This paper explores the politics of “Becoming without Being” in How I Became a North Korean by Krys Lee, analyzing three first-person narratives by Yongju and Jangmi, the defected North Koreans in China, and Danny, a Joseon-jok in China and permanent resident of USA. The novel’s depiction of another bare existence is related to critique Christian evangelism, because the missionary network supposed to be the savior of refugees turns out to be equally devious to the smugglers. How I Became a North Korean can secure its place as a borderland, transpacific text by widening the limits of Asian American literature in a peculiar direction. Implying the potential that North Korean and the Joseon-jok may bring to envision an American literary scene, it asks how Asian American writing may relate to others in Asia. In short, Krys Lee has successfully accomplished how Asian American literature can imagine and activate a turn to enlighten the readers to an understanding of Asian American’s embeddedness through the discourses of freedom and “becoming without being”, focusing on North Korean’s inhumane situation in China.