Immigration has been a major issue with few avenues of hope for the 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. In light of President Obama’s recent announcement on reform plans, it has come a step closer to the forefront of national attention.

A temporary resolution for an ongoing demand has been reached. The question no longer seems to be about whether the millions of undocumented individuals residing in the U.S. will be shielded from deportation, as much as it is a matter of how soon.

A short story by Paul Cook.

A Chicano family with a gang history of slanging drugs and robbing houses moved in next to the Korean house. They wanted their smallest house on the block to mean something. The Korean mother said that their house was inhabited, though, by evil demons. The previous owner, a middle-aged-lady of the house, had a heart attack and asked her sons to call nine-one-one. Instead, they allegedly left and played basketball. When the teenagers came back, their mother was already dead and cold.

This has been the week of Loud Asians in the News. First, Suey Park’s Twitter hashtag #NotYourAsianSidekick, posted this past Sunday, went viral so quickly that the London Guardian boldly declared it the rallying cry of a “civil rights” movement. On Monday, college student Eldo Kim emailed a bomb threat that shut down half of Harvard University campus and made the national news. On Wednesday, Han-sol Kim was placed under police protection. A student at a prestigious university in France, he is on record calling his uncle “a dictator.” That uncle, Jong-un Kim – or, if you will, Kim Jong-un — just executed another close family member for being a traitor.

“What do you think about Korean reunification?”  The question came out of the blue. I was taping a Radio Free Asia interview about my just-released 2006 book, The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea. I had no idea what the correct response was. Having been told that the broadcast could be heard in the DPRK, I mumbled something generic about Koreans all being one people.

Dangerous, isolated, and repressive. Growing up in Seoul and later in Portland, these were the words I was used to hearing about north Korea (or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea –DPRK) from my parents, media, and my peers. The image of north Korea was portrayed as being vastly different from south Korea (or the Republic of Korea –ROK). Due to this stark contrast between the two nations, I wanted to understand north Korea beyond the dominant narrative perpetuated by the US and the ROK. Furthermore, I wanted to know what was important enough to divide a nation and separate families for over 60 years. Like many Koreans, my family members were separated from each other and their hometowns after Korea was divided. I was not satisfied with an explanation that blamed north Korea’s “communism” as the reason for this division and absolved south Korea of any responsibility. There had to be more to this story.

When my father was a young American soldier stationed in reconstruction era Japan, he and his sweetheart back home exchanged letters describing their shared dream, “to see the happiness of people who have found, for the first time, perhaps, a doctor who will help them even if they’re poor.”

“My ideas were turned toward medical missionary work way back, long before I could ever judge the idea rationally,” my father wrote to my mother. “The urge behind it… was a desire to feel needed… I’d get very little excitement out of a city doctor’s life… It’s the combination of medicine and being needed that made up my main interest for the idea!”

No matter how conspicuously present, mental illness in Korean American families is nearly always held in secrecy, often under a cloud of denial and shame.

“It would have been so much easier for my sister if we were able to speak openly about her schizophrenia and bipolar disorder,” said John Lee, not his real name, who occasionally helps his sister Jane, not her real name, who had her first episode of serious mental illness 25 years ago. His family and Jane, a medical doctor, chose not to reveal her schizophrenia to her husband before marriage, John said, citing taboo around schizophrenia as a reason. Jane’s husband did know that she had bipolar disorder because he saw her taking lithium on a regular basis. Even among Korean Americans who are educated to view health medically, mental illness is not discussed with the same level of candor one might speak about cancer, heart disease or diabetes.

Only about 12% of Asian Americans compared to 25% of Euro-Americans would disclose their mental illness to a friend or family member, according to studies cited in the 2001 Mental Health Supplement of the Surgeon General’s Report. Not surprisingly, Asian Americans are less likely than other ethnic groups to seek professional help for mental health issues and frequently confront cultural and linguistic barriers in finding professional help.

I recently had the wonderful opportunity to read the book “0 Hour”, an autobiography written in Korean by Mr. Ki-Chang Kim (b. 1917).  The book retells a captivating story of his experiences through much of the dominant events of 20^th century Korea and later immigration to the U.S.  The following is a summary introduction and translation of three portions of the book.

The immigration story of Mr. Kim and his family is itself remarkable, though in certain aspects perhaps familiar.  But it is his entire life story that is absolutely compelling and, it seemed to me, too important not to be told.  Among other things, his story made me reflect how many immigrants to the U.S. must have had such extraordinary experiences and how those personal backgrounds must have played a role in shaping the American experience not only for themselves and their families but the communities around them.

The story begins in 1945 in the area of Mokdan River (Mandarin: Mudanjiang), a city in Northeast China where a Korean diaspora community had formed during the Japanese occupation.  Following the end of the Japanese occupation, Mr. Kim helps to organize a police force of the Korean community.  When the Chinese People’s Army takes over the area, the police force is reorganized as a unit of the Chinese army and Mr. Kim becomes the leader of that battalion.  As persecution of Christians increase in the area, he puts in action an incredible plan to relocate to Korea with several families in the church.  I don’t want to give away the entire story (since I hope one day someone will translate the entire book), but with movement across the Korea-China border restricted, he is able to transport their savings in the form of hundreds of bushels of grain and beans to northern Korea.  There he trades the goods, keeps a promise with Chinese army officials by sending military supplies back to China (with a note that he will follow later), then journeys on to southern Korea with his family and 700 sacks of fertilizer.

Chapters 7 and 35 of the book, which I have translated below, are toward the beginning and end of this first portion of Mr. Kim’s story.

The later part of the book recounts his experiences in South Korea–the Korean War and his escape from almost certain death after interrogation by North Korean command, his printing business and fortuitous experience with dry cleaning.  The final three chapters, roughly half of which is translated below, describe his immigration to the U.S.

Expressions of Mr. Kim’s Christian faith are interspersed throughout the book.  Fellow believers may see how God worked in his life through his faith.  I think others will still see a man whose faith moved him and allowed him to carry on through seemingly impossible situations.  – Hoon Lee