She leaves Seoul around the time of the student protests, but those don’t figure in her decision to emigrate. When Mina Lee arrives in Los Angeles the summer of 1987, she worries she’s made a horrible mistake. Others worked diligently, a form of numbing the pain that at least had some kind of productive outcome-money in the bank, a roof over their heads, food on the table. Some had become obsessed with status symbols-luxury cars, designer clothes, and watches. Some had become drunks, surviving off the tenacity of their families in denial. Kim traces not just the struggles of adapting to a new country but also the tragedies Mina leaves behind in Korea.Īs a culture and country, they had so many tragedies from wars already that they persisted in a kind of silent pragmatism that reflected both gratitude for what they had now, and an unquenchable, persistent sadness that manifested itself differently in each person. Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut novel, The Last Story of Mina Lee, is a unique immigrant story that takes place in Los Angeles’s Koreatown.
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