My parents met in Korea in 1960, when my father was a young GI from Kentucky stationed in my mother’s village near Tongduchon. She worked in a shop he frequented, selling souvenirs to American soldiers who were a long way from home. After a whirlwind courtship, they married despiteher mother and most of her 10 siblings’ disapproval of her decision to marry a non-Korean.

In 1961, my parents and I joined my father’s family, who had recently moved to southwestern Ohio. My mother was a tiny, fiercely determined 19-year-old with a 10-month-old baby girl, a fairly good grasp of the English language, and a love for my father that defied her family, her culture and all common sense.

Nearly nine years after our arrival on American soil, my mother became a U.S. citizen. This journey from Korean to Korean American is one that the two of us share to this day.

When I was in first grade, my mother and I were watching TV together when we saw a public service announcement reminding all permanent resident aliens to renew their green cards and visit the immigration office. I asked my mother what an “alien” was, and she said wistfully, “Me.”

I asked if I was an alien too. She told me that although I was born in Korea, because my father is an American, so am I. She explained that my younger brothers were also U.S. citizens because they had been born in America.

My mother then confided in me that she wanted to become a citizen, but there was a test, and she didn’t think her English reading and writing skills were good enough to pass.

I hit upon an idea. I was an early reader, and excelled at spelling and grammar. I began asking my teacher for extra copies of my worksheets and to be allowed to take my textbooks home “to practice.” At the library, I made a beeline for the books on American history. The teacher either thought I was an apple-polishing suck-up, or the most dedicated student she had ever met.

The real student, however, was a proud 27-year-old woman with three children.

Every day after school, my mom and I would review my spelling words, write sentences, and read from Dick and Jane. We discussed the adventures of Dick, Jane, Sally, Spot and Puff, and skimmed the history books I lugged home from the library. We read the newspaper together, and when we hit on a word neither of us knew how to pronounce, we asked my dad.

When he was not home, my mom would print the word on a slip of paper in her tiny, neat handwriting. I would go across the street and hand these puzzling words to Mr. Allen who ran a small convenience store. Under the ruse that I was there just to buy some candy, I would casually ask if he knew the word and what it meant. One day, he peered at me over his reading glasses and said, “Why would a little girl like you need to know what ‘insurance’ is?”