Legacy Project

Through the smell of beondegi and dalgona wafting through the air, Ken Hong felt instantly welcomed back to Korea despite spending many years away after his family immigrated in the 1970s. After many stints of living in Korea while traveling around Asia for work as a PR representative, Ken is now proud to call Korea home and provide a more rooted and immersive cultural experience for his teenage daughter; something he lacked in his own childhood in America.

Frank Nam would describe his youth in the Tri-state area as “Korean on the weekends and American on the weekdays.” After graduating from Rutgers as a history major, he never expected to land a job at MSNBC.com as a web developer; later moving on to Microsoft. He then spent the next 24 years in Seattle exploring different sectors within his career before being suddenly laid off during the 2001 recession, thus facing many emotional stressors throughout a year and a half of unemployment. He finally confronted himself and laid out two options – go back to NY or stay in Seattle to explore his passions instead of being what he thought a good Korean American Christian should be.

Adopted from South Korea to a family in Central Minnesota at just 5 months old, Karl Johnson didn’t always feel a sense of ownership over his Korean heritage, which is exactly what brought him back to Korea in his adulthood. Karl shares his own poem “Baa Baa Yellow Sheep”, which questions what you’re left with when you’re stripped of your original culture, family, country as a transracial adoptee.

Robert Joe was born in NY and raised in Texas after his father decided to quit his job at Samsung to stay in America during the ’70s. As a child, he was drawn to his creativity and eventually grew up to pursue film studies at the University of Texas after realizing the impact movies made on his life. Since moving to Korea in 2002, Robert has been able to reflect on his limitations as a Korean American living there– from issues with its healthcare system while taking care of his sick mother, to questioning what he as a Korean American has to offer the quickly growing country.

Grace Kim was born in Dallas, Texas and was raised in a town a little outside of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Growing up, she didn’t realize how different it was to be a Korean American until her friends made negative comments about her bring kimbap to share with everyone for her birthday. In that split second, she thought to herself that she didn’t like it anymore. Wanting to find an outlet and explore life further, Grace took on hobbies such as dance and photography to show her creativity.

Peter Kim was born in South Korea and grew up with a large, close-knit family that worked together at his father’s business. After immigrating to Canada at the age of 10, he soon realized how displaced he was with the rest of society. In this Remote Edition of Legacy Project, Peter sits down with his daughter, Cara, to talk about his journey through his view of the world as a Korean, Korean Canadian and Korean American. He shares his regrets of not teaching his children to be more immersed in Korean culture, but also emphasizes the importance of being an open book and having common understanding. He hopes for Cara to lead a positive and fulfilling life while growing confident in her own identity.

Before his first birthday, Linus Kim and his family moved to Bessemer, a town outside Birmingham, Alabama, after his uncle asked his parents to take over their business. When a friend invited him to visit Korea, he took the opportunity and brought along his barbeque rubs and spices. He somehow found a way to make barbeque and began to pursue popups to sell his pulled pork sandwiches. To his surprise, they were a hit and realized he was on to something and knew he had to head back to the US in order to learn more than just making pulled pork sandwiches. He traveled from town to town, meeting new people and learning new techniques. He eventually got to Batesville, Arkansas, where he trained to be a barbeque judge. After a few years of running popups in Korea and participating in competitions in the US, Linus opened up his own restaurant in Itaewon.

After six years of living in LA, Soon Ja Rhee and her husband decided to open up a video rental store. But within five years of running the business, news broke out about riots happening across LA. Mrs. Rhee vividly recalls her next-door neighbor rushing over to tell her that they saw their store on fire on the news. Her whole family hurried back to the store and saw everything had burned down. This year marks the 30th anniversary of SaIGu (4.29).

Carol Park grew up working many hours at her parent’s gas station store in Los Angeles, California. On April 29, 1992(SaIGu), the 1992 LA Civil Unrest broke out when she was 12 years old. Carol recalls frantically calling her mother to tell her to come home after seeing all the violence happening on the news. She eventually made it home safely but could not stop thinking about her store and hoping it would not burn down.