Korean Americans

I think even as a, you know, I identify as a Korean Korean.

However, I can pull off a Korean American pretty well, right? And so if I was seen speaking English fluently in public just two, I guess, decades ago, you know, people would stare and nobody stares anymore.

Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Because this was, you know, this law came into effect when South Korea was not a country where you had multicultural families here.

And I think it started off with a lot of the Korean Americans in the 70s and 80s.

We had a lot of people immigrating to the United States.

And because the U.S. has this birthright citizenship law, it didn't affect them.

You know, there are people from all different backgrounds, like not just Koreans that are out there.

We're just representing like not just Korean Americans, but also people that may have hard of hearing as well.

You know, Big Ocean's community that they hope to connect across the world.

It was like a for the people event, you know, like by the people.

You have like a differentiation of aspect of yourself and that could be your superpower too.

My family and I we moved here as an experiment from Marin and my ex-wife is Korean American and Marin was very white very affluent And one of the wonderful things about moving here was even though my kids were at Journey School, which is a private school, it was much more socioeconomically diverse than the public school they were going to in Marin, but it was even more ethnically diverse.

You think of Wyoming as being pretty white, but yeah, it was just a much better experience for my children.

I have a question because you lived in all these big cities, San Diego, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Tokyo, and then you end up in Jackson.

And today our guest is Joohee Lee Hartford.

Joohee is a Korean-American architect and a writer, and she's also the founder of River Architects.

Yes, based in New York, Hudson.

Hudson Valley.

So I saw a note of those response to the BLM uprisings on social media.

and how they were talking about, you know, slavery, racial capitalism, these concepts that the US was built on, and how it really informs US intervention in the Pacific, which was actually new information for me as a Korean American person.

So I clicked on the profile and I kind of went down the rabbit hole of all the political educational posts on Korean history and analysis on current events.

Because for me, as a child of a Korean adoptee.

I was very distanced from my own Korean history, you know, my ancestors' struggle, and basically the U.S. shaped events and influences that made Korea what it was, what it is today, and actually how it influenced my own mom's journey and immigration to the U.S., through the adoption, the U.S.-backed adoption industry.

So that's how I learned about Norato.

I joined a book club event, and I just kind of got more and more excited about talking to Korean Americans who also, similar to me, did not necessarily resonate with the typical expectations or experience of a lot of Korean Americans, and who also were similarly politicized.

And That's summer of 2020.

It was great.

Now, I mean, Dave, you know, My wife Gina and I are very different, and not just because she's Korean-American and I'm African-American.

I'm the sort of dad who's experiential, like go out there, take the risks, mess up, come consult with me as your coach.

Gina's a bit more, I don't want you to experience any pain.

She ultimately went back.

She was the first Korean American to graduate from USC.

So we have a long history with USC.

That's another issue.