Left at a Christian orphanage in postwar Seoul like garbage, bleeding and terrified, Kim unwittingly embarked on the next
phase of her extraordinary life when she was adopted by a childless Fundamentalist pastor and his wife in the United States.
Unfamiliar with Western customs and language, but terrified that she would be sent back to the orphanage, or even killed, Kim
trained herself to be the perfect child. But just as her Western features doomed her in Korea, so her Asian features served as a
constant reminder that she wasn't good enough for her new, all-white environment.