordered some food and we’re all sitting around watching. Most people weren’t paying attention to the movie honestly(Fair enough). So with people talking and no subtitles being on I was struggling a little bit to catch everything, I was actually trying to watch because I had never seen the movies from this series before and I think most people there had.

I asked the person who’s house we were at if they could put in subtitles for me, explained that I had audio processing issues and korean subtitles would help the most but english was fine too, they(one of the people that I knew actually) had no issues and happily turned on captions in korean for me. This one guy that was there that apparently was listening to this whole interaction and wasn’t happy about it. He argued that captions actually distracted him from what we were watching and making everyone one else see captions in another language that non of them could understand wasn’t fair to everyone else. Another guy agreed that seeing the captions was annoying and that if I could hear and clearly could speak english then I didn’t need them. I yet again explained that I just had issues with audio processing and it was the fact that they were in Korean we could just as easily do english captions, that I just would really prefer having them on so I could enjoy the movie without missing anything and sort of apologized if the captions were annoying to them. My friend stood up for me and said that it was her house, her TV, and the captions weren’t hurting anything.

Unfortunately they didn’t drop it and it became a whole issue. Another girl there took their side and I don’t remember the exact phrasing but basically said “if you can’t understand it without captions that’s not our problem and then maybe you don’t need to be watching it”. I was honestly just upset by this point because it 100% just felt like they were just mad because I was Korean and we’re just using the stupid captions as a way to make cheap jabs at me without actually saying it. So I told the group as much and left, i wasn’t going to sit there and deal with that over such a little thing. Apparently after I left and even still now it sort of sparked an argument amongst the group. Some of them think I was being totally dramatic and crying racism for no reason. While the rest of the group thinks they were being out of line and just mean for absolutely no reason.

I don’t feel bad for standing up for myself about the captions or their actions in general but I feel like I did maybe play a part in escalating it to that level? it lead to a fight amongst a longstanding group of friends i’m not even apart of honestly so I feel kind of guilty and just wanted others opinions on this. AITAH?