(gentle music)
- My name is Ohn.
I am currently the incoming board chair
of Korean American Story.
I've been involved with the organization
as a board member for about four years,
but I've known the founder, and his efforts
and his mission for 10 years now.
So, I guess rewinding a little bit, I was born in Korea,
so I had moved here when I was four.
I came to New York in '87, I remember the first place
that we lived in Flushing on 149th Street
Elm Avenue, yeah.
So I remember you know, running
around on the street in front of the house,
I was lucky enough to grow up in a neighborhood
of immigrants and so didn't necessarily feel
like I was excluded from anything.
And I think that was, like I said,
a blessing of growing up in Queens.
Although, you know, you, you had a hodgepodge
of different cultures and different groups of people,
especially a lot of different groups of immigrants
in Flushing at the time, you still sort of found
your pocket like it was that area around, you know,
Union Street and Main Street and Roosevelt Avenue
where every sign you look, you looked up you could
essentially see in Korean and English and so I think,
looking back on it now, it was comforting to know that,
that was always there,
that community was there.
So I went to high school, eventually,
Hunter which is on 94th Street.
And you know, I think about it now
and it was roughly three and change hours round trip
every day to go back and forth in school,
(laughs)
that was, you know, I know, like I said,
thousands and thousands of students have done
this over the years, but you know,
when I went to college and most of the people
had grown up going to school within, you know,
five, ten minute drive of their home,
it did kinda of stick out to me that, oh,
I guess that's different, I guess that's unusual
for someone to, you know, take two forms of transportation
just to get to school every day.
So I went to Hunter, and I think that was very, you know,
formative experiences as those teenage years always are.
But, it was also kinda of the first time
where I felt like, you know, there was a good mix of
of different ethnicities and, and representation from
all five boroughs and all of that,
but there was still clearly a sense of
in-groups and out-groups, right.
There was first, first and foremost Hunter starts
at as an elementary school, and so, probably about
10% of each incoming class, is,
is made up of kids who started to go to
Hunter when they were five.
And so, you know, they already have this in-group.
And so they're the cool kids,
they're a bit precocious, they've grown up in the city,
and so, you know, like, Queens hick, like me,
like, we don't, we don't know what we're doing,
we're come in, we're taking the subway to school
for the first time, and there was a clear sense of,
of, you know, these are the cool kids, right?
And of course, you wanna be one of the cool kids,
and of course, you want to be accepted
as a 12, 13-year-old, 14-year-old.
But I think Hunter did a good job of educating about,
you know, this is, this is the New York City
that we live in.
We try to bring everyone together here,
because there's this deeply held belief there that
you want people of different historical backgrounds,
cultural backgrounds, socioeconomic classes
to form this group, because there is this belief
that diversity does lead to a deeper understanding, and
and more nuanced education.
So now some of the classes that we took,
led by our teachers, were very discussion-based.
And so you would see, how different people's upbringings
how their individual experiences kind of
brought them to that place.
And it was enriching, definitely,
it was the first time I kind of
left that Queens shell.
I graduated high school in 2001,
and it was still like, Wall Street was king of New York,
and, and so there was this sense, like, all right,
I gotta get this Wall Street job,
so I went to undergrad at Georgetown.
And again, another kind of culture shock, right,
because Hunter because I was in that,
sheltered environment, you know,
I didn't necessarily feel like oh, it's,
it's a strange thing for me to be Korean American,
or Asian American.
And so I guess in college like a lot of other people,
you kind of, as you're developing your own identity
and developing your own understanding of yourself,
if you explore it's like, well,
if everyone else sees me this way, what does that mean?
What does that say about me, right?
What do I know about myself?
At first glance, if I looked at myself in the mirror?
You know, led to more exploration
of what is this being Asian with what is being Korean
mean, not just myself, but to the people around me, who,
who don't know me.
After undergrad I came back, worked,
started working in finance as planned, for the most part,
of most of your managers, and most of the people you see
represented on the boards of these organizations
are all still predominantly white and male.
And so, you know, there was definitely this
idea of, okay, I'm an Asian American male,
and I kinda of fit into this this mold I,
you know, did the right things,
I went to the right school I chose the right career,
but am I in this place where
I'm more than just a worker bee, right?
I think, I guess especially at the junior levels, your,
your contribution is largely commoditized, right?
Although there were some Asian,
Asian largely male workers.
There was, like I said, there's tendency to be guarded,
there's this tendency to be like, do your thing,
and you don't really have to commiserate with anyone or,
or empathize with anyone, you just have to get promoted,
and, and then you can, you'll be fine.
Like there's as much as there's, you know,
a community of Asian American workers
and I'm sure there's, there are these
professional societies that I never really partook in,
largely your efforts are seen to be individual,
your contributions are seen to be individual.
And so your merit is measured by that.
Things are kinda of changing now,
they look at your broader impact on community
or as a corporate citizen, what does that mean to you.
Do you bring some diverse ideas to the table
and things like that, but at a time,
I think you just you're kind of doing your own thing,
and so, you didn't really connect with people
on a personal level, right?
Your story was your story,
and as much as it might have been similar
to someone else's story, you didn't really know that.
So right around this time,
and I think I had read the book a little earlier in college,
but I revisited,
(laughs)
Min Jin Lee's "Free Food for Millionaires"
so it was like, oh my god,
I identify with so many of these characters
in so many different ways.
I work in finance, and I don't know if my identity
here is accepted or I'm supposed to be
you know, the hard working Asian
who is silent and doesn't speak up about things and
and things like that and so that I think that
instigated some soul searching.
What was my function?
What was my role?
You know that, that book was probably the first one
I read from a Korean American author.
And it really did kind of change my expectation
of what was possible.
So whether we are trying to emphasize the importance
of representation in media, in literature, in art, film
that does have a very personal impact,
I think on the individuals who are watching it.
One of the first moments that I really,
even even more deeply connected with,
okay, this is how my personal story relates to,
the larger historical narrative was
when we started to work as an organization,
with Swallowtail or Jebby now,
the films that they were working on,
the short film series called Flushing Stories,
it was like, "Wow, this was shot,
where I took the bus every day."
I mean, it's, like, I know,
the bakery around the corner
from where the scene was, right?
And it's, and that really, I think, cemented
that whole thought process of, of understanding
why it's important to tell our stories to
to see them broadcast or to see them archived and shared,
it was really revealing.
That I had such a deeply personal response
to the short films.
Although my story wasn't exactly along the same lines as
as Happy Cleaners, for example,
you could, I could definitely relate to the
to the different situations and circumstances and
and struggles that are being portrayed there.
So it just, it gives a sense of belonging
that I didn't have before.
The story aspect of Korean American Story aspect
that's largely untold, to uncover these stories,
it creates a community,
it creates this sense of belonging,
a sense that my experiences, while unique,
are part of a larger pattern, a larger fabric, call it
that there are people who can relate to it or understand it.
And I think that there's a deep comfort in that.
So, you know, the reason I believe in this,
this mission that we have at Korean American Story is that,
you know, I guess a deeply personal reason is that,
you know, you feel small as an individual
thinking that your story is just yours
and being able to put it in a larger context I think is
meaningful, and it does provide comfort.
My name is Ohn Choe and this is my Korean American story.
(gentle music)