Donggi Lee
ID# 13525536
Anthro 2A
Topic#1
Word Count: 2009
Oral History: Sookyung Park
To learn about her experiences adapting to life in the United States, I interviewed my
friend`s sister, Sookyung Park. She is 27 years old and is attending her last year at UCLA as a
transfer student, majoring in music history. Her brother and parents live in Buena Park, but she is
staying at a UCLA dorm at the moment. It was a long journey for her to get where she is right
now. Ever since she first visited the United States as a child, she dreamed of studying abroad
here, and her family visited several times for travel over the years. In 2010, her family decided to
immigrate permanently to America in search of better education and job opportunities. At the
time, she was 22 years old, so it is natural that she faced problems with relationships, language,
and even food while adapting to American society since she had spent her whole life in South
Korea. She feels that the different lifestyle also had some negative effects on her values. On the
other hand, Sookyung said there were also advantages in going through the process of trying to
fit into a new society and culture, which helped her grow as a person.
I began the interview by asking why Sookyung and her family had decided to move to the
United States. There were several reasons, and most of them involved better quality of life. First,
her family found it hard to get by in South Korea. Her father worked in a factory and did not
make much money, so they struggled to live a comfortable life. The United States offered much
greater job opportunities for her family. In addition, house prices were cheaper and the air was
fresher in America because it was less crowded. She said that many houses in Seoul cost twice as
much as those in California, but they were usually smaller or worse quality even though they
were more expensive. Finally, Sookyung had an American dream of studying abroad in the
United States ever since she visited when she was about 15 years old. In addition to their
economic situation, her family wanted to open this opportunity to Sookyung and allow her to get
an American education. Her family thought studying in South Korea had no vision, since Korean
education revolves around studying all day and night for tests. After classes end, most students in
