Throughout my life, asking questions about my family\u2019s history within Asia has proved futile. My ancestors arrived in China from Korea multiple generations ago, yet fragments of the past were never passed down and instead were lost. However, during a visit to China in the summer of 2025, my paternal grandmother gifted me a tangible reminder of my family\u2019s muddled history, a faux pearl bracelet. This bracelet, though cheap, has become a priceless symbol of connection. It carries the weight of my family\u2019s migration from South Korea to China, and my maternal grandparents\u2019 and parents\u2019 eventual departure from their homes to live in the United States in the 2000s. My family chose to continue this pattern of migration, cultivating new and better lives for themselves, settling in the Asian-dominated community of Flushing, NYC. Having the privilege of living in the United States, I am constantly reminded of the sacrifices that had to be made for me to lead a more stable life. These reminders fostered a deep desire to situate my family\u2019s unique journey within the broader history of Korean migration and displacement. I have come to understand that 20th-century mass migration from Korea was driven by survival and shaped by multiple instances of wartime and political instability. With this, my simple faux pearl bracelet has come to represent the struggles and resilience of countless Korean migrants, including my family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Throughout my life, asking questions about my family\u2019s history within Asia has proved futile. My ancestors arrived in China from Korea multiple generations ago, yet fragments of the past were never passed down and instead were lost. However, during a visit to China in the summer of 2025, my paternal grandmother gifted me a tangible… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"portfolio_post_id":0,"portfolio_citation":"","portfolio_annotation":"","openlab_post_visibility":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,28,20,37,15,24,26,4],"tags":[218,217,219],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-dream","category-attire","category-kara-schlichtling","category-push-and-pull-factors","category-queens-college","category-seminar-2","category-spring-2026","category-your-story","tag-chinese","tag-flushing","tag-korean","clear"],"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":94,"is_guest":0,"slug":"mhctlc","display_name":"Teaching and Learning Collaboratory","avatar_url":"\/\/www.gravatar.com\/avatar\/5c33f4d00e989c7f41b49b3a4760453e?s=96&r=g&d=https%3A%2F%2Fopenlab.macaulay.cuny.edu%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2025%2F05%2Fcropped-mhc_openlab_icon_1.png","0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":335,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333\/revisions\/335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openlab.macaulay.cuny.edu\/your-story-our-story\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}