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Helen
Cathy Park Hong’s father grew up relatively poor in a village near Seoul, and as a child, he watched a U.S. soldier nearly murder his own father (Hong’s paternal grandfather) in cold blood during the Korean War. After the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act enabled skilled Asian immigrants to get visas, Hong’s father pretended to be a mechanic and migrated to the U.S. with Hong’s mother. However, he spent most of his career working as a life insurance salesman in Los Angeles. Eventually he managed to buy an industrial warehouse, which funded Hong’s education. Yet Hong warns her readers against interpreting her father’s story as a classic “model immigrant” story: he was also a belligerent heavy drinker, and he was always distinctly aware of (and highly frustrated with) the racism he faced from white Americans.
Cathy Park Hong’s Father Quotes in Minor Feelings
The Minor Feelings quotes below are all either spoken by Cathy Park Hong’s Father or refer to Cathy Park Hong’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
United
Quotes
When the 1965 immigration ban was lifted by the United States, my father saw an opportunity. Back then, only select professionals from Asia were granted visas to the United States: doctors, engineers, and mechanics. This screening process, by the way, is how the whole model minority quackery began: the U.S. government only allowed the most educated and highly trained Asians in and then took all the credit for their success. See! Anyone can live the American Dream! they’d say about a doctor who came into the country already a doctor.
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Cathy Park Hong’s Father Quotes in Minor Feelings
The Minor Feelings quotes below are all either spoken by Cathy Park Hong’s Father or refer to Cathy Park Hong’s Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
United
Quotes
When the 1965 immigration ban was lifted by the United States, my father saw an opportunity. Back then, only select professionals from Asia were granted visas to the United States: doctors, engineers, and mechanics. This screening process, by the way, is how the whole model minority quackery began: the U.S. government only allowed the most educated and highly trained Asians in and then took all the credit for their success. See! Anyone can live the American Dream! they’d say about a doctor who came into the country already a doctor.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
