Seeds Of The Willow

About the Book

As one of the few early Korean foreign students in America, the author has attempted to describe his experience in America as a foreign student, and eventually as a naturalized Asian-American in the 'Melting Pot'that is called the American society.

This book is also his Personal Testimonial, which attests to the fact that the author has not ever personally experienced any blatant Racial Discrimination against him in all of his fifty-years of living in these United States, as a student and as a professional person, from Kalamazoo, Michigan to Houston, Texas, and from Walla Walla, Washington to Gaithersburg, Maryland.

"Through the author's own personal story, he felt compelled to tell the world that there are many happy minority immigrants' stories, in contrast to many of the complaints and polarizing arguments about how minority groups are discriminated against and are deprived of the opportunity to improve their lot by the majority group in American society."

It is true also that there exists one form or another of prejudices and discriminations in the American society. However, it is this author's conviction and experience that there are no insurmountable obstacles for minority immigrants to achieve their dreams and goals in this promised-land of ours, if one strives hard enough.

It is also the belief of this author that in order to fully appreciate the opportunities and to make the most of those opportunities, one must be assimilated into American society completely and whole-heartedly without reservation. This does not mean to lose one's heritage completely, but rather to contribute to the unique qualities of each heritage to making of the 'Whole' in the true spirit of our nation, 'E PLURIBUS UNUM'.

About the Author

The author came to the United States as a student in 1953, right after the Korean War. He attended Brigham Young University, Whitman College, and Caltech as an undergraduate, and received a BA in Physics from Whitman College in 1958. He did post-graduate studies at the University of Maryland, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Virginia. He received the MS degree in Physics from the University of Connecticut in 1960. He continued on two more years toward a PhD degree, but left the program in 1962 before completion.

He married Hazel Marie Donelan of Maryland in January of 1962, and taught Physics at Western Michigan University from 1962 to 1964. He returned to the University of Virginia Graduate School to pursue studies in Nuclear Engineering in 1964. After a year at UVA, the author started his career as a Nuclear Engineer at the U.S. Department of Defense?s Hanford Works in Richland, Washington, as a Senior Nuclear Engineer at the Hanford Division of General Electric Co.

The author became a Naturalized U.S. Citizen in November of 1966. During his thirty-year career as a Professional Nuclear Engineer, the author worked at the GE Hanford Division, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, the Nuclear Energy Division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation, United Engineers & Constructors, and the Halliburton NUS Corporation (a nuclear power consulting firm in the Washington D.C. area).