Written by Margaret K. Pai, The Dreams of Two Yi-min tells the story of her Korean-American family focusing primarily on the life journeys of her father and mother, Do In Kwon and Hee Kyung Lee. Just like most pre-World War II immigrants, the author's family is marked and characterized by the common perception of the "typical" Asian immigrant status in the early 20th century: low class, lack of ability to speak English, lack of transferable education and skills, and lack of knowledge of the host society's key networks and institutions (Zhou and Gatewood 120, Zhou 224). Despite living in a foreign land with countless barriers and lack of capital, Kwon has led his wife and children to assimilate culturally, economically and structurally through his growing entrepreneurship. Lee, however, devoted herself not only to her husband's business but also to Korean-American society. By investing his time in the Korean Methodist Church and the efforts of its associated societies, such as the Methodist Ladies Aid Society and Youngnam Puin Hoe, Lee made worthy contributions to the emergence and existence of Hawaii's Korean-American community. Hee Kyung Lee grew up in Taegu, Korea. Although details of his early life are not given, the reader can assume that he came from a decent middle-class family because his parents had servants (Pai 2, 10). In the early 1900s, Japan exerted immense control over Korea, which was fully annexed by 1910. Her twenty-year-old sister and eighteen-year-old Lee were introduced to the picture bride system, an opportunity to escape Japanese oppression (Pai 4). Unlike her older sister, Lee made the decision to immigrate to Hawaii in 1912 as an image…in the middle of a sheet of paper…her mother wanted to go to school (Pai 45). He instilled in his children a hard work ethic and desire for education. In addition to parenting, she provided her husband with assistance and labor in his upholstery business. A small Korean business, like Kwon's upholstery business, could not have survived without the unpaid labor provided by his wife (Parrenas 363). This gender hierarchy that requires Asian women to undertake monotonous and unrecognized tasks is not only a survival tactic for small businesses, but also the primary cause why women have a “double day,” contributing to longer hours in the workplace. family business and providing most, if not all, of the parenting and housework (Parrenas 364). Parallel to this concept of gender hierarchy, Lee worked full time as a seamstress, secretary, and employee overseer while Kwon went out on calls. (78).