Svetlana Kim was just twenty-three years old when she left Leningrad, Russia, for New York City. During a chance encounter in a bread line, a former schoolmate offered her a plane ticket from the black market to America. With only a dollar in her pocket and no knowledge of the English language, Kim left her family and friends for a new life, just as her great-grandparents had left Korea for Russia nearly a century before. Faced with seemingly insurmountable odds after her arrival in the United States, the intrepid young woman clung tightly to her memories of her Soviet-Korean grandmother Bya-ok (Korean for "White Pearl"). Inspired by White Pearl's indomitable spirit in the face of tremendous adversity, Kim tirelessly pursued the American dream.