John Young Ho Lee

John Young Ho Lee was born on June 25, 1936, in Pocheon, Korea. Born into a landed, “yangban” (aristocratic) family, he recalls how village folk would refer to him as “doryeon-nim” (young master), in place of his own name. He tells us that he lived comfortably, and even had hospitable relations with Japanese soldiers who would occasionally stroll into his town on horseback, with his mother preparing them Korean food which they seemed to like.

His father, along with his uncle, had received police training in Japan (serving in the Japanese police force), and continued working for the police upon his return to Korea. As part of the landed class, his family allotted plots of land to sharecroppers who gave them their harvest. After liberation, however, his family had a reversal of fortune: their land was taken and redistributed by the Communist Party, and they had to go into hiding after villagers alerted party officials to his family’s status as landlords; he remembers hiding in his family’s cornfields as their former tenants sought them out. Young Ho and his family found refuge in Sinwi, though not before he learned of his grandparents’ abduction by the party.

In time, he would graduate from law school before working as an accountant for the U.S. Eighth Army for 24 years, with stints in Saudi Arabia. In 1980, he was granted papers to immigrate to the United States, where he and his wife hoped to give their children better educations. Today, he enjoys spending time with his grandchildren—and they with him.