
English: 
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]

English: 
[Music]
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
hello everyone and welcome to the 2020
virtual net cal forum now if you all
tried to join us earlier when we were
going live we had some uh
technical difficulties and we were
trying to resolve those and troubleshoot
but unfortunately
uh it wasn't we were not able to do so
so we decided to take this route of
recording
uh this session and the entire event via
zoom and here we are

English: 
hello everyone and welcome to the 2020
virtual net cal forum now if you all
tried to join us earlier when we were
going live we had some uh
technical difficulties and we were
trying to resolve those and troubleshoot
but unfortunately
uh it wasn't we were not able to do so
so we decided to take this route of
recording
uh this session and the entire event via
zoom and here we are

English: 
so i'm going to do the introductions
again uh starting with myself my name is
may
lee i am the host and executive producer
of the maylie show which is a podcast in
both audio
and video form and it's a show that
focuses on asians and asian-american
issues people
topics that show started in early
february long before a cove had hit so
things have
changed quite a bit i'm also the founder
of lotus media house
and i have been a broadcast journalist
for over 30 years having been an anchor
for cnn
cnbc abc among others as well as
having worked for oprah winfrey's first
tv network oxygen media
that she launched back in 2000 now
this forum is co-organized by net cal
inc and global korean leaders foundation
usa
now net cal is an organization uh of
korean-american
leaders and they what their purpose is
is to try to empower and shape and grow

English: 
so i'm going to do the introductions
again uh starting with myself my name is
may
lee i am the host and executive producer
of the maylie show which is a podcast in
both audio
and video form and it's a show that
focuses on asians and asian-american
issues people
topics that show started in early
february long before a cove had hit so
things have
changed quite a bit i'm also the founder
of lotus media house
and i have been a broadcast journalist
for over 30 years having been an anchor
for cnn
cnbc abc among others as well as
having worked for oprah winfrey's first
tv network oxygen media
that she launched back in 2000 now
this forum is co-organized by net cal
inc and global korean leaders foundation
usa
now net cal is an organization uh of
korean-american
leaders and they what their purpose is

English: 
civic-minded leaders from the
korean-american community as well as
around the world and the global korean
leaders foundation usa
is a partner institution of net cal and
this forum is sponsored by
the korea foundation an organized
organization affiliated with korea's
ministry of foreign affairs so we'd like
to
thank the korea foundation for its
sponsorship
now the theme of this virtual forum is
unlocking ethnic minorities power and
influence in mainstream america
right now um it's you can't argue that
we are going through an
unprecedented time in this country and
the world
there is so much upheaval there are so
many challenges there's so much division
and there's culture wars taking place
and there's a lot of violence
and ill will so all the more reason
to have a form like this where we can
empower different communities and of

English: 
is to try to empower and shape and grow
civic-minded leaders from the
korean-american community as well as
around the world and the global korean
leaders foundation usa
is a partner institution of net cal and
this forum is sponsored by
the korea foundation an organized
organization affiliated with korea's
ministry of foreign affairs so we'd like
to
thank the korea foundation for its
sponsorship
now the theme of this virtual forum is
unlocking ethnic minorities power and
influence in mainstream america
right now um it's you can't argue that
we are going through an
unprecedented time in this country and
the world
there is so much upheaval there are so
many challenges there's so much division
and there's culture wars taking place
and there's a lot of violence
and ill will so all the more reason
to have a form like this where we can

English: 
course empower the korean and
korean-american community
to find our voice we want to inspire and
incite positive change
we want to focus on solutions to
division and misunderstanding
we want to elevate uh the korean image
and take control of the narrative
because oftentimes the narrative is
controlled by
outsiders others who oftentimes can
misrepresent
misinterpret uh for instance in the
media in politics and other
public forums so this event is all about
raising awareness
it's about educating it's about
informing and it's about learning from
other communities that's why this first
panel is so important
because we have gathered together three
wonderful speakers
who come from different backgrounds who
can share their experiences
and give us some ideas of best practices
to
help the world become a better place
because boy do we need it right now

English: 
empower different communities and of
course empower the korean and
korean-american community
to find our voice we want to inspire and
incite positive change
we want to focus on solutions to
division and misunderstanding
we want to elevate uh the korean image
and take control of the narrative
because oftentimes the narrative is
controlled by
outsiders others who oftentimes can
misrepresent
misinterpret uh for instance in the
media in politics and other
public forums so this event is all about
raising awareness
it's about educating it's about
informing and it's about learning from
other communities that's why this first
panel is so important
because we have gathered together three
wonderful speakers
who come from different backgrounds who
can share their experiences
and give us some ideas of best practices
to
help the world become a better place
because boy do we need it right now

English: 
so let me do some quick introductions
first is john chang
is former california state treasurer uh
he held that role from 2015 to 2019
he serves as member of the board of
directors of apollo
medical holdings inc asia systems and
zeus technologies
he also serves on advisory boards of
pasadena private finance and calyx peak
and john is a first-generation
taiwanese-american
next we have richard hershot he is
director of the
american jewish committee of los angeles
now the ajc was established in 1906
as one of the oldest jewish advocacy
organizations and according to the new
york times
it is quote widely regarded as the dean
of american jewish organizations richard
has worked to advance human rights
democratic values and promote security
and well-being of jews in the us
israel and around the world and finally

English: 
so let me do some quick introductions
first is john chang
is former california state treasurer uh
he held that role from 2015 to 2019
he serves as member of the board of
directors of apollo
medical holdings inc asia systems and
zeus technologies
he also serves on advisory boards of
pasadena private finance and calyx peak
and john is a first-generation
taiwanese-american
next we have richard hershot he is
director of the
american jewish committee of los angeles
now the ajc was established in 1906
as one of the oldest jewish advocacy
organizations and according to the new
york times
it is quote widely regarded as the dean
of american jewish organizations richard
has worked to advance human rights
democratic values and promote security
and well-being of jews in the us
israel and around the world and finally
we have reverend william

English: 
we have reverend william
d smart jr he is president and ceo of
the southern
christian leadership conference he is
also co-pastor of the
christ liberation ministries in los
angeles
reverend smart served as an advocate and
disciple of dr
martin luther king jr throughout his
life he has worked with various social
justice movements and has been a
faith-based coordinator for political
campaigns including
presidential elections in 2000 2004
and 2016. welcome to all of you
and i want to thank give huge thanks to
all of you for being so
patient and being willing to stick
around to
hold this panel because i think it's so
important so thank you so much
it's so good to see you clearly and hear
you as well
so let's cut to the chase this is what i
wanted to ask you before before we had
our technical difficulties but
we're seeing as i said we're seeing such

English: 
d smart jr he is president and ceo of
the southern
christian leadership conference he is
also co-pastor of the
christ liberation ministries in los
angeles
reverend smart served as an advocate and
disciple of dr
martin luther king jr throughout his
life he has worked with various social
justice movements and has been a
faith-based coordinator for political
campaigns including
presidential elections in 2000 2004
and 2016. welcome to all of you
and i want to thank give huge thanks to
all of you for being so
patient and being willing to stick
around to
hold this panel because i think it's so
important so thank you so much
it's so good to see you clearly and hear
you as well
so let's cut to the chase this is what i
wanted to ask you before before we had
our technical difficulties but
we're seeing as i said we're seeing such
tremendous

English: 
upheaval right now such division and
such
violence and such you know such
uncertainty and anxiety we're all going
through this right now so it is
uh you know something that nobody can
really escape
but what's frightening is what's
happening it's this growing chasm
between
communities and cultures and races and
you know obviously political ideology
so i would like to ask each one of you
because you all come from different
backgrounds
how what do you think about what's going
on and what is what are some of your
observations so
john if i could start with you well
first uh
my first impression is i just want to
thank nedcal for uniting all of us to
have this healthy
vibrant and especially timely
conversation uh you pointed out may so
appropriately
the extraordinary divisions the
divisiveness right
the uh the only way you remedied that is
as we've heard we shall overcome
uh you bring people of good goodwill who
are responsible who are serious

English: 
tremendous
upheaval right now such division and
such
violence and such you know such
uncertainty and anxiety we're all going
through this right now so it is
uh you know something that nobody can
really escape
but what's frightening is what's
happening it's this growing chasm
between
communities and cultures and races and
you know obviously political ideology
so i would like to ask each one of you
because you all come from different
backgrounds
how what do you think about what's going
on and what is what are some of your
observations so
john if i could start with you well
first uh
my first impression is i just want to
thank nedcal for uniting all of us to
have this healthy
vibrant and especially timely
conversation uh you pointed out may so
appropriately
the extraordinary divisions the
divisiveness right
the uh the only way you remedied that is
as we've heard we shall overcome
uh you bring people of good goodwill who

English: 
who care about each other and make that
the prevalent and dominating view
right push away the hatred uh america
has long had that
that battle the world has long had that
battle
we live in the wealthiest country uh in
this world we have the resources
if we have the determination and the
will i just thought of a recent giant
that passed away john lewis
the john lewis just inspired generations
of americans including me i have a
uh you know a photo with him at uh at uh
reagan national airport from a couple
years ago
but you know here's a man who brought
incredible humility and dignity despite
the fact that he was beaten
almost lost his life if he can have that
courage we can
come together write his story so many
other stories to make sure
that american the world prevails that
good overcomes evil
well john lewis is a true hero in

English: 
are responsible who are serious
who care about each other and make that
the prevalent and dominating view
right push away the hatred uh america
has long had that
that battle the world has long had that
battle
we live in the wealthiest country uh in
this world we have the resources
if we have the determination and the
will i just thought of a recent giant
that passed away john lewis
the john lewis just inspired generations
of americans including me i have a
uh you know a photo with him at uh at uh
reagan national airport from a couple
years ago
but you know here's a man who brought
incredible humility and dignity despite
the fact that he was beaten
almost lost his life if he can have that
courage we can
come together write his story so many
other stories to make sure
that american the world prevails that
good overcomes evil

English: 
anyone's eyes
um if we could even be half the man
he was during his lifetime this world
would be such
a better place wouldn't it uh so may he
rest in peace
but may his legacy live on forever
because he
he was a giant he was a giant when it
came to you know peaceful
wanting to incite peaceful change so
thank you for bringing him up i was
actually going to bring it up later but
great to honor him right off the top um
richard let me turn to you
um share your thoughts of what's going
on in your observations and
and you know from from the jewish
american community i mean
there's a rise in anti-semitism as well
right now so that's
not great news that's right and let me
again
uh also add my uh gratitude to
our friends our partners with netcal
for including us and for um
seeing this program through this has
been

English: 
well john lewis is a true hero in
anyone's eyes
um if we could even be half the man
he was during his lifetime this world
would be such
a better place wouldn't it uh so may he
rest in peace
but may his legacy live on forever
because he
he was a giant he was a giant when it
came to you know peaceful
wanting to incite peaceful change so
thank you for bringing him up i was
actually going to bring it up later but
great to honor him right off the top um
richard let me turn to you
um share your thoughts of what's going
on in your observations and
and you know from from the jewish
american community i mean
there's a rise in anti-semitism as well
right now so that's
not great news that's right and let me
again
uh also add my uh gratitude to
our friends our partners with netcal
for including us and for um
seeing this program through this has

English: 
in the works for many many months so if
we had to wait another hour or so
to uh to go on air it's uh it's
certainly well worth it
and i also want to um express my
uh my thoughts about uh the passing
of of john lewis as well i had the great
privilege
of knowing him having met him on
several occasions and having worked with
him
in my previous
role with both the anti-defamation
league and the illinois holocaust museum
to uh to hold up uh his
life lesson and his uh um
having gotten into good trouble in his
in his life
as an example of the kind of activism
and the kind of
spirit and courage that we all need to
to muster at this particular moment

English: 
been
in the works for many many months so if
we had to wait another hour or so
to uh to go on air it's uh it's
certainly well worth it
and i also want to um express my
uh my thoughts about uh the passing
of of john lewis as well i had the great
privilege
of knowing him having met him on
several occasions and having worked with
him
in my previous
role with both the anti-defamation
league and the illinois holocaust museum
to uh to hold up uh his
life lesson and his uh um
having gotten into good trouble in his
in his life
as an example of the kind of activism
and the kind of
spirit and courage that we all need to
to muster at this particular moment

English: 
i'm very concerned about the well-being
of our country i'm very concerned
because we've seen
certainly through the covet 19 crisis
uh the terrible price that so many
have paid and we've also seen and and i
think have come to
to understand the tremendous power of
words
words can inspire words can heal
but words can also sow division and
words regrettably
that have been repeated again and again
from the corridors of power from the
ultimate
bully pulpit in our country have
in fact sown division and that has an
impact
that does lead to episodes of bias
that does lead to hate crime and
from where we sit at the american jewish
committee ajc
it is simply unacceptable and when we
see it

English: 
i'm very concerned about the well-being
of our country i'm very concerned
because we've seen
certainly through the covet 19 crisis
uh the terrible price that so many
have paid and we've also seen and and i
think have come to
to understand the tremendous power of
words
words can inspire words can heal
but words can also sow division and
words regrettably
that have been repeated again and again
from the corridors of power from the
ultimate
bully pulpit in our country have
in fact sown division and that has an
impact
that does lead to episodes of bias
that does lead to hate crime and
from where we sit at the american jewish
committee ajc
it is simply unacceptable and when we
see it

English: 
we have to challenge it we have to speak
out but i
am balancing my my sense of
of anxiety with also a tremendous sense
of
of hope and optimism when we saw tens of
thousands of people
on a daily basis take to the streets
to demand racial justice and social
justice
this is indeed more than a moment
it is a re-energized movement
i believe and it is upon us not to
squander it
uh in any way yes i absolutely agree
with that
um obviously you were referring to the
black lives matter movement
that really galvanized people from all
different walks of life
all different communities came together
to show that kind of support so reverend
smart
coming from your background a man of
faith but also having worked in social
justice for decades uh even you know
with dr martin luther king
jr what does this moment feel like

English: 
we have to challenge it we have to speak
out but i
am balancing my my sense of
of anxiety with also a tremendous sense
of
of hope and optimism when we saw tens of
thousands of people
on a daily basis take to the streets
to demand racial justice and social
justice
this is indeed more than a moment
it is a re-energized movement
i believe and it is upon us not to
squander it
uh in any way yes i absolutely agree
with that
um obviously you were referring to the
black lives matter movement
that really galvanized people from all
different walks of life
all different communities came together
to show that kind of support so reverend
smart
coming from your background a man of
faith but also having worked in social
justice for decades uh even you know
with dr martin luther king

English: 
jr what does this moment feel like
for you in terms of what's going on in
this country
first of all let me thank um you and the
network of korean-american leaders
for having me here also with these fine
gentlemen
and i think um this is a pivotal point
in america right now
and coming from my perspective i think
um
we have to realize what's really going
on
that there's a there's really a
reckoning
i think george um floyd's death
was the i told people for the last four
three months now that it was more than
the um
the straw that broke the camel's back it
was the drop of coffee that
over tip the coffee cup it was the
the rainfall that burst opened the dam
and so we're just at that place where

English: 
for you in terms of what's going on in
this country
first of all let me thank um you and the
network of korean-american leaders
for having me here also with these fine
gentlemen
and i think um this is a pivotal point
in america right now
and coming from my perspective i think
um
we have to realize what's really going
on
that there's a there's really a
reckoning
i think george um floyd's death
was the i told people for the last four
three months now that it was more than
the um
the straw that broke the camel's back it
was the drop of coffee that
over tip the coffee cup it was the
the rainfall that burst opened the dam
and so we're just at that place where
people have said more than enough is

English: 
people have said more than enough is
enough they said
what are we going to do about we're sick
and tired sick and tired of white
supremacy sick and tired
of police brutality sick and tired of
everything that that has been the
vestiges of
supremacy and so you see people um
not just people of color you just see
americans
tearing down uh monuments that
represented something you see
people demanding and changing the names
of
native americans that have been so um
denigrating to the american population
and so
it's just that moment mate and we have
to
really understand the moment and i'm
glad that rick
said it he said it's not a moment it's a
movement
and a movement whose time has come and
it's affecting
all type of all type of things that
um are that america has needed to change

English: 
enough they said
what are we going to do about we're sick
and tired sick and tired of white
supremacy sick and tired
of police brutality sick and tired of
everything that that has been the
vestiges of
supremacy and so you see people um
not just people of color you just see
americans
tearing down uh monuments that
represented something you see
people demanding and changing the names
of
native americans that have been so um
denigrating to the american population
and so
it's just that moment mate and we have
to
really understand the moment and i'm
glad that rick
said it he said it's not a moment it's a
movement
and a movement whose time has come and
it's affecting
all type of all type of things that
um are that america has needed to change
since 400 years ago when africans were

English: 
brought here in the way we've been
treated
until now and how that affects everybody
how it affects
racism how it affects um anti-semitism
how it affects
um the way we've treated women all of
that it's a new movement
and spurred on by a death and life is
coming out of his death
one thing i want to say is um as we move
forward
i i did not know martin luther king
uh um physically but i had spent time
with
all of his lieutenants john lewis who
was
this who became a disciples of of his um
ct vivian who recently died he
assigned me to the chapter i'm in now in
a way
and um joseph lowry who um
you know i knew when i was a student in
birmingham alabama so
uh um it's just a time for us to really
um respect love each other but and work

English: 
since 400 years ago when africans were
brought here in the way we've been
treated
until now and how that affects everybody
how it affects
racism how it affects um anti-semitism
how it affects
um the way we've treated women all of
that it's a new movement
and spurred on by a death and life is
coming out of his death
one thing i want to say is um as we move
forward
i i did not know martin luther king
uh um physically but i had spent time
with
all of his lieutenants john lewis who
was
this who became a disciples of of his um
ct vivian who recently died he
assigned me to the chapter i'm in now in
a way
and um joseph lowry who um
you know i knew when i was a student in
birmingham alabama so
uh um it's just a time for us to really

English: 
um respect love each other but and work
for each other's wholeness
well i i appreciate all of you
commenting on what you know what your
observations are now and
um i can't help but think as a
journalist you know we have to observe
all of these things with the
critical eye obviously and it just seems
like everything is happening at the same
time
right so we have this health pandemic
that is
obviously affecting everyone we have
social upheaval
we have economic issues uh fallout
and we have you know this civic unrest
so how do you even get your head around
how you solve these issues when
everything seems to be happening at the
same time
i've been saying on my show this is like
the ultimate perfect storm
because everything is happening at the
same time so
even as advocates of you know social
movements

English: 
for each other's wholeness
well i i appreciate all of you
commenting on what you know what your
observations are now and
um i can't help but think as a
journalist you know we have to observe
all of these things with the
critical eye obviously and it just seems
like everything is happening at the same
time
right so we have this health pandemic
that is
obviously affecting everyone we have
social upheaval
we have economic issues uh fallout
and we have you know this civic unrest
so how do you even get your head around
how you solve these issues when
everything seems to be happening at the
same time
i've been saying on my show this is like
the ultimate perfect storm
because everything is happening at the
same time so
even as advocates of you know social
movements

English: 
or you know community leadership
do you feel overwhelmed you know and so
i think the average person would ask
what could i even possibly do to
help the situation when everything is
happening at the same time
richard if if i can have you answer that
first or
you know before the uh horrific murder
of george floyd and as we began to
believe ultimately uh incorrectly that
we were
perhaps going to emerge from the worst
of the covet 19 pandemic and begin to
forge and embrace a new reality
because coven 19 laid bare so plainly
societal inequities and access to
quality health care
education economic opportunity it really
called
into question what kind of society
are we going to be what kind of society

English: 
or you know community leadership
do you feel overwhelmed you know and so
i think the average person would ask
what could i even possibly do to
help the situation when everything is
happening at the same time
richard if if i can have you answer that
first or
you know before the uh horrific murder
of george floyd and as we began to
believe ultimately uh incorrectly that
we were
perhaps going to emerge from the worst
of the covet 19 pandemic and begin to
forge and embrace a new reality
because coven 19 laid bare so plainly
societal inequities and access to
quality health care
education economic opportunity it really
called
into question what kind of society
are we going to be what kind of society

English: 
can we
become and must we become when we
embrace and begin to come into this this
new normal
then of course we had the tragic uh
horrific murder
of george floyd and others that
proceeded
and followed that layered onto it and
really just
lifted and and to pass the clark's point
rip the veil off of any remaining
veneer that uh that somehow would
cloak the fact that we have a much
deeper problem
in america in dealing with and
dismantling
400 years of systemic
racism inequities and the compounding
negative
effect of of all of that exponentially
so i think all of that said
more than anything i truly believe
there is a a certain epiphany a certain

English: 
can we
become and must we become when we
embrace and begin to come into this this
new normal
then of course we had the tragic uh
horrific murder
of george floyd and others that
proceeded
and followed that layered onto it and
really just
lifted and and to pass the clark's point
rip the veil off of any remaining
veneer that uh that somehow would
cloak the fact that we have a much
deeper problem
in america in dealing with and
dismantling
400 years of systemic
racism inequities and the compounding
negative
effect of of all of that exponentially
so i think all of that said
more than anything i truly believe
there is a a certain epiphany a certain

English: 
recognition
that we all as individuals have come to
see
throughout all of this and that is our
voice matters
what we say and how we relate to our
friends to our neighbors to the stranger
to people who ought not be the stranger
any further really does resonate
and really does have value and currency
as we go forward and think about what
our society will look like so there is
to me there is a bit of a silver lining
here
uh if we can just push through the worst
of this
this horrible horrible time and i also
believe that
there's a recognition that none of this
is the work of a day
we're going to have to do the work
stay with it and and it's not always
um in the glare of of headlines or
or league lights but it's just

English: 
recognition
that we all as individuals have come to
see
throughout all of this and that is our
voice matters
what we say and how we relate to our
friends to our neighbors to the stranger
to people who ought not be the stranger
any further really does resonate
and really does have value and currency
as we go forward and think about what
our society will look like so there is
to me there is a bit of a silver lining
here
uh if we can just push through the worst
of this
this horrible horrible time and i also
believe that
there's a recognition that none of this
is the work of a day
we're going to have to do the work
stay with it and and it's not always
um in the glare of of headlines or

English: 
or league lights but it's just
continuing to stay
the course and and i think that is
really the
um the obligation that those of us who
care about
fulfilling america's true promise
that's our task and and we have to
redouble our efforts to get there
well i'm going to press all of you on
specifics in a little bit um
in terms of best practices but john
curious uh
you know as we all know covet has
uh you know kind of brought up an ugly
side as well
against asian americans right the the
rate of xenophobia and racist attacks
against asian americans has been
astounding uh they keep on updating
numbers you know
in california alone now it's a thousand
attacks so far since march
across the country it's over two
thousand and it just keeps happening it
seems to be getting worse
so from an asian-american perspective um
curious about what your thoughts have
been when you've
you know been hearing about this and

English: 
continuing to stay
the course and and i think that is
really the
um the obligation that those of us who
care about
fulfilling america's true promise
that's our task and and we have to
redouble our efforts to get there
well i'm going to press all of you on
specifics in a little bit um
in terms of best practices but john
curious uh
you know as we all know covet has
uh you know kind of brought up an ugly
side as well
against asian americans right the the
rate of xenophobia and racist attacks
against asian americans has been
astounding uh they keep on updating
numbers you know
in california alone now it's a thousand
attacks so far since march
across the country it's over two
thousand and it just keeps happening it
seems to be getting worse
so from an asian-american perspective um
curious about what your thoughts have
been when you've
you know been hearing about this and
reading about it and

English: 
reading about it and
you know have you thought to yourself
what can be done what what would i do
you know to try to help in this
situation um
and in terms of maybe even policy
because you clearly were in government
so you know how that
end of it works right so can you share
with me you know your thoughts on that
and it's frankly why i got into
government the uh
the being the oldest son of parents who
immigrated from taiwan
they both wanted to become a surgeon
right because because the cultural
factors
we were the first asian family in our
community in survivor in chicago and at
age six seven i remember being
discriminated against the uh
and it's very very painful and what was
especially painful as i was growing
older is
people people just blew it off right
they challenged me
i was fortunate that our former
insurance commissioner dave jones was a
high school classmate of mine and he
said no the uh
the stories john talked about ugly
racial epithets spray painted on his
garage rocks
you know flying through the windows of

English: 
you know have you thought to yourself
what can be done what what would i do
you know to try to help in this
situation um
and in terms of maybe even policy
because you clearly were in government
so you know how that
end of it works right so can you share
with me you know your thoughts on that
and it's frankly why i got into
government the uh
the being the oldest son of parents who
immigrated from taiwan
they both wanted to become a surgeon
right because because the cultural
factors
we were the first asian family in our
community in survivor in chicago and at
age six seven i remember being
discriminated against the uh
and it's very very painful and what was
especially painful as i was growing
older is
people people just blew it off right
they challenged me
i was fortunate that our former
insurance commissioner dave jones was a
high school classmate of mine and he
said no the uh
the stories john talked about ugly
racial epithets spray painted on his
garage rocks
you know flying through the windows of
this house are in fact true

English: 
uh and so that's that's why i became an
elected official the
martin luther king cesar chavez i'm
named after john f kennedy were my
childhood heroes right so i tried to
address
during my service uh public service uh
the moral crisis that we face today the
economic financial crisis and the health
crisis
right the they're all inextricably tied
together
and you have to do that from the basis
of human dignity
uh so the uh it's great to be on this
panel with uh richard and reverend smart
from ajc and sclc they uh they were
instrumental in my public service career
the uh one of the things i used to do
every single year uh
is paid tribute to martin luther king
and during my
board of equalization years i would do
the mlk parade in the morning
i would watch oprah when she was on tv
and i would go to the sclc dinner right
the uh
the i thought there needed to be an
asian face to show that somebody was
inspired by the movement

English: 
this house are in fact true
uh and so that's that's why i became an
elected official the
martin luther king cesar chavez i'm
named after john f kennedy were my
childhood heroes right so i tried to
address
during my service uh public service uh
the moral crisis that we face today the
economic financial crisis and the health
crisis
right the they're all inextricably tied
together
and you have to do that from the basis
of human dignity
uh so the uh it's great to be on this
panel with uh richard and reverend smart
from ajc and sclc they uh they were
instrumental in my public service career
the uh one of the things i used to do
every single year uh
is paid tribute to martin luther king
and during my
board of equalization years i would do
the mlk parade in the morning
i would watch oprah when she was on tv
and i would go to the sclc dinner right
the uh
the i thought there needed to be an
asian face to show that somebody was

English: 
inspired by the movement
somebody is living that life right
during law school i was protesting south
africa
right when i should have been studying i
was on the streets of dc protesting and
i wanted to thank richard and ajc kathy
unger
congressman howard berman len hunger for
giving me that opportunity to go to
israel my mom used to when she's talking
about drew's talk about
she used the japanese word because
taiwan was under japanese occupation
kaiso kaiser
she felt sorry because right the the
hatred
that was born upon uh jews all across
this world
the uh and so right it's us coming
together
using our force using our power using
human dignity and decency the way we
treat each other
talking about how we work together to
discuss
today it's dei diversity equity
inclusion
and what those public policy practices
need to do
right how do we make sure that we get
everybody world-class access
education how do we bring more broadband
to all the communities today

English: 
somebody is living that life right
during law school i was protesting south
africa
right when i should have been studying i
was on the streets of dc protesting and
i wanted to thank richard and ajc kathy
unger
congressman howard berman len hunger for
giving me that opportunity to go to
israel my mom used to when she's talking
about drew's talk about
she used the japanese word because
taiwan was under japanese occupation
kaiso kaiser
she felt sorry because right the the
hatred
that was born upon uh jews all across
this world
the uh and so right it's us coming
together
using our force using our power using
human dignity and decency the way we
treat each other
talking about how we work together to
discuss
today it's dei diversity equity
inclusion
and what those public policy practices
need to do
right how do we make sure that we get
everybody world-class access
education how do we bring more broadband
to all the communities today
how do we make sure that we have

English: 
universal health care right the
how do you make sure that you have safer
working conditions
uh all that's all those uh
can happen when you have organizations
like neck out bringing us together
and we say hey this is what we're gonna
do over these days and weeks coming
forward
let's work with our elected officials
let's work with private sector leaders
to talk about how we save our fellow
human being
and john i so appreciate the fact that
you are talking about your own personal
experience
uh growing up and how that impacted you
to the point where that's why you wanted
to run for office right to
to become a public servant and so
that's what i love about this as well is
that all of us represent
different communities right and
different ethnic communities different
you know minority communities and this
is what it's all about
right we all need to have these
conversations

English: 
how do we make sure that we have
universal health care right the
how do you make sure that you have safer
working conditions
uh all that's all those uh
can happen when you have organizations
like neck out bringing us together
and we say hey this is what we're gonna
do over these days and weeks coming
forward
let's work with our elected officials
let's work with private sector leaders
to talk about how we save our fellow
human being
and john i so appreciate the fact that
you are talking about your own personal
experience
uh growing up and how that impacted you
to the point where that's why you wanted
to run for office right to
to become a public servant and so
that's what i love about this as well is
that all of us represent
different communities right and
different ethnic communities different
you know minority communities and this
is what it's all about
right we all need to have these
conversations

English: 
and share our personal experiences so
that there is a better understanding
not just within communities minority
communities but then together we need to
educate the broader public
because i always say if we don't get the
message out
we can't expect the broader public to
really know
they're not going to go read a book
about it if they're not forced to right
let's be honest right so
the fact that we're coming together to
share our experiences
and try to educate i think that's so
crucial so reverend smart
i'm curious from your own personal
experience as well um
you know having gone through the civil
rights movement
and being a faith-based leader and now
seeing what's happening with black lives
matter
what do you specifically see that's
different this time that
feels different is it bigger is it more
powerful is it
you know because it's young people again
just like in these it was young people
again it's young people
yeah um i wanted to back mention
something

English: 
and share our personal experiences so
that there is a better understanding
not just within communities minority
communities but then together we need to
educate the broader public
because i always say if we don't get the
message out
we can't expect the broader public to
really know
they're not going to go read a book
about it if they're not forced to right
let's be honest right so
the fact that we're coming together to
share our experiences
and try to educate i think that's so
crucial so reverend smart
i'm curious from your own personal
experience as well um
you know having gone through the civil
rights movement
and being a faith-based leader and now
seeing what's happening with black lives
matter
what do you specifically see that's
different this time that
feels different is it bigger is it more
powerful is it
you know because it's young people again
just like in these it was young people
again it's young people
yeah um i wanted to back mention
something

English: 
earlier too may that you mention that um
have we seen this before and it was in
the 60s where we saw
you know we have a pandemic in the
uprising and in the 60s we had
a conglomeration of issues then too i'm
glad you brought we had the war in
vietnam we have the
uprising we have the civil rights
movement we have the women's
rights movement so all of that was going
on in the 60s and ironically
we're back here again um so to answer
your question
uh what two things are different this
time number one
um from my organization the southern
christian leadership conference
we are not you know there was always
some strife
and it was john lewis who really
mediated this
tension between the young and the old um
doctor
in that day sclc was really a one-man
leadership and the younger people
snaking them
on the direction of ella baker they had
a group center leadership

English: 
earlier too may that you mention that um
have we seen this before and it was in
the 60s where we saw
you know we have a pandemic in the
uprising and in the 60s we had
a conglomeration of issues then too i'm
glad you brought we had the war in
vietnam we have the
uprising we have the civil rights
movement we have the women's
rights movement so all of that was going
on in the 60s and ironically
we're back here again um so to answer
your question
uh what two things are different this
time number one
um from my organization the southern
christian leadership conference
we are not you know there was always
some strife
and it was john lewis who really
mediated this
tension between the young and the old um
doctor
in that day sclc was really a one-man
leadership and the younger people
snaking them
on the direction of ella baker they had
a group center leadership
and today you're seeing uh black lives

English: 
and today you're seeing uh black lives
matter is basically a group center
leadership
and but we're not but we're in more of
an
in partnership with them and we're not
um fighting them
we're letting them lead in in their area
and
we fight and we work with them we're
i'll tell you later we have several
events together
because and we just founded a group of
prep pastors
that are in support of black lives mate
clergy in support of black lives matter
because we just understand their young
thought minds
and their direction is very important
what their fight what we're fighting
through them
and that and police police violence
and so that's the first thing and the
second thing
is when you look at the history of los
angeles and you see
three different times when there have
been um
what we call uprising and that was
the watts riots after police violence in
1965

English: 
matter is basically a group center
leadership
and but we're not but we're in more of
an
in partnership with them and we're not
um fighting them
we're letting them lead in in their area
and
we fight and we work with them we're
i'll tell you later we have several
events together
because and we just founded a group of
prep pastors
that are in support of black lives mate
clergy in support of black lives matter
because we just understand their young
thought minds
and their direction is very important
what their fight what we're fighting
through them
and that and police police violence
and so that's the first thing and the
second thing
is when you look at the history of los
angeles and you see
three different times when there have
been um
what we call uprising and that was
the watts riots after police violence in
1965

English: 
1992 we with with um
you know um what's his name
rodney king the rodney king up rising
and what you saw in those two uprisings
you saw
um 98 african-americans on the streets
uprising this time
george floyd you're seeing 70 percent
of non-african americans out there in
the streets
that's significant because people
people again have gotten the point so
it's not it's
more than just a racial um
racial uprising it is a human uprising
to saying that we're sick and we're
tired of what's going on those are the
two big differences this time
that um there are you know portland
oregon you know
portland oregon what is it 12
african-american

English: 
1992 we with with um
you know um what's his name
rodney king the rodney king up rising
and what you saw in those two uprisings
you saw
um 98 african-americans on the streets
uprising this time
george floyd you're seeing 70 percent
of non-african americans out there in
the streets
that's significant because people
people again have gotten the point so
it's not it's
more than just a racial um
racial uprising it is a human uprising
to saying that we're sick and we're
tired of what's going on those are the
two big differences this time
that um there are you know portland
oregon you know
portland oregon what is it 12
african-american

English: 
we see but what you see up there you see
um white young whites or middle-aged
whites
um fighting for righteousness and
fighting for
um of black lives that matter
right right this is definitely much more
universal isn't it
when the the height of the protests i've
read that it was
there were protests in every all 50
states
and then something like 13 countries uh
around the world so it was beyond
just an african-american issue it was
really about
yes justice and respect for human life
um richard if i can turn to you
the jlc but the jewish community on the
whole
they have been so successful
in terms of galvanizing their influence
and power
and being very organized in the way that
they
not only just promote the community but
also are able to get their messages
across um politically socially

English: 
we see but what you see up there you see
um white young whites or middle-aged
whites
um fighting for righteousness and
fighting for
um of black lives that matter
right right this is definitely much more
universal isn't it
when the the height of the protests i've
read that it was
there were protests in every all 50
states
and then something like 13 countries uh
around the world so it was beyond
just an african-american issue it was
really about
yes justice and respect for human life
um richard if i can turn to you
the jlc but the jewish community on the
whole
they have been so successful
in terms of galvanizing their influence
and power
and being very organized in the way that
they
not only just promote the community but
also are able to get their messages
across um politically socially

English: 
culturally
can you can you tell us specifically
how has it how has your community been
so successful what are the
practices that have been used to be able
to gain that influence
and sustain it because here's the thing
we are we're all talking about the
movement right
a movement can only keep going if it's
sustainable
right so richard if you can talk on that
for for us
of course and i will uh say that the
the american jewish experience so the
experience that
that jews have had in this country for
350
plus years in comparison to
uh centuries of persecution
and hate uh america really has been
a golden land uh they call it a golden
medina
for four jews we have always gone about
this is true of ajc and other
organizations

English: 
culturally
can you can you tell us specifically
how has it how has your community been
so successful what are the
practices that have been used to be able
to gain that influence
and sustain it because here's the thing
we are we're all talking about the
movement right
a movement can only keep going if it's
sustainable
right so richard if you can talk on that
for for us
of course and i will uh say that the
the american jewish experience so the
experience that
that jews have had in this country for
350
plus years in comparison to
uh centuries of persecution
and hate uh america really has been
a golden land uh they call it a golden
medina
for four jews we have always gone about
this is true of ajc and other
organizations

English: 
we have always gone about the specific
uh task and challenge of of working to
secure
the freedoms the rights the safety and
the status of our community
with really a dual uh a dual purpose a
dual vision
frankly and that means um fundamentally
that unless other groups
all groups all minorities in our society
are able to enjoy and avail themselves
of protection
and opportunity then the jewish
community
is uh is not safe so we really
view this this task as
as really working to fulfill
the true promise of america
for safety and security and equal
opportunity for all
in this country and i don't think
there's necessarily a magic

English: 
we have always gone about the specific
uh task and challenge of of working to
secure
the freedoms the rights the safety and
the status of our community
with really a dual uh a dual purpose a
dual vision
frankly and that means um fundamentally
that unless other groups
all groups all minorities in our society
are able to enjoy and avail themselves
of protection
and opportunity then the jewish
community
is uh is not safe so we really
view this this task as
as really working to fulfill
the true promise of america
for safety and security and equal
opportunity for all
in this country and i don't think
there's necessarily a magic

English: 
uh formula here it is simply to uh
uh to to say that that
this is very much about um
organizing uh establishing relationships
building allies uh being an ally
and and and uh and having allies
and i think that that's a a model that
certainly
uh applies and is transferable to the
korean korean-american
community the larger asian-american
community and it's about uh
making your voice heard building
relationships with
elected officials building relationships
um
uh in your own community in in terms of
just it all
you know the former uh speaker of the
house tip o'neill
uh used to say all politics is local and
honestly
uh relationships ultimately begin in our
in our own communities
it's about um uh building relationship
with law enforcement

English: 
uh formula here it is simply to uh
uh to to say that that
this is very much about um
organizing uh establishing relationships
building allies uh being an ally
and and and uh and having allies
and i think that that's a a model that
certainly
uh applies and is transferable to the
korean korean-american
community the larger asian-american
community and it's about uh
making your voice heard building
relationships with
elected officials building relationships
um
uh in your own community in in terms of
just it all
you know the former uh speaker of the
house tip o'neill
uh used to say all politics is local and
honestly
uh relationships ultimately begin in our
in our own communities
it's about um uh building relationship
with law enforcement

English: 
and just making sure police who are
sworn to protect and serve
know your community know know the
community understand
what anti-semitism is and its and its
many manifestations and we've seen that
certainly from the physical the most uh
horrific attacks
uh looking back at pittsburgh almost two
years ago and then poway
a year later really the most horrific
most violent
and murderous attacks against jews in
our history
in this country that in many respects
was was a wake-up call
that even with the advances that we have
made and the relationships we have built
and our and our and our full
participation
in our democracy voting
expressing advocating still
there are those who uh who hate and
those who will
uh uh not in any way be be bashful about
expressing their hate through through
violence and so
there is a certain common denominator

English: 
and just making sure police who are
sworn to protect and serve
know your community know know the
community understand
what anti-semitism is and its and its
many manifestations and we've seen that
certainly from the physical the most uh
horrific attacks
uh looking back at pittsburgh almost two
years ago and then poway
a year later really the most horrific
most violent
and murderous attacks against jews in
our history
in this country that in many respects
was was a wake-up call
that even with the advances that we have
made and the relationships we have built
and our and our and our full
participation
in our democracy voting
expressing advocating still
there are those who uh who hate and
those who will
uh uh not in any way be be bashful about
expressing their hate through through
violence and so

English: 
that uh each of our communities share in
that bigotry
ultimately is indivisible and we have to
stand up
and stand out and raise our voices uh
whenever we see hate
wherever we see hate because the next uh
the next victim uh maybe us and that's a
lesson we
we simply uh that's a too great a price
that any of us should ever have to pay
yeah and unfortunately
i i can't believe that it's 2020
and we are talking about these issues
of severe racism and now open racism
that's still taking place
and seemingly feels like it's getting
worse
uh in our current climate so that's
disheartening
um but as you said rick i mean it is
about raising our voices
and building allyship i think is crucial
we hear that now more often than we did
in the past so john
when it comes to the asian american

English: 
there is a certain common denominator
that uh each of our communities share in
that bigotry
ultimately is indivisible and we have to
stand up
and stand out and raise our voices uh
whenever we see hate
wherever we see hate because the next uh
the next victim uh maybe us and that's a
lesson we
we simply uh that's a too great a price
that any of us should ever have to pay
yeah and unfortunately
i i can't believe that it's 2020
and we are talking about these issues
of severe racism and now open racism
that's still taking place
and seemingly feels like it's getting
worse
uh in our current climate so that's
disheartening
um but as you said rick i mean it is
about raising our voices
and building allyship i think is crucial
we hear that now more often than we did
in the past so john

English: 
community um
and then for me as a korean american
specifically koreans
and obviously this is a net cal event
asians i think still feel to a certain
extent
that they don't have as much influence
that their voice
is not as loud perhaps as other
minority groups and other communities of
color and that
obviously has to do with numbers to a
certain extent right i mean i have some
stats the korean american population is
almost 2 million the asian american
population is 20
million plus and then the jewish
population is 8 million
african-american is 42 million so
there's a huge
difference in terms of numbers in this
country so that has
something to do with obviously the level
of
influence right there's power in numbers
but is there something else that you've
noticed being part of the asian american
community
and of course in politics that is
being sort of overlooked or is there

English: 
when it comes to the asian american
community um
and then for me as a korean american
specifically koreans
and obviously this is a net cal event
asians i think still feel to a certain
extent
that they don't have as much influence
that their voice
is not as loud perhaps as other
minority groups and other communities of
color and that
obviously has to do with numbers to a
certain extent right i mean i have some
stats the korean american population is
almost 2 million the asian american
population is 20
million plus and then the jewish
population is 8 million
african-american is 42 million so
there's a huge
difference in terms of numbers in this
country so that has
something to do with obviously the level
of
influence right there's power in numbers
but is there something else that you've
noticed being part of the asian american
community
and of course in politics that is

English: 
something that the asian american
community can do more of that they're
not doing right now
so politics is the exercise of power and
the asians haven't exercised their power
to the extent
that they need to uh so whether it's
getting out to vote whether it's
getting in the faces of elected
officials whether it's building the
coalitions and the partnerships
uh right this is netcalvi we have so
many compelling stories of netcal
members who are doing great things the
things that we are
talking about what needs to be done
whether it's carol kim and paul's song
trying to
fight for universal access for people of
all colors
backgrounds economic status getting
access to health care
patrick chung who's the ceo of zeus
technologies the company i sit on the
board
they talk about corporate leadership the
i i spend a disproportionate amount of
time with patrick
talking about how he wants to get africa
larger african-american

English: 
being sort of overlooked or is there
something that the asian american
community can do more of that they're
not doing right now
so politics is the exercise of power and
the asians haven't exercised their power
to the extent
that they need to uh so whether it's
getting out to vote whether it's
getting in the faces of elected
officials whether it's building the
coalitions and the partnerships
uh right this is netcalvi we have so
many compelling stories of netcal
members who are doing great things the
things that we are
talking about what needs to be done
whether it's carol kim and paul's song
trying to
fight for universal access for people of
all colors
backgrounds economic status getting
access to health care
patrick chung who's the ceo of zeus
technologies the company i sit on the
board
they talk about corporate leadership the
i i spend a disproportionate amount of
time with patrick
talking about how he wants to get africa

English: 
larger african-american
economic ownership of our company right
trying to
engage right trying to reach out to the
community talking about financial tools
to empower
uh the uh zeus right and with the
african-american community
as you pointed out in your initial
comments which are so persuasive we need
to control the narrative
and we need to control the means and
mechanisms to get these stories
out so that people know that asian
americans korean americans
are exercising leadership and that all
communities need to be supporting them
because if you're supporting
these types of efforts you're going to
see extraordinary progress
happen in our communities right i do
wonder though because
you know i observe this so so um
seriously
obviously because this is something of
interest to me but i do
also wonder though is you know are
asians still
in a place where they feel like their
voices aren't going to be heard
so therefore they're not making enough
noise
right i mean that's why i give credit to

English: 
economic ownership of our company right
trying to
engage right trying to reach out to the
community talking about financial tools
to empower
uh the uh zeus right and with the
african-american community
as you pointed out in your initial
comments which are so persuasive we need
to control the narrative
and we need to control the means and
mechanisms to get these stories
out so that people know that asian
americans korean americans
are exercising leadership and that all
communities need to be supporting them
because if you're supporting
these types of efforts you're going to
see extraordinary progress
happen in our communities right i do
wonder though because
you know i observe this so so um
seriously
obviously because this is something of
interest to me but i do
also wonder though is you know are
asians still
in a place where they feel like their
voices aren't going to be heard
so therefore they're not making enough
noise
right i mean that's why i give credit to

English: 
the jewish community
and the african-american community you
guys know how to make noise and you're
getting the attention you're
creating noise you're you know and so
therefore you have a lot more influence
is that something that you know needs to
be taken seriously by the asian
commun asian american community in terms
of kind of breaking
out and really just pushing the
boundaries a little bit more
john oh uh oh absolutely
the uh we haven't done uh far enough of
that right
you have a stirring of that conversation
uh but we have to understand you're
gonna get a lot of pushback
and you're gonna fail dramatically but
you gotta keep failing and failing
before you succeed this is like abraham
lincoln right you gotta fail 10 times
before you prevail
and just within institutions you look at
the major media publication
in southern california the los angeles
times right the latino guild
the latino reporters are pushing back

English: 
the jewish community
and the african-american community you
guys know how to make noise and you're
getting the attention you're
creating noise you're you know and so
therefore you have a lot more influence
is that something that you know needs to
be taken seriously by the asian
commun asian american community in terms
of kind of breaking
out and really just pushing the
boundaries a little bit more
john oh uh oh absolutely
the uh we haven't done uh far enough of
that right
you have a stirring of that conversation
uh but we have to understand you're
gonna get a lot of pushback
and you're gonna fail dramatically but
you gotta keep failing and failing
before you succeed this is like abraham
lincoln right you gotta fail 10 times
before you prevail
and just within institutions you look at
the major media publication
in southern california the los angeles
times right the latino guild
the latino reporters are pushing back

English: 
because they don't think
the latino community latinx community is
getting their fair
shake and the stories are being told
adequately so when you're thinking about
that happening right we ought to be
following these other models and saying
the uh if we're not if we're not taking
following their leadership and
exercising our own leadership
right we're going to continue to be way
behind to the detriment not only of
those individual reporters the
individual community members
but as a community as a whole right we
disproportionately carry a larger
burden because we don't get business
support we don't get political support
we don't get ngo support
um here's a question to all of you and
then i'll uh
call on each one of you to to give me
your ideas but
um there's also the issue of
minority communities not working with
each other and we've been talking about
this right
it needs to be a coalition it needs to
be there's need to be solidarity but
let's be honest there is still clear
divisions

English: 
because they don't think
the latino community latinx community is
getting their fair
shake and the stories are being told
adequately so when you're thinking about
that happening right we ought to be
following these other models and saying
the uh if we're not if we're not taking
following their leadership and
exercising our own leadership
right we're going to continue to be way
behind to the detriment not only of
those individual reporters the
individual community members
but as a community as a whole right we
disproportionately carry a larger
burden because we don't get business
support we don't get political support
we don't get ngo support
um here's a question to all of you and
then i'll uh
call on each one of you to to give me
your ideas but
um there's also the issue of
minority communities not working with
each other and we've been talking about
this right
it needs to be a coalition it needs to
be there's need to be solidarity but
let's be honest there is still clear
divisions
between different minority communities

English: 
there's been conflict in the past
there still is today there's tensions
and you know they come up when there are
incidents like the protests in la in
1992
and then a little bit you know this time
around as well
so what is the antidote
anecdote to that in terms of
trying to bridge the differences between
communities of color
so that we can have that ally ship that
richard you mentioned
um instead of having these differences
in these divisions still
reverend smart do you have any idea yeah
can i go back to the question you were
that you were talking to john
first uh about the asian community
uh and whether or not his voice is there
or but you know the agent community is
diverse too
so in 2000 in 2016
i was at the democratic convention in

English: 
between different minority communities
there's been conflict in the past
there still is today there's tensions
and you know they come up when there are
incidents like the protests in la in
1992
and then a little bit you know this time
around as well
so what is the antidote
anecdote to that in terms of
trying to bridge the differences between
communities of color
so that we can have that ally ship that
richard you mentioned
um instead of having these differences
in these divisions still
reverend smart do you have any idea yeah
can i go back to the question you were
that you were talking to john
first uh about the asian community
uh and whether or not his voice is there
or but you know the agent community is
diverse too
so in 2000 in 2016
i was at the democratic convention in

English: 
philadelphia
and if you know me you'll know that i'm
going to be around every
place so i went to a reception for
an elected official and they were i
don't they were
they weren't raising money they were
just acknowledging this
this elected official and
he was a time tai nice elected official
and but they were all the asian
communities were
came together to recognize him
and they said and i said oh this guy's
going to run for governor
of california and
some of the guys there and men and women
there say yeah but
he's going to be out the first um
asian-american president we're going to
see
to that and it was john okay
and i'm just saying how they were
building support
then in 2016. looking
john you you were of course you were

English: 
philadelphia
and if you know me you'll know that i'm
going to be around every
place so i went to a reception for
an elected official and they were i
don't they were
they weren't raising money they were
just acknowledging this
this elected official and
he was a time tai nice elected official
and but they were all the asian
communities were
came together to recognize him
and they said and i said oh this guy's
going to run for governor
of california and
some of the guys there and men and women
there say yeah but
he's going to be out the first um
asian-american president we're going to
see
to that and it was john okay
and i'm just saying how they were
building support
then in 2016. looking

English: 
there looking beyond i mean i'm just
saying the organization
i saw that me and my partner as we left
we were we were talking about how
organized
they were in you know on the national
level
so they're you there may be hearing
their weaknesses
but they too impressed me
as a very organized body that they said
they were going you know that was
something they were working on then now
i'm john i don't know
where that is and down the line you
probably
come back and do that but um i'll
support you
but um you know i'm just saying so
your question is um i
sclc under my leadership we founded
um the black jewish justice alliance
that is going strong
and it happened in the meeting of
african-american pastors
when we uh we were talking about what do

English: 
john you you were of course you were
there looking beyond i mean i'm just
saying the organization
i saw that me and my partner as we left
we were we were talking about how
organized
they were in you know on the national
level
so they're you there may be hearing
their weaknesses
but they too impressed me
as a very organized body that they said
they were going you know that was
something they were working on then now
i'm john i don't know
where that is and down the line you
probably
come back and do that but um i'll
support you
but um you know i'm just saying so
your question is um i
sclc under my leadership we founded
um the black jewish justice alliance
that is going strong
and it happened in the meeting of
african-american pastors
when we uh we were talking about what do

English: 
we need to
do and the one and two of them said
um that one of the things we need to
build one of our old alliances again
and that was the alliance we had with
the um
jewish community and from that a lot
from and we went to work and
you're you know we have accomplished a
lot as an
alliance together that's one time that
and so those are the types of things you
have to do
you have to build coalitions and you're
right because
we're going to have our annual king
hessel or something and that and we
always get it different it's if
hessle king or king hessel um
form soon and one of the things we're
going to be talking about
me and another rabbi friend of mine
we're going to be talking about the
historic relationship
between jews and african americans and
you know it's not uh you know it hasn't
always
been a great relationship at times but

English: 
we need to
do and the one and two of them said
um that one of the things we need to
build one of our old alliances again
and that was the alliance we had with
the um
jewish community and from that a lot
from and we went to work and
you're you know we have accomplished a
lot as an
alliance together that's one time that
and so those are the types of things you
have to do
you have to build coalitions and you're
right because
we're going to have our annual king
hessel or something and that and we
always get it different it's if
hessle king or king hessel um
form soon and one of the things we're
going to be talking about
me and another rabbi friend of mine
we're going to be talking about the
historic relationship
between jews and african americans and
you know it's not uh you know it hasn't
always

English: 
been a great relationship at times but
it's not where you it's not where you
necessarily come from it's where you
where you want to go together it's
moving forward together
and a history you have to talk about or
you don't have to talk about you
talk about the positive things and move
on those things and that's how
we're doing we're going to have sclc
is sponsoring a week of activities
around
the in three weeks around the um
march on washington the 57th one of the
first things we're going to do on monday
we're going to
talk about the um our asian
um allies are gonna we're gonna be
talking about
um racism toward asians because of the
covet 19
and you know i was you know we were
beginning to talk about that
in february and march when you know when
some
when the city council members were
concerned about that
and the racism you know every time we

English: 
it's not where you it's not where you
necessarily come from it's where you
where you want to go together it's
moving forward together
and a history you have to talk about or
you don't have to talk about you
talk about the positive things and move
on those things and that's how
we're doing we're going to have sclc
is sponsoring a week of activities
around
the in three weeks around the um
march on washington the 57th one of the
first things we're going to do on monday
we're going to
talk about the um our asian
um allies are gonna we're gonna be
talking about
um racism toward asians because of the
covet 19
and you know i was you know we were
beginning to talk about that
in february and march when you know when
some
when the city council members were
concerned about that
and the racism you know every time we
every time bigotry rises i represent an

English: 
every time bigotry rises i represent an
organization dr king
who always fought against these things
and so i am compelled
to do that now um great i'm so glad to
hear that
richard um going along the same lines in
terms
of how ally ship can be built
um and reverend smart just brought up a
really good point which is
you know asians have to be brought into
the fold you know and
again in the past i've experienced that
asians sometimes often are
never mentioned right you know when
people talk about
different communities they talk about
african americans
jewish community latino and then the
asians are never mentioned
um because we have always had this label
of the model minority we all know this
right the model minority myth
and so within asian communities we say
the model minority it works for
the general public because it fits a
certain

English: 
organization dr king
who always fought against these things
and so i am compelled
to do that now um great i'm so glad to
hear that
richard um going along the same lines in
terms
of how ally ship can be built
um and reverend smart just brought up a
really good point which is
you know asians have to be brought into
the fold you know and
again in the past i've experienced that
asians sometimes often are
never mentioned right you know when
people talk about
different communities they talk about
african americans
jewish community latino and then the
asians are never mentioned
um because we have always had this label
of the model minority we all know this
right the model minority myth
and so within asian communities we say
the model minority it works for
the general public because it fits a
certain
you know stereotype where we're good

English: 
you know stereotype where we're good
citizens we don't make any noise when
you know where we kind of work hard and
all of that
until it doesn't and covet has proven
now
all of a sudden we're the enemy right
we're we're the we're
we're bringing this virus the jewish
community to a certain extent you know
in some ways has gone through that as
well you know
the jewish community has been seen as
sort of also
model minority until they're not right
for other purposes
so from your perspective how does one
fight that
and try to you know get over that kind
of obstacle
well i think to the even the earlier
question you asked the point we're
making about
the occasional friction uh between
minority groups and ethnic groups i
think we have to be
uh very careful and very cognizant that
our interests none of our interests

English: 
citizens we don't make any noise when
you know where we kind of work hard and
all of that
until it doesn't and covet has proven
now
all of a sudden we're the enemy right
we're we're the we're
we're bringing this virus the jewish
community to a certain extent you know
in some ways has gone through that as
well you know
the jewish community has been seen as
sort of also
model minority until they're not right
for other purposes
so from your perspective how does one
fight that
and try to you know get over that kind
of obstacle
well i think to the even the earlier
question you asked the point we're
making about
the occasional friction uh between
minority groups and ethnic groups i
think we have to be
uh very careful and very cognizant that
our interests none of our interests
individually or collectively

English: 
individually or collectively
are served by uh sparring with one
another
and that that simply just doesn't uh
advance the cause
of equal opportunity or safety or
uh fairness for any of us so i do think
we need to
uh it goes back to being allies
and and being there for one another and
it means paying attention
keeping our ear to the ground when there
are hate episodes
or bias incidents against any of our
communities
it means showing up for one another one
of the most profound
experiences that i had that i've had in
my in my life
in my in my career and and personally as
well
uh took place almost 20 years ago and
when i was living in
in the chicago area and over the course
of
one weekend happened to be the fourth of
july weekend in 1999
a white supremacist went on a murderous

English: 
are served by uh sparring with one
another
and that that simply just doesn't uh
advance the cause
of equal opportunity or safety or
uh fairness for any of us so i do think
we need to
uh it goes back to being allies
and and being there for one another and
it means paying attention
keeping our ear to the ground when there
are hate episodes
or bias incidents against any of our
communities
it means showing up for one another one
of the most profound
experiences that i had that i've had in
my in my life
in my in my career and and personally as
well
uh took place almost 20 years ago and
when i was living in
in the chicago area and over the course
of
one weekend happened to be the fourth of
july weekend in 1999
a white supremacist went on a murderous
shooting rampage that took the life of

English: 
the former men's head basketball coach
at northwestern university
ricky birdsong that uh targeted
uh members of the jewish community many
of whom
were gravely wounded
but but all survived and then the
rampage ended started on a friday
evening ended
on a sunday near bloomington indiana
where a korean american graduate student
by the name of wan jun yoon was gunned
down
and that for me encapsulated
the indivisibility of hate and bigotry
and that whole summer in fact was was uh
later
dubbed the summer of hate why because
six weeks later
a died in the wool white supremacist
by the name of buford furrow went on a
murderous rampage

English: 
shooting rampage that took the life of
the former men's head basketball coach
at northwestern university
ricky birdsong that uh targeted
uh members of the jewish community many
of whom
were gravely wounded
but but all survived and then the
rampage ended started on a friday
evening ended
on a sunday near bloomington indiana
where a korean american graduate student
by the name of wan jun yoon was gunned
down
and that for me encapsulated
the indivisibility of hate and bigotry
and that whole summer in fact was was uh
later
dubbed the summer of hate why because
six weeks later
a died in the wool white supremacist
by the name of buford furrow went on a

English: 
here in los angeles attacking the north
valley
jcc uh shooting at young children
then went on about and uh took the life
of a of a filipino american postal
worker
by the name of joseph elato and and
ultimately was
uh was apprehended and so we
all have a shared stake
and an equal stake in seeing to it
that we are safe in america
and that we are represented and heard
in america and so it is it is so
important
that we not um allow uh
petty disputes or at times uh ignorance
to get in the way when i speak of
ignorance i'm speaking about some of the
uh you know we're living in a very
different uh
era i'm very excited to hear pastor
smart talk about the annual
uh heschel king or king heschel um

English: 
murderous rampage
here in los angeles attacking the north
valley
jcc uh shooting at young children
then went on about and uh took the life
of a of a filipino american postal
worker
by the name of joseph elato and and
ultimately was
uh was apprehended and so we
all have a shared stake
and an equal stake in seeing to it
that we are safe in america
and that we are represented and heard
in america and so it is it is so
important
that we not um allow uh
petty disputes or at times uh ignorance
to get in the way when i speak of
ignorance i'm speaking about some of the
uh you know we're living in a very
different uh
era i'm very excited to hear pastor
smart talk about the annual

English: 
event and to uh and to restore
the historic bonds between our
communities but i am
much more concerned today
when a uh desean jackson with
millions of followers or an
ice cube with millions of followers on
social media
starts spewing anti-semitism and we
heard it
uh even two weeks ago from the likes of
nick cannon
who god bless him in the two weeks since
has had an absolute epiphany and done in
about face and even
fasted on the jewish holiday of tisha
b'av
just days ago which marks the
destruction
of the second temple in jerusalem so my
point here is
i think we have my tangent here forgive
me is that we have
a a very clear and present

English: 
uh heschel king or king heschel um
event and to uh and to restore
the historic bonds between our
communities but i am
much more concerned today
when a uh desean jackson with
millions of followers or an
ice cube with millions of followers on
social media
starts spewing anti-semitism and we
heard it
uh even two weeks ago from the likes of
nick cannon
who god bless him in the two weeks since
has had an absolute epiphany and done in
about face and even
fasted on the jewish holiday of tisha
b'av
just days ago which marks the
destruction
of the second temple in jerusalem so my
point here is
i think we have my tangent here forgive
me is that we have

English: 
a a very clear and present
need and imperative to reach
this younger generation some of the same
folks who have
who have justifiably taken to the
streets
to march for fairness and human dignity
and to recognize
we will not get there if we are going to
resort to scapegoating
or not do the work of really
understanding
uh the history of our respective
communities
and how intertwined we really are with a
common fate and destiny
uh thank you for your tangent richard
because i think it was
worthwhile i think you bring up a really
interesting point of
the fact that people tend to jump at
any sort of misinformation in our
age right because of social media
because
of news outlets or you know look i'm
part of the media too
and uh there are mistakes made there's

English: 
need and imperative to reach
this younger generation some of the same
folks who have
who have justifiably taken to the
streets
to march for fairness and human dignity
and to recognize
we will not get there if we are going to
resort to scapegoating
or not do the work of really
understanding
uh the history of our respective
communities
and how intertwined we really are with a
common fate and destiny
uh thank you for your tangent richard
because i think it was
worthwhile i think you bring up a really
interesting point of
the fact that people tend to jump at
any sort of misinformation in our
age right because of social media
because
of news outlets or you know look i'm
part of the media too
and uh there are mistakes made there's

English: 
there's you know misreporting constantly
taking place
because we now live in an age of rapid
information
right everybody wants to get something
out first and they need to make
headlines and they just you know need to
make waves
and so that is obviously adding fuel to
this
growing fire that we're witnessing and
experiencing in this country
john so i wonder from a political point
of view
uh is does change because often we talk
about politics right we talk about how
policy needs to change and we need
better representation in government
so is that part of a greater answer
to solving some of these
major issues that we're now grappling
with is it
politics is it better representation is
it people needing a vote
simple as that just vote absolutely the
unfortunately we know the powerful and
trent special interests
especially those with large sums of
money uh
have a disproportionate influence over

English: 
there's you know misreporting constantly
taking place
because we now live in an age of rapid
information
right everybody wants to get something
out first and they need to make
headlines and they just you know need to
make waves
and so that is obviously adding fuel to
this
growing fire that we're witnessing and
experiencing in this country
john so i wonder from a political point
of view
uh is does change because often we talk
about politics right we talk about how
policy needs to change and we need
better representation in government
so is that part of a greater answer
to solving some of these
major issues that we're now grappling
with is it
politics is it better representation is
it people needing a vote
simple as that just vote absolutely the
unfortunately we know the powerful and
trent special interests
especially those with large sums of
money uh

English: 
our policy
makers uh one of the things the the
we have to be very concerned about going
forward is the algorithms who writes the
algorithms
is there going to be implicit bias in
those algorithms another net cal person
kevin kim and his wife claire is working
with andrew yang and others
to try to get some of those privacy
rights restored to people's individual
use right
getting if google and facebook
then others are going to make billions
based on our
our own private information why would
shouldn't we get that money back right
we ought to be supporting kevin and
clara and other people's efforts
uh to get that information because we
know the uh
the it's disappointing watching mark
zuckerberg recently right
facebook pushes a lot of the virality
out there and
it's it's a lot of that is hate language
right whatever's more controversial
gets more attention instead of what's
decent what's right
right we need out those types of voices
challenging
the current practices and so one of the

English: 
have a disproportionate influence over
our policy
makers uh one of the things the the
we have to be very concerned about going
forward is the algorithms who writes the
algorithms
is there going to be implicit bias in
those algorithms another net cal person
kevin kim and his wife claire is working
with andrew yang and others
to try to get some of those privacy
rights restored to people's individual
use right
getting if google and facebook
then others are going to make billions
based on our
our own private information why would
shouldn't we get that money back right
we ought to be supporting kevin and
clara and other people's efforts
uh to get that information because we
know the uh
the it's disappointing watching mark
zuckerberg recently right
facebook pushes a lot of the virality
out there and
it's it's a lot of that is hate language
right whatever's more controversial
gets more attention instead of what's
decent what's right
right we need out those types of voices
challenging

English: 
the current practices and so one of the
things i pushed when i was the state
controlled leader state treasurer
is to diversify america's private sector
leadership
uh the in my second year in office i
said we need more
african-americans latin latinx
asians on corporate boards right a
couple years later we need more women
on corporate boards we need more people
of lgbtqia
on corporate boards right diverse skill
sets people with
more climate change risk expertise right
we need to bring that diverse
perspective
that's going to be more representative
of different perspectives
onto america's private sector leadership
that will finance these activities one
of the great things after
charlottesville
is to watch those private sector
employers fire the employees who they
saw
right supporting white supremacy right
that will send a clear
economic signal america's not going to
support
bigotry right and then if like i watched

English: 
things i pushed when i was the state
controlled leader state treasurer
is to diversify america's private sector
leadership
uh the in my second year in office i
said we need more
african-americans latin latinx
asians on corporate boards right a
couple years later we need more women
on corporate boards we need more people
of lgbtqia
on corporate boards right diverse skill
sets people with
more climate change risk expertise right
we need to bring that diverse
perspective
that's going to be more representative
of different perspectives
onto america's private sector leadership
that will finance these activities one
of the great things after
charlottesville
is to watch those private sector
employers fire the employees who they
saw
right supporting white supremacy right
that will send a clear
economic signal america's not going to
support
bigotry right and then if like i watched

English: 
robin roberts on master class right
the uh you know she talked about the she
said you know the
robin asked her mom why are why are all
our kids even though we didn't come from
a wealthy background
you're high performing she said i taught
you good manners
right when you get taught good manners
fundamental dignity for each other
right that's a good premise and
unfortunately right we lost a lot of
those good manners we lost
civic engagement we lost a sense of
community
and that's why these organizations right
you bring netcal
ajc sclc together you start putting
members together working our
partnerships
putting each other on board supporting
each other for non-profit boards private
sector boards
right we will make progress right when
we start thinking in that fashion
and taking leadership of politics the
private sector
ngos to make sure that good things are
pushed forward and we're going to push
down
bad actors that's the progress we need
today
yeah i'm so glad you said john about the

English: 
robin roberts on master class right
the uh you know she talked about the she
said you know the
robin asked her mom why are why are all
our kids even though we didn't come from
a wealthy background
you're high performing she said i taught
you good manners
right when you get taught good manners
fundamental dignity for each other
right that's a good premise and
unfortunately right we lost a lot of
those good manners we lost
civic engagement we lost a sense of
community
and that's why these organizations right
you bring netcal
ajc sclc together you start putting
members together working our
partnerships
putting each other on board supporting
each other for non-profit boards private
sector boards
right we will make progress right when
we start thinking in that fashion
and taking leadership of politics the
private sector
ngos to make sure that good things are
pushed forward and we're going to push
down
bad actors that's the progress we need
today
yeah i'm so glad you said john about the
importance of private sector

English: 
importance of private sector
participation right because as we know
corporations are
extremely powerful and they're getting
only more powerful facebook
amazon google you know microsoft all of
those guys
and so for them to show some leadership
uh in terms of better ethics
morality and civic duty um
they can certainly make a tremendous
difference and we're seeing that with
the black lives matter movement where
you're starting to see corporations
say okay we're supporting this openly
we're going to boycott facebook and well
i mean
i mean you know that was i think i'm not
sure of how much of an impact that has
but still there's trying to start saying
okay we're going to take a very public
stand
when it comes to issues that matter so
that's certainly
an improvement reverend smart this leads
me to a question for you
particularly john mentioned you know
we're losing kind of the whole
idea of civility and you know good

English: 
participation right because as we know
corporations are
extremely powerful and they're getting
only more powerful facebook
amazon google you know microsoft all of
those guys
and so for them to show some leadership
uh in terms of better ethics
morality and civic duty um
they can certainly make a tremendous
difference and we're seeing that with
the black lives matter movement where
you're starting to see corporations
say okay we're supporting this openly
we're going to boycott facebook and well
i mean
i mean you know that was i think i'm not
sure of how much of an impact that has
but still there's trying to start saying
okay we're going to take a very public
stand
when it comes to issues that matter so
that's certainly
an improvement reverend smart this leads
me to a question for you
particularly john mentioned you know
we're losing kind of the whole
idea of civility and you know good

English: 
behavior good manners
to me as a woman of faith i feel like
it's a loss of spirituality
i feel like the soul of this nation
is is withering and and so we're losing
the sense of
morality and ethics and
just treating one another with kindness
and
i just wonder from your faith-based
background
do you think do you think it's because
we're just
not spiritual anymore or is it just i i
don't know
we've lost our moral compass to a
certain extent
yes yes we you know you i mean that's a
you're saying that what can i say but
yes you know you
i've been a pa i've been a pastor for
six or 53 years 54 years and so yes
since i was nine years old yes
um and i can remember

English: 
behavior good manners
to me as a woman of faith i feel like
it's a loss of spirituality
i feel like the soul of this nation
is is withering and and so we're losing
the sense of
morality and ethics and
just treating one another with kindness
and
i just wonder from your faith-based
background
do you think do you think it's because
we're just
not spiritual anymore or is it just i i
don't know
we've lost our moral compass to a
certain extent
yes yes we you know you i mean that's a
you're saying that what can i say but
yes you know you
i've been a pa i've been a pastor for
six or 53 years 54 years and so yes
since i was nine years old yes
um and i can remember

English: 
i really remember when it began
um this shift in that when we took
and i'm a liberal and i'm coming from
that
lens but i remember we took prayer out
of the school
you know i was on the i was a
representative
because i was student council president
there was only two high schools
in our town so i was one of the student
representatives
on the school board and i was fighting
no you can't do this
they were coming from a legal
perspective but you know you can't take
prayer out of the school but
um from an african-american tradition
we've always been religious people
we've always have in the when you begin
to separate us from that
you'll see you know you lose your
essence of who you
are and so a lot of times when we see
what's going on
in all of america right now um
people are losing their essence and what
they're finding a lot of times
does not um appropriate for

English: 
i really remember when it began
um this shift in that when we took
and i'm a liberal and i'm coming from
that
lens but i remember we took prayer out
of the school
you know i was on the i was a
representative
because i was student council president
there was only two high schools
in our town so i was one of the student
representatives
on the school board and i was fighting
no you can't do this
they were coming from a legal
perspective but you know you can't take
prayer out of the school but
um from an african-american tradition
we've always been religious people
we've always have in the when you begin
to separate us from that
you'll see you know you lose your
essence of who you
are and so a lot of times when we see
what's going on
in all of america right now um
people are losing their essence and what
they're finding a lot of times
does not um appropriate for
for what they for what they lost and so

English: 
we have to go back
to some form of worship but we also have
to come back
come and find a moral high ground to
live by
and that is what we say what we do you
know
who we affect with our words that we say
and sometimes when people are
trying to do the righteous things we can
come and say
little things to nag them to pull them
back to where they are
and i think where they shouldn't be and
so
um one of the forces we have to look at
is the bully pulpit in america right now
and what's coming out of there i mean to
me that's been
that's one of the elephants in the room
right now and
you know you have to address that that
you know we don't have
moral leadership coming from the from
the white house
and that's causing we're having someone
who has
created an environment where people feel
it's conducive
to talk to each other every way into

English: 
for what they for what they lost and so
we have to go back
to some form of worship but we also have
to come back
come and find a moral high ground to
live by
and that is what we say what we do you
know
who we affect with our words that we say
and sometimes when people are
trying to do the righteous things we can
come and say
little things to nag them to pull them
back to where they are
and i think where they shouldn't be and
so
um one of the forces we have to look at
is the bully pulpit in america right now
and what's coming out of there i mean to
me that's been
that's one of the elephants in the room
right now and
you know you have to address that that
you know we don't have
moral leadership coming from the from
the white house
and that's causing we're having someone
who has
created an environment where people feel
it's conducive
to talk to each other every way into

English: 
this whole
white supremacy and that we are the
master race and all of this
is coming forth because of how he is
governing
in that bully pulpit sorry i said it
that's okay this is what this is for and
you know
i'm all about being honest and truthful
and genuine so i appreciate it reverend
seriously
uh but you're right uh and you know
religion also can be very divisive
right and confused as a weapon
as a weapon to divide and we've seen
that certainly
in this day and age so i love the fact
that you're saying that it's just a
moral high ground
uh it doesn't matter what faith you are
and what right spiritual background you
have
we're losing the moral high ground in
terms of you know
just being kind and being treating
others
the way you want to be treated it's the
golden rule right so
richard i'm wondering from your
perspective as well is this something
that
is not being addressed enough um because

English: 
this whole
white supremacy and that we are the
master race and all of this
is coming forth because of how he is
governing
in that bully pulpit sorry i said it
that's okay this is what this is for and
you know
i'm all about being honest and truthful
and genuine so i appreciate it reverend
seriously
uh but you're right uh and you know
religion also can be very divisive
right and confused as a weapon
as a weapon to divide and we've seen
that certainly
in this day and age so i love the fact
that you're saying that it's just a
moral high ground
uh it doesn't matter what faith you are
and what right spiritual background you
have
we're losing the moral high ground in
terms of you know
just being kind and being treating
others
the way you want to be treated it's the
golden rule right so
richard i'm wondering from your
perspective as well is this something
that

English: 
is not being addressed enough um because
as reverend smart pastor smart said
um you know things are being normalized
that probably should not be normalized
by
leadership and other other people who
who have some influence so
i i couldn't agree more with with pastor
smart as well as with with
john i think we
we have not been living in um
in america over the last three and a
half years that most of us
uh recognize or that most of us
uh see as a place
that is welcoming uh to all
uh charlottesville was mentioned a few
minutes ago i think by
by john and uh i'm not sure
we have ever gotten uh over as a country
the notion of good people fine people on

English: 
as reverend smart pastor smart said
um you know things are being normalized
that probably should not be normalized
by
leadership and other other people who
who have some influence so
i i couldn't agree more with with pastor
smart as well as with with
john i think we
we have not been living in um
in america over the last three and a
half years that most of us
uh recognize or that most of us
uh see as a place
that is welcoming uh to all
uh charlottesville was mentioned a few
minutes ago i think by
by john and uh i'm not sure
we have ever gotten uh over as a country
the notion of good people fine people on

English: 
both sides
it's simply um that was the beginning
of the normalization of
white supremacy or the re-emergence of
white supremacy
and it the words that are spoken
uh by fig by authority figures
by elected leaders have consequences
they matter and time and again
we've heard from that highest uh bully
pulpit
from the oval office when we think about
covet
we've heard the slurs and uh
the blaming and the scapegoating i won't
dignify
those slurs by repeating them here i
always
hope and wish and perhaps it's just uh
it comes with uh my faith we have a
certain eternal
optimism that um that once and for all
we may have heard it for the very last
time

English: 
both sides
it's simply um that was the beginning
of the normalization of
white supremacy or the re-emergence of
white supremacy
and it the words that are spoken
uh by fig by authority figures
by elected leaders have consequences
they matter and time and again
we've heard from that highest uh bully
pulpit
from the oval office when we think about
covet
we've heard the slurs and uh
the blaming and the scapegoating i won't
dignify
those slurs by repeating them here i
always
hope and wish and perhaps it's just uh
it comes with uh my faith we have a
certain eternal
optimism that um that once and for all
we may have heard it for the very last

English: 
time
untrue as early as recently as yesterday
it was uttered yet again and these are
the kinds of words that have
consequences
i still think about early on in this in
this covent era
picking up the la times reading a story
about 22 year old
natalie chao who is a standout
women's basketball player at ucla
being fearful about walking her dog
in her neighborhood in dallas where her
family when she was back with her family
but fearful about walking the dog in her
neighborhood
because of being blamed and scapegoated
and god forbid attacked because of uh
the virus the coronavirus before we were
really calling it
covet 19. that is simply outrageous

English: 
untrue as early as recently as yesterday
it was uttered yet again and these are
the kinds of words that have
consequences
i still think about early on in this in
this covent era
picking up the la times reading a story
about 22 year old
natalie chao who is a standout
women's basketball player at ucla
being fearful about walking her dog
in her neighborhood in dallas where her
family when she was back with her family
but fearful about walking the dog in her
neighborhood
because of being blamed and scapegoated
and god forbid attacked because of uh
the virus the coronavirus before we were
really calling it
covet 19. that is simply outrageous

English: 
and simply unacceptable in the america
that we know uh we truly are
so i have to offer the disclaimer that
ajc
may be hard to believe i'm going to say
this based on the comments i've just
made
ajc is a non-political nonpartisan
organization but we do have opinions and
we do
follow bigotry and hate wherever it
leads
and we will speak out about it
unequivocally
and unapologetically and we fervently
wish for better days in america
starting next january richard
honestly i don't even look at that as a
political statement that you're making
i'm going to share my own opinion about
this i think we're beyond politics when
we're talking about the
behavior of what's happening in this
country
and from leadership it's not about
politics it's about decency
it's about civility and that is what
we're questioning

English: 
and simply unacceptable in the america
that we know uh we truly are
so i have to offer the disclaimer that
ajc
may be hard to believe i'm going to say
this based on the comments i've just
made
ajc is a non-political nonpartisan
organization but we do have opinions and
we do
follow bigotry and hate wherever it
leads
and we will speak out about it
unequivocally
and unapologetically and we fervently
wish for better days in america
starting next january richard
honestly i don't even look at that as a
political statement that you're making
i'm going to share my own opinion about
this i think we're beyond politics when
we're talking about the
behavior of what's happening in this
country
and from leadership it's not about
politics it's about decency
it's about civility and that is what

English: 
and that has nothing to do with politics
it has to do with being a human being
um that god created and we were supposed
to be put on this earth to do good
and treat each other with kindness and
you know do
what's right and that's being turned on
its head
right from wrong is being questioned
truth and truth
versus lies i mean so i think it's
beyond politics at this point so
uh your disclaimer i accept but at the
same time
i don't think it was very political i
think you were just talking about just
values in general so let me if i if i
can add i don't mean to
to um to to go on too long but
one of the uh lessons that
that and and and sort of epiphanies that
i have had
in the in the post uh
in the era since the the tragic murder
of of george floyd
is really if we could turn this back
just for a moment
um to law enforcement and criminal

English: 
we're questioning
and that has nothing to do with politics
it has to do with being a human being
um that god created and we were supposed
to be put on this earth to do good
and treat each other with kindness and
you know do
what's right and that's being turned on
its head
right from wrong is being questioned
truth and truth
versus lies i mean so i think it's
beyond politics at this point so
uh your disclaimer i accept but at the
same time
i don't think it was very political i
think you were just talking about just
values in general so let me if i if i
can add i don't mean to
to um to to go on too long but
one of the uh lessons that
that and and and sort of epiphanies that
i have had
in the in the post uh
in the era since the the tragic murder
of of george floyd
is really if we could turn this back
just for a moment

English: 
justice and
and the role of police in our society
and one of the questions i had the
conversation i had
with uh with a new friend was was simply
to um
to pose whether or not police view
themselves as accountable to the
african-american community
and i i felt that that was a question to
pose
and my friend enlightened me by sort of
changing the narrative of that question
it's not about being accountable
it's about being responsible for and if
we look at
policing through the lens of who
those who are sworn to serve and protect
are ultimately
responsible for and responsible to
i suppose that's accountable for but
really responsible for
it changes the paradigm entirely
and that's uh that's a start point

English: 
um to law enforcement and criminal
justice and
and the role of police in our society
and one of the questions i had the
conversation i had
with uh with a new friend was was simply
to um
to pose whether or not police view
themselves as accountable to the
african-american community
and i i felt that that was a question to
pose
and my friend enlightened me by sort of
changing the narrative of that question
it's not about being accountable
it's about being responsible for and if
we look at
policing through the lens of who
those who are sworn to serve and protect
are ultimately
responsible for and responsible to
i suppose that's accountable for but
really responsible for
it changes the paradigm entirely

English: 
and that's uh that's a start point
this is um you will not find ajc uh
carrying placards calling about def
about defunding the police it's really
more about
reimagining the police and even in los
angeles in the last
few days the expansion of the community
uh safety partnership which is really
community policing at its best
the promotion of an african-american
sergeant
to the rank of deputy chief among
several
deputy chiefs and the redirecting of
resources
to not viewing every societal
ill or social problem as a public safety
matter
that i would argue is at least a step in
the right direction
and that's where we need to be moving
and that's where we need to be
joining voices and locking arms to make
that a reality to make it a permanent

English: 
this is um you will not find ajc uh
carrying placards calling about def
about defunding the police it's really
more about
reimagining the police and even in los
angeles in the last
few days the expansion of the community
uh safety partnership which is really
community policing at its best
the promotion of an african-american
sergeant
to the rank of deputy chief among
several
deputy chiefs and the redirecting of
resources
to not viewing every societal
ill or social problem as a public safety
matter
that i would argue is at least a step in
the right direction
and that's where we need to be moving
and that's where we need to be
joining voices and locking arms to make
that a reality to make it a permanent

English: 
reality yes yes sometimes but you know
rick sometimes you can things can happen
so many times
you can you know ever since 1992 i mean
beyond 65
the um the commission then um
mccomb commission and all of the
commissions
there's been reforms um sometimes people
get sick and tired well black folks get
sick and tired of
even seeing changing in the window
dressing we have to see a new body
we have to see a new process we you know
so i i haven't been one that's been
excited about that
it's just you have to you know i've seen
it before
and a theme i have is sometimes saying
game name
change let's just see it let's just see
the process
not all the advertising about let's see
the results
um before you know before so i'm not
excited about that right now
i want to see results because we've seen
it before

English: 
reality yes yes sometimes but you know
rick sometimes you can things can happen
so many times
you can you know ever since 1992 i mean
beyond 65
the um the commission then um
mccomb commission and all of the
commissions
there's been reforms um sometimes people
get sick and tired well black folks get
sick and tired of
even seeing changing in the window
dressing we have to see a new body
we have to see a new process we you know
so i i haven't been one that's been
excited about that
it's just you have to you know i've seen
it before
and a theme i have is sometimes saying
game name
change let's just see it let's just see
the process
not all the advertising about let's see
the results
um before you know before so i'm not
excited about that right now
i want to see results because we've seen
it before

English: 
i'm sorry to get off no no
yeah i would say let's what what struck
me as significant
uh pastor smart was simply the uh
the allocation of of of of significant
resources more than just an expansion
literally uh uh a lot of uh
man man and women power and
dollars directed in that and that in
that realm and hopefully
it will make a difference hopefully
along with the new
civil and human rights department it's a
commission but it's really a department
within the city that as well is
we've got to give it a try and i think
our our job
to your point is to be tenacious
in monitoring and cajoling
and ensuring that this isn't just uh
window dressing
isn't just uh a pr stunt for the moment
that's really where the real work has to

English: 
i'm sorry to get off no no
yeah i would say let's what what struck
me as significant
uh pastor smart was simply the uh
the allocation of of of of significant
resources more than just an expansion
literally uh uh a lot of uh
man man and women power and
dollars directed in that and that in
that realm and hopefully
it will make a difference hopefully
along with the new
civil and human rights department it's a
commission but it's really a department
within the city that as well is
we've got to give it a try and i think
our our job
to your point is to be tenacious
in monitoring and cajoling
and ensuring that this isn't just uh
window dressing
isn't just uh a pr stunt for the moment
that's really where the real work has to
happen i believe

English: 
yes exactly and as we were all saying in
the beginning
um it takes uh voicing our concerns but
also
it also takes uh everyone together
pushing for that kind of change and for
real change in instead of just talk and
so as you said pastor smart earlier
the difference between the 60s and now
is that you're seeing the global
community
you know communities from all walks of
life coming together for the same
purpose
instead of just the african-american
community that
you know was the case in the 60s so
let's hope
that kind of you know greater movement
is going to push for that permanent
change uh in in
all on all levels um i have a
couple of questions from uh the audience
uh that were sent in earlier
and so i want to round off this
conversation with maybe
imposing these questions to you so one
of them comes from john rhee he's a

English: 
happen i believe
yes exactly and as we were all saying in
the beginning
um it takes uh voicing our concerns but
also
it also takes uh everyone together
pushing for that kind of change and for
real change in instead of just talk and
so as you said pastor smart earlier
the difference between the 60s and now
is that you're seeing the global
community
you know communities from all walks of
life coming together for the same
purpose
instead of just the african-american
community that
you know was the case in the 60s so
let's hope
that kind of you know greater movement
is going to push for that permanent
change uh in in
all on all levels um i have a
couple of questions from uh the audience
uh that were sent in earlier
and so i want to round off this
conversation with maybe
imposing these questions to you so one
of them comes from john rhee he's a

English: 
writer director
and he says what are some things your
community is doing to foster the next
generation how important is this
and you know we were talking about young
people being involved in the movement
but
i think that is really crucial we can't
just talk about all of these things and
not really focus on how
we shape these future leaders and
exactly
what we can do to further that so
john maybe i can start with you and
we'll go around
uh so it's not only the asian-american
community i
i always try to put
people in positions of responsibility
that were more elevated than
any opportunities that i was given uh as
i tell
young folks the uh do your best
explain the process and you're allowed
to make mistakes when you're young
uh because when you're older the and
it's your name on the door or the uh
your name that ends up in some media

English: 
writer director
and he says what are some things your
community is doing to foster the next
generation how important is this
and you know we were talking about young
people being involved in the movement
but
i think that is really crucial we can't
just talk about all of these things and
not really focus on how
we shape these future leaders and
exactly
what we can do to further that so
john maybe i can start with you and
we'll go around
uh so it's not only the asian-american
community i
i always try to put
people in positions of responsibility
that were more elevated than
any opportunities that i was given uh as
i tell
young folks the uh do your best
explain the process and you're allowed
to make mistakes when you're young
uh because when you're older the and
it's your name on the door or the uh
your name that ends up in some media

English: 
publication you could be gone
very quickly uh so to advance people of
all backgrounds to create a better
society
they i try to elevate them in regards to
responsibility
there's nothing like being given
leadership positions early
the uh that's what's happened to too
many people in our community
they never see the light of day for a
leadership position
um okay great advice uh pastor smart how
about you
we have developed a young dreamers for
justice
and well it's called mlk dreamers for
young dreamers for justice and
they are a cadre of from 13 to
i mean from nine to 17
and they work on projects but they all
they learn
from the teachings of dr martin luther
king they
they have been out there and working
with our poor people's campaign
they have on thanksgiving and christmas
they gave away
toys they um gave away
food at christmas and thanksgiving but

English: 
publication you could be gone
very quickly uh so to advance people of
all backgrounds to create a better
society
they i try to elevate them in regards to
responsibility
there's nothing like being given
leadership positions early
the uh that's what's happened to too
many people in our community
they never see the light of day for a
leadership position
um okay great advice uh pastor smart how
about you
we have developed a young dreamers for
justice
and well it's called mlk dreamers for
young dreamers for justice and
they are a cadre of from 13 to
i mean from nine to 17
and they work on projects but they all
they learn
from the teachings of dr martin luther
king they
they have been out there and working
with our poor people's campaign
they have on thanksgiving and christmas
they gave away
toys they um gave away
food at christmas and thanksgiving but

English: 
and they have
met uh and they have learned how to
work together they have learned how to
um
live and create a new world and they're
bringing about in their own way
they're multi-racial multi-religion
multi
um religious and they're learning how to
create um
create martin luther king's beloved
community bringing that to pass
that's great that's great richard how
about you
so pastor smart i'm hoping we can create
a coalition
uh even before this this panel ends
we have a program at ajc called lyft and
the acronym is leaders for tomorrow
it is primarily high school students and
it's a way to help
open their minds and their eyes to the
complexities
of the world particularly for many of
these young people
if they are able to go on to uh college
or university
to prepare them for uh the opportunity

English: 
and they have
met uh and they have learned how to
work together they have learned how to
um
live and create a new world and they're
bringing about in their own way
they're multi-racial multi-religion
multi
um religious and they're learning how to
create um
create martin luther king's beloved
community bringing that to pass
that's great that's great richard how
about you
so pastor smart i'm hoping we can create
a coalition
uh even before this this panel ends
we have a program at ajc called lyft and
the acronym is leaders for tomorrow
it is primarily high school students and
it's a way to help
open their minds and their eyes to the
complexities
of the world particularly for many of
these young people
if they are able to go on to uh college
or university
to prepare them for uh the opportunity

English: 
uh to uh enlarge their circle
and to get to know people uh who are who
are different from them
who who may not be from the same
community
who may not be of the same faith and to
find ways to uh to engage and become
as much of a uh a global citizen
as as possible so i'm i'm already as you
were describing that wonderful
uh program i'm already thinking there
may be
uh a sunday uh down the road
uh god willing not virtually where we
might be able to bring our
our communities together and and further
further this dialogue and ultimately
reinforce
that we've got to reach across
and embrace uh what is unfamiliar to us
and if we can do that we can uh break
down
some of that you know natural human
tendency a tendency

English: 
uh to uh enlarge their circle
and to get to know people uh who are who
are different from them
who who may not be from the same
community
who may not be of the same faith and to
find ways to uh to engage and become
as much of a uh a global citizen
as as possible so i'm i'm already as you
were describing that wonderful
uh program i'm already thinking there
may be
uh a sunday uh down the road
uh god willing not virtually where we
might be able to bring our
our communities together and and further
further this dialogue and ultimately
reinforce
that we've got to reach across
and embrace uh what is unfamiliar to us
and if we can do that we can uh break
down
some of that you know natural human

English: 
uh to fear uh what we don't know
and who we don't know and that i think
is a way early on
to uh to to build uh bridges and break
down walls
it's what you were saying john before
about sharing stories
right with people outside your community
and whatever form that comes in
just a little bit of information just a
little bit of education
uh to somebody who maybe never would
have been exposed to that
can make a world of difference in
understanding
you know it's it's amazing when you can
see someone's mind change once they just
get a little grasp
of a world that they weren't familiar
with before and as a journalist i
see that all the time because my job is
about storytelling
so i'll add to this conversation what
gives me hope
is when i do my show when i talk about
issues that matter
i get so much email and
instagram posts and messages from young
people
young people listening to this 54 year

English: 
tendency a tendency
uh to fear uh what we don't know
and who we don't know and that i think
is a way early on
to uh to to build uh bridges and break
down walls
it's what you were saying john before
about sharing stories
right with people outside your community
and whatever form that comes in
just a little bit of information just a
little bit of education
uh to somebody who maybe never would
have been exposed to that
can make a world of difference in
understanding
you know it's it's amazing when you can
see someone's mind change once they just
get a little grasp
of a world that they weren't familiar
with before and as a journalist i
see that all the time because my job is
about storytelling
so i'll add to this conversation what
gives me hope
is when i do my show when i talk about
issues that matter
i get so much email and
instagram posts and messages from young
people
young people listening to this 54 year

English: 
old woman
but saying thank you for saying that
message
is giving me hope i want to keep doing
my work i want to be active i want to
use my voice
that gives me hope and they're all young
and so that
that's something that i feel like wow if
we can continue cultivating that
um in all communities then we're going
to be in in
much better shape last question
another uh audience member who is
anonymous
where do you see racial relations 20
years from now
will it improve or will it worsen
uh i know this nobody has a crystal ball
but
let's let's talk about like what your
thoughts are john we're going to go
around the same way
i'm very hopeful as we become more
integrated
you're still going to have a passionate
hopefully farce
far smaller minority that is just
bigoted that is

English: 
old woman
but saying thank you for saying that
message
is giving me hope i want to keep doing
my work i want to be active i want to
use my voice
that gives me hope and they're all young
and so that
that's something that i feel like wow if
we can continue cultivating that
um in all communities then we're going
to be in in
much better shape last question
another uh audience member who is
anonymous
where do you see racial relations 20
years from now
will it improve or will it worsen
uh i know this nobody has a crystal ball
but
let's let's talk about like what your
thoughts are john we're going to go
around the same way
i'm very hopeful as we become more
integrated
you're still going to have a passionate
hopefully farce
far smaller minority that is just
bigoted that is
ignorant uh but the right as

English: 
ignorant uh but the right as
uh as we all pointed out right you see
the i have so much hope the that used to
be me marching on the streets and now
you have more people marching on the
streets from different backgrounds
different economic status different
heritage
uh the uh you know
let's just keep building that
yeah yeah pastor smart
your thoughts on my thoughts where we're
going to be 20 years
well it depends on some variables
it depends on are we respecting each
other
more are we understanding
each other more are we do we
empathize empathize with each other more
and do we um
accept each other's more those four
variables
if they're better in place race

English: 
uh as we all pointed out right you see
the i have so much hope the that used to
be me marching on the streets and now
you have more people marching on the
streets from different backgrounds
different economic status different
heritage
uh the uh you know
let's just keep building that
yeah yeah pastor smart
your thoughts on my thoughts where we're
going to be 20 years
well it depends on some variables
it depends on are we respecting each
other
more are we understanding
each other more are we do we
empathize empathize with each other more
and do we um
accept each other's more those four
variables
if they're better in place race
relations would be better

English: 
okay all right we got to keep that hope
going then
richard your last with this one
again i think the uh
we have to push back against the erosion
of civility
in our society i think the
enduring message i want to believe at
least
coming out of the protests
coming out of people taking to the
street coming out of the terrible
pandemic that we're living through is
that we
really are all in this together
and that if we act any differently
we do so at our own peril and we
continue to
see an america that is
ripped apart at the seams we have
so much uh to celebrate
in our diversity so much to celebrate in
the opportunity
that america must

English: 
relations would be better
okay all right we got to keep that hope
going then
richard your last with this one
again i think the uh
we have to push back against the erosion
of civility
in our society i think the
enduring message i want to believe at
least
coming out of the protests
coming out of people taking to the
street coming out of the terrible
pandemic that we're living through is
that we
really are all in this together
and that if we act any differently
we do so at our own peril and we
continue to
see an america that is
ripped apart at the seams we have
so much uh to celebrate
in our diversity so much to celebrate in
the opportunity

English: 
bring to fulfillment for all
i want to believe and i do believe again
as an eternal
optimist with a with a with a healthy
dose of of uh
realism uh sprinkled in that
we're going to become a more empathetic
and understanding and
harmonious and compassionate society
if we don't get to that point
if we don't learn that lesson out of
covid out of
the horrors of racial injustice and the
really the the unmasking of what
of what is a history of entrenched
uh inequities and racism in this country
then we will have squandered this moment
i don't think we will
i think we're going to set ourselves on
a much

English: 
that america must
bring to fulfillment for all
i want to believe and i do believe again
as an eternal
optimist with a with a with a healthy
dose of of uh
realism uh sprinkled in that
we're going to become a more empathetic
and understanding and
harmonious and compassionate society
if we don't get to that point
if we don't learn that lesson out of
covid out of
the horrors of racial injustice and the
really the the unmasking of what
of what is a history of entrenched
uh inequities and racism in this country
then we will have squandered this moment
i don't think we will
i think we're going to set ourselves on

English: 
more positive and hopeful uh
and genuine uh course
for change and and that's part of
the evolution of this of this country
400 years
is um in 200 years is not such uh a long
time
in the grand scheme of history so
america is still
a grand experiment but we have a lot of
work to do
well richard from your lips to god's
ears i hope for all of that as well i
think we all do
um so well i want to thank
all of you again for your patience
uh because of the difficulties we had
earlier this evening but
it was so worth it at least personally
it was so worth it i felt like this was
such a valuable conversation
in terms of all of you sharing your
different
thoughts insights experiences so thank
you so much
for giving so much of your time um and
thank you for your patience

English: 
a much
more positive and hopeful uh
and genuine uh course
for change and and that's part of
the evolution of this of this country
400 years
is um in 200 years is not such uh a long
time
in the grand scheme of history so
america is still
a grand experiment but we have a lot of
work to do
well richard from your lips to god's
ears i hope for all of that as well i
think we all do
um so well i want to thank
all of you again for your patience
uh because of the difficulties we had
earlier this evening but
it was so worth it at least personally
it was so worth it i felt like this was
such a valuable conversation
in terms of all of you sharing your
different
thoughts insights experiences so thank
you so much
for giving so much of your time um and
thank you for your patience

English: 
my job and i i can kind of deal with any
sort of circumstance
being a journalist but i i just am so
grateful to
all of your participation in in this so
john chang
richard hershat and reverend william
smart all of you
uh please stay safe stay healthy
and um i hope the next time we can all
meet
face to face and have another great
discussion so thank you
thank you thank you all looking forward
okay now we're gonna go to the next
panel
uh that is really gonna focus some of
these ideas um
really on the korean and korean-american
community and how
they can execute some of these concepts
to galvanize our
influence and empower each other and
build leadership
and change so stay tuned for that panel
coming up right now
hi everybody it's david kim secretary of
the california state transportation

English: 
my job and i i can kind of deal with any
sort of circumstance
being a journalist but i i just am so
grateful to
all of your participation in in this so
john chang
richard hershat and reverend william
smart all of you
uh please stay safe stay healthy
and um i hope the next time we can all
meet
face to face and have another great
discussion so thank you
thank you thank you all looking forward
okay now we're gonna go to the next
panel
uh that is really gonna focus some of
these ideas um
really on the korean and korean-american
community and how
they can execute some of these concepts
to galvanize our
influence and empower each other and
build leadership
and change so stay tuned for that panel
coming up right now
hi everybody it's david kim secretary of
the california state transportation

English: 
agency
and long time net help participant
greetings from sacramento
i'm so very sorry i can't join you on a
live video conference today due to my
schedule
but big thanks to netcal for the
invitation to join you
and i also want to say what a terrific
lineup of speakers you've organized for
today's conference
so glad to see on the last panel my good
friend john chung
and on this panel some outstanding
individuals people i've known for a long
time
paul song john lim sonia logman who's a
great colleague of mine here in the
newsome administration
and of course roy choi who's moderating
all of them are terrific
individuals and you're going to hear
some great insights from each of them
now i'm going to keep this brief in the
interest of time i just wanted to make a
few points
on the theme of today's panel first
i think the korean american community
has come a long way in terms of making
its voice heard
in the political arena if you look at
where we are today compared to say
20 or 30 years ago there is no

English: 
agency
and long time net help participant
greetings from sacramento
i'm so very sorry i can't join you on a
live video conference today due to my
schedule
but big thanks to netcal for the
invitation to join you
and i also want to say what a terrific
lineup of speakers you've organized for
today's conference
so glad to see on the last panel my good
friend john chung
and on this panel some outstanding
individuals people i've known for a long
time
paul song john lim sonia logman who's a
great colleague of mine here in the
newsome administration
and of course roy choi who's moderating
all of them are terrific
individuals and you're going to hear
some great insights from each of them
now i'm going to keep this brief in the
interest of time i just wanted to make a
few points
on the theme of today's panel first
i think the korean american community
has come a long way in terms of making
its voice heard
in the political arena if you look at
where we are today compared to say
20 or 30 years ago there is no
comparison

English: 
comparison
collectively we are more sophisticated
better organized
and more energetic before and motivated
to make an impact
and have our influence felt but we still
have a ways to go
and i always like to say that we are
about a decade behind
the latino community when it comes to
community organizing
political empowerment and mobilizing a
large swath of our community
to really maximize the level of
engagement within within the community
to be honest we still have many people
who are either disinterested
or completely disconnected to what's
happening in the world they are
completely
on the sidelines but the good news is
that's changing
thanks to the younger generation that's
coming up
so many of them are not only plugged in
and politically aware
but they are heavily engaged as well so
that's a really hopeful sign
for the future and i think it's
important for organizations like nedcal
as well as others like cka kac
nakasek and others to really bolster

English: 
collectively we are more sophisticated
better organized
and more energetic before and motivated
to make an impact
and have our influence felt but we still
have a ways to go
and i always like to say that we are
about a decade behind
the latino community when it comes to
community organizing
political empowerment and mobilizing a
large swath of our community
to really maximize the level of
engagement within within the community
to be honest we still have many people
who are either disinterested
or completely disconnected to what's
happening in the world they are
completely
on the sidelines but the good news is
that's changing
thanks to the younger generation that's
coming up
so many of them are not only plugged in
and politically aware
but they are heavily engaged as well so
that's a really hopeful sign
for the future and i think it's
important for organizations like nedcal
as well as others like cka kac
nakasek and others to really bolster
that sense of civic awareness

English: 
that sense of civic awareness
and engagement among members of our
community so that our voice can continue
to be advanced in a way that reflects
the growing reality
of our community the fact that we are
growing so very rapidly
i also want to briefly touch on the
importance of coalition building
and working with other communities
beyond our own
i've noticed that over the years we have
a tendency to be somewhat insular
as a community to stick to our own so to
speak but there is strength in numbers
and i very much believe it's in our best
interest to join forces with other
communities that share
common values and similar priorities
so that means building alliances with
other aapi organizations and
coordinating with them
on a more consistent basis and beyond
the aapi community we also need to step
our
step up our interaction with black
latino and jewish community leaders as
well
because if we're going to play a role in
the multicultural landscape that defines
not only southern california
but the entire state and nation we need

English: 
and engagement among members of our
community so that our voice can continue
to be advanced in a way that reflects
the growing reality
of our community the fact that we are
growing so very rapidly
i also want to briefly touch on the
importance of coalition building
and working with other communities
beyond our own
i've noticed that over the years we have
a tendency to be somewhat insular
as a community to stick to our own so to
speak but there is strength in numbers
and i very much believe it's in our best
interest to join forces with other
communities that share
common values and similar priorities
so that means building alliances with
other aapi organizations and
coordinating with them
on a more consistent basis and beyond
the aapi community we also need to step
our
step up our interaction with black
latino and jewish community leaders as
well
because if we're going to play a role in
the multicultural landscape that defines
not only southern california
but the entire state and nation we need
to be an

English: 
active part of it not just focus on our
own community
but to expand our mindset and work hand
in hand with other like-minded
communities whose priorities
and challenges are very similar to ours
so
for example if we believe in black lives
matter
and i think many of us do what should we
as a community
in netcal do how do we play a meaningful
role
now of course educating our own
community is a big part of it because
frankly
to be candid there are some portions of
our community that would not want to get
involved
but if we assume that's a minority
viewpoint the question is
how do we stand up and add our voice to
the black lives matter movement
how do we add value these are things
worth discussing
i think the black community needs to
know we're with them
especially given the history of korean
black relations
some of us are old enough to remember
the 70s and 80s when tension between
korean american store owners and black

English: 
to be an
active part of it not just focus on our
own community
but to expand our mindset and work hand
in hand with other like-minded
communities whose priorities
and challenges are very similar to ours
so
for example if we believe in black lives
matter
and i think many of us do what should we
as a community
in netcal do how do we play a meaningful
role
now of course educating our own
community is a big part of it because
frankly
to be candid there are some portions of
our community that would not want to get
involved
but if we assume that's a minority
viewpoint the question is
how do we stand up and add our voice to
the black lives matter movement
how do we add value these are things
worth discussing
i think the black community needs to
know we're with them
especially given the history of korean
black relations
some of us are old enough to remember
the 70s and 80s when tension between
korean american store owners and black

English: 
customers
ran high the relationship was bitter and
unfortunately
violent at times thankfully that is no
longer the case
and tensions have largely disappeared
but there is so much more
we can do to solidify the connection
between our community
and the black community so just like
encouraging more korean americans to get
engaged and get plugged in
when it comes to building enduring
relationships with other communities
now is the time and that's a
responsibility for all of us
including organizations like net cal and
others
so i'll leave it for uh to that for now
thank you so much for the time
i hope you have a wonderful conversation
and i really look forward to the time
when all of us can get together in
person
when we get beyond this crisis and reach
a post-pandemic world
until then stay safe and healthy and i
wish you all the very best
thanks well thank you and welcome to the
highly anticipated once in a lifetime
world premiere of
unlocking the korean american

English: 
customers
ran high the relationship was bitter and
unfortunately
violent at times thankfully that is no
longer the case
and tensions have largely disappeared
but there is so much more
we can do to solidify the connection
between our community
and the black community so just like
encouraging more korean americans to get
engaged and get plugged in
when it comes to building enduring
relationships with other communities
now is the time and that's a
responsibility for all of us
including organizations like net cal and
others
so i'll leave it for uh to that for now
thank you so much for the time
i hope you have a wonderful conversation
and i really look forward to the time
when all of us can get together in
person
when we get beyond this crisis and reach
a post-pandemic world
until then stay safe and healthy and i
wish you all the very best
thanks well thank you and welcome to the
highly anticipated once in a lifetime
world premiere of
unlocking the korean american

English: 
community's power and influence
in mainstream america i am your
moderator
and least accomplished guests of the
evening roy choi
we want to come away from today's panel
with a better sense of
what we're capable of as korean
americans not just to further
promote our community's causes but also
our responsibility and connection to
other communities
and having to do this of course in the
middle of a pandemic
and eventually in a post-pandemic world
will cover political influence
empowerment through nonprofit giving
and participation and finally the topic
that we want to talk about that we need
to talk about
bts yes bts but
more broadly the influence of korean pop
culture
before we begin i want to acknowledge
the work of net cal and the team that
organized our event today
yonah hong john ree dr jeannie choi and
dr j hoon lee

English: 
community's power and influence
in mainstream america i am your
moderator
and least accomplished guests of the
evening roy choi
we want to come away from today's panel
with a better sense of
what we're capable of as korean
americans not just to further
promote our community's causes but also
our responsibility and connection to
other communities
and having to do this of course in the
middle of a pandemic
and eventually in a post-pandemic world
will cover political influence
empowerment through nonprofit giving
and participation and finally the topic
that we want to talk about that we need
to talk about
bts yes bts but
more broadly the influence of korean pop
culture
before we begin i want to acknowledge
the work of net cal and the team that
organized our event today
yonah hong john ree dr jeannie choi and
dr j hoon lee

English: 
ned cal is the network of korean
american leaders of which i am a fellow
from the third class
many years ago my fellowship with netcal
was one of the most valuable experiences
that i had as a korean american
so if you'd like more information on
netcal and the fellowship please go to
netcal
n-e-t-k-a-l dot org
our first panelist is john lim managing
partner at libnexus
a leading minority-owned boutique law
firm john is also currently the chair
of korean americans for political action
corporate attorney by day equal rights
and justice superhero by night
our second panelist is dr paul song vice
chairman and chief medical officer
of nk max america paul has advocated
heavily for health care and
equal rights for all he is also the
second tallest korean american i know

English: 
ned cal is the network of korean
american leaders of which i am a fellow
from the third class
many years ago my fellowship with netcal
was one of the most valuable experiences
that i had as a korean american
so if you'd like more information on
netcal and the fellowship please go to
netcal
n-e-t-k-a-l dot org
our first panelist is john lim managing
partner at libnexus
a leading minority-owned boutique law
firm john is also currently the chair
of korean americans for political action
corporate attorney by day equal rights
and justice superhero by night
our second panelist is dr paul song vice
chairman and chief medical officer
of nk max america paul has advocated
heavily for health care and
equal rights for all he is also the
second tallest korean american i know

English: 
yeah this is tough to do without a uh
laughter i should have added some left
tracks huh
and our final panelist is angela killer
and chief operating officer for
cj e m america overseeing the us
interests
of their korean parent company cj
entertainment
cj of course the company behind the
incredible oscar-winning film parasite
she also helped launch net cal as its
first associate director
welcome everyone how you doing
great to be here yeah thank you for
having us thanks i'd like to start with
and we can go in order of uh how you're
introduced i'd like to start with
what are the issues most important to
you today
well i think the issues that are
important to me
are shared by a lot of people nowadays
obviously the health issue is a huge
issue for all of us

English: 
yeah this is tough to do without a uh
laughter i should have added some left
tracks huh
and our final panelist is angela killer
and chief operating officer for
cj e m america overseeing the us
interests
of their korean parent company cj
entertainment
cj of course the company behind the
incredible oscar-winning film parasite
she also helped launch net cal as its
first associate director
welcome everyone how you doing
great to be here yeah thank you for
having us thanks i'd like to start with
and we can go in order of uh how you're
introduced i'd like to start with
what are the issues most important to
you today
well i think the issues that are
important to me
are shared by a lot of people nowadays
obviously the health issue is a huge
issue for all of us
i hope to find a pathway to

English: 
deal with that in a safe way right now
well i hear dolph arguing
it's hard to compete with a dog in
defining one of the most important
issues nowadays
um i um for
for me personally uh you know i am a
partner at a law firm so
i want to make sure that everyone within
the firm are safe
and we're implementing all the uh
protocols that are appropriate to keep
the operation safe and strong
obviously you know resulting from the
pandemic or
other bigger issues like the economic
issues and
uh employment issues and so forth so
those are all
i'm sure i share those issues with other
people on this
panel thanks john paul
well obviously right now during the
pandemic i think it's consuming
everything and it's also highlighting
so much that's wrong with our society

English: 
i hope to find a pathway to
deal with that in a safe way right now
well i hear dolph arguing
it's hard to compete with a dog in
defining one of the most important
issues nowadays
um i um for
for me personally uh you know i am a
partner at a law firm so
i want to make sure that everyone within
the firm are safe
and we're implementing all the uh
protocols that are appropriate to keep
the operation safe and strong
obviously you know resulting from the
pandemic or
other bigger issues like the economic
issues and
uh employment issues and so forth so
those are all
i'm sure i share those issues with other
people on this
panel thanks john paul
well obviously right now during the
pandemic i think it's consuming
everything and it's also highlighting

English: 
and then if you look at
what countries like korea have done
right uh
it really further uh highlights the
disparity in terms of the systems that
we have and
if you look specifically here in the
korean community
you don't have to look too far to see
all the shops that have recently closed
all the restaurants that have been in
business for 20 plus years that have
just closed
the number of koreans who've lost their
health care and just the number of
people have lost their health care in
general
over 6 million people who got their
health care through their employers no
longer
have to have health insurance the number
of people who are going to probably kick
that
be kicked out of their uh apartments in
the in the coming months uh
short of any legislation to stop that
these are things that are going to
affect every community but especially
uh the korean american community in in
la where we all live because of the
number of people that are small business
owners and
really were kind of managing businesses
month to month so

English: 
so much that's wrong with our society
and then if you look at
what countries like korea have done
right uh
it really further uh highlights the
disparity in terms of the systems that
we have and
if you look specifically here in the
korean community
you don't have to look too far to see
all the shops that have recently closed
all the restaurants that have been in
business for 20 plus years that have
just closed
the number of koreans who've lost their
health care and just the number of
people have lost their health care in
general
over 6 million people who got their
health care through their employers no
longer
have to have health insurance the number
of people who are going to probably kick
that
be kicked out of their uh apartments in
the in the coming months uh
short of any legislation to stop that
these are things that are going to
affect every community but especially
uh the korean american community in in
la where we all live because of the
number of people that are small business
owners and
really were kind of managing businesses

English: 
month to month so
um we have no safety net for these
people we have no health care system for
these people
and uh it's it's really really sad so i
think
if you see uh there's a food bank that i
work at
on most saturdays that takes place in
koreatown
and when we started in march we'd
probably see about 600 families come in
on a saturday we're now up to 1400
people coming in on a saturday to get
food and
there's so many korean hummonies that
show up uh
with their shopping carts uh and so this
is something that is profoundly
affecting all communities
but we don't have to look outside of our
own community to see
how devastating it is so i think that's
probably front and center the the
biggest thing that
really concerns me and so many of you
uh as well thank you angela
you know it's partly work related but

English: 
um we have no safety net for these
people we have no health care system for
these people
and uh it's it's really really sad so i
think
if you see uh there's a food bank that i
work at
on most saturdays that takes place in
koreatown
and when we started in march we'd
probably see about 600 families come in
on a saturday we're now up to 1400
people coming in on a saturday to get
food and
there's so many korean hummonies that
show up uh
with their shopping carts uh and so this
is something that is profoundly
affecting all communities
but we don't have to look outside of our
own community to see
how devastating it is so i think that's
probably front and center the the
biggest thing that
really concerns me and so many of you
uh as well thank you angela
you know it's partly work related but
i think there's a lot of people who've

English: 
been saying that the pandemic
um isn't creating change it's
accelerating change structural changes
issues that were already there maybe you
know like
underpinnings that were rotten whatever
it's just
hastening all the change that was
underneath and hopefully
um you know so on the media side that's
really
um impactful it's changing directly
about how people get messages and
you know um the role of social media
versus traditional
mainstream media and how that balance
interplays
but i hope that also that
you know people realize the importance
of science
and there's an enemy that's not a
partisan enemy
um i'm not exactly sure how you know the
coronavirus can be you know a political
actor
um it's it's time for people to really
pull together
and focus on what's important

English: 
i think there's a lot of people who've
been saying that the pandemic
um isn't creating change it's
accelerating change structural changes
issues that were already there maybe you
know like
underpinnings that were rotten whatever
it's just
hastening all the change that was
underneath and hopefully
um you know so on the media side that's
really
um impactful it's changing directly
about how people get messages and
you know um the role of social media
versus traditional
mainstream media and how that balance
interplays
but i hope that also that
you know people realize the importance
of science
and there's an enemy that's not a
partisan enemy
um i'm not exactly sure how you know the
coronavirus can be you know a political
actor
um it's it's time for people to really
pull together
and focus on what's important

English: 
for our communities and rebuilding
instead of you know
wallowing in the different corners
because there's
not time to do that so i'm just hopeful
that
despite the lack of signs otherwise that
maybe this is an opportunity to get past
the log jams that we've had
and this is another accelerant to that
thank you thanks angela you know you
mentioned uh media portrayal
and you know asians are in kind of an
interesting position there because uh
you know you have
the president calling it the china virus
and then you have uh like like paul
mentioned before
you have korea with these incredible
numbers uh you know
the way they're managing uh this
pandemic
and uh i think
when we talk about representation the
media you know one of the first
things that comes to mind is political

English: 
for our communities and rebuilding
instead of you know
wallowing in the different corners
because there's
not time to do that so i'm just hopeful
that
despite the lack of signs otherwise that
maybe this is an opportunity to get past
the log jams that we've had
and this is another accelerant to that
thank you thanks angela you know you
mentioned uh media portrayal
and you know asians are in kind of an
interesting position there because uh
you know you have
the president calling it the china virus
and then you have uh like like paul
mentioned before
you have korea with these incredible
numbers uh you know
the way they're managing uh this
pandemic
and uh i think
when we talk about representation the
media you know one of the first
things that comes to mind is political

English: 
representation
how important is it and we'll start with
john how important is it to have
korean americans elected into office
well that's a very good question and
very important question i think
we want to have a voice and we want to
see it at the table
and we want to participate in this
democracy
um i i can share a little bit of my
personal experience from
back in 1992 uh during the la
civil unrest you know it started out as
a protest for
um the the century
old racial injustice and social
injustice
in los angeles and throughout the
country but the the
what triggered was the of course the two
important legal cases that
really brought about an outrage
at a just unbelievable

English: 
representation
how important is it and we'll start with
john how important is it to have
korean americans elected into office
well that's a very good question and
very important question i think
we want to have a voice and we want to
see it at the table
and we want to participate in this
democracy
um i i can share a little bit of my
personal experience from
back in 1992 uh during the la
civil unrest you know it started out as
a protest for
um the the century
old racial injustice and social
injustice
in los angeles and throughout the
country but the the
what triggered was the of course the two
important legal cases that
really brought about an outrage

English: 
level and so
when all that happened what i saw was
that
the law enforcements abandoned us we
didn't have
any voice in the la city hall we didn't
have
connection to the mayor and after the
devastation
um you know it was pretty much left to
the korean americans to
undertake relief efforts um so happens
that i was the president of the korean
american bar association
at the time so you know i spent pretty
much the whole year doing pro bono work
for the people who lost their businesses
and about 80 or so korean american
lawyers volunteered to join our team
to support the relief work it was just
an amazing endeavor and
you know at the time i would have hoped

English: 
at a just unbelievable
level and so
when all that happened what i saw was
that
the law enforcements abandoned us we
didn't have
any voice in the la city hall we didn't
have
connection to the mayor and after the
devastation
um you know it was pretty much left to
the korean americans to
undertake relief efforts um so happens
that i was the president of the korean
american bar association
at the time so you know i spent pretty
much the whole year doing pro bono work
for the people who lost their businesses
and about 80 or so korean american
lawyers volunteered to join our team
to support the relief work it was just
an amazing endeavor and
you know at the time i would have hoped

English: 
and wanted
other communities to support us and work
with us but
hopefully things have changed since then
but at the time we didn't get much
support or partnership without from
others
so that really taught me
an important lesson and that is that we
have to own some of these issues
ourselves
we need to be prepared to deal with them
and
um having a uh political voice
uh would be very helpful uh to deal with
the korean american issues
and i am certainly not saying that every
korean-american political
uh or uh elected office officer would
side with the korean-americans issue and
everything but
it is um it would be helpful to have
a voice in the mainstream
with respect to these issues and
additionally
um a korean american and public office
i think would be a great role model for
korean americans

English: 
and wanted
other communities to support us and work
with us but
hopefully things have changed since then
but at the time we didn't get much
support or partnership without from
others
so that really taught me
an important lesson and that is that we
have to own some of these issues
ourselves
we need to be prepared to deal with them
and
um having a uh political voice
uh would be very helpful uh to deal with
the korean american issues
and i am certainly not saying that every
korean-american political
uh or uh elected office officer would
side with the korean-americans issue and
everything but
it is um it would be helpful to have
a voice in the mainstream
with respect to these issues and
additionally
um a korean american and public office
i think would be a great role model for

English: 
so that's another reason why i think
it's
good to have korean american political
leaders
well you know paul i know that
i and you know many people you know
have always talked about and and have
encouraged you to try to run for office
uh you're very active politically and
and have supported
you know many candidates uh what about
candidates
that you don't agree with politically
that are on the other side of the aisle
do you support them uh well i try not to
directly uh get involved to oppose them
but i will say that you have some
examples of people particularly in
orange county who are korean-americans
or first-generation koreans who've
immigrated here who are now
on the orange county board of
supervisors or who have
been running for congress and i probably

English: 
korean americans
so that's another reason why i think
it's
good to have korean american political
leaders
well you know paul i know that
i and you know many people you know
have always talked about and and have
encouraged you to try to run for office
uh you're very active politically and
and have supported
you know many candidates uh what about
candidates
that you don't agree with politically
that are on the other side of the aisle
do you support them uh well i try not to
directly uh get involved to oppose them
but i will say that you have some
examples of people particularly in
orange county who are korean-americans
or first-generation koreans who've
immigrated here who are now
on the orange county board of
supervisors or who have
been running for congress and i probably

English: 
do not
agree with them a lot of their political
positions and especially one of the
supervisors who referred to the virus as
a hoax recently
but i do think that like any
group we're not a um
you know all the same and i think we do
have differing political opinions
within the korean community uh if you
look at some of my parents friends they
tend to be much more conservative
and so i do think we
need to have people that reflect both
sides of that that look like us
and have some common uh shared
experience
uh and i think that while they we may
disagree with them on certain
political issues uh that some of their
background
uh certainly is important to have that
perspective
even guide their side of the aisle on
their political issues so
um i used to be to the point where

English: 
do not
agree with them a lot of their political
positions and especially one of the
supervisors who referred to the virus as
a hoax recently
but i do think that like any
group we're not a um
you know all the same and i think we do
have differing political opinions
within the korean community uh if you
look at some of my parents friends they
tend to be much more conservative
and so i do think we
need to have people that reflect both
sides of that that look like us
and have some common uh shared
experience
uh and i think that while they we may
disagree with them on certain
political issues uh that some of their
background
uh certainly is important to have that
perspective
even guide their side of the aisle on
their political issues so
um i used to be to the point where

English: 
uh i would consider even um
uh i i i've gotten to a point where i
look beyond race but i do
think that we need to have people that
reflect both sides of the aisle that are
korean-american and not just people that
we necessarily agree with
well let me ask you in a different way
would you support
korean american candidates if they were
only on the
in the other political party your
opposite political party would you then
if
if they were the only candidates uh
no uh but but but i prime example
there's been some times where i've been
asked to
um really actively campaign against
somebody
uh and depending on who the candidate
that was running
uh there have been some times where
maybe i took a step back
and was not as active as i normally
would be
uh and it wasn't uh because i really
liked or admired that person
uh but i think it caused a lot of

English: 
uh i would consider even um
uh i i i've gotten to a point where i
look beyond race but i do
think that we need to have people that
reflect both sides of the aisle that are
korean-american and not just people that
we necessarily agree with
well let me ask you in a different way
would you support
korean american candidates if they were
only on the
in the other political party your
opposite political party would you then
if
if they were the only candidates uh
no uh but but but i prime example
there's been some times where i've been
asked to
um really actively campaign against
somebody
uh and depending on who the candidate
that was running
uh there have been some times where
maybe i took a step back
and was not as active as i normally
would be
uh and it wasn't uh because i really
liked or admired that person
uh but i think it caused a lot of
conflict uh because of the

English: 
friends that we all know uh that um
supported that person so
um i mean it it's a it's a it's a
definite tough issue but i think
um i've generally tried to vote for
people that reflect what i believe in
rather than
them being korean um and i think that's
what i i will always do but at the same
time
i don't mind seeing koreans in
congress or in other offices who
uh are have a different ideology than i
do because i do think i'd rather see a
korean in that place than
uh somebody who's not yeah i agree
i i don't advocate for any of us to
compromise
our values and principles in the name of
being loyal to a korean american
candidate um it's you know
it's as important as it is to have a

English: 
conflict uh because of the
friends that we all know uh that um
supported that person so
um i mean it it's a it's a it's a
definite tough issue but i think
um i've generally tried to vote for
people that reflect what i believe in
rather than
them being korean um and i think that's
what i i will always do but at the same
time
i don't mind seeing koreans in
congress or in other offices who
uh are have a different ideology than i
do because i do think i'd rather see a
korean in that place than
uh somebody who's not yeah i agree
i i don't advocate for any of us to
compromise
our values and principles in the name of
being loyal to a korean american
candidate um it's you know

English: 
it's as important as it is to have a
korean american representation in
politics
uh we have to stay true to our values
uh personally but at the organizational
level i think it may be a little
different because
it's not a micro view it's a macro view
and
uh and the reason for the strategic
purpose
approach i think is that the political
landscape changes all the time
we have two parties in this country and
and the parties that we need to
have conversations with uh will change
from time to time and and also
there's no assurance that the
issue that's really important to you
necessarily would be
you would be aligned with the party that
you you belong to
you know first those of us who are very
partisan will be on autopilot
in terms of supporting candidates but i
think there are

English: 
korean american representation in
politics
uh we have to stay true to our values
uh personally but at the organizational
level i think it may be a little
different because
it's not a micro view it's a macro view
and
uh and the reason for the strategic
purpose
approach i think is that the political
landscape changes all the time
we have two parties in this country and
and the parties that we need to
have conversations with uh will change
from time to time and and also
there's no assurance that the
issue that's really important to you
necessarily would be
you would be aligned with the party that
you you belong to
you know first those of us who are very
partisan will be on autopilot
in terms of supporting candidates but i
think there are
it is important to understand that

English: 
it is important to understand that
we have to be very strategic and smart
about it
and be willing to work with both sides
of the aisle
at the macro level at the organizational
level
but individually personally um
i wouldn't write a check to a candidate
that's on the other side
of the party but i would be willing to
support an organization
that could help the korean americans
candidate who may not be aligned with my
political values and ideologies
how about you angela you know it's
interesting it's always
you know it's always been about having a
place at the table so
do you support people just because
they're korean american
uh it seems like a flimsy reason but it
seems to be why i write checks
right you know like people i know oh
they're coming back okay let's at least
support somebody getting there um and
then the people who are
in those positions you recognize

English: 
we have to be very strategic and smart
about it
and be willing to work with both sides
of the aisle
at the macro level at the organizational
level
but individually personally um
i wouldn't write a check to a candidate
that's on the other side
of the party but i would be willing to
support an organization
that could help the korean americans
candidate who may not be aligned with my
political values and ideologies
how about you angela you know it's
interesting it's always
you know it's always been about having a
place at the table so
do you support people just because
they're korean american
uh it seems like a flimsy reason but it
seems to be why i write checks
right you know like people i know oh
they're coming back okay let's at least
support somebody getting there um and
then the people who are
in those positions you recognize
that regardless of which party they are

English: 
that regardless of which party they are
they're bringing a little bit of their
korean background history understanding
of the community um into the room with
them and that's all you can hope for
because
there are so few um i mean our
uh somebody all of us know very well uh
david drew
now i mean i work in entertainment he is
the
city councilman for a large share of the
industry because of
the districts that it covers um i'm like
you know a block away from his district
but you know throughout hollywood and
beverly crest and
hancock park all these neighborhoods um
and that's important
i think so it's hard to
to say you know like oh just because
they're korean american we should do it
but i think we've always said
well somebody needs to have a place at
the table um
and whatever we can do to make that
happen

English: 
they're bringing a little bit of their
korean background history understanding
of the community um into the room with
them and that's all you can hope for
because
there are so few um i mean our
uh somebody all of us know very well uh
david drew
now i mean i work in entertainment he is
the
city councilman for a large share of the
industry because of
the districts that it covers um i'm like
you know a block away from his district
but you know throughout hollywood and
beverly crest and
hancock park all these neighborhoods um
and that's important
i think so it's hard to
to say you know like oh just because
they're korean american we should do it
but i think we've always said
well somebody needs to have a place at
the table um
and whatever we can do to make that
happen

English: 
um has been great so uh
is that a sign of the times where
we now have a choice to not support
a korean-american candidate whereas
you know maybe 20-25 years ago
you know it was maybe a handful
throughout the whole country
and where you know if word got out
uh that there was a korean american
candidate somewhere you know you
support kind of flocked to that person
um
you know does that mean we've made
progress in the political arena when
we've now chosen not to have
not to support uh korean americans in
the other party
i think it means that we become more
sophisticated in the political arena
and we want to
uh support candidates that can really be
our voice
and not just the identity itself um
i i i think that

English: 
um has been great so uh
is that a sign of the times where
we now have a choice to not support
a korean-american candidate whereas
you know maybe 20-25 years ago
you know it was maybe a handful
throughout the whole country
and where you know if word got out
uh that there was a korean american
candidate somewhere you know you
support kind of flocked to that person
um
you know does that mean we've made
progress in the political arena when
we've now chosen not to have
not to support uh korean americans in
the other party
i think it means that we become more
sophisticated in the political arena
and we want to
uh support candidates that can really be
our voice
and not just the identity itself um
i i i think that

English: 
it's very important that the candidate
is very well qualified
it's electable and
the poor person has real deep uh
appreciation for our issues
the mere fact that the person shares our
ethnic
identity i think is is not the
material point in fact um uh
korean americans for political action
are 501 c 4 organization
which by the way is the sister of cka
a group that all of you guys are part of
we we went through a very extensive
uh endorsement process and vetting
process
and we have a written charter on this to
make sure that
we support only those uh korean
americans that
that meet our our requirements and
the identity itself and waving that flag
is not going to get our endorsement and
support
so let's you know we talk about uh

English: 
it's very important that the candidate
is very well qualified
it's electable and
the poor person has real deep uh
appreciation for our issues
the mere fact that the person shares our
ethnic
identity i think is is not the
material point in fact um uh
korean americans for political action
are 501 c 4 organization
which by the way is the sister of cka
a group that all of you guys are part of
we we went through a very extensive
uh endorsement process and vetting
process
and we have a written charter on this to
make sure that
we support only those uh korean
americans that
that meet our our requirements and
the identity itself and waving that flag
is not going to get our endorsement and
support

English: 
political empowerment
um can i just ask a question though yeah
i have a slightly contrarian question
and
i'm not sure if it's necessarily a
measure of how far we've come that we
have choice
or how bad partisanship has gotten i
mean
there's a statistic that people
around the us people are more willing to
have their uh child
marry somebody from the another race
than they are from another party
and i that is not something that would
have happened i think even
five you know 10 years ago so i wonder
if there's a little bit
of that going on as well because the
fact is we still don't have
you know a troop a wealth of korean
americans
or asian-americans serving so i'm
more of the opinion that we should still
keep um putting more people in the
pipeline
and i just want to say that right like
as we

English: 
so let's you know we talk about uh
political empowerment
um can i just ask a question though yeah
i have a slightly contrarian question
and
i'm not sure if it's necessarily a
measure of how far we've come that we
have choice
or how bad partisanship has gotten i
mean
there's a statistic that people
around the us people are more willing to
have their uh child
marry somebody from the another race
than they are from another party
and i that is not something that would
have happened i think even
five you know 10 years ago so i wonder
if there's a little bit
of that going on as well because the
fact is we still don't have
you know a troop a wealth of korean
americans
or asian-americans serving so i'm
more of the opinion that we should still
keep um putting more people in the
pipeline
and i just want to say that right like
as we

English: 
as a uh community become much more
involved in our communities it's less
about just what feeds the korean
american interest and you look about
issues of equality whether it be
marriage equality or whether it be
a black lives matter or other
fundamental
inequalities that exist and when you see
a candidate who maybe
is anti-gay marriage or this
speaks and says all lives matter even if
they're korean it's really hard for some
of us to try to support that because
we are looking at a greater good uh of
which the korean community we'd like to
think as part of rather than just
focusing on something that will
highlight just our specific community
and and
that is the challenge i'm just gonna be
blunt with some of the candidates that
are out there that are korean
uh they have pretty far right views
that i think are very hard to uh
support you know

English: 
as a uh community become much more
involved in our communities it's less
about just what feeds the korean
american interest and you look about
issues of equality whether it be
marriage equality or whether it be
a black lives matter or other
fundamental
inequalities that exist and when you see
a candidate who maybe
is anti-gay marriage or this
speaks and says all lives matter even if
they're korean it's really hard for some
of us to try to support that because
we are looking at a greater good uh of
which the korean community we'd like to
think as part of rather than just
focusing on something that will
highlight just our specific community
and and
that is the challenge i'm just gonna be
blunt with some of the candidates that
are out there that are korean
uh they have pretty far right views
that i think are very hard to uh
support you know

English: 
uh and i and my assumption here is that
you know the four of us are similar
generation
and our parents generation tended to be
more conservative uh are we seeing what
are we seeing with
the generation below us
so i recently just uh was asked to speak
to
a korean congressional uh internship
program
uh probably about 25 students
uh that are doing virtual internships in
various congressional offices from
throughout the country
um i was really one just so
proud to see these kids this is what
they wanted to do this summer because
i think many of us when we were in
college
this was never even an opportunity that
was afforded to us i remember when i was
in college the only people that went to
work on the hill
were usually kids of wealthy donors to
people
who were elected but to actually see
[Music]
lots of korean americans that really

English: 
uh and i and my assumption here is that
you know the four of us are similar
generation
and our parents generation tended to be
more conservative uh are we seeing what
are we seeing with
the generation below us
so i recently just uh was asked to speak
to
a korean congressional uh internship
program
uh probably about 25 students
uh that are doing virtual internships in
various congressional offices from
throughout the country
um i was really one just so
proud to see these kids this is what
they wanted to do this summer because
i think many of us when we were in
college
this was never even an opportunity that
was afforded to us i remember when i was
in college the only people that went to
work on the hill
were usually kids of wealthy donors to
people
who were elected but to actually see
lots of korean americans that really
wanted to do that and then what was also

English: 
wanted to do that and then what was also
interesting about it is you had
your conservative korean americans that
were working for republican legislators
and then you had
i'd say three-quarters were more on the
progressive side and what i found
in general with the millennials
is that they tend to be much more
concerned about the society of as a
whole rather than
uh themselves and so they were at least
the ones that that were
working here were very concerned about
uh the issues that we
really are are all faced right now and
with the
current of our situation has really
highlighted that in the george floyd um
murderer but i think that uh i i
in speaking to more and more students i
get the sense that they are
far more um
to the center left than our gran
our their grandparents were our parents
you know when we talk about uh young

English: 
interesting about it is you had
your conservative korean americans that
were working for republican legislators
and then you had
i'd say three-quarters were more on the
progressive side and what i found
in general with the millennials
is that they tend to be much more
concerned about the society of as a
whole rather than
uh themselves and so they were at least
the ones that that were
working here were very concerned about
uh the issues that we
really are are all faced right now and
with the
current of our situation has really
highlighted that in the george floyd um
murderer but i think that uh i i
in speaking to more and more students i
get the sense that they are
far more um
to the center left than our gran
our their grandparents were our parents
you know when we talk about uh young
people and

English: 
people and
i'm sure a lot of them will be tuning in
to to watch this
watch our uh panel uh
you know you know their their their
concerns growing up
so you know young korean americans uh
you know growing up nowadays very
different from concerns
that we have right we were we acted as
translator for our parents uh we
struggled with
uh trying to figure out identity um
and uh you know for for you know maybe
for
for some of us who grew up maybe in an
all-white neighborhood sometimes we look
in the mirror and we're
surprised to see this asian face among
if you know a group of white friends so
uh you know and i think that adds a
little bit of grit
to our experience as as children of
immigrant parents
are are young children
missing that is it is it easier for them

English: 
i'm sure a lot of them will be tuning in
to to watch this
watch our uh panel uh
you know you know their their their
concerns growing up
so you know young korean americans uh
you know growing up nowadays very
different from concerns
that we have right we were we acted as
translator for our parents uh we
struggled with
uh trying to figure out identity um
and uh you know for for you know maybe
for
for some of us who grew up maybe in an
all-white neighborhood sometimes we look
in the mirror and we're
surprised to see this asian face among
if you know a group of white friends so
uh you know and i think that adds a
little bit of grit
to our experience as as children of
immigrant parents
are are young children
missing that is it is it easier for them
or are they going through

English: 
similar or equally difficult struggles
i i will just say this i'm sorry to
speak up again but
um the one thing that i've noticed is
when we all were growing up
there was a we probably got into some
fights teased
uh called every asian
racial slur and
i kind of thought the kids growing up
now
were lucky because they didn't have to
do that but i have seen
a rising incidence due to
the president calling this the china
virus or kung flu
of 20 year olds now getting
racially harassed in ways that i thought
we had moved beyond at least
the asian american community so i do
think that
this has brought back some of that and
when i hear and see the videos of these

English: 
or are they going through
similar or equally difficult struggles
i i will just say this i'm sorry to
speak up again but
um the one thing that i've noticed is
when we all were growing up
there was a we probably got into some
fights teased
uh called every asian
racial slur and
i kind of thought the kids growing up
now
were lucky because they didn't have to
do that but i have seen
a rising incidence due to
the president calling this the china
virus or kung flu
of 20 year olds now getting
racially harassed in ways that i thought
we had moved beyond at least
the asian american community so i do
think that
this has brought back some of that and
when i hear and see the videos of these

English: 
episodes it really brings me back to
that painful preteen time when i used to
get teased a lot so
uh i don't think the asians are out of
the woods in terms of that
difficulty because of what's happened
with coronavirus
you know i'd like to talk about other
communities uh before that though
uh you know our our talk is aimed at
korean americans uh and even you know
non-koreans
uh who you know across the spectrum of
socioeconomic status uh political
identification geographic location
uh you know for a lot of
them right now who are just trying to
survive
what kind of message can you give them
to where you know what can they do what
are some practical things they can do to
to be more politically empowered
john i'll ask you first

English: 
episodes it really brings me back to
that painful preteen time when i used to
get teased a lot so
uh i don't think the asians are out of
the woods in terms of that
difficulty because of what's happened
with coronavirus
you know i'd like to talk about other
communities uh before that though
uh you know our our talk is aimed at
korean americans uh and even you know
non-koreans
uh who you know across the spectrum of
socioeconomic status uh political
identification geographic location
uh you know for a lot of
them right now who are just trying to
survive
what kind of message can you give them
to where you know what can they do what
are some practical things they can do to
to be more politically empowered

English: 
well um i i think that it's
uh really imperative that we uh
form and establish an infrastructure
that enables us to do the work that we
can do and have influence
and that is another way of saying that
we need to
aggregate our resources we need to
converge
into a platform that could have an
impactful voice
and get people to register and vote
and and and to be very systematic about
this
um i i think you need a
an organization that can be completely
devoted to this bipartisan effort
or nonpartisan effort i and that's why
i am very active and really work hard
for recruiting americans
for political action known as kappa
i think the time has come for korean

English: 
john i'll ask you first
well um i i think that it's
uh really imperative that we uh
form and establish an infrastructure
that enables us to do the work that we
can do and have influence
and that is another way of saying that
we need to
aggregate our resources we need to
converge
into a platform that could have an
impactful voice
and get people to register and vote
and and and to be very systematic about
this
um i i think you need a
an organization that can be completely
devoted to this bipartisan effort
or nonpartisan effort i and that's why
i am very active and really work hard
for recruiting americans
for political action known as kappa
i think the time has come for korean

English: 
americans to have a real presence
in the political arena and if we just
try to do the do these things on our own
uh it's just
is not effective so again convergence
and aggregation i think are the keys
okay thank you uh so let's let's talk
about
other communities uh you know this
uh this discussion we're having today
about
uh you know advancing korean american
interests
you know power and influence in uh
mainstream america
we've been witness to this incredible
movement
uh in black rites and
and you know what are what are our
learnings from that and
how do we support that
well i'm a firm believer uh in
consulting forces

English: 
americans to have a real presence
in the political arena and if we just
try to do the do these things on our own
uh it's just
is not effective so again convergence
and aggregation i think are the keys
okay thank you uh so let's let's talk
about
other communities uh you know this
uh this discussion we're having today
about
uh you know advancing korean american
interests
you know power and influence in uh
mainstream america
we've been witness to this incredible
movement
uh in black rites and
and you know what are what are our
learnings from that and
how do we support that
well i'm a firm believer uh in
consulting forces

English: 
especially for racial justice which is
really dear to the korean americans as
well
whenever it's feasible and appropriate
we should come together
travel the journey together we shouldn't
go along
when it makes sense to go together but
with that said
i think it is important to understand
that we need to have the ability to go
along
go alone and that's because there are
some issues
that are very dear to korean americans
and not that that level of interest and
passion is not shared by other groups
so um again go together when you can and
make sense
be but but empower yourself to go alone
when you need to go along
do you think that korean americans in
the past have
uh not been as supportive as supportive
as they could have been
whether it's black rights or the rights
of other minorities yeah
you know like i said earlier uh i was
there
during the civil rights in 1992 and

English: 
especially for racial justice which is
really dear to the korean americans as
well
whenever it's feasible and appropriate
we should come together
travel the journey together we shouldn't
go along
when it makes sense to go together but
with that said
i think it is important to understand
that we need to have the ability to go
along
go alone and that's because there are
some issues
that are very dear to korean americans
and not that that level of interest and
passion is not shared by other groups
so um again go together when you can and
make sense
be but but empower yourself to go alone
when you need to go along
do you think that korean americans in
the past have
uh not been as supportive as supportive
as they could have been
whether it's black rights or the rights
of other minorities yeah
you know like i said earlier uh i was
there
during the civil rights in 1992 and

English: 
the reactions of the korean americans at
the time i think is somewhat
generally speaking different from what
i'm seeing today
and i think there's a greater
appreciation for
the the the political divisiveness
that's coming out
uh from washington and people are upset
uh and uh and the other the other factor
is that you know you you have
um people like me who were
who were much younger back then and now
you know were
older and so the the so-called the older
first generation or 1.5 generation
korean-americans
have a deeper appreciation for the
racial injustice and social injustice
issues
yeah you know so you mentioned that i uh
you know i grew up in la i was
i was here uh when the riots happened i
was
i was two years old now i'm just kidding
i was a high school senior and
and it was it was such a complicated
time

English: 
the reactions of the korean americans at
the time i think is somewhat
generally speaking different from what
i'm seeing today
and i think there's a greater
appreciation for
the the the political divisiveness
that's coming out
uh from washington and people are upset
uh and uh and the other the other factor
is that you know you you have
um people like me who were
who were much younger back then and now
you know were
older and so the the so-called the older
first generation or 1.5 generation
korean-americans
have a deeper appreciation for the
racial injustice and social injustice
issues
yeah you know so you mentioned that i uh
you know i grew up in la i was
i was here uh when the riots happened i
was
i was two years old now i'm just kidding
i was a high school senior and
and it was it was such a complicated
time

English: 
because you know i loved listening to
hip-hop
i you know i had black friends and
it just got it was it was such a it was
a tough time
from for me at the time because uh you
know my
my parents business was in koreatown and
uh you know you had ice cube who uh
was you know was a big star that
everyone followed who was you know
speaking out against koreans
and and so uh to have gone from there
you know that like you mentioned i think
when you ask a lot of korean americans
the riots were the start of you know an
awareness
or understanding that you really need to
to have a seat at the table
with you know so
let's talk about um you know how korean
americans
and even korea how korea has treated
blacks ethnic minorities non-koreans
and you know are we seeing maybe angela
are you seeing that there's a

English: 
because you know i loved listening to
hip-hop
i you know i had black friends and
it just got it was it was such a it was
a tough time
from for me at the time because uh you
know my
my parents business was in koreatown and
uh you know you had ice cube who uh
was you know was a big star that
everyone followed who was you know
speaking out against koreans
and and so uh to have gone from there
you know that like you mentioned i think
when you ask a lot of korean americans
the riots were the start of you know an
awareness
or understanding that you really need to
to have a seat at the table
with you know so
let's talk about um you know how korean
americans
and even korea how korea has treated
blacks ethnic minorities non-koreans
and you know are we seeing maybe angela

English: 
are you seeing that there's a
change in the way that korean koreans
are viewing non-koreans
you know i think there was there was a
there was a black lives matter banner
that went up near city hall in korea in
seoul korea
uh and i don't know i know it made news
i don't know if they took it down or if
they kept it up there
but you know i find it interesting
because there are racial issues
korea has its own racial issues that it
deals with and what are you seeing
um it's interesting i mean
you know i think just to reverse a
little or go back a little bit you know
you're talking about other communities
and
i think what we're seeing is the people
just in general whatever community that
you're part of um really
recognizing the increasing importance of
allyship
right you don't just come out on behalf
of your own community you have to show
up for other communities as well
um the biggest contrast i think you know
at the beginning of this administration
with the women's march which had such

English: 
change in the way that korean koreans
are viewing non-koreans
you know i think there was there was a
there was a black lives matter banner
that went up near city hall in korea in
seoul korea
uh and i don't know i know it made news
i don't know if they took it down or if
they kept it up there
but you know i find it interesting
because there are racial issues
korea has its own racial issues that it
deals with and what are you seeing
um it's interesting i mean
you know i think just to reverse a
little or go back a little bit you know
you're talking about other communities
and
i think what we're seeing is the people
just in general whatever community that
you're part of um really
recognizing the increasing importance of
allyship
right you don't just come out on behalf
of your own community you have to show
up for other communities as well
um the biggest contrast i think you know
at the beginning of this administration
with the women's march which had such

English: 
massive numbers but
how sustainable or how sustained was
that versus
the black lives matter movements you see
um
i don't know just you know from the
footage or if you go like there's
obviously a lot of black people but
everybody else is there as well because
we've all recognized in this intervening
time we need to show up for
for each other um so
in regards to that i think the korean
community
um and i mean just specifically on
you know speaking of net cal right we
had to
we wanted to come out with a statement
of support and it
flipped very quickly from is that our
wheelhouse are we supposed to say that
like is it
you know are we allowed to do that
because you know
in many ways you kind of try to be
neutral so that you
choose to only you know speak when it's
important and then it
very quickly accelerated to no we have
to this is
you have to take a stand because you're

English: 
massive numbers but
how sustainable or how sustained was
that versus
the black lives matter movements you see
um
i don't know just you know from the
footage or if you go like there's
obviously a lot of black people but
everybody else is there as well because
we've all recognized in this intervening
time we need to show up for
for each other um so
in regards to that i think the korean
community
um and i mean just specifically on
you know speaking of net cal right we
had to
we wanted to come out with a statement
of support and it
flipped very quickly from is that our
wheelhouse are we supposed to say that
like is it
you know are we allowed to do that
because you know
in many ways you kind of try to be
neutral so that you
choose to only you know speak when it's
important and then it
very quickly accelerated to no we have
to this is
you have to take a stand because you're
taking a stand for yourself

English: 
taking a stand for yourself
as well as everybody else um as well and
i'm not sure that that level of
understanding
or nuance um is present in korea
i think what's happened is more
um fan driven and that has to do
interestingly even though it's so much
associated with k-pop
um who comprises the k-pop fan of the
united states
it is not korean americans it is not
even
majority asian american it's completely
diverse
um heavily multicultural african
american hispanic
asian american you know caucasian all of
that have you but
a a remarkable group of people
who are getting you know grow larger and
larger every day
who have and then you know a genuine
passion for something that's
in a different language from another
country and so
that kind of um sense of
openness and ability to you know

English: 
as well as everybody else um as well and
i'm not sure that that level of
understanding
or nuance um is present in korea
i think what's happened is more
um fan driven and that has to do
interestingly even though it's so much
associated with k-pop
um who comprises the k-pop fan of the
united states
it is not korean americans it is not
even
majority asian american it's completely
diverse
um heavily multicultural african
american hispanic
asian american you know caucasian all of
that have you but
a a remarkable group of people
who are getting you know grow larger and
larger every day
who have and then you know a genuine
passion for something that's
in a different language from another
country and so
that kind of um sense of
openness and ability to you know
empathize

English: 
empathize
i think is key um and allows for the
allyship
that you know that they're able to bring
to bear um and then on top of that
they're bringing all their kpop
organizing skills which are
badass so i think you know they could
they have a lot to teach
what young people can do if you
really focus your mind to it it's not
just
organizing a flash mob like they are
able to if
if it's possible you know if
you know more older or traditional
organizations which have a certain way
of doing things
can combine the energy with it's a
slightly looser
more decentralized organization the way
that we see you know black lives matter
succeeding
um you know each can influence the other
positively we can take a little more
bit more action more quickly than we
thought we could
and it can last a little bit longer
than i think you know social media viral

English: 
i think is key um and allows for the
allyship
that you know that they're able to bring
to bear um and then on top of that
they're bringing all their kpop
organizing skills which are
badass so i think you know they could
they have a lot to teach
what young people can do if you
really focus your mind to it it's not
just
organizing a flash mob like they are
able to if
if it's possible you know if
you know more older or traditional
organizations which have a certain way
of doing things
can combine the energy with it's a
slightly looser
more decentralized organization the way
that we see you know black lives matter
succeeding
um you know each can influence the other
positively we can take a little more
bit more action more quickly than we
thought we could
and it can last a little bit longer
than i think you know social media viral

English: 
media
is used to yeah korean economy
if i may at um is number 12 in
in the world its gdp is and as
as we as korea has
really participated in this
globalization and free trade
the the ceos and the upper management
many of them have been educated in the
us and
it's really a no-brainer for them to
understand
that if you want to do business with
foreign countries
and those countries look different from
you and they have different culture you
need to embrace
their the differences and you need to
embrace the diversity
and and you need to be inclusive to have
a
a meaningful opportunity to
compete and so as part of it i think is
really economic driven
and cga cj's a great example of that

English: 
media
is used to yeah korean economy
if i may at um is number 12 in
in the world its gdp is and as
as we as korea has
really participated in this
globalization and free trade
the the ceos and the upper management
many of them have been educated in the
us and
it's really a no-brainer for them to
understand
that if you want to do business with
foreign countries
and those countries look different from
you and they have different culture you
need to embrace
their the differences and you need to
embrace the diversity
and and you need to be inclusive to have
a
a meaningful opportunity to
compete and so as part of it i think is
really economic driven
and cga cj's a great example of that

English: 
cj you know angela you and i had the the
good fortune of working on
kcon uh a few years back in the good old
days when large crowds were
allowed to gather right it seemed like a
distant memory
uh what what was the what would you
estimate was the
uh the percentage of koreans that you
would see i guess i guess you have to
say
asian just because you know you're not
be you're not able to take a nap
yeah so we were fairly diligent about
doing surveys
um so you know based on social media and
all of our convention tickets and
our fans would always respond so we had
you know like a sample size of
4 300 people answering a survey which is
very large
um and over time it changed a little bit
but we had about
35 percent um asian american
which is huge right because the asians
are obviously not 35
of the population so compared to any
place else you would go you'd go like

English: 
cj you know angela you and i had the the
good fortune of working on
kcon uh a few years back in the good old
days when large crowds were
allowed to gather right it seemed like a
distant memory
uh what what was the what would you
estimate was the
uh the percentage of koreans that you
would see i guess i guess you have to
say
asian just because you know you're not
be you're not able to take a nap
yeah so we were fairly diligent about
doing surveys
um so you know based on social media and
all of our convention tickets and
our fans would always respond so we had
you know like a sample size of
4 300 people answering a survey which is
very large
um and over time it changed a little bit
but we had about
35 percent um asian american
which is huge right because the asians
are obviously not 35
of the population so compared to any
place else you would go you'd go like

English: 
wow this is really asian but we know
um that meant that the remaining uh
remaining 65
was everybody else but we over-indexed
on minorities
because uh and
when you're in new york there's more
african-americans when you're in la
there's more uh latinos so it's
it represents who the young people are
and
um the diversity that's there yeah you
talked about uh early talked about
you know the the openness and the type
of fan
uh and i think paul you touched on it
too you know
that that type of fan who's you know
this
open-minded listening to music in
another language and and following
artists that don't look like them um you
know we heard about the
you know the trump rally where um
apparently
tickets were reserved by um

English: 
wow this is really asian but we know
um that meant that the remaining uh
remaining 65
was everybody else but we over-indexed
on minorities
because uh and
when you're in new york there's more
african-americans when you're in la
there's more uh latinos so it's
it represents who the young people are
and
um the diversity that's there yeah you
talked about uh early talked about
you know the the openness and the type
of fan
uh and i think paul you touched on it
too you know
that that type of fan who's you know
this
open-minded listening to music in
another language and and following
artists that don't look like them um you
know we heard about the
you know the trump rally where um
apparently
tickets were reserved by um

English: 
apparently k-pop fans uh are we
seeing a new uh
you know campaign weapon or um
other method of influence using k-pop or
korean pop culture
possibly i mean you know i alluded to i
hope this is something more sustainable
and
you know i wonder actually how paul or
john think of how
this can be harnessed or you know
not harnessed as a tool like it's not
like you're using them but how it can
kind of
collaborate and come together um you
know in the
first instance it really was led by bts
bts came out very unusual for korean
artists
saying i support this i'm putting money
behind this korean artists generally
tend to shy away from anything political
because it's you know
not good business um and then that got
army behind them
the bts fan club so that was huge but
i think um you know and then they kind
of

English: 
apparently k-pop fans uh are we
seeing a new uh
you know campaign weapon or um
other method of influence using k-pop or
korean pop culture
possibly i mean you know i alluded to i
hope this is something more sustainable
and
you know i wonder actually how paul or
john think of how
this can be harnessed or you know
not harnessed as a tool like it's not
like you're using them but how it can
kind of
collaborate and come together um you
know in the
first instance it really was led by bts
bts came out very unusual for korean
artists
saying i support this i'm putting money
behind this korean artists generally
tend to shy away from anything political
because it's you know
not good business um and then that got
army behind them
the bts fan club so that was huge but
i think um you know and then they kind
of
self-organize from there but what more

English: 
can we do i think is the more
interesting thing
yeah i guess if you're going to run for
president you uh you get bts's
endorsement first
right uh you know it's interesting i
think
um first how far how far k-pop has come
from
you know decades ago but uh you know
once they get to superstar status you
see them shy away from anything
controversial or political
uh and and they they did the opposite
and i think it's actually paid off for
them
you know they've been even more embraced
and have gained in fan base
you're seeing that with uh i think you
know artists like taylor swift out here
that are
taking more political stances uh
you know whether it's k-pop or whether
it's just artists in general
uh what are you seeing in terms of
um you know we talk so when we talk
about
uh you know empowering our young people
young korean americans
you know empowering our communities what

English: 
self-organize from there but what more
can we do i think is the more
interesting thing
yeah i guess if you're going to run for
president you uh you get bts's
endorsement first
right uh you know it's interesting i
think
um first how far how far k-pop has come
from
you know decades ago but uh you know
once they get to superstar status you
see them shy away from anything
controversial or political
uh and and they they did the opposite
and i think it's actually paid off for
them
you know they've been even more embraced
and have gained in fan base
you're seeing that with uh i think you
know artists like taylor swift out here
that are
taking more political stances uh
you know whether it's k-pop or whether
it's just artists in general
uh what are you seeing in terms of
um you know we talk so when we talk
about
uh you know empowering our young people
young korean americans
you know empowering our communities what

English: 
can young people do
you know aside from following bts and
you know reserving a ticket and not
showing up
at a rally you know what are some other
things practical things they can
i know they you know john you mentioned
uh registering to vote that's automatic
but sometimes they don't do that
you know vote.gov right yeah so um
i think that incident has at least
taught me that
if you have fame and you can leverage
the fame
and the popularity to mobilize it can be
done
especially with the technology we have
today and so going back to
registering to vote and get the vote out
why not use it why not leverage that and
to the extent that you can
i was really really impressed
uh with how they were able to
mobilize so quickly and
that gave me tremendous optimism for
kappa
and for korean americans at large you

English: 
can young people do
you know aside from following bts and
you know reserving a ticket and not
showing up
at a rally you know what are some other
things practical things they can
i know they you know john you mentioned
uh registering to vote that's automatic
but sometimes they don't do that
you know vote.gov right yeah so um
i think that incident has at least
taught me that
if you have fame and you can leverage
the fame
and the popularity to mobilize it can be
done
especially with the technology we have
today and so going back to
registering to vote and get the vote out
why not use it why not leverage that and
to the extent that you can
i was really really impressed
uh with how they were able to
mobilize so quickly and
that gave me tremendous optimism for
kappa
and for korean americans at large you
know hey look if we can

English: 
leverage people with influence like paul
and angela
and get the word out use the technology
and pull people together
you know the 2010 census had us about
1.8 million
korean americans in the country um we
don't know the figure
as of today and we'll know in due time
uh most korean americans believe that we
have 2.5 million korean americans
okay i don't know why there's no
empirical data for that
but just for the sake of arguing let's
assume 2 million people
and if we can leverage the
influence and couple that with
technology to mobilize in the way they
did
just imagine if we can get 100 000
korean americans together
to to act together in aggregation uh
you know putting together the resource

English: 
know hey look if we can
leverage people with influence like paul
and angela
and get the word out use the technology
and pull people together
you know the 2010 census had us about
1.8 million
korean americans in the country um we
don't know the figure
as of today and we'll know in due time
uh most korean americans believe that we
have 2.5 million korean americans
okay i don't know why there's no
empirical data for that
but just for the sake of arguing let's
assume 2 million people
and if we can leverage the
influence and couple that with
technology to mobilize in the way they
did
just imagine if we can get 100 000
korean americans together
to to act together in aggregation uh
you know putting together the resource

English: 
to elevate our voice enormously powerful
uh
and and really that's what i think kappa
is trying to do
and that's our goal um and just 100 000
is only five percent of the two million
people by the way
so if we can get 20 that's 400 000
i mean just do the math and i think i
think the potential is there
yeah can i just say one thing about in
addition to registering to vote and
and all the other things i think the
most tangible thing that i've seen
happen
is the number of koreans both young and
old
who participated in protests uh over the
last several
months uh both here in los angeles but
down in irvine
i was really very proud to see
so many korean americans that really
took the time
to write make signs and stand on corners
for
black lives matter and i can't breathe
and
because that was such a an affront not
just the afro-american beauty but just

English: 
to elevate our voice enormously powerful
uh
and and really that's what i think kappa
is trying to do
and that's our goal um and just 100 000
is only five percent of the two million
people by the way
so if we can get 20 that's 400 000
i mean just do the math and i think i
think the potential is there
yeah can i just say one thing about in
addition to registering to vote and
and all the other things i think the
most tangible thing that i've seen
happen
is the number of koreans both young and
old
who participated in protests uh over the
last several
months uh both here in los angeles but
down in irvine
i was really very proud to see
so many korean americans that really
took the time
to write make signs and stand on corners
for
black lives matter and i can't breathe
and
because that was such a an affront not
just the afro-american beauty but just

English: 
to humanity and i think it unleashed
something
uh in so many different groups uh in a
way
and and so i think that's the most
immediate thing that i think people can
do and i've seen more and more young
people do that and then
you know roy you were a big supporter of
andre yang and i was bernie
uh there were a lot of young people uh
and asian americans supporting both
candidates as well
and quite a few korean americans i was
involved in the korean american
straverni group
uh incredible passionate uh
people and i i i'm really really
um encouraged by that and and one of the
things i think the
since we're talking a little bit about
political power is i think there is an
effort to divide our communities
um coming up uh which is the prop 16
uh which is to restore affirmative
action uh
in the state of california and it can be
used for everything from university
um admissions to others uh and
people are trying to divide the asian

English: 
to humanity and i think it unleashed
something
uh in so many different groups uh in a
way
and and so i think that's the most
immediate thing that i think people can
do and i've seen more and more young
people do that and then
you know roy you were a big supporter of
andre yang and i was bernie
uh there were a lot of young people uh
and asian americans supporting both
candidates as well
and quite a few korean americans i was
involved in the korean american
straverni group
uh incredible passionate uh
people and i i i'm really really
um encouraged by that and and one of the
things i think the
since we're talking a little bit about
political power is i think there is an
effort to divide our communities
um coming up uh which is the prop 16
uh which is to restore affirmative
action uh
in the state of california and it can be
used for everything from university
um admissions to others uh and

English: 
people are trying to divide the asian
american community against the latino
community against the african-american
community
when collectively i think we should be
coming together to demand more um a
bigger pie not to fight over the measly
crumbs of the pie
uh so these are these are the types of
things that i think
uh the the george floyd issue
uh brianna taylor's uh have really
really united so many different groups
across multiple lines and i saw
people uh in their late 60s early 70s
korean women giving impassioned speeches
at the
rally in queer town plaza during this um
wearing the protest so you know i i
think
organizing and all the things that are
john is doing on
a much more sophisticated level are so
important
but also just to see more and more
korean americans rolling up their
sleeves

English: 
american community against the latino
community against the african-american
community
when collectively i think we should be
coming together to demand more um a
bigger pie not to fight over the measly
crumbs of the pie
uh so these are these are the types of
things that i think
uh the the george floyd issue
uh brianna taylor's uh have really
really united so many different groups
across multiple lines and i saw
people uh in their late 60s early 70s
korean women giving impassioned speeches
at the
rally in queer town plaza during this um
wearing the protest so you know i i
think
organizing and all the things that are
john is doing on
a much more sophisticated level are so
important
but also just to see more and more
korean americans rolling up their
sleeves

English: 
writing a poster and going down to a
rally is pretty cool to see that too
yeah you know uh i say one more thing
yeah
sorry uh so uh paul you were involved
with the
uh initially the korean american
foundation that i was trying to launch
uh it did get launched and the
foundation which is based in l.a
has decided to give money to
the food bank and kiwa
in light of what's happening today uh so
korean-american philanthropy is now
extending beyond
our own community right because like you
said
um it has come to a point where
many of us are looking at this as a
humanitarian issue for all of us
i think that's uh that you know i'm glad
you brought that up we
uh and it's almost like a
it comes full circle it's almost feeding
on each other
when you're seeing you know maybe more

English: 
writing a poster and going down to a
rally is pretty cool to see that too
yeah you know uh i say one more thing
yeah
sorry uh so uh paul you were involved
with the
uh initially the korean american
foundation that i was trying to launch
uh it did get launched and the
foundation which is based in l.a
has decided to give money to
the food bank and kiwa
in light of what's happening today uh so
korean-american philanthropy is now
extending beyond
our own community right because like you
said
um it has come to a point where
many of us are looking at this as a
humanitarian issue for all of us
i think that's uh that you know i'm glad
you brought that up we
uh and it's almost like a
it comes full circle it's almost feeding
on each other

English: 
traditional korean organizations
and you know they're witnessing young
people young korean americans young
asian americans
who are out protesting i think that i
think
first of all being out there is so
important for
other communities to see that we support
them
and i think it's important for that to
appear in media too
you know if you're a young asian
american teen
and you're seeing someone that looks
like you in support of black lives
matter
or any other uh um uh
causes that are you know attacking
racial injustice or any injustice
i think it it it encourages them to get
involved so i think yeah absolutely
you know power of media uh you know
for us to be able to tell our own story
and
you know for us to choose how we want to
be represented i'll go
i'll go to angela you know i mentioned

English: 
when you're seeing you know maybe more
traditional korean organizations
and you know they're witnessing young
people young korean americans young
asian americans
who are out protesting i think that i
think
first of all being out there is so
important for
other communities to see that we support
them
and i think it's important for that to
appear in media too
you know if you're a young asian
american teen
and you're seeing someone that looks
like you in support of black lives
matter
or any other uh um uh
causes that are you know attacking
racial injustice or any injustice
i think it it it encourages them to get
involved so i think yeah absolutely
you know power of media uh you know
for us to be able to tell our own story
and
you know for us to choose how we want to
be represented i'll go
i'll go to angela you know i mentioned

English: 
earlier and cj was uh
the the company behind the success of
parasite
uh you know obviously not just a huge
hit in
korea but just an amazing amazing
amazing film and that night watching the
oscars you know i was a film major
uh you know grew up a not a fan and a
student of film
and it was it was a brilliant film but
just to watch all the awards being
collected that night
you know just uh you know i was in tears
uh and but but tell us about the process
behind it
yeah so i mean we saw the film
obviously my colleagues in korea had
seen it really early on but you know we
got a chance to see it in
uh in may at can um
and the audience response was amazing
and the minute we saw it and
you know just personally and a goal for
cj
has been for the last 10 years that i've

English: 
earlier and cj was uh
the the company behind the success of
parasite
uh you know obviously not just a huge
hit in
korea but just an amazing amazing
amazing film and that night watching the
oscars you know i was a film major
uh you know grew up a not a fan and a
student of film
and it was it was a brilliant film but
just to watch all the awards being
collected that night
you know just uh you know i was in tears
uh and but but tell us about the process
behind it
yeah so i mean we saw the film
obviously my colleagues in korea had
seen it really early on but you know we
got a chance to see it in
uh in may at can um
and the audience response was amazing
and the minute we saw it and
you know just personally and a goal for
cj
has been for the last 10 years that i've

English: 
been here um
win korea win an oscar for korea win an
oscar for korea because a korean
despite the fame and renown of korean
film and filmmakers
you mean win a collection of oscars
right
but a korean uh film or filmmaker had
never even received a single nomination
so we had a low bar to clear and i was
like okay this is it
we're gonna go and you know we we were
all strategizing like this is the year
we're gonna get serious about this
um to really make it happen but it was
the universality of the message
um and the opportunity that it afforded
to really uh engage with and the irony
is it's all in korean language
it's very specific and yet
that allowed everybody an entree into it
because everybody i met who
um i talked to about the film which i
felt like i did for about eight months
straight
um talked about like oh i really got it

English: 
been here um
win korea win an oscar for korea win an
oscar for korea because a korean
despite the fame and renown of korean
film and filmmakers
you mean win a collection of oscars
right
but a korean uh film or filmmaker had
never even received a single nomination
so we had a low bar to clear and i was
like okay this is it
we're gonna go and you know we we were
all strategizing like this is the year
we're gonna get serious about this
um to really make it happen but it was
the universality of the message
um and the opportunity that it afforded
to really uh engage with and the irony
is it's all in korean language
it's very specific and yet
that allowed everybody an entree into it
because everybody i met who
um i talked to about the film which i
felt like i did for about eight months
straight
um talked about like oh i really got it

English: 
like i really felt like it was my
story and which was an amazing testament
to director palm
um but the other part of it was
that you know because i've korea has
never been involved in an oscar campaign
so i've never seen it you know
from the inside before it's exactly like
retail politics
it's shaking hands meeting people
being a face a real person not
this other and having a couple
of additional um barriers to overcome
language barrier being an outsider you
know did you put in your dues you know
all the normal things that come
into are you acceptable um to come into
the circle
it's not you know the film is phenomenal
of course that's the baseline
and maybe this is how we feel i mean
this is what makes us
um model minority pressure right like
okay
just being good is the baseline and you
have to do everything above that but

English: 
like i really felt like it was my
story and which was an amazing testament
to director palm
um but the other part of it was
that you know because i've korea has
never been involved in an oscar campaign
so i've never seen it you know
from the inside before it's exactly like
retail politics
it's shaking hands meeting people
being a face a real person not
this other and having a couple
of additional um barriers to overcome
language barrier being an outsider you
know did you put in your dues you know
all the normal things that come
into are you acceptable um to come into
the circle
it's not you know the film is phenomenal
of course that's the baseline
and maybe this is how we feel i mean
this is what makes us
um model minority pressure right like
okay
just being good is the baseline and you
have to do everything above that but

English: 
that's what i mean director of bong was
i've never seen anybody work harder but
his translator everybody else we were
out there
every single day because it wasn't about
how many ads you could put in i mean
every other studio you know
i think the number around netflix is
that they well i don't know the actual
number
tens of millions of dollars we were not
working with that kind of budget
but it was about meeting people hearts
and minds so it actually gave me a lot
of hope
for the political side if you
go out and do the work of meeting with
people and having that connection
language culture all those chasms can be
growth because people do understand and
are willing to make that connection
yeah it's a lesson in a great film isn't
just going to do it by itself you know
same as a great candidate isn't going to
do it you know by him or herself right
you've got to put the work in you've got
to support you need people to
to rally and offer support

English: 
that's what i mean director of bong was
i've never seen anybody work harder but
his translator everybody else we were
out there
every single day because it wasn't about
how many ads you could put in i mean
every other studio you know
i think the number around netflix is
that they well i don't know the actual
number
tens of millions of dollars we were not
working with that kind of budget
but it was about meeting people hearts
and minds so it actually gave me a lot
of hope
for the political side if you
go out and do the work of meeting with
people and having that connection
language culture all those chasms can be
growth because people do understand and
are willing to make that connection
yeah it's a lesson in a great film isn't
just going to do it by itself you know
same as a great candidate isn't going to
do it you know by him or herself right
you've got to put the work in you've got
to support you need people to

English: 
i'm going to uh ask you guys a couple
questions submitted by viewers
yes submitted by viewers
the first question comes from caroline
sim who's a senior director at metro
when you were younger what was one
profession you thought you couldn't
succeed in because you were asian
how is it different now and of course
i'm asking uh
you know a korean parent's dream a
doctor and a lawyer
so uh you know what
what you know what was one profession
you thought you couldn't succeed in
because you were asian
go ahead john okay um
i actually wanted to become a
professional musician and
uh wanted to pursue acting i took acting
classes for
one semester in high school and i did
miserably
and i i at the time there were no

English: 
to rally and offer support
i'm going to uh ask you guys a couple
questions submitted by viewers
yes submitted by viewers
the first question comes from caroline
sim who's a senior director at metro
when you were younger what was one
profession you thought you couldn't
succeed in because you were asian
how is it different now and of course
i'm asking uh
you know a korean parent's dream a
doctor and a lawyer
so uh you know what
what you know what was one profession
you thought you couldn't succeed in
because you were asian
go ahead john okay um
i actually wanted to become a
professional musician and
uh wanted to pursue acting i took acting
classes for
one semester in high school and i did
miserably

English: 
asian movie stars were role models for
us
um the only only asian
uh male actor who didn't who wasn't a
like a waiter or
laundromat uh uh
owner it was bruce lee and so
uh i i i just never
imagined that an asian-american in this
country could actually be
a star in in hollywood or in the movies
but parasite and all the movies that
preceded
parasite proved me wrong and i'm so glad
that i was wrong
uh so my my parents were atypical in
that they didn't really want me to be a
doctor
actually when i called my mom to tell
her i got into medical school she was
somewhat disappointed
because i think she and my dad really
wanted me to become a pastor which
wasn't going to happen but

English: 
and i i at the time there were no
asian movie stars were role models for
us
um the only only asian
uh male actor who didn't who wasn't a
like a waiter or
laundromat uh uh
owner it was bruce lee and so
uh i i i just never
imagined that an asian-american in this
country could actually be
a star in in hollywood or in the movies
but parasite and all the movies that
preceded
parasite proved me wrong and i'm so glad
that i was wrong
uh so my my parents were atypical in
that they didn't really want me to be a
doctor
actually when i called my mom to tell
her i got into medical school she was
somewhat disappointed
because i think she and my dad really
wanted me to become a pastor which
wasn't going to happen but

English: 
the i i would say that uh if i was in
college
and they had these opportunities to go
do internships on the hill
i definitely would have really wanted to
look into that that was just not
something that was available there
really wasn't
anyone that looked like us in congress
at the time
um well it like in a way was there
but um and maybe normanetta but
really it was very very few and uh it's
just not something
you would ever think of doing back then
so that that probably would i'm not to
say i would have gone into politics but
i would have liked to have had that
opportunity and
who knows maybe become a staffer or
something along those lines
well you know uh you know i've seen you
on cnn and other news shows
it's not too late paul i know lisa is
going to hate me for saying that but
not too late yeah well again we'll see
um certainly i had thought about it two

English: 
the i i would say that uh if i was in
college
and they had these opportunities to go
do internships on the hill
i definitely would have really wanted to
look into that that was just not
something that was available there
really wasn't
anyone that looked like us in congress
at the time
um well it like in a way was there
but um and maybe normanetta but
really it was very very few and uh it's
just not something
you would ever think of doing back then
so that that probably would i'm not to
say i would have gone into politics but
i would have liked to have had that
opportunity and
who knows maybe become a staffer or
something along those lines
well you know uh you know i've seen you
on cnn and other news shows
it's not too late paul i know lisa is
going to hate me for saying that but
not too late yeah well again we'll see
um certainly i had thought about it two
years ago uh

English: 
years ago uh
and uh unfortunately lisa's father got
ill at the time and it just would have
been too much of a strain on
um us and and also and you know this roy
as the father of two
young kids that's really the
number one priority for me uh one thing
i know from
my grandfather who was in politics was
he was not there for the his younger
kids growing up
and you could see the long-term effects
on that and
i think the number one priority right
now for me is
to just raise the healthiest normal
kids as possible yeah how about you
angela
you know i had it's less about you know
i mixed
um you know my dad's uh irish american
and my mom's korean but i grew up in
korea
but it's less about that but more about
my
circumstances i don't think i was ever
limited or not limited in what i thought
i could do
because my parents had you know overcome

English: 
and uh unfortunately lisa's father got
ill at the time and it just would have
been too much of a strain on
um us and and also and you know this roy
as the father of two
young kids that's really the
number one priority for me uh one thing
i know from
my grandfather who was in politics was
he was not there for the his younger
kids growing up
and you could see the long-term effects
on that and
i think the number one priority right
now for me is
to just raise the healthiest normal
kids as possible yeah how about you
angela
you know i had it's less about you know
i mixed
um you know my dad's uh irish american
and my mom's korean but i grew up in
korea
but it's less about that but more about
my
circumstances i don't think i was ever
limited or not limited in what i thought
i could do
because my parents had you know overcome
and just

English: 
and just
ignored all kinds of social barriers to
do whatever the hell they damn well
pleased
for me i think it was growing up in
korea and really
feeling um and even from a young age
introducing korea to a lot of people my
mom had a pr business so
she always had foreign clients and i was
translating and giving people tours and
stuff like that
um but korean people never thought i was
korean so it's kind of like
it's almost like my career got defined
by well i'll show them like i'm
the non-korean potentially person who
you know between net cal and you know cj
and movies and k-pop
my entire career has been about
promoting
korean um-ness but
not in a one-way i mean it's really
about promoting understanding
like and being proud of who we are this
is what we have
and what we are and i want to share that
with you and it goes both ways
and it's just all to the good so yeah i
always say that

English: 
ignored all kinds of social barriers to
do whatever the hell they damn well
pleased
for me i think it was growing up in
korea and really
feeling um and even from a young age
introducing korea to a lot of people my
mom had a pr business so
she always had foreign clients and i was
translating and giving people tours and
stuff like that
um but korean people never thought i was
korean so it's kind of like
it's almost like my career got defined
by well i'll show them like i'm
the non-korean potentially person who
you know between net cal and you know cj
and movies and k-pop
my entire career has been about
promoting
korean um-ness but
not in a one-way i mean it's really
about promoting understanding
like and being proud of who we are this
is what we have
and what we are and i want to share that
with you and it goes both ways
and it's just all to the good so yeah i
always say that
you know previously when i was at usc

English: 
that was my dream job now i'm at cj this
is my dream job i'm just very lucky to
do what i do
yeah and i just want to say to angela
that i think my liver's
irish so
i know it's a good combination it's well
we are that we are we are the uh irish
at the east right yeah
yeah we take pride in that uh and well i
i love when uh
uh angela just speaks out in perfect
fluent korean and then you just see the
people that didn't know
just kind of whoa step back uh you know
you were asking about multicultural in
korea that happens less and less
people are not surprised because there's
so many which is a really good sign oh
yeah
yeah nowadays it doesn't but i remember
some of the early trips to
i think the first trip to korea and i
kind of observed people when when you
start speaking in perfect korean
uh yeah you're right nowadays a lot of
non-koreans speak better korean than
uh now they're like what's wrong with
you you don't know that so
you know the bar keeps getting higher

English: 
you know previously when i was at usc
that was my dream job now i'm at cj this
is my dream job i'm just very lucky to
do what i do
yeah and i just want to say to angela
that i think my liver's
irish so
i know it's a good combination it's well
we are that we are we are the uh irish
at the east right yeah
yeah we take pride in that uh and well i
i love when uh
uh angela just speaks out in perfect
fluent korean and then you just see the
people that didn't know
just kind of whoa step back uh you know
you were asking about multicultural in
korea that happens less and less
people are not surprised because there's
so many which is a really good sign oh
yeah
yeah nowadays it doesn't but i remember
some of the early trips to
i think the first trip to korea and i
kind of observed people when when you
start speaking in perfect korean
uh yeah you're right nowadays a lot of
non-koreans speak better korean than
uh now they're like what's wrong with
you you don't know that so

English: 
you know the bar keeps getting higher
yeah
yeah uh i have one more question
and then i'm gonna close it out with uh
um
you know it's kind of a related question
so maybe what i'll do is i'll ask this
this one is from
joyce kang who is a student at harvard
what advice would you give to the korean
american college student
who is looking to get involved and make
a difference so
you know probably some some similar
similar advice from earlier
and then you can either choose or you
can
combine it into one answer but
a a common experience of korean
americans
uh at least that grew up in the us with
immigrant parents uh was the push by our
parents to assimilate
uh you know they want us to speak
perfect english you know maybe even at
the cost of
forgetting our korean as parents to
korean american children

English: 
yeah
yeah uh i have one more question
and then i'm gonna close it out with uh
um
you know it's kind of a related question
so maybe what i'll do is i'll ask this
this one is from
joyce kang who is a student at harvard
what advice would you give to the korean
american college student
who is looking to get involved and make
a difference so
you know probably some some similar
similar advice from earlier
and then you can either choose or you
can
combine it into one answer but
a a common experience of korean
americans
uh at least that grew up in the us with
immigrant parents uh was the push by our
parents to assimilate
uh you know they want us to speak
perfect english you know maybe even at
the cost of
forgetting our korean as parents to
korean american children

English: 
what have you or what will you arm your
children with
as they go out into the world
and i'll let anyone start
well can i start that because i just i
have my dream job
my dream job came from no plan
whatsoever
there's a parasite best plan is no plan
um but it really has always been about
similar skill sets so it was never about
the profession
it was about what i like to do and what
i like to do
is understand
maybe see a goal or understand trends
and
figure out how to put it together so we
can get there i mean in the film
industry it's like
a producer does that or um community
organization you have
you know goals but you don't have a lot
of money so how are you going to figure
that out
um kcon was a little bit like that we
wanted to get kpop out there but
again we didn't have money we didn't
have stars but we wanted to bring the

English: 
what have you or what will you arm your
children with
as they go out into the world
and i'll let anyone start
well can i start that because i just i
have my dream job
my dream job came from no plan
whatsoever
there's a parasite best plan is no plan
um but it really has always been about
similar skill sets so it was never about
the profession
it was about what i like to do and what
i like to do
is understand
maybe see a goal or understand trends
and
figure out how to put it together so we
can get there i mean in the film
industry it's like
a producer does that or um community
organization you have
you know goals but you don't have a lot
of money so how are you going to figure
that out
um kcon was a little bit like that we
wanted to get kpop out there but
again we didn't have money we didn't
have stars but we wanted to bring the
people together so there's

English: 
always the the problem solving solution
finding was always my great interests
you know i love
crossfit puzzles and so just going off
of that
and following that seems to
have been fine i mean maybe it sounds
very irresponsible to recommend somebody
to do that
but you know whatever you have an
interest in is probably the right answer
to start with um and in terms of you
know
what i'm doing you know i have an 11
year old son
what i'm doing for him and his
koreanness so
i am simultaneously extremely vigilant
about his
cultural background and so negligent
like i should be shot
so he my husband is a chinese-american
and so i go okay he's half chinese
quarter korean
quarter whatever else and you know we
live near chinatown
um and i took chinese in college so i
was like let's send them to a chinese
immersion
school because my experience was growing

English: 
people together so there's
always the the problem solving solution
finding was always my great interests
you know i love
crossfit puzzles and so just going off
of that
and following that seems to
have been fine i mean maybe it sounds
very irresponsible to recommend somebody
to do that
but you know whatever you have an
interest in is probably the right answer
to start with um and in terms of you
know
what i'm doing you know i have an 11
year old son
what i'm doing for him and his
koreanness so
i am simultaneously extremely vigilant
about his
cultural background and so negligent
like i should be shot
so he my husband is a chinese-american
and so i go okay he's half chinese
quarter korean
quarter whatever else and you know we
live near chinatown
um and i took chinese in college so i
was like let's send them to a chinese
immersion
school because my experience was growing

English: 
up speaking korean
learning chinese in college was not that
hard so a
i've done i've been vigilant about
putting him in a completely chinese
environment
so that he at least speaks it and thank
god i did because he is so resistant
so resistant to speaking it that if i
hadn't done it he would
not know two words of chinese um that
said does he know any korean
no so i'm terrible i'm just hoping that
the asian part
sticks and then we build from there it's
a long-term plan
got it john paul
uh i'll do the easy one first
um so i don't have any uh
young children uh all of my kids are
in their 30s they're all married um
so at this point
it's about how i could influence my

English: 
up speaking korean
learning chinese in college was not that
hard so a
i've done i've been vigilant about
putting him in a completely chinese
environment
so that he at least speaks it and thank
god i did because he is so resistant
so resistant to speaking it that if i
hadn't done it he would
not know two words of chinese um that
said does he know any korean
no so i'm terrible i'm just hoping that
the asian part
sticks and then we build from there it's
a long-term plan
got it john paul
uh i'll do the easy one first
um so i don't have any uh
young children uh all of my kids are
in their 30s they're all married um
so at this point
it's about how i could influence my

English: 
grandchildren
and have two of them um so i am
uh luckily for us uh the korean-ness and
korean culture of korean language has
become
so popular at the global level that it
doesn't take much
armed twisting to get them interested in
korean culture
and korean language in fact my daughters
are insisting
that i teach or my wife teaches
uh the uh korean language to our
grandkids so that's a good thing um
in terms of the uh the experience uh
going back to the question from the
student at harvard
uh i i think i think the fact that he
asked that question he or she asked the
question
means that the person is more than
halfway there um
it's it's wonderful to hear that kind of
question from young people
um and in terms of i think everything
angela said i agree
i don't need to add to that but um more

English: 
grandchildren
and have two of them um so i am
uh luckily for us uh the korean-ness and
korean culture of korean language has
become
so popular at the global level that it
doesn't take much
armed twisting to get them interested in
korean culture
and korean language in fact my daughters
are insisting
that i teach or my wife teaches
uh the uh korean language to our
grandkids so that's a good thing um
in terms of the uh the experience uh
going back to the question from the
student at harvard
uh i i think i think the fact that he
asked that question he or she asked the
question
means that the person is more than
halfway there um
it's it's wonderful to hear that kind of
question from young people
um and in terms of i think everything
angela said i agree
i don't need to add to that but um more
on the practical level

English: 
on the practical level
what i would suggest is uh what paul had
mentioned earlier about internship i
think that's just a
fabulous way to get your feet wet and
get exposure and
and really understand the issues
um just being a little bit partial on
this i
i would suggest that he consider
applying for an internship
at kappa
and and be involved and uh we
just have a ton of work that we need to
get done and
everyone's unpaid so if the person is
willing to
volunteer his or her time for all years
thank you well john let me ask you real
quick then you have
uh you know uh some kids that are in
their 30s
how different is it letting them go out
in the world
when they were kids and do you feel the
same with your grandkids
are those concerns the same or
is the level of concern the same i think

English: 
what i would suggest is uh what paul had
mentioned earlier about internship i
think that's just a
fabulous way to get your feet wet and
get exposure and
and really understand the issues
um just being a little bit partial on
this i
i would suggest that he consider
applying for an internship
at kappa
and and be involved and uh we
just have a ton of work that we need to
get done and
everyone's unpaid so if the person is
willing to
volunteer his or her time for all years
thank you well john let me ask you real
quick then you have
uh you know uh some kids that are in
their 30s
how different is it letting them go out
in the world
when they were kids and do you feel the
same with your grandkids
are those concerns the same or
is the level of concern the same i think
so

English: 
um you know you you would think that
the racism and the hatred and the
bigotry and
all the evil and crazy things that are
happening uh
in in this country nowadays would have
you know uh die down quite a bit
and um we would see a different world
but
you know i grew up uh in the 60s in the
us
uh i came from seoul in 1967 grew up
here
since then and uh and yes that was
literally a year before and all king was
assassinated
and two years after the voting rights
act got passed
so you can you can imagine uh even in
even for californians it was racism was
everywhere
and we looked through that okay and
yes i think there's much less so in
california but still if you
what you see on on the news
it's just just horrifying and

English: 
so
um you know you you would think that
the racism and the hatred and the
bigotry and
all the evil and crazy things that are
happening uh
in in this country nowadays would have
you know uh die down quite a bit
and um we would see a different world
but
you know i grew up uh in the 60s in the
us
uh i came from seoul in 1967 grew up
here
since then and uh and yes that was
literally a year before and all king was
assassinated
and two years after the voting rights
act got passed
so you can you can imagine uh even in
even for californians it was racism was
everywhere
and we looked through that okay and
yes i think there's much less so in
california but still if you
what you see on on the news

English: 
and you realize that we still have a
long long journey
and and you know the battle is ongoing
so uh i i think it's
unfortunately you know not much progress
has been made
uh although progress have been made and
i think we need to work harder
and uh so that's why i am so devoted to
uh working for civil rights uh and uh
racial justice
and social justice
paul so i'm gonna take the first
question and i'm gonna actually
play moderator and let you take the
second question okay
uh first i i will just say to
anybody who is in college and try to
figure out what they want to do next you
know obviously it's a different
situation right now with the pandemic
and what's happening with the economy so
i think it's an absolute
great time to pursue something that
maybe
you wouldn't have pursued had the world

English: 
it's just just horrifying and
and you realize that we still have a
long long journey
and and you know the battle is ongoing
so uh i i think it's
unfortunately you know not much progress
has been made
uh although progress have been made and
i think we need to work harder
and uh so that's why i am so devoted to
uh working for civil rights uh and uh
racial justice
and social justice
paul so i'm gonna take the first
question and i'm gonna actually
play moderator and let you take the
second question okay
uh first i i will just say to
anybody who is in college and try to
figure out what they want to do next you
know obviously it's a different
situation right now with the pandemic
and what's happening with the economy so
i think it's an absolute
great time to pursue something that
maybe

English: 
just been
in its normal frenetic pace right so
uh i think you know barring
if you have to go back and immediately
start to earn
something to support your family or
pay off student loans right away uh i
think
what i what i would say is take your
time to try to figure out what it is you
really want to do
that you're passionate about because i
think so often
people go into something because that's
what they think they have to do
and then 20 years later they realize
they're miserable
and uh they're kind of just miserable
right so
and then you also have um people that i
know that
their whole 20s they didn't really know
what they wanted to do and i said you
know you shouldn't
put so much pressure on you because even
if you've decided what it is you wanted
to do
when you were late 30s early 40s you
still have to do that for the next 20
years of your life so
uh i mean they have the advantage of
time and also

English: 
you wouldn't have pursued had the world
just been
in its normal frenetic pace right so
uh i think you know barring
if you have to go back and immediately
start to earn
something to support your family or
pay off student loans right away uh i
think
what i what i would say is take your
time to try to figure out what it is you
really want to do
that you're passionate about because i
think so often
people go into something because that's
what they think they have to do
and then 20 years later they realize
they're miserable
and uh they're kind of just miserable
right so
and then you also have um people that i
know that
their whole 20s they didn't really know
what they wanted to do and i said you
know you shouldn't
put so much pressure on you because even
if you've decided what it is you wanted
to do
when you were late 30s early 40s you
still have to do that for the next 20
years of your life so
uh i mean they have the advantage of
time and also

English: 
the ability there's so many more things
that they can try to do whether it be an
internship whether it be
but i i i would really encourage people
not to lose sight of
some dreams that they have um and that's
the one thing i think that
we as korean kids in this 70s
we were not told to pursue our dreams we
were told go
go get a good job and you know get into
an ivy league school and do all those
things so
uh the the the viewer that asked a
question he's already in a good school
so now just follow your dreams is what i
would tell him
with regard to raising korean kids i'm
with angela i've got a
chinese wife and our kids are learning
mandarin so
that's why i want to now turn the tables
and play moderator roy
you've got two beautiful boys uh what is
it and how are you
uh raising your kids to really honor
their korean traditions and such
yeah you know uh it's it's um

English: 
the ability there's so many more things
that they can try to do whether it be an
internship whether it be
but i i i would really encourage people
not to lose sight of
some dreams that they have um and that's
the one thing i think that
we as korean kids in this 70s
we were not told to pursue our dreams we
were told go
go get a good job and you know get into
an ivy league school and do all those
things so
uh the the the viewer that asked a
question he's already in a good school
so now just follow your dreams is what i
would tell him
with regard to raising korean kids i'm
with angela i've got a
chinese wife and our kids are learning
mandarin so
that's why i want to now turn the tables
and play moderator roy
you've got two beautiful boys uh what is
it and how are you
uh raising your kids to really honor
their korean traditions and such
yeah you know uh it's it's um

English: 
yeah just like you growing up in you
know in the 70s and 80s my
you know my my dad was very
old-fashioned he was old school
uh really pushed about grades and
he wasn't so much about the learning
right and
with with my kids you know they
they have you know the same thing that
you're offering your your girls
is uh you know follow your dream like
follow your passion
you know all the things that you know
where the world is opening up to them
there's two things you know with my kids
going out there in the world
um as korean americans we're trying our
best
to speak in korean to them so that they
you know try to retain some of it so you
know they're it's it's cute they go
through the
they're taking korean lessons and they
try to speak to each other in korean and
it's
you know my wife and i just crack up um
but but we love the effort and
uh just as two young boys going out in

English: 
yeah just like you growing up in you
know in the 70s and 80s my
you know my my dad was very
old-fashioned he was old school
uh really pushed about grades and
he wasn't so much about the learning
right and
with with my kids you know they
they have you know the same thing that
you're offering your your girls
is uh you know follow your dream like
follow your passion
you know all the things that you know
where the world is opening up to them
there's two things you know with my kids
going out there in the world
um as korean americans we're trying our
best
to speak in korean to them so that they
you know try to retain some of it so you
know they're it's it's cute they go
through the
they're taking korean lessons and they
try to speak to each other in korean and
it's
you know my wife and i just crack up um
but but we love the effort and
uh just as two young boys going out in

English: 
the world i think
going back to uh you know the
opportunities that they have now you
know the ability to learn i mean we're
in a pandemic
and you know my wife is principal of our
of our schoolhouse
you know they're still you know taking
classes all day online classes
uh learning reading and but
what comes with that though is is almost
a perfectionist attitude that my older
son has
and that when he fails he takes
extremely hard it almost
shuts down and so you know what i want
him to learn is
you know grit and picking yourself up
and that it's not going to go according
to plan right right angela right best
plan is having no plan
and um you know that's especially since
you know what we've been learning the
last five months is
things are always going to change like
now we know that
nothing is said whatever we think is
going to happen is likely not going to
happen
so just that you know adaptability and

English: 
the world i think
going back to uh you know the
opportunities that they have now you
know the ability to learn i mean we're
in a pandemic
and you know my wife is principal of our
of our schoolhouse
you know they're still you know taking
classes all day online classes
uh learning reading and but
what comes with that though is is almost
a perfectionist attitude that my older
son has
and that when he fails he takes
extremely hard it almost
shuts down and so you know what i want
him to learn is
you know grit and picking yourself up
and that it's not going to go according
to plan right right angela right best
plan is having no plan
and um you know that's especially since
you know what we've been learning the
last five months is
things are always going to change like
now we know that
nothing is said whatever we think is
going to happen is likely not going to
happen
so just that you know adaptability and

English: 
grit is what i hope they
enter the world with okay
well it's getting late uh you know if
you watch this from the beginning to the
end you saw the light change
uh the lighting change in in each of our
locations
uh you know i want to thank our speakers
thank you guys for your insight and
guidance
i really enjoyed speaking to you tonight
a special thanks of course to net cal
and the korea foundation for organizing
tonight's event and inviting us to speak
uh and of course uh thank you to all the
viewers we really appreciate your time
and attention and watching tonight
please please stay safe out there thank
you
you

English: 
grit is what i hope they
enter the world with okay
well it's getting late uh you know if
you watch this from the beginning to the
end you saw the light change
uh the lighting change in in each of our
locations
uh you know i want to thank our speakers
thank you guys for your insight and
guidance
i really enjoyed speaking to you tonight
a special thanks of course to net cal
and the korea foundation for organizing
tonight's event and inviting us to speak
uh and of course uh thank you to all the
viewers we really appreciate your time
and attention and watching tonight
please please stay safe out there thank
[Music]
you
you
