Fellow Highlights

Not On My Resume: Julie Chi-hye Suk

June 15, 2024

Julie Chi-hye Suk is a professor of law at Fordham University School of Law in New York City. An interdisciplinary legal scholar, her latest book, After Misogyny: How the Law Fails Women and What to Do about It, explores women’s efforts to dismantle patriarchal law in the United States and around the world. Julie is a 2002 Paul & Daisy Soros Fellow who was born in Korea and came to the United States at the age of four.

Why did you (or your family) come to America? As South Koreans who lived under a military dictatorship in the 1970s, America represented a broader horizon of opportunity and democracy to my parents.

Which living New American do you most admire? It’s the writers I admire the most. They tell the stories that reveal the ambivalent complexity of the new American experience. I can’t pick only one but here are a few whose recent books have blown my mind. Monica Youn, Ed Park, Steph Cha, Hua Hsu, Elaine Hsieh Chou, Viet Thanh Nguyen, Charles Yu, Angie Kim.

What is your current state of mind? Trying to be hopeful about the arc of the universe, despite all that is going on in the world right now.

When was the last time you felt imposter syndrome? Never. Because I think imposter syndrome mislabels what many women feel, especially nonwhite women, when the world around them tells them they don’t belong in places of opportunity and power.

What is your greatest fear? That democracy in America will collapse completely and irreparably while wars around the world continue indefinitely.

If you could change careers and do anything, what would it be? Music and art, without worrying about whether I could make a career or living out of it.

What is your idea of a good life? It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Hopefully one with friends, family, music, art, and reflection.

What is the one habit that you can’t live without? Coffee.

What one piece of advice do you live by? “Don’t get mad, get smart.”

Who or what makes your heart beat faster when you think about them? Pauli Murray, the pioneering Black feminist gender nonconforming civil rights lawyer who authored the above advice.

This interview was originally published in the May, 2024 issue of The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships’ monthly Distance Traveled newsletter. Sign up to receive the latest issue here. ∎