Doing What Had to Be Done: The Life Narrative of Dora Yum Kim (Asian American History and Culture)

History comes to life in this compelling saga of a courageous and controversial Korean American woman and her biographer. Dora Kim's story—frank, painful, but inspirational—is an enduring testimony to the power of the human spirit to rise to new challenges. Soo-Young Chins's monumental study is a major contribution..." James M. Freeman, author of Changing Identities: Vietnamese Americans 1975-1995 The first biography of an American-born Korean woman, Doing What Had to Be Done is, on the surface, the life story of Dora Yum Kim. But telling more than one woman's story, author Soo-Young Chin offers more than an unusual glimpse at the shaping of a remarkable community activist. In addition as she questions her subject, introduces each chapter, and reflects on how Dora's story relates to her own experience as a Korean-American who immigrated to this country as an adult she carves around Dora's compelling and courageous life story, a story of her own and one of all Korean-Americans. Born in 1921, Dora, as she tells Chin her story, chronicles the shifting salience of gendered ethnic identity as she journeys through her life. Traveling through time and place, she moves from San Francisco's Chinatown where Koreans were a minority within a minority to suburban Dewey Boulevard where Dora and her family attempt to integrate into mainstream America and where she becomes a social worker in the California State Department of Employment. As the Korean immigrant community grows in the late 1960s, Dora becomes deeply involved in community service. She remembers teaching English to senior ci Tells the life story of Dora Yum Kim. In this title, the author reflects on how Dora's story relates to her own experience as a Korean-American who immigrated to this country as an adult - she carves around Dora's compelling and courageous life story, a story of her own and one of all Korean-Americans.