Interviewee: Ann Hwang (Choo Eunhee)
Interviewer: Jacob Petty (Colby College ’26)
Interview Synopsis:
This interview is with Ann Hwang (Korean name: Choo Eunhee), born on June 15, 1947 in Daegu, South Korea and currently living in Vienna, Virginia. She is a Presbyterian, and religion has always been important to her and her family. During our interview, we discussed Ann’s life from her childhood years all the way up to the time when she moved to the United States. Ann highlights the idea of growing up in a wealthy family but having to find her own way after moving to the U.S. with her husband, Jin Hwang. Ann grew up in the midst of the Korean War (1950-1953), and her family fled to Pusan for about a year during that time. She attended Ewha University in Seoul and met her husband, who attended Seoul National University. They had my mother in 1972 and moved to the U.S. that same year. This interview covers childhood, education, religion, war, immigration, living conditions, and financial conditions, amongst other topics.
Ann Hwang is my grandmother, and my mother Joanne Petty’s mother. The interview was conducted over Zoom on March 28, 2023, at about 8:52 pm.
My name is Jacob Petty, I am a first-year student at Colby College in Waterville, Maine. I am currently undecided about my major. I conducted this interview as part of the final project for the HI244 History Class taught by Professor Inga Diederich. I am passionate about this course because I get to learn more about my family’s past, as I am half-Korean.
Interview Audio:
Interview Transcript:
Biography of Interviewee:
Ann Hwang (Choo Eunhee) was born on June 15, 1947 in Daegu, South Korea and is currently living in Vienna, Virginia. She is a Presbyterian, and religion has always been important to her and her family. Born the youngest of eight children, Ann’s mother died when she was three- years-old and her father quickly remarried. Because of her mother’s death, she was raised by her aunt and uncle for most of her early childhood years before returning to her father at age ten. Ann’s childhood consisted of wealth and fortune. Her father was very well-off, and while her family was able to escape to Busan, South Korea during the Korean War they still experienced some traumatizing moments, as thousands of families at the time did. Living in Daegu, there was still violence and conflict, as many people from North Korea and Seoul escaped to Daegu, which Ann experienced directly when her house was set on fire when protesters challenged her father’s run for a senate position in Daegu. For college, she attended Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, where she studied literature. She met her husband, Jin Hwang, after graduating from college, and the two of them moved to the United States in 1972. That same year, she gave birth to her first child, Joanne Hwang Petty. Joanne actually lived in Korea without her parents for the first year of her life and was raised by her grandparents before moving to the U.S. with her parents. Once in the U.S., Ann had her second child, Grace Lee. In the U.S., her husband attended pharmacy school and eventually ran his own pharmacy in Long Island. Ann’s story is an inspiring and moving story about life in South Korea in the mid- to late-1900s.