Steve Kang, Director of External Affairs, KYCC
Helen caught up with Steve of Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC) to discuss homelessness, political future, and reconciliatory dialogue within the Korean community. KYCC is a multi-service organization whose mission since 1975 is to serve the evolving needs of the multiethnic K-Town community and beyond.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Photos by Helen H. Kim.
Helen: Out of curiosity, where did you grow up?
Steve: I came over to the U.S. after I completed third grade in Korea. I grew up in La Crescenta and now live in Koreatown with my wife and daughter.
Helen: How cool—that’s the same town my family moved to after living in K-Town for a few years. Can you tell me one of your earliest memories of K-Town?
Steve: One of my earliest, earliest memories of K-Town is going to Ham Ji Park as a child. The one on Pico, the original location. That was back in the day: the go-to, waiting in line, hole-in-the-wall, my parents driving us out from La Crescenta after they got off of work to eat late at night.
Helen: What kind of work did your parents do when they landed in the U.S.?
Steve: In the beginning after we immigrated, my mom worked at a clothing store and my dad worked at a bookstore in K-Town. And then they had a bunch of side businesses from vending machines to copy machines. Now they own a few dollar stores.
Helen: How did you get involved with KYCC?
Steve: It just came organically. I love this community. I first joined the KAC—Korean American Coalition—another nonprofit in the same building as KYCC. KAC focuses on civic engagement and political awareness while KYCC is more of a direct social service provider. KAC does advocacy work, but KYCC is more about delivering mental health counseling, youth services, etc. KYCC has always been like a big brother to KAC, in that KYCC is bigger and has more mainstream penetration, name brand, and awareness. I always looked up to KYCC Executive Director Johng Ho. That's how I first got to know KYCC.
After working for some elected officials, I wanted to come back to Koreatown to serve. I felt that this community, despite being super dense, was always neglected politically. We were always an afterthought. So I wanted to come back, having learned how the system works. When I saw an opportunity here at KYCC, I jumped at it. That was about five years ago.
Helen: What do you find unique about K-Town in the context of Los Angeles?
Steve: So many people think K-Town is just about the Korean American community: Korean businesses, Korean people. Yes, the Korean community is very proud that this is sort of the mecca for Koreans in America. We have the most diversity in terms of the Korean culture and food and all of that than other Korean communities across the country. But if you look at the numbers, the Latinx community makes up a large percentage of the population and also some of the retailers as well. There are other diverse communities too. So I would say that this area really reflects the diversity of Los Angeles as a whole. This is something not a lot of people recognize. Also, despite the glitz and glamour of the gentrification that's been happening, the general population for the most part is still very much underserved and low-income. And homelessness is real here in Koreatown.
Helen: Do you feel that the homelessness issue is somehow different here than other areas of L.A.?
Steve: There is a small but growing number of Korean or AAPI homeless population.
Helen: I've started to see that, too.
Steve: Yeah. If you look at the official data, AAPI and Korean homelessness is either non-existent or extremely low. But what we've noticed in our field is that ethnic Koreans who are unhoused tend to not stay at a single spot for a long time, and they tend to be very ashamed of their situation. So they stay in one place for less than 24 hours. They tidy up really nicely and they keep moving from one block to another. They're here in Koreatown, just in the shadows. So they're not collected in the data and the metrics, and people are shocked. They're like, “Oh, my god, there are actually Koreans who live on the streets!” I'm like, “Yes, there's quite a few.” We're just not aware of the accurate number because the traits are a little bit different.
Helen: Do you think that—despite a sense of stigma and shame that are specific to the Korean culture—they're still in the K-Town area because of its familiarity?
Steve: Yes.
Helen: Because if their only concern is not to be traced, they could go elsewhere in the city, right?
Steve: What we found is that they do feel a bit more safe here. When you're out on the street, you're constantly robbed, you might be harassed, and other things might happen, but they feel the power in numbers. The fact that the storefronts and community members are Korean American make them feel a bit more safe. I would say Koreans are very generous in terms of food and other supportive things that they give out to people on the street.
The other issue we at KYCC have been dealing with is that we've been pushing government stakeholders to be more culturally sensitive to the language needs, like the outreach workers, for example. They don’t have anybody that speaks Korean. That’s been a big issue.
Helen: So you find that some of the ethnically Korean folks who’re unhoused only speak Korean?
Steve: Yeah. For example, I got a random call from a food bank in Hollywood last year, even though I'm not an expert in homelessness issues. They said, “Hey, this is a cold call because we have an 80-year-old Korean grandmother who has been receiving services from us. We have no way of communicating with her because she doesn't speak any English, and we have no staff that can speak Korean.” So I went out there, you know, just to check it out, and I was heartbroken. Her tent was on the glitzy Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame. No family. She had some psychological issues that she was dealing with but, because of that language barrier, she wasn’t able to receive services.
Now she's housed and she's much better, but it took a year and multiple agencies. That's the issue with our system. There's so much red tape, bureaucracy, and legal barriers to get one person housing.
Helen: I could talk to you for hours about that.
Steve: I'm so frustrated.
Helen: I've been curious about homelessness in the AAPI/Korean community based on some personal observations so it's good to get insight from you.
You already touched on this but what are your thoughts about our City Hall leaders’ perceptions of and actions in K-Town?
Steve: When I first got my feet wet here in K-Town about 10 years ago, we were really an afterthought. The phrase that I heard back then was that Koreatown and Korean Americans were like the ATM machines for politicians. Elected officials, from city to federal, would come around to collect campaign money from successful small business owners here. They wouldn’t address K-Town needs or concerns but go back to help their own communities. I saw that K-Town was neglected and we didn't get any of the tax dollars or investment that we needed. At the same time, my eyes were opened to the fact that there's more than 100,000 people that live here. We're the most densely-populated area in the County of L.A., only second to Manhattan in terms of the density.
Helen: Wow.
Steve: But then the amount of resources that are poured into this area was minuscule compared to other parts of the city and the county. Now, fast forward to 2022. We still have room for improvement but things are changing. We have a ways to go but people are starting to take notice because we're registering more Koreans to vote. Thanks to the vote-by-mail system, we are voting in higher numbers. For example, in this past election cycle, AAPIs were the second largest in terms of the percentage of voter turnout, about 46%. That's sending shockwaves in the mainstream politics. So we're finally seeing political advertisements in Korean. We're seeing politicians come into K-Town to woo voters and ask for their support. Politicians are now hiring Korean staff. Before we had to plea for them to hire one; now it's a must. We also have Korean Americans in some higher offices. The perception is changing and I'm very much hopeful for the future.
Helen: What role do you feel Koreans play in preserving the K-Town community?
Steve: The younger 1.5 and second generation Koreans are trying to build bridges. Earlier this year, we commemorated the 30th anniversary of Sa-i-gu’s (Korean term meaning “4-2-9”, referring to April 29, the day in 1992 when the Rodney King verdict triggered the L.A. Uprising that devastated K-Town). Despite the fact that 30 years have passed, not much healing has happened. I wasn't here when that happened but Johng Ho was and he was on the front line helping people.
What the younger, bicultural people of the 1.5 and second generation are trying to do is speak with our counterparts in South L.A.—the African American community and the Latinx community—to have dialogue so that there won't be another ‘92 or other cultural misunderstandings. Also, in order to preserve K-Town, Koreans need to recognize other community members who live here as allies. Just because the neighborhood is called Koreatown doesn't mean it's only for Koreans. K-Town welcomes everybody. We've been involved in some difficult conversations and more need to be had, but I think it's a step in the right direction.
Helen: As you said, it's actually quite a diverse community. What can you say about the contribution of Oaxacan and Latinx folks to K-Town?
Steve: Oh, it's huge! We have Guelaguetza Restaurant on Olympic Boulevard. It’s to the Oaxacan community what Chosun Galbee is to the Korean community. These hallmark establishments are an indication how ingrained these two communities are in K-Town.
Helen: Whoa, you are so right!
Steve: Yeah, right? I think it's the best analogy. There are other things too, obviously. We have Oaxacan staff members here at KYCC. We know that they contribute heavily to K-Town. So the fact that those council members made those awful comments? That's the old mentality that we're trying to fix.
Helen: Yes!
Steve: So we're glad that they're leaving or will be gone soon, with their perceptions that Koreans don't engage and don’t vote, making discriminatory remarks against people within their own community. It’s awful. We're trying to change all that. I think the new people coming into power recognize and respect that change. We're very hopeful that, within the next couple of weeks, there's going to be new leadership.
Helen: When there's a changing of the guards, there's always this new, energizing awareness that new people bring, creating a lot of hope. But, also in the changing of the guards, some things worth preserving can get lost. Do you have a word of caution for the new leadership coming onboard?
Steve: What I've seen in the political lens is that they run a great campaign. Once they get into power, they kind of get sucked into that vortex and forget some of the promises and the community-centered approach that they advocated during their campaign. One word of caution and advice I would love to send to our newly-elected officials is: “Please don't forget about us.” Look what those former council members said behind closed doors. For many decades, K-Town was divided at the city council level into multiple pieces so that we didn't have a collective voice. We rectified that this past cycle. That was a huge undertaking, right? We want to keep that momentum going. I hope the new council members and other elected officials remember that historical precedent and continue to move us forward. I'm cautiously optimistic.