U.S. Olympian Chloe Kim took home the gold in the women’s snowboarding half-pipe final at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang on Monday, but it was her father who won the hearts of everyone watching with his sign.
Kim’s father, Jong Jin Kim, was seen in the crowd holding an adorable homemade sign that says “Go Chloe” with a heart on it.
People got very emotional after seeing Kim’s dad with the sign.
His sign was even laminated — a classic dad move.
It got even more intense when someone casually reminded everyone how he called Chloe his “American Dream” in an interview with Today Show’s Hoda Kotb.
Many Asian Americans who were raised by immigrant parents like Chloe’s dad were touched by his words.
Jong Jin immigrated to Southern California from South Korea in 1982 with only $800 in his pocket. He worked a minimum-wage job in the United States and saved up his earnings to send himself to college, according to the New York Times.
He enrolled himself at El Camino College where he studied engineering by day and worked as an operator of machinery at night.
Kim’s father ultimately had to give up his engineering job in order to support Chloe’s snowboarding career where they often would go on a six hour drive up to the mountains to train, BuzzFeed reported.
The 17-year-old athlete learned how to snowboard at the young age of 4, The New York Times reported. “We both had no idea what we were doing,” Chloe told the publication, referencing their travel up the mountains where she was taught by her father about the sport.
