Abi Johnston

Some of my closest friends know my family’s background as having immigrated from Korea to the US when my mom was 4 years old, but no one knows the trials and tribulations my grandpa experienced the greater part of his whole life. My grandpa faced discrimination and labor since a child growing up. He then returned to Korea in his early teens only to face a national civil war that lasted 3 years and ravaged the country, During this time people lost their homes and both my grandparents saw relatives get killed execution style by Japanese soldiers (this is something we would only see in documentaries).

After all this, 100’s of acres of our family land handed down for 38 generations was stolen from us. This is what prompted my grandpa to immigrate to the US at the ripe old age of 40 with a mere $200 and 4 kids to feed. There was no internet, no google maps, no way to know for sure what this new country would offer, but with blind courage and an unwavering will to educate his children, even his 3 daughters, he took a leap of faith and found a way to immigrate out of Korea to the US at a time even before Korea lifted its overseas travel ban, which happened much later in 1988 after the Seoul Olympics.

Having ended up in Alabama in 1972, he once again faced extreme discrimination and blatant racism at almost every job, at restaurants, nearly everywhere he went. He worked 2 jobs, sometimes 3, to make an honest living and all that time would stay up late to study English all on his own with only a tiny Korea-English dictionary about 6x3” in size. He was also a benevolent man, doing volunteer work for his community whenever he could to help others. He ended up sending all his kids to college.

Even in his old age and retirement he would never quit. In life you don’t measure a man’s success by how much money he made, but rather, what he went through, what he accomplished and what he left behind during his life.