Name: Jenny Yoo
Relationship: friend
Origin country: Korea
Language: Korean
Year of immigration: 2005
I interviewed a friend of mine that I met outside of school. She immigrated to United States when she was about her early 20’s. She actually didn’t remember any of the process of immigration. She said that her parents told her to pack her stuff to bring to America with her. She said her family immigrated to America because they want to have better life economically. Her parents didn’t see any better future with that system in Korea. Even though they didn’t have professional jobs to make a living in America, they started dreaming bright future of the family. They gave up the jobs they had in Korea, which were sort of little income and they started a small deli in America with the money they'd saved for their entire marriage life. She didn’t know how hard it was to adjust to a new environment without knowing the culture or language very well back then. She said she remembered her parents worked until very late and did their best. Her parents told her that progress of immigration took approximately over a year In Korea because there were immigration booming at that time in Korea. It was not easy for her to adjust the new environment too. She had a lot of thoughts going back to Korea.
I asked her about what she went through and how she thinks about immigration based on her experiences. She said it was hard at the beginning because she was not prepared to go to school. She didn’t speak English fluently. She always had communication problems with peers. Based on what she went through, she told me that immigration to another country was easier back then. She had seen a lot of people immigrated by the time she came here. Also she mentioned that her parents had experienced quite a lot of racism at work. That’s another thing that she and her family had a difficulty with. She said her parents used to tell her that some of customers who came to their deli showed disrespect to them because they were Asians and they were not fluent speakers. After a few years, her crisis came directly to her family. They had economical difficulty because of medication for her mother. There was nothing she could have done besides jumping to work. She was too young to have any careers at that time and she had to jump in restaurant jobs. And her older brother started working on construction to make money. They didn’t have any work career so only rough jobs were left for them.
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Interview summery
Q: how was your first impression when you first heard that you were going to go to America?
A: I was not excited at all as you think. I was so afraid about the face that there would be any friend I have had in my entire life. I didn’t want to go actually.
Q: what was your family’s economic status before you immigrated to America?
A: We were not wealthy but my mom had a small dumpling shop and my father was a businessman.
Q: you started your career very early age like when you were 21, why did you have to do that?
A: Unfortunately, my mom had a heart disease it was something hopeless. We were not able to afford that hospital costs without me working. I had to start working in order for my mom.
Q: why did you choose to do the first job you had?
A: I did not have many choices because my English was not good enough and was too young. I also did not have any job experiences. So I started working in a restaurant as a server. It was actually a high-income job. Better than other immigrants who work at more risky jobs.
Q: why do you think there are people who choose to work at risky jobs?
A: it is because of good income without very good language skills and any professional degrees. Long time ago, most of them were paid with cash so that they could underreport how much they make for a living.
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