NEW YORK, NY July 10, 2009 —Sunnie Hwang moved to the US from Korea, hoping she would find the happiness she had as a child—when her parents were still alive. In 2002, she told WNYC listeners about her life as an orphan, trying to make her way in the world. Listen to her original story, and then host Marianne McCune heads out to Queens to find out how she's doing now.

HOST INTRO: I’m Marianne McCune. And this is a special from WNYC: Growing up, Getting by. We’re talking about how teenagers become adults so it makes sense that parents and family keep coming up in our conversations. Sometimes Rookies tell stories about how they make up for the things their parents fail to give them. But not having parents -- that can make getting by in this world much tougher. Sun Nang’s parents both died before her 7th birthday. She tried going back to Korea, where they came from. Then she returned to live in the U.S. She’s had a hard time feeling at home anywhere without her parents.

NARRATION: Hi I’m sunny. Sometimes I wish my life were just a dream and when I wake up I will find myself in a small town in Maryland. I was born there. And I lived there as a child. I was so happy. I had everything, mom, dad, brother, our house, dog, playground. That’s the tale of my family and the brass screaming in the background. I was four. Just around the time my dad found he had cancer. He wanted to record himself singing before he got sick to see how his voice changed with the cancer. My dad died before I was six. A few months later my mom died of cancer too. Now I live by myself in the apartment of someone else’s house. Some people think loving alone is comfortable, but it’s not. There’s no one to tell ‘I’m home.’ There’s no one to talk to. Sometimes I spend time with my friend Jerry. We play Gameboy at home. He’s never serious.

SUN: What do you think my mom and dad look like when they were alive?

JERRY: I think your dad was fat and I heard your mom was really ugly.

NARRATION: I remember my dad in his coffin. My younger brother Robert said, ‘daddy, why are you lying down there?’ I laughed at that. He was a scientist for NASA. My parents kept diaries when they were sick. My mom’s sister gave me her’s, this is what she wrote after my dad died, ‘Sonny’s checking up on me. ‘What are you thinking? Are you sad? I’m not sad because you are here with me.’ She makes me cry, but she never cries. After she died my brother and I moved to Korea to live with my uncle. When my aunt came to Korea to see us, she found some pictures of my family in my grandmother’s closet. I was so confused. I had never seen those pictures before. Why had my grandmother hide them away from us? When I saw those pictures, I saw the happiest moments of my life. I told my aunt I wanted to come live here. I thought it would like living in those pictures, but when I moved here, I came home late, I smoked, and I didn’t listen to my aunt. I dropped out of school. We fought and I moved out. I got to bed around six o’clock on the morning. I sleep through my GED classes. I missed the day time. It’s the everyday things that get really hard when you’re living alone. Sometimes when I feel lonely I call my brother in Korea.

ROBERT: Hello?

SUN: Why did you take so long to answer?

ROBERT: I was just about to eat.

SUN: Alone?

ROBERT: Oh, you know how to cook for yourself?

NARRATION: When I lived in Korea, my brother couldn’t even find the food for himself. I guess now he manages without me and without my parents.

SUN: Are there times when you miss mom and dad?

ROBERT: Sometimes, I wish they were here. When I see other kids on rainy days, when parents come pick up their kids with umbrellas and give them rides to places, that’s when I think about mom and dad.

NARRATION: My brother and I don’t usually talk about our parents. Instead we talk about toys we had in Maryland. We’d open our closet and toys would fall out all over. When I lived in Maryland, my family liked to watch the Sound of Music, when I watch it, I feel like I’m with my family, but when people try to talk to me about my family I have no feeling. In the last pages of my mother’s diary, she wrote about my brother and me. Sonny and Robert checking on me once in a while, keep saying I love you so much, Sonny and Robert will be suffering much for a while, then will be alright. When I was a child, I didn’t worry about a future without parents. I thought I would be alright, but I think I’m not alright. I used to want to be a NASA scientist like my father, now I just want to pass my GED and go to college. I want to go to Maryland and live in my own house with my family. I want to wake up from this dream in my life and be happy like in those pictures, but I don’t know how to get there.

MARIANNE: It’s been a few years since Sunnie told us her story for the first time. She’s been in contact on and off, but we really haven’t seen a lot of her since -- so I took the subway out to Queens to find out how she was. She didn’t want to take me to her apartment -- she was worried it was too messy. So we drove to a spot she likes -- overlooking the Bay. And she told me some really good news -- she just got her GED. And her brother was living with her now. No more long phone calls to Korea.

Sunny: He’s a person who can be always my side. Yes, yes.

MARIANNE: Sunny also told me that after her story ran, a Korean newspaper wrote about her and ---- friends of her parents in Maryland read the article and called her. One of them –the wife of her father’s doctor-- has kept in touch.

Sunny: She help me a lot. Sometimes she send me some money. She just call me and you know are you eating well? Like that things. And she always said I miss you and I’m very worrying about you.

MARIANNE: And do you think you’ll go back to see her again?

Sunny: Yes, I’m going! In August.

MARIANNE: And you’re working now, right?

Sunny: Yes, it’s album factory. We make wedding albums and, like, birthday party. And I put the pictures on the paper.

MARIANNE: And do you like looking at lots of pictures of people’s weddings and birthdays?

Sunny: Yes, they look so happy!

MARIANNE: I remember when you were doing your story that you used to stay up almost all night and then sleep half the day. Is that different now?

Sunny: Yes.

MARIANNE: What’s changed?

Sunny: Everything! My life got better!

MARIANNE: How?

Sunny: That time I didn’t try to do anything.

MARIANNE: And now?

Sunny: Now, I always try to do something.

MARIANNE: that’s great!

Sunny: Thank you!

Go to the Radio Rookies site for bios and audio segments of the stories