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32 Asian Am. L.J. 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/aslj32 and id is 1 raw text is: Narrative in Immigration Law Catherine Y. Kimi ABSTRACT Immigration remains one of the most divisive issues of our times. Yet contemporary debates about asylum, economic migrants, chain migration, and undocumented migration occur at a level of abstraction bereft of human context. This Article challenges the flattening and erasure of immigrants by building on Critical Race Theory's rich tradition of narrative methodology to present my own father's immigration story. In doing so, it aims to show how narrative methodology in immigration law scholarship can play a critical role in challenging conventional myths and understandings. My father's narrative, from his birth in a Korea colonized by Japan, through the U.S. occupation of Korea, the Korean War (1950- 1953), and the dictatorships ofSouth Korea in the post-war period through the 1970s, adds a human dimension to the severe restrictions to humanitarian relief under international and U.S. law, particularly the failure to consider the United States' role in causing individuals to leave their homelands. This Article also underscores the role that race continues to play in immigrant admission categories even after the elimination ofthe national origins quotas in 1965, and how contemporary immigration law favors those who already enjoy a degree of privilege. I hope that sharing this narrative encourages others to do the same, catalyzing a new body of narrative immigration law scholarship with the potential to shift polarized debates about whether we should allow more immigrants into the United States, which noncitizens should be admitted, and whether we should continue to identify as a nation of immigrants. IN TR O D U CTIO N ........................................................................................ . 2 I. CONVENTIONAL MYTHS AND UNDERSTANDINGS IN CONTEMPORARY IMMIGRATION LAW AND DISCOURSE ............................................ 6 II. M Y FATHER 'S STORY .......................................................................... . 9 A. The Colonial Era and Liberation ............................................ 9 B . Childhood in and out of Seoul..................................................16 DOI: https://doi.org/10.15779/Z386D5PD10 T. Don Forchelli Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School. I thank Elaine Chiu, Alexis Hoag- Fordjour, Yuvraj Joshi, Joe Kaplan, Kathleen Kim, Jennifer Koh, Donna Lee, Jennifer Lee, Tom Lee, Alice Ristroph, Faiza Sayed, Jocelyn Simonson, Bijal Shah, Ji Seon Song, Eric Yap, and the participants of the AAPI/MENA Women in the Legal Academy Workshop and the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty for thoughtful feedback and comments. Most importantly, I wish to thank my father for sharing his story with me. Tyler Wallace, Taylor Faulds, and Christine Lee provided excellent research assistance. All errors are my own. 1

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