(slow piano music)
- Ah Yes, my name is Joseph, and I currently live in Seoul.
I'm a professor at Sungkyunkwan University,
at the business school,
and I work mostly in nonverbal communication,
and I'm the head of a company called H two H.
We do communication with
mostly international companies here,
basically companies that are in Korea,
but have a global presence,
and I show the employees how to,
how to communicate more effectively.
I was born in South Korea and my family immigrated
in the mid seventies, in 1976,
and my parents were both international students.
So they went to study, my father studied business
and my mother studied education,
but eventually my mom gave up her study so that she could,
you know, take care of us, take care of the family.
So my father was the one who was in school full-time yeah.
You know, my father started full time in the MBA program,
but then he, they needed money.
So he decided to go to night school and then he switched to
the executive MBA so that the classes there were
from 7 to 10, Monday through Thursday,
and so the only job that he could get was at a,
like an army supply shop.
He actually wasn't allowed to work on an F1 visa,
but there was a Korean owner and they probably paid them
less than minimum wage to work there
So, he worked there from 7:00 AM, till 5:00 PM
and then went to school.
So from the ages of four to about 11,
I didn't see my father,
you know, the only time I saw him was on Sundays because
he slept only three hours a day for like seven, eight years,
except for the weekends, he said Saturday night,
you know, he got to sleep in a little bit,
and he went to the church morning prayer meeting,
but that was sleeping in for him.
So, my father is such a hard worker
and that's all he knew right, so that's the kind of life.
So, even though he slept, he and I slept in the same house,
he would get back around midnight,
and my brother and I already sleeping,
and then he would leave the house to get to work by six,
he would have to wake up at four, take the bus an hour.
That was, hat was his whole life,
and then my mom worked as a secretary,
worked as you know, she spoke English.
So she was able to do some translation work.
So she just worked your typical job.
So that's kind of that. Yeah, that's kind of the environment
that I grew up in and my brother and I
like most people of my era, we were latchkey kids
just had to raise ourselves and we lived in a poor area
and I remember even like, I remember
even the place that we live, you know,
a lot of people there, a lot of immigrants there,
a lot of robberies, So my parents were so poor at the time
that we qualified for government aid,
and so back then what it was,
was they would give every student like a card
and the card I remember was green.
So if you had a green card, you could get a free lunch.
And I remember I'd get this card,
and I was the only one in my class, first.
I'm, I'm not sure why I was the only one
that had this green card,
and I remember the kids would make fun of me.
So I feel like they were like doubly making fun of me,
like making fun of me being Asian,
making fun of me being poor because you know,
to get the lunch yet to show this green card,
and then I remember telling my mom,
just expecting her to say, just take what you can get,
but she didn't, she said, you know, it's okay.
You know, I'll just give you money for lunch,
and I think about that, and my father must've made like
$2 Dollars 75 cents, minimum wage
was like under $3 back then,
you know, the price of a big Mac was like a dollar,
and when I think about all this, just,
you know, how much they tried so hard to, you know,
just within the best of their ability to have me fit in,
and cause they wanted so much for me to fit in.
They wanted me to fit in and this is true.
A lot of people in my generation, it's kind of annoying,
but I know a lot of people with the same name as me.
Imagine just how many people we know that are
Korean American that are Grace Park,
Jenny Lee, Jennifer Kim, Michael Kim, Michael Lee,
because our parents wanted us to fit in,
and it was hard fitting in, like in fourth grade
because I grew up in a really poor neighborhood.
My parents decided to move us to a good school district,
and in, in elementary school there were four,
non-white kids.
One was my brother, every teacher was white,
every classmate was white, And in my class there was one,
you know, one, one black kid named David,
And he and I were two of them,
and we became best friends only because we were not white,
and so just that experience that obviously
colored the way that I, that I looked at the world
that I had to fit in. I had to do what I could to fit in.
But like a big moment in my life was when I was 14.
So, we had to try out for the football team,
and then, because we're a big school,
American football was just, it was such a big deal.
And we had two teams, we had the 'A team' and the 'B team',
you know, if you made the 'B team',
then it meant that you were generally physically smaller
and not as skilled, but it was almost a hundred percent
having to do with size, size, speed, and strength.
So I remember working so hard and I remember that I had made
the 'A team' and that I was gonna be one of the starters,
which was like a status symbol for a 14 year old boy, Right?
So I was strong. I was big.
And then I was so excited and I remember like,
I just wanted to like, like walk around.
And then the 'A team' jerseys were like,
like green and blue and the 'B-team' jerseys were
like a, like a different color.
I don't remember what it like white or
just a different colors.
So, I just want it to like proudly wear this Jersey,
and I went into the equipment room
and the equipment room had a manager whose name
was also Joe, and he was probably in his late sixties
about to retire.
I remember, like he said, "Hey, don't touch that!" You know,
and he grabbed my arm and he was a small guy
about like this big or so, he grabbed my arm
and he said, "You stupid chink."
And so that was like the first time that I had,
you know, I've been called racist names before,
but never by an adult and never by a teacher.
So, and then like the whole room froze,
you know, and every kid in there was,
was white and they just froze
in that kind of young teenage, like masculine room.
Like I just held the shirt and I just,
I didn't know what to do. Like I just remember freezing,
And I remember I had just started
crying and crying and crying cause I just, I just,
I just didn't know how to react to that. Right,
and then I came home to tell my parents and like most
immigrants of that era,
my parents were, you know, deeply Christian,
and they said, you know, you need to forgive him
and forget about it. So I remember just being so angry,
and so the next day
I actually,
when I think about this, I just think about
how my life trajectory could have changed
by this one decision. I actually packed a hammer
and I actually packed a ski mask.
And my intent was not to kill Joe,
but to break one of his legs, he was already crippled.
So I was just going to break the crippled leg,
and in my thinking, you know, I would hurt him,
but I wouldn't kill him. He's already crippled.
So, so I remember I had it in my backpack and of course,
you know, back then there was no,
there's no metal detector as it wasn't, again,
it was a wealthy, wealthy suburb. Right. So,
so I went there and
I just saw him and
I just saw him as just this old guy. I don't know.
I just, so then I kind of forgot about it.
Because my parents said, you know,
if you think about something else, you'll forget about it.
So I remember I went to school with the hammer,
came back with a hammer and ski mask and surprisingly,
I did forget about it, and then I had a normal
kind of normal, well, mostly normal life, you know.
There's always like hints of racism here and there, but,
but it was, it was for the most part, normal,
you know, people who know me now, they like, like,
they'll look at like old pictures of me and be like,
oh my gosh, like, this is, I can't believe this is you.
You know, I used to have really long hair,
like down to my back, and I played the guitar, and,
in university I had, I was involved with this church.
So, this kind of Asian-American church.
So, the church was one part of my community.
I actually wanted to be a musician.
So, I played in a rock band.
I was the guitarist for a rock band.
So, that like the band was my other community.
So every weekend, you know,
I went to university of Illinois,
which is about a three hour drive south of Chicago
every weekend, I would go back,
go back home to Chicago and we would practice play shows.
So I did that throughout my university,
and then for two years afterwards, as well,
obviously very Asian, mostly Korean in this church
with people just like me and then my band,
and like the rock community was,
was actually even more white than my, you know,
then my high school, my brother was the singer of the band.
But besides us too, like, you know, the drummer,
the bass player, you know, the clubs that we played in,
like I'm not talking 90%, I am talking a 100% white.
Yeah. This is, like Latinos and blacks,
weren't into heavy metal music at the time,
and Asians weren't, so I was kind of like
the different Asian that was into that. Yeah.
So, so that's what I wanted to do,
and that was kind of like my community.
Yeah, so I had kind of my life planned out.
I was going to be a rock star, but I never got famous.
And so my mom made this deal with me,
so I dropped out of school and she says, you know,
if you can't make a living within two years,
then you come back to school. So I said, okay,
and I was a good student.
I majored in philosophy and
I wanted to be a philosophy professor and,
yeah, so that's kind of what happened.
I didn't, I didn't make a whole lot of money.
I couldn't make a career out of it.
So I listened to my mom, and then I went back to school,
and then just kind of led a more normal professor's life,
I guess. Yeah.
Because I lived in Japan seven years before here,
I kind of had to deal with these issues in Japan.
When I went to Japan, nobody thought I was American.
They just thought that I was a Korean who spoke English,
who could not speak Korean that well.
So it's, it's a very different way
of looking at your identity, like Koreans,
when they look at me, I'm Korean,
I'm a Korean that I'm like, even like my visa,
like for many of us is overseas Korean. Right.
It's, that's, that's my status.
I'm an overseas Korean. I'm not a Korean American here.
Yeah. I felt so Korean when I lived in Japan.
But when I came to Korea, I feel like,
I feel like I feel more American
and it's probably just the environment that I'm in
at the school. It kind of told me, I guess
there is something different, you know,
maybe I'm not cognizant of it,
but this sort of bifurcation of my Korean identity
and my American identity, like I thought everything,
like I would come here and it would just like,
I would become fully Korean,
and I would like listen to K-pop
and like do all this stuff, but I came and,
there is something different and it's not just linguistic
it's everything from like the words that I choose,
the way I choose to live my life,
the people that I hang around with,
and, and again, I'm totally comfortable being the,
like, like being amongst Koreans
that don't speak English at all.
I'm totally comfortable in that environment.
But you know at the same time, I guess,
yeah, I am different,
and just, just by these little things,
the fact that my friend could identify me
or the fact that my students look at me differently,
you know, like I have students talk to me about
like struggles with their family, and I asked them,
you know, do you talk about this with your other professors?
and they say, usually I can't,
and I said, why not?
And they say, "It's because I have to use Korean."
So, it's, you know,
partly probably because maybe they're close to me,
but also because the Korean language makes it
so much harder to have at least more immediate,
intimate, conversations very quickly,
because you have to use the
(Foreign Language) the honorific right away. Right.
So it's polite, but, but there's,
there's a distance, right? So,
you know, so I'm a single father.
I have two sons who are teenagers,
and like my parents always kind of,
allowed me to,
figure out for myself who I was.
They allowed me to choose, and
I think that compared to some of my other friends,
they, they maybe didn't get that choice,
and maybe a lot of young Koreans really feel like,
because it's very different. You're doing what your parents
tell you to do, and you making the choice for yourself,
even if it's what they wanted you to do all along. Right?
So, and then with my two sons
who come to Korea every summer,
I always say, you know, it's your life.
I can't live your life. You know, my parents love me,
but they can't live my life, I can't live theirs,
but they kept this is still my life.
I think that when my parents taught me
and what I've realized in my 49 years of life,
what I try to teach my children is
ultimately it's your life, only you can live it, you know?
And you know, you have to be responsible for your mistakes.
It's not like I had this perfect life.
I think I've had a wonderful life, but I've,
you know, there's a lot of mess ups that
I've had along the way, and I have to own up to it,
and I have to take responsibility for my life and say,
this is, this is my life, you know, good or bad.
It's, it's my life, and I chose this path.
And I, and I know that's not true for everybody.
It's not true for people who went through
maybe extreme trauma.
And so in that sense, you know, I did go through
minor trauma growing up like that
with the racism and with things like that.
But, but at the same time, I, I chose this life.
I chose to come to Korea.
You know, I chose to become a specialist
in nonverbal communication. You know,
I chose to start a company. I chose to be a professor,
and so those choices really,
it, it really gives me a sense of power,
whether I made the wrong or the right choices,
that's secondary. But the fact that I could
make this choice, you know, so it's, it's really empowering,
and in that sense, I feel like my Korean-American story
is that I felt empowered, you know, to make this choice,
and I feel like it's why I've led a very successful life,
and I hope to continue to lead a successful life.
My name is Joseph Kim, and this is my Korean-American story.
(Mellow Piano Music)