Susan Park: Community Organizer for Korean Language Access
Susan is the founder and executive director of Asian Americans for Housing and Environmental Justice. She has partnered with local organizations to provide food and resources to various communities in and around Koreatown. Susan champions folks in K-Town whose limited language access and linguistic marginalization keeps them from resources and civic engagement. She is also a prolific researcher and writer of Korean, North African, and other food traditions.
This interview has been edited for length, flow, and clarity. Photos provided by Susan Park.
Helen: I get the sense that you make time for the community a lot, on top of all the things that you already do! So thank you for making time for K-Town Is OK. To start, could you tell me a bit about your immigration story?
Winter 1969/1970, Seoul
Susan: I was born in Seoul, South Korea, in October of 1969. My family moved to Los Angeles in January of 1975. I distinctly remember that my father, older brothers, and I did not want to move to America. It was my mother who wanted to come. I say “moved” rather than “immigrated” because the decision was not one of need. It was one of choice. My family was upper class in Korea and we had a lot of social currency and political power.
I also think that saying you're an immigrant implies some kind of benevolence on the part of America, which I did not feel and don't think really exists. When we came to Los Angeles in January of 1975, we were treated like pariahs.
Helen: By whom?
Seoul, late 1972/early 1973: Susan with her two older brothers and uncle, who was a member of South Korea’s National Assembly
Susan: By everyone. By non-Koreans. My best friend back in Korea dealt with a really heavy stigma because she was the child of a North Korean defector who was accused of being a spy by the South Korean government. And now, in America, I was like, “Okay, so now I know what it feels like to be my friend.” My family and I experienced people yelling racist slurs at us when we were walking down the street. This was a really common occurrence. It was like Trump's America.
Asian Americans who are five, seven, ten years younger than me will sometimes say, “It wasn't that bad. Are you sure?” I have to explain to them that things got a little bit better every year. When they were in kindergarten, I was already in fifth, sixth grade, or even 10th grade. So there was a big, big difference in our experiences.
Los Angeles, March of 1975: A park near Hancock Park, celebrating Susan’s oldest brother’s 11th birthday
Helen: I came almost ten years after you, and I see how there would be that big difference. Even within my own family, my sister is five years younger than me, and our high school experiences were very different. The racial dynamics were strikingly different at the same school, half a decade apart.
Susan: Every year, it just kept changing. Things are still changing, but they’re changing asymmetrically.
Helen: What are your earliest memories of Koreatown?
Susan: Koreatown wasn't really Koreatown when we moved. It was just a few stores. In Korean, we would just call it 한인촌 {Hanin-chon}—you know, the Korean neighborhood or village. There were some stores on Olympic, a few on Western. Koreatown back then was a high-crime area. So if we were racialized and attacked while walking somewhere, say, north of Hancock Park, it was worse in Koreatown. It was an inhospitable place for a lot of Koreans.
Helen: But your family would go there anyway?
Susan: Yeah, we'd go there to shop. We would go to Olympic Market. There was another Korean market down the street, I think in the same strip mall where 함흥회관 {Ham Hung Restaurant} is, that little plaza. We'd also go to 김방아 {Kim Bang Ah, an iconic K-Town shop from 1969 to 2018} to get 메주 {meju | dried fermented soybeans in brick form} and 떡 {tteok | rice cake}. And then for other things like herbs and mochi, we would go to Chinatown and Little Tokyo. Back then, Chinatown was just banging. You could barely walk the streets because there were so many Asians who came to shop in Chinatown.
Back in 1975 or thereabouts, you were probably rich if you were coming to America. You had enough money to buy a plane ticket. This was back then when the living wage in Korea was a few dollars a day. I mean, imagine, right?
Helen: Coming to America was a dream in the 70s, in that it was both an aspiration and an impossibility for a lot of people.
Susan: Yeah. And you had to have somebody in America who could sponsor you. [Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 opened immigration for people outside of non-Western, non-Northern Europe. There was a seven-category preference system, with one of the categories being having relatives who were U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents.] That meant you were from a multi-generationally literate family. So most of the Koreans who came back then were highly skilled, part of the professional class. And they built lots of very tight-knit Korean communities in Koreatown and the San Fernando Valley, and it was based on your dad's hometown, your mom's hometown, or the same high school, junior high, college, whatever, they attended back in Korea.
Helen: Sounds like that was true for your family as well?
Susan: Yeah.
Helen: So what is K-Town to you now?
Susan: It’s home, and it's a big part of my heritage as a Korean in America. I have a very long memory of Koreatown: the growth of it, the decimation of it in 1992, and the regrowth of it, which was led by corporate and retail real estate developers. There’s also the gentrification, even by Korean-Americans who come from other parts of the country.
Helen: What do you find unique about Koreatown in the larger landscape of L.A.?
Susan: If you're engaged with Korean businesses in Koreatown and the business owners see you as understanding Korean cultural norms and the language and such, it feels like you’re living in a small town. I drop off a fancy watch that my aunt gave me at the watch store, or I drop off my car to get service for tires. I don't get a ticket, I don't get anything. It’s just, “I'll see you later,” you know? I tell non-Koreans friends about this and they're like, “What? You just left a watch there? You left your car there? They didn’t give you a receipt? Is it just trust?”
And then Koreans in Koreatown, especially the elders… You have a lot more people from the provinces. So you're more likely to hear 사투리 {satoori | Korean regional dialects} in Koreatown. It's not super common, but it's more common than other parts of L.A. I would say, overall, Koreans in Koreatown are different from Koreans who live elsewhere.
Helen: You mean like the Valley or Orange County?
Susan: Yeah. It's very different. Koreatown is like a very small town. It's not even like Seoul. It would be like a little neighborhood in Seoul, or a little village somewhere. People just act like that. Like, with some of the Korean seniors I help or church elders I meet for the first time, they totally act like we're back in Korea, in 1975. It's like, “Oh, you're Korean? Then we’re 식구 {shikgu | family}.” Sometimes a very dysfunctional family.
It’s like this even with American-born Koreans in Koreatown. This woman who I met for only the second time was like, “I don't know why, but I feel so protective of you. I'm just going to treat you like my little sister, my 동생 {dongsang}.” So Koreatown does feel more like family in a way. It was very easy for me to start my nonprofit and gain a lot of immediate support from Koreans and Korean nonprofits.
Helen: K-Town is also such a multiethnic, multicultural neighborhood. Could you speak to some of the changes you’ve seen in the perception of Koreans here over the years?
Susan: There were these narratives that had been brewing for a while, like, ”the Koreans stopped Little Bangladesh from getting a Neighborhood Council” or “the Koreans stopped a shelter from being built on Vermont” or “the Koreans are so insular”—that portrayed Koreans as being racist and as being a monolithic, singular voice. The most vocal group of Korean protestors at the homeless shelter rally were hired by real estate companies and developers to be vehemently against it. These people got conflated with all the groups of Koreans who came out. The real issue was that then Council Member Herb Wesson didn’t consult with Koreatown leaders and residents about the shelter. There’s this myth that Asians have too much. Meanwhile, I was seeing the rise of homelessness among Koreans and other AAPIs in Koreatown and how this was not being addressed.
There’s also a sense of fighting for limited resources in Koreatown among Koreans and between different groups. Unfortunately, dialogue is extremely difficult since there are so many immigrant groups who can’t communicate with each other. This is why I think more bilingual children of immigrants need to step up to the plate for community healing and reconciliation. Marginalized peoples are in the same boat.
There are other weird narratives about Koreans not belonging in Koreatown. I started hearing from some people in the Latino political class that Koreans don't live in Koreatown. And then we saw that whole controversy come to light in the recording of Nury Martinez, Gil Cedillo, and Kevin de Leon. They wanted a Latino takeover. Gil Cedillo says there aren't Koreans in Koreatown: “It's all Latinos, ha ha ha.” Their statements were so intentional and planned.
Helen: And Cedillo said it so confidently... So what was your reaction to that?
Susan: “Koreans exist in Koreatown!” You know, we built it from nothing. It used to be a terrible neighborhood that nobody wanted. We did not displace anybody. Koreatown is multi-ethnic, but it is also very Korean. My Cielo invited me to speak at a massive Oaxacan rally following the release of the Nury Martinez tapes.
There's this idea that Koreans are all doing really well just because there's a Korean-owned bank and it has a Korean sign. But I don't own that bank. The Korean bank is just another corporation. We don’t even have any Korean credit unions.
Helen: What I hear you saying is that people mistakenly assume that the presence of Asian-owned corporations in the enclave means that individuals who may be doing small business or living there have some correlating success or wealth.
Susan: Yes. Like we're just this one big blob. I went to L.A. tenants' meetings, and I was told that the Koreans own everything here but they don't live here, that they are not tenants here. There are low-income, working-class Koreans whose presence is being denied, in Koreatown as well as south of Koreatown. There are a lot of older Koreans who live near West Adams, USC, and then to South Central.
Helen: Seeing these issues arise drew you into more activism and involvement, I’m assuming?
Susan: Yeah. I started a nonprofit called Asian Americans for Housing Environmental Justice to address issues of Koreans being displaced, and even erased in Koreatown.
KYCC made a decision in 1992 to become multicultural and diverse, and that's great. And the same thing with the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance, KIWA. It used to be the Korean Immigrant Workers Alliance but in 1992 they made the decision to change their name and their path. We're at the point where almost all of KYCC’s constituents are Spanish-speakers or Black or Indigenous, and Koreans are actually disproportionately underrepresented and underserved. KIWA is mostly Latino-serving. There are very few Koreans they’re serving, very few. They were trying to support the Korean workers at Coway [unionized in 2022], but that's the first in a long, long time. I've got pretty decent knowledge of what's going on with Koreatown nonprofits.
As a high-level bilingual person with a very long history in Los Angeles, and knowing all the details of Koreatown—who the players are, where the narratives come from—I thought I was in a unique position to address these issues.
Helen: We’ll come back to the specific issues your nonprofit addresses. Earlier, you mentioned Koreatown in 1992. What are your memories of the ‘92 riots/uprising?
Susan: I remember it really well. I remember feeling like Koreans were being targeted and scapegoated. It was national. There were things going on in New York too, for example. I thought it was really unfair to paint all Koreans in a certain light. Around that time, Radio Korea also had a hand in making Koreans feel entrenched and battled in specific areas like South Central. And though it all, I felt like the Korean side of the story wasn't being heard.
First of all, America holds Asians with accents largely in contempt. Then you have Korean-Americans who were trying to speak up without being prepared for it, with their halting English. They were recent immigrants so they didn’t know anything about Black American history. Nobody teaches you that before you come to America. They weren’t even teaching Americans Black American history. So the Koreans fell into the claptrap rhetoric of respectability politics, saying, “We work hard, we work hard,” which is going to fall on deaf ears. Black Americans work hard. Other people work hard. So we didn't look good in the media. I resented the L.A. Times for framing the whole thing as a Black-Korean conflict. That was all over national media and I really felt like what the hell?
Obviously, there were times when Koreans behaved inappropriately. The worst case was Latasha Harlins. [Harlins was a 15-year-old African-American girl who was mortally shot by South L.A. convenience store owner Soon Ja Du, 13 days after the videotaped beating of Rodney King which led to the ‘92 Uprising.] That was tragic.
The Korean-American community has changed so much. But when the riots happened, that generation were folks who had experienced Japanese colonialism and war as children if they were older, or grew up in a post-war economy with all of the trauma, grinding poverty, and military dictatorship.
Helen: In fact, the day that Korea was liberated from Japanese rule was also my dad’s third birthday. August 15,1942.
Susan: So the older Koreans can get triggered when they hear that somebody's attacking Koreans, you know? That sense of existential threat still affects us, that multi-generational PTSD.
Helen: Then do you think there’s a certain amount of validity in the comment that Koreans can be insular?
Susan: Well, when I was a kid, Korean food was thought of as just gross.
Helen: Yup, totally.
Susan: Stinky, fermented. When I invited non-Korean kids over to my house, there was always some form of negative comments. So why do I want you in my home? Why do I want to explain my food to you?
You know, there’s this American thing of, “Explain yourself and your history to me before I try to understand you.” Look, people don't need to explain themselves to me for me to treat them like a human being. You don't need to know my history for that, okay? There's an American cultural tendency that all Americans pick up, where we want people to explain themselves to us. Like, “What are you doing here? Tell me about your culture, invite me to your party.” Not to mention the thing of grouping all Asians together. Most of the other children of color I grew up with were Black and Mexican. I'm comfortable at a cookout or Mexican kid’s birthday where there's a pinata and the adults are drinking beer. I know these kinds of cultural behaviors better than I would if I went to a Filipino family reunion. Korea and the Philippines aren’t even near each other. But we still get boxed in with people we have nothing in common with.
Helen: Something that’s really interesting to me is how you used to think as a kid, “Why do I need to explain my food to you?” but skip to 2023 when you're explaining our food to people.
Susan: This has been a high demand for a long time because I used to write about food for LA Weekly and KCET Good Food. And people were always like, “Why don't you write about Korean food?” But back then, there was just not enough basic information out there about Korean food. So I'm really grateful for people like Maangchi and Korean Bapsang and My Korean Kitchen and Kimchimari. They did a great job of explaining the basics of Korean cooking to people. Now we're at a time globally where there are enough people who know the basic stuff. People want more and they're ready for it. They've studied enough Korean stuff so that I can drop more detailed, more complex information and they understand it. So that's why I'm doing it now.
Helen: I guess the distinction is that there isn't that sort of entitled demand in the desire for information now.
Susan: Yeah, it's not entitled.
Helen: You can tell that they're genuinely interested.
Susan: I mean, bless her. Maangchi was trying to pitch Korean food at a time when a lot of people didn't know about it. People back then were like, “Well, what's so special about this?” Maagnchi explained all the basic stuff to them. And now there are more people who say, “No, we know this is special.”
There's so much space in the world now for different kinds of messaging about Korean food. So I can see lots of like niches for myself. I really get deep into the history, etymology, and details of Korean food. Even Korean-Americans, they could ask their parents about these things but their parents will say, “What are you talking about?”
Helen: Right. I feel like a lot of immigrant parents weren’t thinking in that intentional way about passing things down. They were head down and deep in survival mode, just trying to keep moving forward. Like, with my parents, if I really sit them down and ask specific questions, they have so much wealth of wisdom. So I’m trying to do more of that now. But when I was growing up, the answers to my questions were really basic, even if they did have the knowledge.
Susan: But now they're giving you more detailed answers?
Helen: Yeah.
Susan: And they like doing that.
Helen: Yeah, absolutely.
Susan: My parents spent a lot of time teaching me things. Sometimes it was like a hostage situation when they were explaining things.
Helen: Ha, that's with my dad, too.
Susan: Yeah, but I could tell now they enjoy talking about things. Back then, they were just like, “We have to give you all this information, like an encyclopedia. Because you're gonna forget!” The anxiety of existential threat.
Helen: Absolutely. Gosh, I felt that in my gut!
We’ve covered such a wide range of topics today. I have one, final question. In light of your history and the work you do through Asian Americans for Housing and Environmental Justice, what is your hope for the future of Koreatown?
Susan: The Koreans need help. They really know so little about American process. And Koreans who don't speak English are also widely mistreated by non-Koreans. I see it every day in Koreatown. There needs to be increased access for Koreans and fellow AAPIs who have limited English proficiency (LEP), other linguistically marginalized people such as Indigenous people and even Black Americans who are also marginalized because they speak in African American Vernaculars vernacular. A lot of Koreans just don't know what their rights are. They don’t really get any social services beyond the bare minimum. Right now and in the long term, the primary goal of my nonprofit is language access. So whatever programming we do, it's for increased language access.
I want linguistically marginalized people to have more say in urban planning and environmental planning in Koreatown, to know what their rights are, and to be engaged with each other through my nonprofit and the community spaces I create. I'm good at that kind of stuff. I call it linguistic reconciliation rather than racial reconciliation.
Connect with Susan:
How Susan and her husband started a food bank: ”This couple turned their taqueria into a food bank”, Los Angles Times, May 2020
Susan partnered with CIELO to kick start a food bank for Indigenous folks