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A Summary of “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” by Kim

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A Summary of “Facing poverty with a rich girl’s habits” by Kim
Strayer University

English Composition
April 17, 2016 A Summary of “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” by Kim This is a brief summary of Suki Kim’s essay, “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits” in which she reveals how she came from riches to rags. Beginning with how she grew up in an ugly house in Queens, New York in the 80’s, which was clearly a downgrade from the mansion in which she stayed in up until the seventh grade. This was quite a shock to her considering her father was millionaire and lost his fortune literally overnight. Her father’s business had gone bankrupt and since this was an offense punishable by jail, she and her father packed up and fled to America. They came to America nearly penniless and while doing so still managed to secure a residence from another Korean family at the aforementioned ugly house in Queens. Even this posed quite the challenge since this was far from the chauffeured life that she was accustomed. From taking public transportation for the first time, to attending class in America for the first time she was in for quite the shock. She did not know any English and as a matter of fact her first word was F.O.B which was an acronym for “fresh off the boat”. She also had to come to grips with the fact that she was now being called Asian. This was not a term that she was used to being called. The fact that she was considered yellow due to the color of her skin had never crossed her mind before and she considered this term to be quite offensive. Unlike in Korea where they showed teachers the utmost respect she soon realized that in America teachers did not receive the same degree of respect. She speaks about how in class in America while the teacher is taking roll another boy and girl in the front row were

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