The Archive

Interviews

Each interview is a one-on-one conversation with a first-generation Korean elder — about life before immigration, the journey to America, the challenges of building a new life in a foreign land, and how faith carried them through it all. Every story is published with a full transcript, in both Korean and English.

Nancy Myungja Moon

First-generation Korean elder

Nancy Myungja Moon came to the United States from Korea in the 1980s, widowed and raising three children on her own. She talks about the language barrier that left her unable to answer the neighbors who invited her in for tea, the all-night prayer meetings that held her faith together, and the twenty years she has since spent singing in her church choir.

Read the transcript