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Second-generation Korean Americans, demonstrating an unparalleled entrepreneurial fervor, are establishing new churches with a goal of shaping the future of American Christianity.

A Faith of Our Own investigates the development and growth of these houses of worship, a recent and rapidly increasing phenomenon in major cities throughout the United States.



Immigration historians have depicted the second-generation as a transitional generation--on the steady march toward the inevitable decline of ethnic identity and allegiance. Sharon Kim suggests an alternative path. By harnessing religion and innovatively creating hybrid religious institutions, second-generation Korean Americans are assertively defining and shaping their own ethnic and religious futures. Rather than assimilating into mainstream American evangelical churches or inheriting the churches of their immigrant parents, second-generation pastors are creating their own hybrid third space--new autonomous churches that are shaped by multiple frames of reference.



Including data gathered over ten years at twenty-two churches, A Faith of Our Own is the most comprehensive study of this topic that addresses generational, identity, political, racial, and empowerment issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

An Insightful Look
As a Korean American Christian, I found this book both eye opening and hope-giving. It gave me a better understanding of why in my college years, I left my parent's immigrant church to start attending a newly formed church.I don't think any of us knew what to call it at that time but it was a church that attracted many 2nd generation Korean Americans as well as other Asian Americans. It felt different from both the American evangelical churches I had sporadically attended and the Korean American churches that I was used to growing up.Dr. Kim's book provides an insightful understanding to the emergence of these 2nd generation Korean American churches. She also aptly describes the desire for Korean American Christians to fashion a unique "faith of their own".As Dr. Kim states in her book, "...they yearn to emulate the strengths and avoid the weaknesses of both American evangelicals and Korean American Protestants."I highly recommend this book!

Refreshing and challenging
As a Korean American Christian, my spiritual journey started in the Sunday school of a predominantly Caucasian community church, then to a small immigrant church, a second generation Korean American church, and finally to my home church.To read Dr. Kim's book was extremely refreshing and healing because it placed in text my own fragmented memories of my experiences and feelings.I found myself nodding in wholehearted agreement and sometime laughing out loud.Thank you for this book. ... Read more

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The first biography of an American-born Korean woman, "Doing What Had to Be Done" is, on the surface, the life story of Dora Yum Kim. But telling more than one woman's story, author Soo-Young Chin offers more than an unusual glimpse at the shaping of a remarkable community activist. In addition as she questions her subject, introduces each chapter, and reflects on how Dora's story relates to her own experience as a Korean-American who immigrated to this country as an adult she carves around Dora's compelling and courageous life story, a story of her own and one of all Korean-Americans. Born in 1921, Dora, as she tells Chin her story, chronicles the shifting salience of gendered ethnic identity as she journeys through her life. Traveling through time and place, she moves from San Francisco's Chinatown where Koreans were a minority within a minority to suburban Dewey Boulevard where Dora and her family attempt to integrate into mainstream America and where she becomes a social worker in the California State Department of Employment. As the Korean immigrant community grows in the late 1960s, Dora becomes deeply involved in community service.She remembers teaching English to senior citizens and preparing them for their naturalization exams, finding jobs for the younger Koreans, and founding a community center and meals program for seniors. A detailed and inspiring lens through which to view Korean-American history, Dora's life journey echoes the changing spaces of the American social landscape. The grace and ease with which Dora just 'does what has to be done' shows us the importance of everyday acts in making a difference. Soo-Young Chin is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian-American Studies at the University of Southern California. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

2 stars out of 5
I'm in the mist of a Korean-American book craze and was excited when I came across this book since I too am a Korean female. Unfortunetly I was disappointed with this book because I was expecting to read a narrative story rather than transcripts of several interviews focusing on Dora Yum Kim's experience as a volunteer and a social activist for the Korean immigrant community. If you're expecting to read about her personal experience as one of the very first American born Koreans in the early 1900s.. you might be disappointed. Its sort of interesting though because she sounds like a compassionate, tolerant non-Korean American. I was also quite annoyed with the author and her Jerry Springer like "final thoughts" at the end of each chapter, it just didn't seem like it belonged there, just wasted pages. I'm not going to give up though, my next read will be Quiet Odyssey by Mary Paik Lee. ... Read more

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This comparative study of the Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese American communities in Philadelphia shows that each Asian American community maintains its own internal cultural boundaries, which are used to cultivate differences that become institutionalized over time. Socially constructed boundaries, such as ethnicity, gender, class and generation, intersect within and among ethnic groups.Based on a social anthropological framework, this study describes the mechanism of ethnic and class identity formations, and shows how identities are institutionalized through various organizations.By unraveling the complexity of Asian American communities and their boundary strategies, this study provides a look at the new political processes which Asian Americans are creating in a variety of social settings.
(Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1994; revised with new preface, introduction) ... Read more

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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.) ... Read more

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More than 36,000 American servicemen died in combat or by other causes during the Korean War. As terrible as this figure is, it pales in comparison with the war’s nearly two million civilian deaths. And the South Korean armed forces, whose soldiers were drawn from a male population half the size of the Union’s in the American Civil War, suffered more combat deaths than the Union army. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

All Must Have Prizes
Dodo in ALICE declared "everybody has won and all must have prizes." War in Korea had many victims but no objective. The country was ravaged by Americans, Chinese, Russians, and Dutch as well as Koreans. Author Millett tries to be fair; the perspective seems to be that of a missionary, not giving offense. Soldiers did their duty quietly; Russians were told to be furtive - don't get caught doing anything.

Millett admires Koreans but does not say much about them.Seoul today ranks #1 in cell phones and controls more US bonds than Washington would like, but when I was there (I was drafted) farm people didn't have shoes.China today copies Korean fasion.Korean techology arose fromgenius, hard work and patience. Korean captive workers died in Hiroshima and rose above a century of Japanese abuse.Koreans in America are models of thrift and enterprise.

American should study Korea, but this book is not a start. All we have here is a story of a war America had no business starting or prolonging - not our only such dishonor.In a couple of places MIllett tries to honor Americans who have waited too long for respect.

Wallace F. Smith, Walnut Creek

A Making of a New Perspective on the Korean War
It's cliche to call the Korean War "forgotten" in the United States.More accurately, it is misunderstood, and has been in the west for over fifty years.For the Koreans, the results of the war war are daily in front of them: not least in the continued division of the peninsula.English speaking readers need to understand the central fact that the Korean war was fought by Koreans for the destiny of Korea.

Millett's groundbreaking effort brings this persepective into sharp focus.He calls the Korean war a "total" war (quoting Korean vets) and his first 14 thumbnail-sketch chapters bear out this interpretation.In terms of concentrated destruction in both time and space, Korea was as brutal a war as they come.Not much "limited" about it.

The book itself is divided into three sections, entitled "the Koreans", "the Allies", and "the Americans".Chronologically, it defines the conflict as beginning shortly after Liberation, 15 August 1945 and it finishes with a chapter on the man who first signed the Armistice documents for the United Nations Command.Millett's emphasis on oral history combined with impressive documentary research makes this book required reading to understand the war beyond the limits of operations, strategy, or diplomatic policies.The human face of war is poignantly and sympathetically presented.There are heros, cowards, soldiers, civilians, men, and women in this great drama of conflict, ideology, and destiny.

Their War for Korea promises to be the first of three volumes that will redefine the western view of the Korean War. ... Read more

Product Description
Korean-Americans: Past, Present, and Future is a limited-edition publication commemorating the first 100 years of Korean immigration. From its account of the rich history of Korean immigration to the United States, to providing current sociological research on such issues as the interplay of family dynamics and gender roles in Korean-owned businesses or the role and function of religious communities in the discovery of the Korean identity, this work presents a panoramic tour of a people desiring to belong within the American milieu while retaining the heritage and values of a homeland they left. In the end, a compelling vision is made for an active engagement of all Koreans and Korean-Americans into the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States that does not negotiate one's tradition and self-identity, but one which enriches them and inspires others to join in the enterprise. By charting the history and lessons of Korean immigration, the contributors uncover the values and spirit of Korean immigrants and how the struggle to survive and thrive, then and now, is reinterpreted by each succeeding generation. Included in this book is a section of prize-winning essays submitted by Korean-American college students concerning topics including acculturation and the role of Korean-Americans in politics. This book was commissioned by the Centennial Committee of Korean Immigration to the United States-Greater New York, and edited by Dr. Ilpyong Kim, Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Political Science, University of Connecticut, Storrs, and President (1996-2000) of the International Council on Korean Studies (ICKS). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Essentials on Korean Americans
This volume is a publication commemorating the first 100 years of Korean immigration.From its account of the rich history of Korean immigration to the United States, to providing current sociological research on such issues as the interplay of family dynamics and gender roles in Korean-owned businesses or the role and function of religious communities in the discovery of the Korean identity, this work presents a panoramic tour of a people desiring to belong within the American milieu while retaining the heritage and values of a homeland they left.In the end, a compelling vision is made for an active engagement of all Koreans and Korean-Americans into the social, political, cultural, and economic life of the United States that does not negotiate one's tradition and self-identity, but one which enriches them and inspires others to join in the enterprise. By charting the history and lessons of Korean immigration, the contributors uncover the values and spirit of Korean immigrants and how the struggle to survive and thrive, then and now, is reinterpreted by each succeeding generation.Included in this book is a section of prize-winning essays submitted by Korean-American college students concerning topics including acculturation and the role of Korean-Americans in politics. ... Read more

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"I am more American than Korean in my mind," writes K. Connie Kang, "but am more Korean than American in my soul. As for my heart, it is split in half." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

So-so mix of history and memoir
Americans know so little of the world, and I'm no exception. That's why I was willing to give this book plenty of time to draw me in. I had just read a National Geographic article about North Koreans and their escape routes to freedom today (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/02/north-korea/oneill-text), so I was ready to hear more.

This writer's style is a tough slog, though. It is so very dry. Ms. Kang is clearly passionate about her family's story and her country's story, yet it comes across as a history lesson on the page. Perhaps it's her naturally reticent nature, or perhaps the nature of the material itself. You do get bogged down in the politics and the players. She might have done better to give just an overview of Korean history. In mixing her family's story with that of her country, she often violates the cardinal rule of journalism, which is to show and not tell.

To preserve the emotional power of the story, I would suggest you skip her prologue. It is pretty much a chronological outline of her life. It hits the highlights of her family's tragic struggle for survival, so when you return to each individual episode in the course of the narrative, you've already been there and spent your emotional energy.

But by persevering to the end, I did get to the most rewarding part of the book. Because of her upbringing in three countries, Ms. Kang concludes that she never feels entirely at home anywhere. Her itinerant life and her broken relationships attest to her unsettledness. Because her intellect bloomed in the West, "I am more American than Korean in my mind," she says. But because she was brought up in the East, she realizes that "I am more Korean than American in my soul." It's a split she may never be able to reconcile.

a wonderful book!
I received this book as a gift when it first came out. The author even signed it. I was riveted and could not put the book down. I was in high school at the time. I enjoyed this book and it spoke to me so much about my homeland. She writes welland effortlessly. She does a great job of painting pictures with her words and really carrying the reader along with her in each thing she saw, felt and experienced.

inspiring and insightful
It took me months to track down a copy of Connie's book, but it was well worth it. Growing up as a second generation Korean American interested in becoming a journalist, I knew of very few Korean and Asian American journalists, especially women. I found Kang's memoir inspiring, detailed and well written. I read the book in one sitting because I couldn't put it down. There were so many moments in the story that I felt like she was talking directly to me. Even if you're not Asian American, the story is universal and explores the questions of identity, understanding, and growing up.

A very well written journey
This is basically an autobiography of Connie's life.Very well written and insightful at times.She can look at Korean culture from both within and without.Overall, I'd recommend it.

dry
It was difficult to finish reading this book. It's very boring, mainly because the writer seems so reluctant to reveal herself and her feelings.For example, she falls madly in love with her husband and suddenly they aredivorced. Why she would write a memoir is hard to figure out. Since she isinterested in a particular period of Korean history, she should havewritten a journalistic history book. ... Read more

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"Singing the Lord’s Song in a New Land" is one of the first books to address ministry in Korean American contexts and the first from the highly-regarded Valparaiso Project to explore how faith practices work differently in a racial ethnic community. The groundbreaking work identifies eight key practices of the Korean American culture: keeping the day, singing, fervent prayer, resourcing the life cycle, bearing wisdom, living as an oppressed minority, fasting, and nurturing. ... Read more

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Koreans first began to immigrate to Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. Drawn to the Windy City in search of a better life for themselves and their families, Korean Americans quickly began to establish what has become a thriving community that remains active and distinct. For the past 100 years, the Korean American community has contributed greatly to the growth and development of the Chicago metropolitan areaópolitically, culturally, and socially. In this book Korean Americans in Chicago celebrate these contributions with over 200 photographs that detail the various aspects of life within the community. ÝÝ ... Read more

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A Korean-American child talks about aspects of her Korean heritage, including clothing, foods, and customs. ... Read more

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Perhaps more than any other East Asian country, Korea adheres to the traditional collectivist and Confucian traits of harmony, hierarchy, status and proper behavior. In Learning to Think Korean: A Guide to LIving and Working in Korea, Robert Kohls demystifies Korean culture for people who encounter it in business and in everyday life. The book explores Korean modes of thinking and behaviors in juxtaposition to American society.Learning to Think Korean discusses the cultural patterns and practices of the workplace and goes beyond business interaction as the book explores Korea's culture of private life, providing notes on proper etiquette in non-business settings and Korean history and social customs. Understanding the complex tapestry of influences, tradition and deep cultural values inherent in Korean society is essential to effective and mutually rewarding intercultural communication. Bob Kohls' book, Learning to Think Korean, is ostensibly written for the American businessman who plans to go to Korea and engage in a business relationship with corporations there. My reading of the book leads me to suggest that it is a good 'read' for anyone who would try to understand the disjuncture between our expectations of our Korean neighbors and their behavior, whether in Korea or in the United States. This goes for the American teacher with Korean students in the classroom and for the members of other minority populations in Los Angeles and elsewhere who find it difficult to understand their Korean neighbors. The book should also be read by Koreans in the United States who don't quite understand why others, not of their culture, are upset with them or why other Americans look askance at their behavior. The book is a very useful contribution to cross cultural understanding between Korea and the United States. -George F. Drake, KWV, Coordinator Korean War Children's Memorial Bellingham Robert Kohls' book is impressive in its depth of understanding of the ways [in] which cultural differences affect behavior, the ways in which we really are not all alike underneath.-Horace H. Underwood, Executive Director Korean-American Educational Commission, Seoul ContentsForeword: My Love Affair with KoreaAcknowledgments1 Some Facts about Korea2 Critical Incidents3 Influences of Asian Religious and Ethical Systems4 Korean Values- Then and Now5 Barriers to Thinking Korean6 Korea: People-Oriented and Group-Centered7 Status and Behavior8 Relationships: Ingroups and Outgroups9 Paths to Success, Korean Style10 Negotiating with Koreans11 Managing a Korean Office12 Personnel Issues13 Challenges Facing KoreaAfterwordAppendix A: Korean ChronologyAppendix B: Traditional SymbolsAppendix C: Traditional Social CustomsAppendix D: Aspects of Korean Culture Worth ExploringAppendix E: Aspects of American Culture Worth Explaining to KoreansBibliographyAbout the Author ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Korean Cohesion
A useful book but he could give us much more about the group activities there such as the incredible networks of alumni associations, incessant reunions and the national love of gossip.

Easy to read, informative text
This book was very easy to read and really described the differences between the American and Korean cultures well.While I'm not there yet to verify the info, it gave me a good basis to understand what I'm likely to encounter.I plan to bring this book with me to Korea and refer to it often.I will share it with others and highly recommend it to anyone headed to Korea.

A Superb Guide to How to be Effective in Korea
As a Korean-American, I have read many books on Korea--ranging from North-South relations to tourism. But I found this book the most relavent, applicable, and practical to non-native Koreans who need to worke and live in Korea. The book provides non-Koreans with step-by-step guide to everyday situations they will face in the "hermit kingdom," such as how Koreans think about themselves and foreigners and how to manage a Korean office of an American firm. I enjoyed the book with many "aha moments." I believe this book is a superb tool for any none-Koreans who seek to be effecitve in every day life in Korea. ... Read more

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From a hospital bed a dying man unfolds the tale of an arduous life on the fringes of a Hawai'i sugar plantation in the 1920s. There Kim Sung Wha -- laborer, patriot, revolutionary, aviator -- envisioned building an airplane from ricepaper, bamboo, and the scrap parts of a broken-down bicycle, an airplane that would carry him back to his Korean homeland and to his wife and children. From the start Sung Wha's dream is destined to fail, but this moving and passionate work is the story of a man who dares to life past the wreckage of shattered visions. His is a heroic story of loss, of deep love, and of rebirth. ... Read more

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An examination of escalating conflicts between Blacks and Koreans in American cities. It focuses on the Flatbush Boycott of 1990, led by Black and Haitian activists against Korean-owned produce stores in Brooklyn. Claire Jean Kim rejects conventional wisdom that Black-Korean conflict constitutes racial scapegoating and argues instead that it is a response to white dominance in American society. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

This is a ground breaking book
Bitter Fruit:The Politics of Black Korean Conflict, is painstakingly researched.Claire Jean Kim eschews bias and received ideas of racial identity in the United States.Her prose is clear as a bell.Her analysis offers keen insight into political discourse, the role of the media, and identity politics in the United States.A step forward in the struggle to achieve clear thinking on issues of racial justice in the United States.

Good view of how Korean-Americans see themselves and others
I have read some of the theories surrounding post-colonialism, identity and the like, but this book stuck me as something different.Claire Kim refuses to be draw into the binary mode of thinking surrounding identity (specifically racial identity) whilst clearing a path with her clearly defined view of racial conflict in America as part of of a wider culture and psychological war in modern society.For many Korean immigrants to go to America to fullfill their 'dream' this experience of race, identity and politics is a new cultural experience.However, maintaining the status-quo is easier than rocking-the-boat - thus the conflict begins with the other cultural groups contesting the space for their 'dream'.Her style is open and concise, which makes this a great book for those who don't know anything about identity and culture.In summary, I am very pleased with this book which I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in the source of these news stories from the 1990's in America.I would especially recommend this book for Korean-American's as well. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (6)

We Are Not Alone
This book is a very fast read, maybe because I was so familiar with the stories already- as they echoed my own.This book should be mandatory reading for any adoptive parent that is adopting from a foreign country and for teenage adoptees so they understand they are not alone.While their story is of course, personal, it is also shared with millions of other adoptees struggling to find out where they fit in, in this wonderful country.

The writings are in essay form and they aren't always the most well-written, but the story is easily understood.

Highly recommend.

Book
The item arrived on time and was in good condition. I look forward to reading the stories of the Korean Adoptees soon.

Highly recommended (by a psychotherapist)
As a psychotherapist I have had the good fortune to learn a great deal about the journey toward identity by adoptees. I have worked with clients who themselves were adopted and with clients who are raising an adopted child. I also have friends and family members in both categories.

Yet in reading this book I found myself learning about a whole new layer of nuance and complexity. I found it a very interesting, and easy, read.

I gave a copy of this book to my 18-year old nephew, an adoptee from South America, who looks like a Hispanic immigrant.Growing up he struggled when well meaning strangersaddressed him in Spanish. He seemed pleased to get this book.

I highly recommend Marilyn's book to anyone who cares for or about someone adopted or adopting from a different culture.

Highly recommended!
As the grandparent of a young grand-daughter adopted a year ago from China, I found this book to be highly informative, and have passed it on to my daughter and her husband.The book brings home, through the poignant words of the adoptees and the sensitive treatment of the authors how important it is for families adopting from other cultures to expose their adopted child to the culture of origin and to encourage the child to explore his/her origins, even if the biological parents cannot be identified.I highly recommend it to prospective parents who are considering cross-cultural adoptions as well as to the current parents of such children.

Heartwarming and Informative
I had the opportunity to read this book while I was on a small vacation. When I began I didn't know that what was I was going to read was Korean adoptees' stories in their own words.I could not wait to read each one as to experience the differences within their particular story and the similarity that Korean adoptees experienced.I thoroughly enjoyed it.The stories were heartwarming, even in all the sadness and struggles they expressed.I saw in them courage and growth and understood in ways I couldn't have before reading the book what being adopted within another country, another culture can create for the one adopted. I read this book with the heart of a human being meeting the hearts of other human beings in their journeys. I also read it with the eyes of a psychotherapist who has worked with adoptees in their struggles, but to have the added insight about the cross cultured adoptees was enlightening and informative.
... Read more

Product Description
This book is published to commemorate the centennial of the first landing of Korean immigrants in America in 1903.

An anthology of poems, essays and short stories by thirty-seven Korean-American writers, Surfacing Sadness is the first serious effort to bring together the Korean-American literary experiences to join mainstream American literature.

The book primarily contains translations of Korean-American literary works, although some poems and short stories were originally published in English. In the book, readers will find the Korean-American literary voice that has many nuances--sorrow, nostalgia, pathos, anger, frustration, and, of course, hope and desire.

Writers whose works are included in this anthology cannot distance themselves from their mother tongue or the culture that has shaped their craft. Despite the fact that language barrier has by and large hampered the majority of Korean-American immigrant authors to write their works in English--therefore, making it difficult for them to enter the mainstream American literary scene--their literary voices deserve to be heard, and their art deserves to be recognized.

All that does not glitter may be gold. ... Read more

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Discusses the history of Korean immigration to the United States, primarily in the twentieth century, and the customs and conditions of Korean Americans, as well as the operation of businesses by Korean immigrants. ... Read more

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"This pioneer study on the emergence of Korean American and Asian American Evangelicals on college campuses makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the complex processes of ethnic formation, identity work, and religions participation. . . .A must-read for students of immigration and religion and an indispensable sourcebook for ministers, pastors, and other church leaders who wrestle with questions of diversity and ministry among immigrants and their offspring at the turn of the twenty-first century."
—Min Zhou, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Los Angeles

In the past twenty years, many traditionally white campus religious groups have become Asian American. Today there are more than fifty evangelical Christian groups at UC Berkeley and UCLA alone, and 80% of their members are Asian American. At Harvard, Asian Americans constitute 70% of the Harvard Radcliffe Christian Fellowship, while at Yale, Campus Crusade for Christ is now 90% Asian. Stanford's Intervarsity Christian Fellowship has become almost entirely Asian.

There has been little research, or even acknowledgment, of this striking development.

God's New Whiz Kids? focuses on second-generation Korean Americans, who make up the majority of Asian American evangelicals, and explores the factors that lead college-bound Korean American evangelicals—from integrated, mixed race neighborhoods—to create racially segregated religious communities on campus. Kim illuminates an emergent "made in the U.S.A." ethnicity to help explain this trend, and to shed light on a group that may be changing the face of American evangelicalism.

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Customer Reviews (6)

A first generation Korean-American family in the 1970s and 80s
An outstanding addition to Scholastic's excellent First Person Fiction series, Finding My Hat, tells the story of the Parks, a first generation Korean-American family, in the 1970s and 80s. Told in vignettes from the point of view the eldest child and only son, the story, traces Jin-Han's life from his first memories at the age of two to his mother's death when he is a teenager. Jin-Han and his family move from Chicago to Memphis to Houston as the family struggles to find a place for themselves in America and Jin-Han struggles to find his own identity, "his hat," from among his Korean traditions,his American attitudes, and his own special gifts. The vignettes are often hilarious, as when pre-school Jin-Han wets his pants, or pre-teen Jin-Han discovers girls, while the incident recalling Jin-Han's mother's tragic illness and death is poignant and moving.This engrossing novel captures the universal aspects of Jin-Han's coming of age, as well as, the experiences of an immigrant family adjusting to life in the United States. A valuable feature of the series is an afterword in which the writer describes his or her own experiences of immigrating to the United States. The reading level and subject matter make this book appropriate for seventh through ninth grade and TESOL students. It would work well as reading for social studies and English in studies of culture, immigration, point of view, character development, and style.

Awesome book
The book was short, i had to read only a little bit at a time to make it last. i fell in love the mom and dad, they were so hard working and their love for each other and their children was so beautiful and pure. The language is simple and nostalgic, set in the 70's and 80's chronicling a young Korean American boy's youth. I would highly recommend this book to anyone!!!

The Korean Experience.
I read the paperback version of this book.It was written in simple text but yet it was very compelling.Being adopted from Korea, I thought at some points in life that living with Korean parents would be better.But after reading this book,I realized, at least I didn't have the cultural differences to go along with being a person of color.
I would recommend this book for other kids/adults that were adopted from Korea.Because it gives you insight on the way we might have grown up if we were living with our natural parents.And it fills in some of those missing blanks that all of us have.

A wonderful story.
One of Jin-Han Park's first memories is of the time he lost a hat that his mother had knitted for him. The wind carried it off and somehow, though he has worn many hats since then, he remembers that particular one best of all. Perhaps it is because his mother can no longer knit him a new hat.

We follow Jin-Han's memories from the time he lost his hat to when he lost his mother. These two points of reference are tied together for Jin-Han, connected forever in his heart. But there are some wonderful stories that lie between them. We can enjoy hearing about class photograph day when Jin-Han was in kindergarten, his first kiss, what it was like to become a big brother, and the many other times he shared with his family and friends.

Author John Son has created a collection of stories that will make you smile. It will also make you stop and think about the life of immigrants and the many hardships they have to face. There are so many things that need to be learned and understood. Jin-Han and his family undoubtedly must have felt isolated at times, like a small island in the vast sea of American life. We also see how the second generation can become separated from the first. Jin-Han wants to be as American as his friends are, while his parents still hold on to the Korean ways. As we watch Jin-Han grow up, we can see the divide between the parents and the boy widen; it is both interesting and sad to watch.

John Son involves us in the life of his Korean family and proves he can tell a wonderful story.

--- Reviewed by Marya Jansen-Gruber (mjansengruber@mindspring.com)

Starred Review, Publisher's Weekly
Son's debut novel, an entry in the First Person Fiction series, is a tender quasi-memoir detailing his childhood in a Korean immigrant family, trying to find his place in a new and unfamiliar world. Jin-Han's father is in love with American opportunity and is determined to own his own business. He purchases a wig shop, which takes them from Chicago to Memphis to Houston, where they are at last successful. Along the way, Jin-Han experiences the usual pains of adolescence fitting in, understanding the opposite sex but with the added challenge of an unusual name, language and appearance. Son's language is at times startling with its simple elegance: Jin-Han's first kiss makes his insides feel "like a beehive on a warm, sunny afternoon," and his depiction of a dance party at a friend's house, in which the kids keep playing the same slow dance over and over, captures the essence of sweet teenage romanticism. The family dynamic is strong; Jin-Han's parents emerge as robust and complex individuals. Jin-Han ultimately emerges as his own man, a product of his family ties but not prisoner to them. The book liberally uses Korean words and phrases Jin-Han's mother is his Uhmmah, his father his Ahpbah and includes a brief glossary, which adds another pinch of flavor to an already inviting and warm story. Ages 11-15. (Oct.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information. ... Read more

Product Description
Fragrance of Poetry contains seventy-five poems by fifteen Korean-American poets. These poets are all first-generation immigrants from Korea whose primary language is Korean. Naturally, the poems in this book show the Korean immigrants' solitude, nostalgia, pathos, anger, laughter, and love. They are cross-cultural communications from Korea to America, with the themes of longing and displacement in the two cultures.

This book aims to serve as a rainbow bridging the Koreans to the Americans, the first-generation Koreans to the second and the third-generation Koreans, and the Koreans in Korea to the Koreans in America. The poems in the book can be pearls in the mud or fragrant flowers in the wilderness. Fragrance of Poetry, the heart of Korean-American literature, is a metaphor that maps the terrain of humanity. ... Read more