Eddie Ahn’s new book, Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice, is a thoughtful addition to the literature of immigration, affably mapping its author’s journey from afterschool counselor to environmental lawyer to San Francisco environmental commissioner. The child of Korean immigrants, Ahn looks back at his family’s history in Korea, working in the family liquor store in Texas, attending college in California, his first efforts working in underserved urban communities, and his quirky and lucrative knack for high-stakes poker. Unsurprisingly, Ahn’s account is shaped by the tension between the expectations of his immigrant parents—they foresee a prestigious, high-paying career in law—in contrast to his embrace of low-paying community service at underfunded nonprofits, alongside a dogged personal effort to continually develop his self-taught drawing and cartooning skills. In this seven-page excerpt, Ahn highlights the history of his Korean family, beginning with his grandparents—his grandfather was a translator for the U.S. military—who married at the end of the Korean War, and the lives of his parents after they emigrated to the U.S. in 1980. Advocate: A Graphic Memoir of Family, Community, and the Fight for Environmental Justice by Eddie Ahn will be published by Ten Speed Graphic this month.