Journalist, Author & Syndicated Columnist
“I’ve thought at times about the fact that I was born to people who, for many generations, lived on just that one strip of land – Korea,” said “Exhibit” author R.O. Kwon. “When I’m in Korea, it feels as though my body recalls the soil I’m made of, attending to a song in the wind, rain and foliage that I can’t quite find elsewhere.”
Six years after she won critical acclaim for her debut novel “If You Leave Me Now,” Crystal Hana Kim has published her second book “The Stone Home” (William Morrow). The novel centers on a homeless mother and daughter who, in the 1980s, are sent to live in a South Korean reformatory center designed to break down their will to survive.
“It’s always interesting to me the weight that [some Asian Americans] carry around from not having grown up with people who look like them,” said “Quantum Leap” star Raymond Lee. “I was fortunate enough to grow up in Koreatown and Glendale, where our star quarterback was Asian and the smartest three students in our class were Asian.”
Born in New York, Jessica Ho was 14 years old when she moved to South Korea by herself to jump-start her music career. Because of her young age, Jessi – as she’s known professionally – lived with her grandmother, attended school and signed with a Korean music company. “My father hadn’t wanted me to go, because I was so young,” said the singer, rapper and on-air personality
With her first memoir “All You Can Ever Know,” Nicole Chung candidly offered personal reflections on being a transracial adoptee. The bestselling author’s latest book “A Living Remedy” (Ecco) deals with grief, classism and America’s broken healthcare system, which contributed to the deaths of both her adoptive parents.
In this essay, writer Jae-Ha Kim celebrates BTS’s 10th anniversary as a group by looking at the dreams they achieved on behalf of the Korean diaspora. They rose to the top and took us with them.
“I’m lucky to have family roots that stretch around the globe,” said screenwriter William Yu. “I was born in Philadelphia, moved to Hong Kong when I was five, then to Boston, and then to New York, before coming out here to Los Angeles. My older sister currently lives in London. While we still have family in Seoul, where my parents were born, my mother went to high school in Taiwan, while my father spent formative years in Jamaica, before the two ended up in America for college and beyond.”
To them it may have been smelly and weird. To us, it was a taste of home.
Back in my era, the teachers encouraged immigrants to only speak English at home so that we wouldn’t fall behind. But what they didn’t know at the time — or perhaps they didn’t really care about — was that in the rush to make us understand English, many of us lost our ability to converse in our birth language.
Young Mazino plays Steven Yeun’s younger brother in the Netflix rage series “BEEF.” And he has the starring role in the upcoming series “Good Boy.” In this interview, we talk about acting, reclaiming his identity as an American, and that name of his that isn’t quite Korean. “I’ve been waiting for someone to ask,” he said, laughing. “You’re officially the first.” Read the full story here.