history. She became a docent at the Avery Brund-
age Museum (now part of the Asian Art Museum
of San Francisco). Moreover she earned a B.A. in
Far Eastern Art and Culture from San Francisco
State University.
In 1976, at the age of 50, Kim was diagnosed
with breast cancer. The disease prompted her to
embark on a project that she felt would “create
something of significance in her lifetime” (Hahn
530); she began writing her first and only novel,
Clay Walls. Based loosely on the life of her mother,
Haeran (Helen) Kim, who was a poet and partici-
pant in U.S.-based Korean independence activities,
Clay Walls is the first major novel to illustrate the
experiences of Korean immigrants and Korean
Americans in the United States.
The story takes place primarily in Los Ange-
les from the 1920s to the 1940s, and it unfolds in
three parts, each told from a different narrative
perspective. The first part opens with the focus on
the protagonist, Haesu, a mother of three children
and a Korean immigrant from the yangban class.
Her hardships represent the cultural, economic,
and social difficulties of acculturation for new im-
migrants at the time. In particular, the problems
of simple tasks, such as finding housing or jobs
in the face of racial discrimination, are promi-
nently illustrated. The middle part is dedicated
to Haesu’s husband, Chun, a produce merchant
who comes from a tenant farming background.
This section illustrates how the American dream
is elusive to new immigrants from Asia, as Chun
is unable to purchase a home or launch a produce
wholesale business without a Caucasian interces-
sor. The final part closes with the attention turned
to Faye, their last child and only daughter, and in-
vestigates racial and ethnic discrimination against
Asian Americans. Told from Faye’s perspective are
stories of how children of impoverished Korean
immigrants must negotiate not only their own
ways through racism and elitism, but as interme-
diaries for their parents. In one poignant court-
room scene, Faye witnesses her older brother
Harold act as a translator between his mother and
the judge as the fate of their eldest brother, John,
is being decided.
Major themes in Clay Walls portray asymmetri-
cal gender, class, and race relations embedded in
both Korean and American cultures through epi-
sodes touching upon Korean nationalism, World
War II, Japanese internment, labor conditions,
and immigration. For example, while Haesu’s
yangban upbringing requires her to be a submis-
sive and obedient wife, the same upbringing al-
lows her to feel superior to, and thus openly defy
and disparage, her commoner husband. At the
same time, scenes describing her employment as
a housekeeper illustrate that her privileged Korean
social status carries no value in the eyes of white
Americans. Further, through Faye’s narrative, Kim
depicts the failed promises of the American dream
for persons of Asian ancestry with poignant scenes
capturing how Japanese Americans were interned
during World War II despite generations of assimi-
lation and hard work in the United States.Bibliography
Hahn, Kim. “The Korean American Novel, Kim Ron-
young: A Memoir by Her Daughter.” The Asian
Pacific American Heritage: A Companion to Litera-
ture and Arts, edited by George Leonard, 527–533.
New York: Garland, 1999.
Kim, Elaine H., and Laura Hyun Yi Kang, eds. Echoes
upon Echoes: New Korean American Writings. New
York: Temple University Press, 2003.
Kim, Ronyoung. Clay Walls. 1986. Seattle: University
of Washington Press, 1990.
Takaki, Ronald. From the Land of Morning Calm: The
Koreans in America. New York: Chelsea House,
1994.
Hellen Lee-KellerKim, Suki (1970– )
Born and raised in Seoul, Korea, until the age of 13,
Kim moved with her affluent middle-class family
to the United States in the early 1980s. In her inter-
views, Kim remembers her first home in New York,
the upstairs of a two-family brownstone in Wood-
side, as dark, crammed, and ugly. As a quiet and
frightened Asian girl, Kim went through a cultur-150 Kim, Suki