All Things Korean American

Life has become much richer since enrolling in a senior capstone course at Kennesaw State University. My classmates and I have been charged with learning about the local Korean American population. Here I am with my new B-Boy buddies, “Virginia Crew,” at the Relapse Theatre in downtown Atlanta. (I'm the 47-year-old white woman.) In this photo, we are taking a break from shooting footage for classmate Ryan's documentary on intergenerational dynamics of Korean American immigrant families.

Has this ever happened to you? You see or hear a word for the first time, look up its meaning, and commit it to memory even though you are reasonably sure you will never see or read the word again, -- only to find that once you take the vocabulary plunge, the once obscure word has now become commonplace, appearing in everyday conversation, tumbling out of the mouths of ordinary folk, and popping off the pages of mainstream newspapers and magazines? That happens to me all the time.

And now that same principle is at work in my life on another level. Kennesaw State University, the institution of higher learning where I both work and go to school, has deemed the 2009-2010 academic year as the “Year of Korea.” For our senior capstone course, my classmates and I have been charged with learning about issues facing Korean Americans in Atlanta and then developing a platform for sharing our new knowledge. When I first learned of the assignment, I was baffled: “Korean Americans in Atlanta?” I wondered. “Is there a large enough population here to justify a semester of study?”

Obviously, I was past due for a road trip to Duluth. I had not ventured down Buford Highway in nearly two decades. I had no idea that Georgia ranked number two (after Nevada) for having the fastest growing population of Asian Americans in the country. Nor did I know that the Korean American population in Gwinnett County grew at a rate of more than 120 percent over the past decade, and that Korean Americans constituted more than 14 percent of the population for the city of Duluth, according to Census data.

Billboard on Buford Highway

Suffice it to say that I started the academic year with an embarrassing dearth of knowledge about Koreans and Korean Americans. I was familiar with only a few big name companies, (Samsung, Hyundai), a few big name cities (Seoul in South Korea and Pyongyang in North Korea), a few big name events (the Korean War in the early 1950s, the 1986 Olympics, and the Los Angeles Race Riots of 1992), and two culinary treats (kim chi and barbecue tofu), neither of which had touched my tongue. The only Korean American I knew was Heeman Kim, an assistant professor of communication at Kennesaw State University, who taught my Research Methods class.

My how the landscape of my mind, my palette, and my rolodex has changed during the course of ten short weeks! I now have dozens of contacts in the Korean American community. Some have trusted me with their personal stories, tales filled with an inner conflict of straddling two worlds -- the old Korea preserved in their memories and the mainstream America that stares them in the face each morning. A few have confided the difficulties of being in Generation 1.5, wanting to please and honor their immigrant parents and also wanting to embrace the new culture of mainstream America. Some have shared their business dreams and political aspirations. Two have taken time from their busy medical practices to verse me in various issues facing immigrant populations, such as healthcare access and affordability.

My life is immeasurably richer in experiences, too. I now know what an acupuncture needle feels like, what kim chi tastes like, what the Korean language sounds like and what a number of heretofore unknown vegetables look like (see my Super Hmart blog). For the first time in my life, I deeply and truly desire to learn another language. (For one thing, it would help me read what the Korean media in Atlanta are saying about me and my classmates. Our photographs have appeared in at least two local Korean newspapers and one community organization newsletter since we began our mission of sniffing out the community).

My family jokes that I am becoming a “Dictionary of All Things Korean American.” While that’s an exaggeration, it is true that I have become a magnet of sorts for Korean people, news, factoids, and, also, bakeries. Eeks! I am eating at the White Windmill Bakery with alarming regularity! It's near the Super Hmart on Peachtree Industrial Boulevard in Duluth.

I have decided to blog about my experiences because blogging allows the journalist to reflect as well as report. Blogging can be conversational, both in tone and in give-and-take, since blogs allow for comments and dialogue. Plus, I am curious about this new (for me) medium. Please join me as I go forth in pursuit of All Things Korean American.