(soft music)
- My name is Peter Kim,
I'm 51 years old
and I was born in Seoul, Korea.
- So what was your childhood like in Korea?
- Very happy.
We had a big family, lots of relatives.
Our family came down from the north,
my father did.
And so all of us gathered in this area
below Namsan
and so to the age of 10,
it was like we carried our own community with us.
I have five older sisters
and I'm the last, I'm the only son.
And so, yes, we had a very lively
family household
and we had lots of cousins who lived nearby.
We all worked in my father's business.
And so we had a very large community
right within our household.
- When did your family decide to immigrate to Canada?
- We immigrated to Canada when I was 10 years old
and that's when reality hit me because up to that point,
I was protected by my family.
All my adult cousins and relatives nearby,
all working in my father's factory and business.
But when our family moved to Canada,
we became displaced.
I didn't know at that point but
I had been thrusted along with my sisters
in an environment where we
had no knowledge of the language, culture
and so thrusted into the schooling system,
that was tremendously difficult.
All the conflicts that arose.
I remember going to my elementary school,
on the first day I got into a physical fisticuffs
and fight
because I thought couple of kids are looking at me funny
and you can sense that
and so I immediately became physical.
And so that was my first day at school.
(laughing loudly)
- I didn't know you started fighting that early.
- There were some fun times too,
but every day was an adventure
not so fun adventures,
but some were good.
- When did you like start finding
a Korean community in Canada?
- Fortunately, we grew up in a very close knit
church family, church community that was in London, Ontario.
And so I grew up with about 10 of similar aged students.
That sense of community,
will always stay with me as a very good and loving memory.
- Like, so you remember feeling more comfortable there and
I guess like safer with them?
- There was a commonality of cultural experiences.
The foods, the language and so on,
but it's funny the language
would be English.
Me in broken English
but for them, completely English.
But the language, everyone understood,
"Have you eaten, what do you want to eat?"
we would understand what our parents would tell us.
Now I would understand heck of a lot more
because I just immigrated there,
but other kids, other Korean Canadians,
they grew up in a setting where learning English
was so important to them
and the families felt that was such...
Take such precedent importance over their mother tongue,
that they would grow up speaking English.
My experience, just opened up to another whole chapter
where I went from Korean to Korean-Canadian
and now Korean-American
and it's been 27 years.
I've been in the states for 27 years,
longer than any other countries.
At my Chicago land church,
my sister, my brother-in-law and me,
we started noticing
all these influx of international students,
who are attending the local private school
and we noticed that they didn't have any support.
They would come to church on Sundays
and you see their deprived faces eating
(speaking foreign language)
and we thought something is wrong.
How can kids raise themselves?
And my brother-in-law who was also
the youth pastor but a psychologist,
he was called upon by the private school
to try to treat some of their Korean international students.
He came back and said,
"You know what?
The Korean kids are on one side of the corner,
all the other local kids are on
the other side of the corner."
And it was like in my childhood all over again.
There was a fence between us and them.
That is no way to live
when you're 14, 15, 16,
when your character,
your overall being is being made
and so we decided,
you know what, we can do something about this.
And then we started an education consulting agency
so that we can take care of the students emotionally,
physically,
and educationally.
- Well, you guys speak Korean but
I mean I can
barely speak.
So like, did you ever think that through like,
oh, I'm gonna speak Korean to my kids
or did you just
not think about it and then
just ended up speaking English to us all the time?
- Your brother Andrew said to me about two weeks ago,
having a second language is like having a superpower.
I totally agree with that.
I'm doing what I'm doing
because of my ability to be bi cultural-bilingual.
And so, yes, we really wanted to teach you guys Korean.
In fact, when Andrew didn't call his older brother Hyung,
I would say,
you're going against the grain of 5,000 years.
You need to call him Hyung
and you guys went to
local Korean community Korean schools and so on
so we did that for many years.
But I do regret that,
I do regret not being fully immersed in teaching.
Ironically, my job is to teach
but we didn't teach you that component because
I felt again, communication was key.
I thought having an open book,
common understanding with my children
was the most important thing.
Again, hindsight, I wish we could have done more
but just being able to talk to you,
being understanding,
fully coherent with one and really connecting,
that was more important to me.
- What wisdom would you like to pass along to me?
- Know
that you're doing great.
Be positive
and just live your life,
but with certain vision in mind
and you're sort of venturing to see, what that is.
I get that, but I know you wanna do good,
I know you wanna be successful, whatever that means
and I know you wanna be impactful
and I know you want to be happy.
I really believe you can do all of that
but the daily look of that, is not easy.
(laughing loudly)
There's no question about that,
but that's okay.
That's okay.
- Did it ever bother you that
we all grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood
and school and church?
- That does pain me a little bit.
I grew up in a Korean church, Korean community
and that sense of belonging is very special.
I never gave you guys that.
We grew up in a very kind of white dominant area,
that culture and so on.
I do regret that Cara.
That I wish you guys could have had what I had.
- I speak so comfortably about it now
because I'm very confident in my identity now,
but did you ever notice when I was younger like
that I kind of struggled with that?
- No, it was really a surprise for me
because we were so involved with your schooling.
I mean I saw you at school every day.
- Yeah.
- I had an office there you know
and I knew all your friends.
And so
it was a surprise for me when you said that you
struggled with that.
I thought I addressed that,
but it wasn't that easy
and so, yeah, it was a shock to me.
For the longest time I would
if faced with certain kind of
hostility
When I was young I would say,
was that because I was Korean
or was that because that person is just mean?
I later discovered
that I had to switch gears and say,
you know
that's annoying,
but that shouldn't bother my day, my week, my month.
I had to sever that.
I had to become more confident as a person.
So when you guys came home with silly stories like that or
instances of racism or injustice,
I was angry with you
and I was ready to go out and punch out people,
but I knew in the back of my mind
that you needed to develop that.
To develop,
not callousness
but thick skin and confidence to rise above it.
- In what ways do you see yourself in me?
- You are exactly like me.
I remember people's names,
I'm very relational,
I love working with people,
I don't like numbers,
Math is a really bad word for me.
- Me too.
- You're gonna laugh at this but
sometimes when I meet someone for the first time,
it makes me happy to make that person happy
and I know you're like that.
- Yeah, I was thinking that too.
I was like me too.
- I remember when you were in grade school,
you're looking at the school yearbook
and memorizing names.
- Really? - Yes.
- That's so weird.
- I had friends who later on became doctors
who memorized dictionaries and encyclopedias.
You, you're interested in people.
Now, I never did that, but I'm like that.
So I get it.
- Do you see yourself as
a Korean American or Korean Canadian-American?
Like,
how do you identify?
- I have a tri view of the world.
As a Korean person,
as a Korean Canadian person
because I was educated in Canada
and as a Korean-American.
So for the longest time,
I would be very confused about who I am,
but I know what I am now
and that's why this interview
and this Korean American story is so special for me.
As Korean Americans, I do believe we belong here.
I believe our community
needs to thrive and our roots must be strong.
We can be an incredibly valuable part and we are of America.
Going into the future,
we must tell our stories.
We must have our kids know our stories
to go on forward to create their own.
So this organization, this story,
this is really special for me,
this is what I believed in for a long, long time.
Cara, I'm excited for you.
The world with all its
dangers
and ugliness
but you can be an impactful person.
Yes,
lead
a happy life
but you can really become someone special to other people.
You can be a positive force,
I really believe that.
My name is Peter Kim
and this is my Korean American story.
(soft music)