The Immigration Debate and the Ties That Bind Korean Immigrants

This young woman's family immigration story shows why she thinks immigration reform should include more family reunification.    - - Donna Poisl

by CHRISTINE SOYONG HARLEY

I often say that immigration policy is a reflection of which families are valued in America. After all, such laws govern who gets the opportunity and privilege to settle here. For Asian American families, that question has long been a contentious one and, as the recent Senate version of immigration reform reflects, continues to be so.

As our nation’s leaders casually pass family unification provisions that exclude adult siblings and children, I think about my own family’s history of immigration and how it is one story of many — of people who arrived in this country with only a dream, and set about making America a stronger nation.

My grandfather, Yu Tae Chu, landed in the United States in 1968, just three years after the Immigration and Naturalization Act repealed racist restrictions that deemed Asians “aliens ineligible for citizenship” and prohibited them from immigrating to this country. He was poor, coming from the rural countryside of Incheon, South Korea, where a failed business had forced his family to borrow scoops of rice on credit.
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