What really opened up the floodgates was Girls’ Generation’s viral track “Gee.” That chorus was just so damn catchy (“Gee gee gee gee baby baby baby”) paired with the bright, pop melodies. I loved the song so much that some friends and I even dressed up as some of the group members, me paring a simple white V-neck with bright red jeans I bought from Hot Topic. Soon, I was asking my Korean friends for other groups to bop along to. After listening to the iconic boy group BIGBANG, I stumbled upon 2NE1 thanks to the groups’ collaboration “Lollipop.” 2NE1’s song “Fire” had two music video versions, Space and Street. I sang along during the English parts to these songs and tried learning the Korean parts even though I had no clue what I was saying (a number of my friends were kind enough to help with pronunciation even though I never fully nailed it). I was already a lover of Western pop during high school, but K-pop seemed more innovative than what I was listening to on the radio. K-pop artists were bending genres, adding elements of EDM and R&B to their music before many Western musicians were. I loved K-pop so much that I was even featured in our senior yearbook for a section about K-pop fans (yes, I wore my “Gee” outfit). Undoubtedly, K-pop was part of the soundtrack of my life during those last few years of teenhood.

Then I ended up at Northwestern University in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, which was a culture shock in more ways than one. I went from my high school, which was mostly of people of color, to a post-secondary institution that flipped the scales. Not only that, but I was around a level of wealth that I had never experienced before. Kids that mentioned “meal plan hacks” involving their parents’ credit cards, classmates that had second homes they were spending Thanksgiving or Winter Break at, something called ski trip where you didn’t even really ski you just drank Natty Light and got in hot tubs. Northwestern opened my eyes up to an entirely different world than the one I grew up in, one that I would largely be navigating the rest of my life and career as I pursued a career in journalism and entertainment.

I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I was whitewashed by my college experience, but lots of people of color know what it’s like to have to assimilate in certain ways to these white spaces. There were cultural affinity groups I could have joined, but I was largely focused on other organizations I became involved in, such as the student newspaper and the residential college board. However, many of the friends I made were also Asian-American or people of color and there were the little things that we did that reminded me of home in Southern California: going down to the Argyle Red Line stop to get pho, buying handmade tamales at the Evanston farmer’s market, and eating out at one of the numerous Asian restaurants near campus when we needed comfort food. Every once in a while, when high school memories were indulged, I’d bring up my love for K-pop. To my surprise and delight, every so often another friend knew what I was talking about when it came to Girls’ Generation, SUPER JUNIOR, or 2NE1.

Fast forward to today, as groups such as BTS, BLACKPINK, LOONA, and more dominate stan Twitter and charts, I can’t help but feel sentimental about my early days with K-pop and my youth back home. Back then, I felt so secure in Asian-American identity thanks to the community that was fostered at school and in the cluster of cities pocketed in north Orange County. College in the Midwest at a predominantly white institution made me more aware of my race than ever, in a way that uprooted some of that certainty that I once had. That awareness continues today — in high school, there was often never a classroom I was in that didn’t have another Asian person other than myself. Today, there are certain bars I go out to or conference rooms for meetings I step into that I am the only Asian in the room. But the phenomenon that K-pop has become grants me strength, reminds me just how strong that culture is, vigorous enough to nab today’s K-pop stars wins at award shows or performances as some of the biggest music festivals.

I might not be as into K-pop as I once was as a teenager, but putting on BTS and hearing the Korean makes me gleeful, it transports me back to a time where my Asian-American experience was easy, essential, and nuanced. Sometimes when I’m having a rough day, all I need is a little K-pop to pick me up and remind me of where I came from.

Related: BLACKPINK Will Be the First Female K-Pop Group to Play Coachella