(soothing music)
- My name is Katheryn Kim
and my maiden name is Cho Kilja.
I was born, 1940, at the Gyeongju City in South Korea.
I am number seven of the nine children my parents had.
So I have four brothers and four sisters.
My family is in Korea.
You say, Yangban sang nong?
Yangban.
Yangban is a nobility or something like that.
My parents and then all my family are very strict.
So like even until now I married arrange married.
When I come home, I have to be early Korean -
because match makers, they keep coming our house, you know?
But somehow my father is already bright
and you know like Americanized little bit.
Among all nobility people,
he's understanding lot of things.
At that time my age,
you know, like a lot of them who send to the college,
they graduate high school and then they married, you know?
And then so my father sent my sisters and me, we all.
He was very, he thinks somehow
even the course they have to go college in study.
And then I had so many arranged marriage,
people came but my father told
she has the collegiate college.
So as soon as I graduated college
and then they start came.
My father was much better,
my brother was more strict, you know.
He graduated university but they wouldn't send me.
So because I am a girl
that's why I went to the Yeonsung University.
It's called school.
Even there's only two pharmacology and then one is Coed
one is course I went to the Catholic college.
When you are in pharmacology
you have the lab working all the time.
And then sometimes it doesn't come out right.
Sometimes you made the mistake, you have to do it again.
When some goes about, you know,
I'm so worried about, you know,
my brother will say something like,
he thinks I'm so naive.
so that's why he want to marry right away.
That's what it was, you know?
So I didn't like her, you know, my parents and you know
my family said that you have to marry, you know,
I gave my mother hard the time sometimes, you know,
like they come and see me, like your mother or brother,
she said know something to me.
Come see me.
I just, my mother said
where she wash your face and then put on your clothes.
I just don't do anything
because I don't wanna marry, you know.
So I don't be, that's the only one I disobeyed.
I was blown away and my mother was following me
and then I hided, and then she,
I dunno what to do
and she cried as I came out and, and then I see him.
I thought to going to, I'm not going to marry, you know,
When we see each other at the we go to coffee shop,
something cafe like that.
And then we will start to talking
and then he's very knowledgeable from the like China
from the sangochi to everything.
But I read the book a lot when I was in high school.
So we had a very good conversation
and he was very knowledgeable, you know, so I like that.
And then I can trust him.
He's very humble when I look at it,
I and my husband was talking about all those journals,
you know, the books and then everything.
And then I look at the time it was a two hour, you know
so when I come home my,
this is a nearly nobody knows this kind of story, you know,
my father also came out to the street, you know
our house was very big.
And then also street in the meeting for me.
And then he asked me, what do you think?
And I said, I think he's very, very humble.
He's very good.
And then, oh, he's very, you know, like knowledgeable.
Oh, my father was happy.
He said you should, you saw him, right, right.
You know, something like that.
And the next morning ,you know,
he has to go to the, you know, the air force
because he just came from the America, you know,
one year training, you know, flight surgeons.
And then he has to go.
So he told, you know, his family
I'm going to engage with her.
And they remarried September 26th, 1962.
My husband came America, 1965.
I was pregnant at eight months at that time.
And then he said if I come to the America
and he think I cannot survive because of have a baby.
And then you know, like I have another one.
So he said,
come after have a baby and then maybe baby about few months
but six months year later come.
But that I came year later.
I had a terrible time.
I miss my family so much.
I had so much homesick.
You know, the homesick make you,
make you nearly sick though I was sick everywhere.
My husband go to the hospital,
six in the morning, next day, every other day on call.
Next day 10 o'clock, he's coming.
Each time he had operation,
and come out 10 minutes he call me, how am I doing?
You know, I came and it is too much working.
I have taken care of two baby just too much to me.
I never cooked and nothing, you know.
I even though like I live alone, my maid,
she saw when first the teeth comes out,
then she first about, I have third one I have here.
I enjoy his baby him so much.
I change his diapers.
And then, you know,
like mean his teeth comes up first, the teeth comes out.
He was so surprised, you know?
And I said, I miss, you know
like I live dead way, you know what I mean?
All three of them are medicine scholars, you know,
they didn't give any trouble to me.
But when they married that I have a lot of trouble
because of my mother-in-law said,
my two sons marry American,
only one son married a Korean, but she was born here.
She cannot speak Korean either, you know.
My first one married, you know, American.
I got letters from my mother-in-law and my brother-in-law.
And then they all bring me, not my husband, you know.
They treated boys like that and curse, you know
that's Korea is, you know.
And then so like I cried a lot whenever I get the letter,
I cried.
They bring me this and that and then they said,
you know, the makeup, I made a family name shame
or international marriage or something like that.
And so my husband is very liberal.
So what we did is like, I'm saying thing too
when they call me, hi mom, you know
and then so I love you mom.
You know, like, you know, sometimes, you know
my second one said she loves me more than her mother.
Doesn't matter American or you know
because whatever they like, you know, they love each other.
You just let them marry.
My name is Katheryn Kilja Kim.
This is my Korean American story.