White Coat Ceremony at Yale Medical School
My son starts Med School
During the summer of 1998, I was in the middle of my comprehensive exams when I became pregnant with my first child. I found my Ph.D. program very difficult and to become pregnant in the middle of my program felt like it was now the beginning of the end. I had terrible morning sickness during most of my pregnancy and the Korean cultural expectations of being a good wife and mom was also impacting my studies. Through it all, at the end of the summer, I gave birth to a very healthy baby boy, and he became known as my “comp exam baby”. I breast fed him for a year which meant that I had to take him to campus a few times a week for meetings, use the libraries, and to meet with advisors and other faculty.
Fast forward to 25 years later, my comp baby is now a medical student at Yale School of Medicine, and I couldn’t be prouder of his accomplishments, character, enthusiasm, hard work, and future ambitions. It is a big deal for me and my family that my son, a grandson of immigrants, is attending Yale School of Medicine.
I was born in Korea and immigrated to Canada when I was 5 years old. My parent’s desire to immigrate was like any other young Korean family during the 1970s and 80s. They wanted a better life for themselves and for their children. Koreans suffered under Japanese colonialism, the Korean War, and the division of Korea into North and South at the 38th parallel. At that time, Korea was not an economically or politically stable country which led to young families to immigrate to North America in search of a better life and future for their children.
My parents immigrated with hardly any money and thus we didn’t have much while we were growing up in Canada. They both held odd jobs and it was tough working as racialized minorities where they suffered intense racism in the different factories that they worked in. We lived in a run-down 2-bedroom apartment from when I was 5 to about 14 years old. While other Korean immigrants slowly moved away from our bug infested apartment building one by one, we were one of the last families to move away.
Many Korean immigrants came to North America with big dreams and high hopes for their children. They wanted their children to study hard, land good jobs, prosper and live healthy long lives. Since many worked in factories and unclean workplaces, they had hopes that their children would become successful doctors, lawyers, or other professionals. This would ensure a better future for their children and the generations to come.
My mother passed away over 13 years ago when my three children were all little. But if she had lived till now to witness my oldest child get into Yale School of Medicine, she would have been jumping up to the sky and back, about 100 times. This was a dream for my mom as well as many Korean immigrants who left everything: their belongings, their families, their known lives to begin a new life for themselves and their children. As children and grandchildren succeed, it becomes a testament to their motivation, their hope, their perseverance, and their inner strength.
From the poor humble immigrant beginnings of my parents to my son attending Yale School of Medicine are a fulfillment of an immigrant’s dream. To attend and witness my son’s White Coat Ceremony at Yale this past week was very emotional, heartwarming and fulfilling. He is embodying what my parents had only dreamed of as immigrants 50 years ago. I am so proud of my son’s accomplishments thus far and what he will become in the future. He will become the first medical doctor in our family, and I only wish my mother was alive to witness it all.
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