Jane Kim
Though her family originally hailed from North Korea, Jane was born near Seoul, Korea. She came to Pomona, California, in junior high school when her father moved to the U.S. to study theology. As an undergraduate at UCLA, Jane became involved in community service at the Chinatown Service Center and the Korean Youth Center. She was the first executive director of the Korean Youth Center, a nonprofit organization that was founded in 1982 and eventually evolved into the multiethnic social service agency, the Koreatown Youth and Community Center.
Young People Need to Get Pulled Back Into the Community
Interview by Eunice Shin
Could you please begin by introducing yourself?
My name is Jane Kim. I was born in June 1953. That was right [around the end] of the Korean War. I was born in Korea, just a mile from Seoul, so I kind of grew up in the countryside. My father came back to us in 1963. He left when I was in elementary school. When I went to junior high school in Korea, I moved to Seoul and lived with my grandparents for a couple of years. Then I came [to the U.S.] in 1968, when I was 14 years old and in junior high school.
Why did you decide to come to the U.S.?
My father came here to study theology. By the way, my father passed away last January. For a while, he worked for the Korean U.S. Army in Korea (KATUSA — Korean Augmentation to the United States Army). Then he came here to study theology to become a pastor. He was about 40 years old and couldn’t go back to college to study because it’s not a common thing to do in Korea when you’re a middle-aged man. He went to [the United States] to study and then decided to bring the entire family because he felt that it was an opportunity for his kids. He thought that the education system was better [in the U.S.] than in Korea at the time.
That’s very interesting. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Thank you. [My father] lived a full life. He was 97 years old [when he passed away]. It’s kind of sad because he died during the pandemic, so I wasn’t able to attend his final moments. I’m sure you’ve heard about these stories happening all over. Things changed entirely. I was not used to Zoom until a couple of years ago, and I’m still trying to get used to it. It’s pretty cool that we can see each other. You get to connect with people, and that is incredible.
It’s traditional to have multigenerational homes in Korea. What was that situation like for you and your family?
My family and I actually didn’t stay with my grandparents until later on because when we immigrated, my father, who was the eldest son, felt that he needed to take care of my grandparents. So he invited my grandparents and offered that we all live together here [in the U.S.], but not in Korea. The tradition is that if you’re the oldest child, you have to take care of your parents. So I kind of got to know my grandparents better, which was fortunate. It is funny now that it’s kind of happening again. I think a lot of kids are coming back and living at home now, and then they get to spend more time with their parents and grandparents.
What are some of your happiest childhood memories?
That’s a pretty tough question to answer because happiness is a momentary thing. I mean, you know you have happy moments. When I grew up in Korea, we didn’t have childhoods like you guys have. I have grandkids, so I see how they grow up. They’re always happy because they get a lot of things — they get presents and celebrate all the holidays. Meanwhile, during my childhood, we had a lot more responsibilities. A lot of circumstances were quite different.
When I grew up, it was right after the war, and we didn’t have many opportunities or resources. When I think back, I ask my kids, “Did you have a happy childhood?” They go, ‘Yeah, it was cool.’ But I think when we were growing up, we had to think about a lot of survival-type things. We thought about the meaning of life, what to do when we grew up, what kind of resources were out there, and how to survive. There was a lot more worry than happiness. I never really thought about whether I was truly happy. Also, how do we define happiness?
You mentioned you had a lot of worries, especially since the country was heavily affected by the war. How do you think those worries changed when you immigrated with your family? Did they stay the same or change into new forms of worry?
My parents were both born in North Korea. My grandparents on both sides were from North Korea. My mom came to South Korea when she was 20 years old after she was married. [My parents] got married when they were like 19 or 20 years old — a long time ago. My father came down first from North Korea because he didn’t want to join communism. Maybe you heard from your grandparents about their lives, but it’s a miracle that they all came down [from North Korea]. And they actually came separately and were able to join together, or somehow, they connected through different people and were able to join together as a family. My mom left when she was 20 or 21. She left all her family back in North Korea. She never got to see them after that. I’ve heard a lot of stories about how my parents had to adjust to the circumstances they had to go through and their basic needs, like not having food to eat.
When I was growing up in Korea or even immigrating to the U.S., I didn’t have as many worries. However, I did have a lot of obstacles and difficulties that I went through. When I was in junior high, I went to school in Korea. At the time, when you wanted to go to junior high, high school, or college, you had to take exams. For example, if you want to go to the top schools, you have to take a test and pass. There are a lot of pressures if you are a school-aged person. You had to have extra tutors and go to after-school programs to prepare yourself educationally. If you don’t get into certain schools that you’re supposed to go to, you’re basically a failure. That kind of pressure was very high.
When I came to the U.S., I had just finished my second year of junior high school in Korea. Because of the language barrier, I had to repeat the same school year. That was really difficult for me. I don’t know about other people, but when you don’t have any background in English and you’re the only Korean put in the school system, it’s very difficult. Just imagine you have to pray in a classroom and make book reports. How was I supposed to know what those things were? I remember that I didn’t have a Korean tutor.
Both of my parents lived in Pomona at the time, and there weren’t any Koreans in the area. Also, there were only two other Asians who were Japanese Americans, and they were born here. So I was still the only Korean-speaking person. I struggled a lot. I even used to blame my parents for bringing me here because I was doing okay going to junior high school in Korea. “Why do I have to come here?” I couldn’t make any friends because of the [language barrier]. I just had to imagine what it was like going into a new environment with a new language and a new culture and trying to adapt and adjust. But knowing that my parents came here to make a better life — my dad tried to go to school, and my mom had to work — I realized how difficult it was for them too. I couldn’t complain to anyone else. That was probably the most difficult time for me, not being able to truly express myself. I’m sure a lot of people also go through that.
When did you find people around you who were similar to you and made you feel accepted?
Probably when I went to UCLA. It is really funny; in a Korean family, there’s no question whether you should consider going to college or not. It’s something that you just do, right? I went to college, and there I found people who were similar to me. There were about 300 Koreans. I don’t know about right now — maybe a few thousand [Korean students]. But I started to meet friends who were similar to me: Korean speakers, bilingual, bicultural, and having similar struggles with family. So I began to hang out with people who were similar to me. I graduated in 1976, and now I’m still hanging out with the same people. It’s been almost 50 years. We still talk about how it used to be. We went back to campus a couple of times and walked around, reminiscing about where we used to hang out and take naps, like the sculpture gardens and the libraries.
There were different groups of Korean people at school. Some were just foreign students who came from Korea. I felt like I couldn’t get along with people from Korea because they were a little bit different. The people who were born here also have different social cultures. So when I began to hang out with people like me, we could speak in Korean. When we talked about a family situation, we just knew right away what it was about. I had friends or roommates who were Caucasians or of other races, but I don’t keep in touch with them anymore. But I still keep in touch with my Korean friends; we’re still very good friends. We’ve traveled back to Korea together. We went to different countries together. I know you probably think all these aunties and grandmas are still talking like they’re little kids, laughing with each other. I bet people probably think we are so weird. But you know, when we are together, it’s probably the same as you [and your friends]. Like when you see old friends many years later, you’re going to [joke around] and act like silly little kids. We would ask each other, “When did we start to feel so ancient?”
No, it’s amazing because I see so many parallels with my parents’ stories and my own goal of trying to find things in common with those around me. Even when I was growing up — and I still am growing up — in elementary school, it was still strange to bring the Korean food that my mom packed to school. It felt a little embarrassing to eat such different foods. I had to find peace with that.
I think you guys are living in a better time. When I was going to school, I don’t know if they made fun of us, but they looked at me differently, and even little kids were saying things like ‘Ching chong’ and then running away. I remember going to certain places, and these little babies would just stare at me, just because they’d never seen an Asian face. It’s not like they were picking on me, but that baby thought that I looked different. Also, people would ask, ‘Where are you from?’ When I said Korea, they thought of the Korean War. They thought Korea was such a devastated place. But look, now we’re talking about Korean movies winning awards, K-culture, and K-food. I feel very proud.
I know we should be focusing on accepting everyone, and no one should feel superior, but that pride that you have about your own culture — maybe that’s why it’s so hard to harmonize different races. People say blood is thicker than water. I guess it’s because somehow there’s a unifying force, and we don’t exactly know why. For example, when you say you’re Korean, I feel like we’re linked up. When I was growing up in Pomona, my dad had a church. I would find someone who spoke Korean because a lot of them were Korean women married to GI soldiers. We would ask if they were Korean. If they said yes, then they would be at my house eating dinner with us that evening.
I’ve never heard it put into words so concisely in a way that resonates with me so much.
This is why projects like this are good. Young people need to get pulled back into the community. One thing that’s very important when you’re growing up is your identity. You think about who you are and where you belong because belonging is very important. Not only family, but certain groups in society. Although we shouldn’t be divisive and should be accepting of others, we have to know who we are. It gives you purpose. I’m sure you’ve thought about that a lot. You seem to be more engaged in the community. I think it’s very important for the Korean agencies or communities to pull a lot of young people back so that they get to really identify with the community. The [Korean American] youth are accepting.
How did you start getting involved with Koreatown?
When I was in college, I majored in sociology. I did some volunteer work at different places, [including] the Chinatown Tutorial Project. I was tutoring some Chinese-born Chinese [students] living in Chinatown. I began to realize my career goals after graduation and wanted to find out what my strengths were. To me, it wasn’t just about money. I grew up as a pastor’s kid, so I was more in tune with helping people; I just grew up that way.
When I went to school, I began to realize the strengths that I gained from the difficulties that I went through. I am bilingual and bicultural, and I went through a hard time as an adolescent. I knew a lot of people went through a lot of struggles as well. I realized that I wanted to work with young people to whom I could relate, which is why I got involved with the Korean Youth Center project. It used to be part of an organization called the Asian American Drug Abuse Program (AADAP). It’s a big organization focusing on the prevention and treatment of Asian American youth who get involved with drugs. So that’s why I got involved in the Korean Youth Center, and that was in 1977. I worked at the Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC) for 11 years until I had my third child, and I said, “I need to focus on my kids.” I needed to be a mother.
Do you feel that you’ve gained a lot from the Koreatown community?
Working at KYCC was a gratifying experience for me. You’re working with all these people who have this passion, dedication, and commitment to make people’s lives better. People with a lot of compassion and feelings, more than just trying to help people. I learned a lot from the people I worked with — people who worked selflessly to help others. I learned so much. The Korean community also went through a lot. Although I wasn’t around because I retired in 1988, a lot of things happened after that — the L.A. riots and so on changed a lot of things.
When I was first working at KYCC, the Korean community wasn’t really there, but now it’s a big community that has political and social power that can influence other groups. KYCC is a big organization now. When we first started KYCC, it used to be just me and some of the other workers; we used to work with youth who were gang members, using drugs, or runaways. Most of them were first-generation Korean-speaking youth. Before I came in, there was a director named Inhwan Kim, who was an inspiration for me because he used to work at the social services agency. He used to work with homeless people in Korea and also with young people who were going through a lot of troubles. When he came here to the Korean Youth Center, he was helping people who had gang affiliations and drug problems. I learned a lot from him because I never went through such severe difficulties as those kids. That’s how he and I started this gang intervention program, which evolved into KYCC.