From Korea to Queens: Min Jin Lee on the American Dream

Your Mama’s Kitchen

Author Min Jin Lee joins host Michelle Norris to discuss her family's journey from Korea to Queens, New York. The conversation explores how

Key takeaways

• Min Jin Lee's parents immigrated to New York with $5,000, experiencing a significant shift from middle class in Korea to working-class in America.
• The author's mother used piano teaching and cooking to sustain the family while her father worked in jewelry and newspaper stands.

Main topics

• Korean-American immigration
• Family resilience and identity

Notable quotes

The word companion... comes from the words con pan eros. It means with bread.

Conclusion

A poignant look at how immigrant families use food and education to na

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) And I think, oh, gosh, it must have been absolutely horrendous to come in your 40s to a new country in a second language where you don't know anybody with exactly $5,000. And also to experience that class dislocation from middle class to being nobodies. Speaker 1 (0:30) Welcome back to Your Mama's Kitchen. This is a place where we explore how we are shaped as adults by the kitchens that we grow up in as kids. And we're joined today by Minjin. Thank you so much for having me here. I'm really happy to be Speaker 2 (0:42) at Speaker 1 (0:43) the table with you. Speaker 2 (0:45) I always think that's probably the best way you can get to know somebody, really, Speaker 1 (0:48) just to Speaker 2 (0:49) break bread with them. The word companion, I Speaker 1 (0:52) don't know, can Speaker 2 (0:53) I just be totally a nerd here, comes from the words con pan eros. It means with bread. Speaker 1 (1:00) Really? Speaker 2 (1:01) Yeah, con pan. Speaker 1 (1:02) I did not know that. So tell me about your mama's kitchen. Tell me her name. Tell me her style of cooking. Does she have a kitchen personality? What do you remember about that kitchen? Speaker 2 (1:13) Well, my mother is now 86 years old. She has all white hair. She was the daughter of a preacher. And she's really just a spectacular person. So wise and kind. And she would give you everything that she had. If you said like, oh, I can't make rent, she would give to the point where my father would have to say, uh. What are you doing here? That's gas money. She's that person. And she studied music as a child. And also when she went to university, she taught piano at her house, at the house when we're growing up. because my father would always quit his jobs. My father would just up and quit his jobs. We had, there were three kids. My mom taught piano to feed us and she never quit her job. And she somehow found time to cook all the time. Did she Speaker 1 (2:12) enjoy cooking? Speaker 2 (2:13) I think she has these kinds of like very aesthetic standards. So if you said to her, you know, what do you think about this rice? Something really elementary, like white rice. She would say. It's fine. But she has a particular standard because she knows what it should be. Speaker 1 (2:33) Okay. So she's actually quite difficult to please. It's fine is one of those. Speaker 1 (2:39) really elastic responses. Yes. That often doesn't mean it's fine. Speaker 2 (2:43) Right. But also because she has this very faith-based worldview, she's always grateful. Speaker 1 (2:50) Okay. So Speaker 2 (2:51) she wouldn't say, I'm not going to eat it or Speaker 1 (2:53) that Speaker 2 (2:53) we can't have it. But she would say, so that's what I find sort of interesting. She's not the sort of blanket, I'm grateful for everything. She is grateful for everything, but she'll tell you that's a B minus. Speaker 1 (3:05) But she won't say it's a B minus. She'll just say. Speaker 2 (3:07) It's fine. It's fine. And she'll never hurt the person's feelings. Okay. But you can always tell by her micro-expression. So I think that in a way, all three of us, my sisters and I, we grew up kind of going like, oh, they didn't like that. Speaker 1 (3:19) Okay. So you have to learn how to speak English and mom. Speaker 2 (3:22) Yes. And my mom speaks a very coded, specific kind of emotional language. Speaker 1 (3:28) Was that emotional language evident in the kitchen? Was she judgmental about her own cooking, for instance? Like she'd serve you something and she'd say, it's okay, but enjoy. Speaker 2 (3:40) Yes. And also because she was always working in America, especially, my sisters and I had to do the prep work. So when she came home from work, so I'm sorry, in America, she worked at the store with daddy. So my father and my mother had a little tiny store in Manhattan. Initially, it was a newspaper stand for one year. And then afterwards, they had a wholesale jewelry business the size of this table. And they worked there six days a week. So when they came home, the rice was washed. Speaker 1 (4:13) Okay. Speaker 2 (4:14) The vegetables were prepped. My older sister, who was only nine or ten, had to do all this. Speaker 1 (4:20) Wow. With instructions or just she watched and learned? Speaker 2 (4:23) My older sister's really smart. She has a really super high IQ. I'm the dumb one in the family. Well, Speaker 1 (4:28) then y'all must be hyper Speaker 2 (4:30) -intellectual. She's Speaker 1 (4:32) kind Speaker 2 (4:32) of, she's not normal. She's not normal smart. She can catch on so fast. But she was doing a lot of work as an immigrant kid. So she helped my mom a lot. And then my mother would come home and do the third shift or the fourth shift and do all the cooking. So when we were growing up and she was working all the time, she had a kind of – and we also had to make do because we didn't have money. So you weren't getting good cuts of meat. So I remember when we were little, we ate a lot of chicken gizzards. I didn't know that they were poor people food. Like, I didn't know we were poor until I went to college. And I was like, oh, we didn't have money. Oh, I get it. Yeah. But Speaker 1 (5:16) that's Speaker 2 (5:16) a gift your parents gave you. Oh, I think so. Because I felt like a wealthy person. It's kind of funny. We grew up in a poor neighborhood, which meant that everybody didn't have stuff. So you don't feel inferior. So even now, like, I don't feel inferior. almost ever. And I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that Speaker 1 (5:38) We're all in the same boat. And your parents gave you that. Speaker 2 (5:42) Oh, definitely. Speaker 1 (5:42) Where were you living then when you were eating gizzards and your parents were working at the... Elmer's Speaker 2 (5:46) Queens. Speaker 1 (5:46) Elmer's Queens. Okay, so... Very Speaker 2 (5:48) posh neighborhood. Speaker 1 (5:50) Neighborhood that's gone through a lot of Speaker 2 (5:51) changes. I mean, a lot of changes. But take me back to Elmer's Queens. What did that kitchen look like? Speaker 1 (5:56) Was it in an apartment? Speaker 2 (5:57) It was in an apartment. It was not very nice on Van Cleek Street. And it was a rental. So initially we had a one... It had a... Like a one-bedroom rental with furniture. Truly disgusting. And even as a young person, Speaker 1 (6:12) I knew it was not nice. Because in Korea... As a young person, you were like... Speaker 2 (6:16) Well, also my mother was so sad. Because our house in Korea was really clean. And it wasn't fancy, but it was a perfectly nice house. I mean, she was a piano teacher. My father worked in a company. Speaker 1 (6:28) So Speaker 2 (6:29) it was perfectly middle class. Again, not fancy. Not as nice as our relatives' houses. But then when it came to New York... It was just like it was like this orange shag carpet, which I'll never forget. It was so tacky, like literally like tactile of like oil and body grease and like cooking, you know, that sort of stickiness. And it was just dirty. And my mother was cleaning and cleaning, but you can't get that kind of grime out. So I remember that. But so that kitchen really didn't even exist. It was basically like a wall thing. And then our next apartment was a little nicer. But when you're living in a New York City apartment, you can't escape cockroaches. No matter how clean you are, other people around you have roaches, which is disgusting, and mice. And then finally, we saved up enough money and my parents bought a little three-family house in Maspeth. That's when we moved up in the world. And we lived in the second floor and my parents rented the third floor and the first floor. And with that rent, they paid the mortgage. And my parents' logic was that if they died, we wouldn't be homeless. Speaker 1 (7:42) And you'd all have a place to live. Right. The three girls would all have a place to live. Speaker 2 (7:46) Because it was very dangerous. Because my parents were getting held up and attacked in New York. Speaker 1 (7:52) What, your parents were getting held up? At their store? At this Speaker 2 (7:54) tiny jewelry store. It was a very Speaker 1 (7:57) dangerous time. Speaker 2 (7:58) So, Speaker 1 (7:58) like a stick-up? Yeah, yeah. Guns. You talk about this as if it's so matter-of-fact. Speaker 2 (8:04) Well, I think because, I mean, I don't... I always think about the New York of my childhood, 70s and 80s. It was a very dangerous time in certain areas. Speaker 1 (8:16) And Speaker 2 (8:16) I mean, I've been held up at my parents' store. Speaker 1 (8:19) What happened? Speaker 2 (8:21) Oh, I was working on a Saturday. I was in high school, like maybe a freshman in high school. And the weekends I worked and helped my parents' store quite a lot. And they opened the store around 6.30 in the morning. So... Daddy and I would go into the store on Saturday. And then as soon as we opened the store, we let some customers in. And they were, I guess you call them robbers because they want money from you right away. They were thieves. They weren't burglars. They were robbers, right? So then they're robbers. Speaking like a true lawyer. Speaker 1 (8:57) The difference between a burglar and a robber. Speaker 2 (8:59) And I think there were four of them. It happened so fast, but I was standing right behind the cash register. My dad was here and they're all wearing masks and like a hat. Like they just kind of. I don't know how they did it so fast. And they all had, two had big guns and one had a little gun. It was like this. My father standing next to me. And immediately my father took out all the money and we handed over all the gold because at that point he was still selling gold. Speaker 1 (9:29) And Speaker 2 (9:29) they left. It was seconds. So they must have really, what is it, cased the joint? They cased the Speaker 1 (9:34) joint. They had studied. They'd watched you. Speaker 2 (9:36) They knew that we opened at a certain time. And at the time the customers didn't come. And this is even before, because it was our routine for me to go to Speedy Deli and get an egg sandwich for both of us and coffee. But it was even before we went to the deli to get the breakfast. So they Speaker 1 (9:52) were there as soon as you were there. They knew exactly Speaker 2 (9:53) what they were doing. And then the police came, and of course nobody ever got caught. Speaker 1 (9:59) So your parents were making their way in America. Yeah. Speaker 1 (10:06) Raising three young girls, trying to figure out how to hold on, I imagined, a part of their life in Korea. Speaker 1 (10:15) and South Korea, and your father's from North Korea, is that correct? That's right. Trying to hold on, trying to make sense of what's happening back in Speaker 2