Korean-American Chronicles

This book, edited by April Myung of Bergen County Academies in New Jersey, contains autobiographies of ten Korean teenagers, currently studying in American high schools. This historically significant volume contains writings by break-dancing Julius Im, who understands his Korean-American identity through this medium of African-American dance, to Rei Fujino Park of Flushing, New York, who explores her own dual identiy with a Korean father (who served in the elite Korean military special forces) and a Japanese mother. Rei Fujino describes her parents' marriage as a loving union of "enemies" given the history of Japanese colonization of Korea (1910-1945). Julie Oh describes the difficult situation of the children of Korean company workers for Samsung, LG, SK, Woori Bank, and other Korean companies, who come with a short-term working visa to the United States. The children of these "Joo-Jae-Won" have to go to Saturday school (in her case, "Woori School") in order to maintain the skill level of Korean high schools, in the case that their parents get recalled to South Korea - their children would have to apply for Korean universities and meet the requirements of Korean university entrance tests, which are vastly different from America's SAT, ACT, and AP tests. Andrew Hyeon shars his experience as a Korean Catholic, attending Hopkins School, an elite private school in Connecticut, where former Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh, a famous Korean, attended. Ruby Hong's autobiography is written as a fairytale account of her own life. The autobiographies in this book are not only creatively written as to capture the readers' interest, but they also provide valuable resources for Korean American Studies. (This book is the second in the Hermit Kingdom Sources in Korean-American Studies, whose series editor is Dr. Onyoo Elizabeth Kim, Esq.)