(lively music)
- My name is Irvin Paik.
I was born in Bakersfield, California, August 24th, 1940.
I identify as the second generation.
I had five sisters.
We were all in this little house on 41st Street.
You know, we had a neighbor that lived behind us.
And for some reason, I always felt uneasy around them.
I think it was because they were Japanese
and they had probably just come back from a relocation camp.
So I'm not sure, but I always had the feeling
that my parents did not want to associate
with their daughter.
I think her name was Irene.
Probably on their side and on my parents' side,
there must have been a little bit of anxiety.
I mean, as a five year old in 1945,
I didn't even know there was a war.
I didn't know there was Japanese-Korean animosity.
I don't ever remember anybody saying,
you know, "Don't play with Irene."
There was always an uneasiness about them.
Either my parents maybe would just not talk about it
or maybe the family, the Japanese family,
maybe they just didn't want to have any trouble
or maybe they suspected that we being Korean,
that they would be, you know, offend us somehow.
But no, I wasn't even aware of all that.
My parents were very hesitant being around white people.
I distinctly remember when we had an old car,
my father was making a left turn
and wasn't turning fast enough for the person behind.
Driver drove by and he said,
"You god damn Chinaman, get out of the way."
So I guess there was a lot of prejudice around it.
I wasn't aware of particularly.
We just didn't want to deal with the possibility
of having some kind of bad reaction
in dealing with white people.
My parents experienced more discrimination
than I did, 'cause I was only five or six.
But I had a good time in junior high school.
I produced a play, acted in it, wrote it.
I was always involved in high school drama.
Mr. Plaskoff was a teacher.
And there would be a Shakespeare contest at UCLA every year.
I won one, second place something. (laughs)
I have a little trophy somewhere.
And I was a photographer for the theater arts department
for several years.
I always felt that the drama department
and theater arts were not recognized
by the journal student body.
I mean, the football and basketball teams are huge.
I just spoke to Warren Lee,
Reverend Warren Lee, a few months ago
and he said that Warren was sitting
with two Caucasian friends and a frat person came up to them
and solicited them to join.
And he made a point of saying
that the two white friends are welcomed but not you.
I mean, that's a bold statement
that they could say like that in those days
and get away with it.
When I was at UCLA, I applied to an outside firm
to be a photographer and I was told
that I would have to find my own group of people
to take a picture of.
They couldn't assign me to just anybody.
"You couldn't work for us,
but you have to find your own jobs
and make your own contracts."
So I just didn't do that.
Well, my father never pressured me
to do anything particularly.
Well, he only had a eighth grade education,
'cause his father forced him to work on the farm.
He was very upset about that.
He wanted to make sure that all the children
got through high school at least.
And he was thrilled when myself
and my sister Margaret got advanced degrees.
I really wasn't that great a student.
I couldn't concentrate that much.
Oh, I think I took a legal course
and after about two weeks, I just dropped it.
I couldn't make anything out of that.
'Cause all my time was being spent
doing extracurricular activities in the theater department.
I was in a couple of small plays at UCLA
and I served on the cruise and we actually went on tour
to Berkeley and I was stage manager of a play.
So the whole casting crew just drove up there
and performed and drove back.
I went to Officer Candidate School,
traveled all over the Eastern United States,
making training films, I went to Vietnam for six months,
i went to Hawaii for a special Signal Corps project,
that was probably one of the big highlights,
and then working on a television show, "ER,"
did that for 14 years.
I was able, while in the Army,
to participate in Army Pictorial Center in Long Island City
where I would become a a script supervisor on film crews.
And then when I got out, a friend of mine from college,
they were doing Disneynature films,
so I went to Salt Lake City, did a film about an owl.
Then I went to Alaska and Florida
to follow the flight of a Peregrine Falcon.
And then industry-wide mandate came down
from the Justice Department to hire more minorities.
So I was able to get into film editing.
But things opened up a lot more.
I mean, it was a big deal the first time a woman assistant
was gonna be hired by Universal.
That was like a huge deal.
But things have opened up a lot more.
It's amazing.
Totally shocked that "Parasite"
would win an Academy Award.
But it's amazing, you know, the boy bands and K-pop music.
I can't give advice to younger people.
I mean, I think everybody's just doing so well.
Just follow your dreams, I guess.
Just do whatever you can.
My name is Irvin Paik and this is my Korean American story.
(lively music)