Inspiring Each Other: An Interview with Jin Robertson and Jasmin Cho

Tae Yang Kwak

Jasmin Cho (left) & Jin Robertson (right)

One of the first people I met at Harvard was a student who lived one floor above me in the dormitory. She wasn't like most of the other students. She was older for one, the same age as my own mother, although she commanded a youthful vigor that many of the other students half her age did not possess. I found out later that graduate school was her second career, following twenty years of service in the U.S. Army. Not long afterwards, I met a Harvard undergraduate in a kick-boxing class in Somerville, wearing ROTC sweats and packing some pretty heavy punches. A lot of things about her reminded me of Jin Kyu Robertson, the older student upstairs, and for good reason I discovered, since Jasmin Cho was her daughter. Following is an interview conducted with them as this spring semester drew to a close.

Seeing the two of you, mother and daughter, both already very accomplished and now studying together at the same school, I'd like to know - What motivates you?

Jin Kyu: That's a tough question. You want to know what makes me tick? Well, probably what has characterized my life up until now has been overcoming obstacles. I was often told, "You can't do that!" Often it was because I was a girl or a woman. What really motivates me is showing the world that I can do whatever it is I'm told I can't - that a woman can accomplish anything that a man can. I've come this far believing that, and I'll continue to do everything in my power to make everyone else believe that too.

Jasmin: As you might have guessed, I've learned a lot from my mom growing up. She's really inspired me to do my best, not so much by what she says, but through action, by the things that she does. At this point in my life, I'm not set on any one path, but always on my mind is my ultimate goal - to exercise my full potential.

Jin, tell me about how you came to the States.

Jin Kyu: Like many Koreans in the 50s and 60s, my family was very poor. I felt that my only chance for success would be through education, but after graduating from high school, I found it impossible to attend college because of the costs. I couldn't even find a decent job. In Korea, in the late 60s, respectable jobs for girls were available only to those with some meaningful connections to influential people. I felt as if I hit a brick wall.

So what did you do?

Jin Kyu: I had to work, and I worked the only job I could get - as a factory girl in a wig factory in Seoul. We were paid for each wig, but I was so bad that I couldn't even make enough money to eat. Can you imagine my desperation? I just could not accept this as my fate. Those days I cried a lot and I was looking for a way out, any way out. One day I found it. In 1971, I found a broker who connected families in America with Korean girls who were willing to be housemaids. Everyone was against the idea. Everyone, even my own family thought I was going to sold as a prostitute. My father was particularly against the idea of his twenty-two year old daughter going alone to America, probably because he was reminded of his own youth when he was conscripted by the Japanese to labor in a Japanese mine.

Did you work as a housemaid? What about college?

Jin Kyu: Actually I never got to work as a housemaid. The family I was assigned to had already found someone else by the time I came, and the broker found me a job as a hostess in a Jewish restaurant in New York. I had only $100 with me and my English was terrible. But I was determined to go to school, and I attended night schools studying English and taking some college courses. Actually, it took me fourteen years to graduate college because I was only attending part-time and I joined the U.S. Army in 1976.

What was your career in the Army like?

Jin Kyu: It was great. I remember going back to Korea, a college graduate and a Captain in the U.S. Army - I remember how proud my father was when the guards in my Company saluted him crisply, and he saluted them back with a big smile. Just then I felt like I was able to give something back to him to compensate him at least a little for all of his past hardships and undeserved suffering.

How did the two of you end up at Harvard together?

Jin Kyu: Just before my father passed away, I was accepted into the RSEA master's course at Harvard and sponsored by the U.S. Army's Foreign Area Officer program, bringing one last big smile to my father. After, completing the master's course I served as the first female U.S. Army Liaison Officer to the Japanese Self-Defense Forces. After retiring from the army in 1996, I started the PhD course in the History and East Asian Language department, and Jasmin joined me in the beginning of this year.

Jasmin: After my mom came here she asked me if I wanted to transfer from Georgetown where I was studying History and Diplomacy. I thought about it for a long time and decided to give it a shot. I wasn't really hung up over it, but when I was accepted I couldn't resist the chance to go to school with my mom.

What are your plans for the future?

Jasmin: Well, in terms of my immediate future, I will be spending the next school year at Ewha Womans University as a Yenching Institute Exchange Student. And since I'm in Army ROTC I will be in the army for at least a few years after college. After that, I'm not too sure, possibly the Foreign Service. Like I said before, I just want to be able to exercise my full potential.

Jin Kyu: I have several on-going projects. My most immediate is preparing for my general exams, but I have also been working on a book about my father's life. After getting my PhD, I would like to continue pushing boundaries and helping out as many people as I can. I know that it's the worst thing in the world to be without opportunity or hope, and I want to help others from being trapped by societal prejudice or their own lack of self-determination.