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Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl's Habits

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Submitted By envyn2d
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“Facing poverty with a rich girl’s habits” by Suki Kim, this essay was about a young lady who moved from South Korea to the United States. She is trying to transition her life from being wealthy to poor, being raised on a “hilltop mansion with an orchard and a pond and peacocks” to a “two-family brownstone in Woodside” which was owned by family friends. Her world came crashing down when her father went bankrupt, in their country that is punishable by jail time, so Kim and her family fled to America penniless. Unfortunately, this move was very hard due to the fact that her and her family were used to living a catered life with chauffeurs and butlers. After arriving they ended up with a Korean family in Harlem NY. Life of poverty was not so easy being classified as “f.o.b, (fresh off the boat)” knowing little English was hard to communicate and make friends. When it came to school it was strange having to take public transportation and doing homework without governess. In America Kim says the students were very ‘disrespectful in the eyes of Korean schools “were they were taught to bow to a teacher.” In America students did not really pay the teachers any mind and in the “ghetto” were they did search and police guarded doors. In her ESL (English as second language) class there was more peace were she could actually be with others like herself speaking and acting in their culture. But easily found out that they “had nothing in common” due to the “hierarchy of Korea’s class that dictates on education and family status.” She learned that being a teenager coming from Korea and knows being in America you were classified as “1.5 generation”. This was a common ground between second generation Korean Americans an first generation which merely used “minimal English traps”.
The tone of this story is informative to help others like her out. Once they arrived it was not easy but there are some good points to merging what you know to what you will learn. For example “hip hop to usher, Korean karaoke”, were getting to celebrate your own holidays a well as the American ones. The emotional response to this essay is when But at the worst moment in American history I ran into an old friend from the neighborhood, who was looking for his brother” working on the 93rd floor when the first plane crashed into the tower.”

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