My path to law. One Immigrant's Journey

• Author: Jeena Cho
• Pages: 14-15

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE JC LAW GROUP

Opening Statements

MY PATH TO LAW

One Immigrant’s Journey

#MyPathToLaw celebrate s the diversity of the legal profession thro ugh attorneys’ first-person stor ies detailing

their unique and in spiring trajectories.

By Jeena Cho

I WATCHED A LOT OF LAW &

ORDER GROWING UP. MY FAMILY

IMMIGRATED TO THE U.S. IN 198 8

(the same year Korea last hosted the

Olympics). I was 10 years old and didn’t

speak a word of English. Neither did

anyone else in my family. As I watched,

I repeated the phrase s the lawyers said

on the show, trying to learn t he words,

the intonation, the meaning.

When we moved to the U.S., we

settled in Ast oria, Queens, where

my grandparents owned a g rocery store.

My dad went from being an archite ct

at Samsung to working seven days a

week at the grocery s tore. My mom had

been an art te acher; in New York City, she worked at a

nail salon. Here’s the thing: When you’re an immigra nt

in a country where you don’t speak the lang uage, where

you aren’t familiar w ith its rules and laws, you get taken

advantage of.

We moved into an apartment with no hot water but

plenty of cockroaches and r ats. We didn’t know for years

that you can report the la ndlord to housing agencies.

I still remember waki ng up in the middle of the night,

screaming, terr ified because a rat ran across my torso.

Once, I found a cockroach i n a bowl of soup.

Eventually, my dad bought a laundromat. More than

once, customers threat ened to sue him for some claimed

loss or damage to their clothi ng. He usual ly paid them

because he didn’t understand how the lega l system

worked.

I knew from watching Law & O rder that there were

rules in this cou ntry designed to protect the innocent,

punish wrongdoers and rest ore justice. I loved the show.

In 60 minutes, bad people were always pros ecuted and

justice ser ved.

To my naive 12-year-old self, this was obv iously my

path: Go to law school. Become a prosecutor. Send bad

guys to jail. Prot ect the innocent.

As a sophomore in high school, I decided I was going

away for college, but my parents were very trad itional

and didn’t approve. They often said that the only w ay

I would be allowed to leave the house was if I were

(1) married or (2) dead. Neither option appea led to me.

I saved every dollar I could fr om my job as a cashier

at Boston Market and applied for colleges out of tow n.

I faked their signatur es on the applications, completed

all the financia l aid forms, and got into the State

University of New York at Bualo (420 miles away)

with a full sc holarship.

Once it was clear that I would n’t need

their permission or financia l support,

I “ran away” to college. I wa s 17 years

old. I didn’t speak to my parents for a

long time after that.

‘DEEPLY TRAUMATIZING’

As an immigr ant working menial

jobs, you often feel unseen and u nrec-

ognized. I’l l never forget the summer I

worked in my mom’s nail salon. She told

a customer—very proudly—that had I

just graduated fr om college. The woman

looked at me, as if seeing me for the first

time (while I was washing her feet), and

said very sweetly, “Well, isn’t that nice.

So, will you be working here then?”

Stunned, I paused and re sponded that I was there

for the summer but was star ting law school in the fall.

Her facial expression cha nged and she responded, “Well,

good for you.”

I graduated from law school at 24 a nd got my dream

job as an assista nt state attorney. There, I learned that

one privilege of having that r ole is seeing images we’ll

never be able to unsee and hear ing stories we’ll never

be able to unhear.

I was assigned to t he domestic v iolence unit where

I learned that our cri minal “justice” system is a ter rible

mechanism for helping people.

Later, I was assigned to m isdemeanors court. The first

day was arraig nment day. The judge, through a Span ish-

speaking inter preter, asked everyone who was there for

driving w ithout a valid license to move into the jury box.

A group of about 30 men stood and walked over. There

were too many of them for the jury box , so they huddled

around it. They looked tired, w ith leathered skin from

working in the fields, their hands a nd fingers swollen.

The judge had the interpreter tel l them his rule. “The

first time you’re caught, it’s a fine. Second time, it ’s 10

days in jail. Third ti me, 364 days.” For comparison, a

third-time DUI car ried with it a minimum mandatory

sentence of 30 days.

One by one, the men were asked to plead. Those

who pleaded guilty were sentenc ed according to the

judge’s rule. Often, the defendant s didn’t understand

the consequences of pleading gu ilty and, more than once,

would start wai ling when they were taken straight from

arraignment to jai l. Those who didn’t plead were assigned

a public defender and set for trial.

This was deeply traumat izing. Although I was in the

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