Aileen Kim was born in Yanji, Jilin Province, China, in 1972, and she is a third-generation Korean Chinese: her grandmother sought refuge in China during the Japanese occupation, and her parents were born in Manchuria. She talks about having a relatively middle-class upbringing, with both parents both working as public servants, as well as attending Yanbian University of Science and Technology, where she studied English. After graduation, she worked for the school’s human resources team—her fluency across languages and cultures meant that she could work in translation and in cultural introductions with visiting students and scholars. Her husband was one such visiting student, and after the two married they lived in Ulsan, Korea, for six years, where Aileen worked as a Chinese instructor. While pregnant with their second child, the family moved to Los Angeles for Aileen’s husband’s career. Through Radio Korea, she later found work in a restaurant whose owner was also Korean Chinese; here, too, her fluency in Chinese, Korean, and English proved useful in working the front of house. Although she wasn’t aware of it at first, she came to find a sizable Korean Chinese community in Los Angeles, and takes pride in her identity. She relates to her children in understanding what it’s like to grow up Korean in a non-Korean-majority environment, and just as she held onto her heritage through the Korean language, she hopes for her children to continue using it as well.
