Tag: Korean-Americans

Via a reader tip comes this news about a Korean-American man in South Carolina who accidentally posted a racist help wanted sign at his wife’s restaurant and is now under attack by critics:

A South Carolina restaurant owner which caused outrage after it placed a ‘Help Wanted’ sign in its window along with the message ‘minorities need not apply’ has apologized for her mistake.

Kenny’s Home Cooking in Spartanburg placed the sign in the window seeking more staff, although when diners noticed the message at the bottom they posted photographs on the internet.

The sign had the racist message written in both English and Spanish.

However, the restaurant’s owner, who is Japanese, claimed any offense was unintentional as they purchased the sign on eBay and did not understand the messages at the bottom.

Owner Sook ‘Sue’ Shin told WYFF News: ‘I never ever meant that, so I’m really sorry.’

A friend claimed they mistook the word ‘minorities’ for ‘minors’.

Shin’s husband, who is Korean, purchased the sign on eBay.  [The Daily Mail]

You can read more at the link, but I can easily understand how someone who uses English as a second language can make this mistake.  However, it hasn’t stopped people from expressing their outrage at the owners.  It seems to me the real racists are the ones criticizing this couple for not understanding English better.

Even the Korea Times is jumping on the bandwagon that Trump won the US Presidential election because America is filled with white racists:

In disbelief and denial, people fear how their lives may or may not be impacted under a leader who has constantly been labeled a racist and sexist throughout a divisive and ugly campaign.

But for many Korean-Americans, the uncertainty runs even deeper.

”We’re talking about a man who has been hating on immigrants, not to mention criticizing South Korea as ‘free-riders,”’ says Michael Kim, 26, one of many younger generation Korean-Americans who have teamed up to campaign for Trump’s defeated Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton in California, a liberal stronghold. ”These two factors alone can’t be good for all of us Koreans who live in the U.S.”

Korean-American political observers say never in recent history have so many Koreans been unified against one single candidate.

According to a recent poll, 63 percent of eligible Korean-American voters said they would vote for Clinton, while only 10 percent backed Trump.

”The reason is simple,” says Lisa Kim, 42, a member of the Korean American Coalition in New York, a non-partisan community advocacy organization. ”People are feeling threatened by this new and emerging political force who has awaken a movement of white nationalists.”

Life in America under Trump’s leadership, Kim says, is likely to be tougher for Asians and other minorities.

”Racism is one of the biggest concerns we’re facing,” she said, stressing that this election has exposed a surprising depth of underlying racism deeply planted in the American society. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but I fully expect more articles like this from the media as well as complaints about the Electoral College system in an attempt to delegitimize Trump before he even takes over the Presidency.

https://twitter.com/AskAKorean/status/772193851545190401

This is a horrible story out of Missouri:

A 13-year-old Missouri girl suspected of shooting and critically wounding a Korean couple in their 70s has surrendered to police.

The teen had shot the parents of the owner of King’s Beauty Supply in Bellefontaine Neighbors on Tuesday after she and another juvenile had been booted from the store earlier in the day for stealing, the Post-Dispatch reported.

When the girls returned to the shop, the couple called police, who found the girls in a nearby parking lot.

One girl was taken into custody on a previous juvenile warrant and the other was released with a warning with the couple’s approval, according to Detective Shawn Applegate.

The couple recovered the stolen items, believed to be hair extensions, and the shoplifting was not reported.

However, the girl who was given the warning returned again to the store and shot the couple, cops said. She came into the store, and “then less than a minute later came running out, swinging in her right hand a revolver as she ran,” a witness told authorities, according to the Post-Dispatch.  [New York Daily News]

You can read more at the link, but all the best to the family and friends of the victims.

It will be interesting to see who Korean-Americans support in this year’s Presidential election.  Hopefully it is now for someone who wants the tried and failed policy of engaging North Korea and receiving little to nothing in return:

The U.S. presidential election in November is expected to be like no other. As the flamboyant candidates are currently challenging one another on a range of issues from immigration to foreign policy, many say that this year’s race is expected to be pivotal not only for Americans, but also for Koreans as well.

A prominent Korean-American political activist says it will also be significant for Koreans in Korea.

“Eligible Korean voters living in the U.S. have the capacity to have an influence on Washington’s various policies that directly affect Korea,” said Kim Dong-suk, founder and chairman of New York-based Korean American Civic Empowerment (KACE), in an interview. “In that sense, this year will be a turning point for all of us.”

He said that the ethnic minority vote will become an increasingly decisive factor in changing the outcome of U.S. elections, which means American politicians must appeal to people in all Asian communities, including Koreans.  [Korea Times]

I would hope the majority of Korean-Americans are not thinking like this:

Paul Lee, chairman of the Bergen County Republican Committee (KARC), based in New Jersey, agrees that the election should be an opportunity for the Korean Peninsula to get the “fair analysis it deserves.”

“The U.S. is now talking to Cuba and Iran,” said Lee, who heads the committee that is under the umbrella of a local Republican party organization. “Is North Korea that much more crazy? Have we really made an effort to end the war in Korea? Whoever wins the White House, whether they’re a Republican or Democrat, they need to tackle the North Korea issue.”

North Korea is not crazy, but the Kim regime is definitely more oppressive and dangerous than the Iranians or Cubans.  Also has Mr. Lee not been paying attention to all the overture to North Korea that have gone no where other then providing free goodies to the Kim regime to allow them to further their nuclear and ballistic missile programs?

The discrimination against Asian-Americans in the admittance process into US universities has long been a problem with Congressman Ed Royce is now speaking out against:

Being Korean American should not be an obstacle to receiving a top university education. It’s sad I have to make that clear in 2015.

Earlier this year, a coalition of 64 Asian American organizations filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights against Harvard University. The coalition argues that Harvard has set hidden racial quotas and a higher admissions bar for Asian American students, including Korean Americans.

Supporting this case is a mountain of evidence. While the population of Asian Americans has grown rapidly in the United States over the past 20 years, the admission rate for Asian Americans at Harvard University has stayed between 15 percent and 20 percent. This suspiciously flat number is also at odds with data that shows a much higher proportion of high-performing American high school students are of Asian descent. “We have data that suggests that 55 percent of kids with SAT scores of 2300 or higher are Asian,” says scholar Edward Blum, who launched another lawsuit against Harvard last year, accusing the school of racial discrimination in its admissions process.

Harvard claims it does not discriminate against Asian American students, which would be illegal. Instead, Harvard argues that it uses an “individualized, holistic review” process to select students, and that “diversity” is but one of many factors considered.

But Asian American parents are right to be suspicious when their hard-working, high-performing children are shut out of top schools and their less qualified peers are accepted instead.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link, but one’s skin color should not be the deciding factor of who gets to attend a university.

This will probably make for a good reelection campaign ad for the assemblyman who also fights crime in his neighborhood:

Purse snatchers of New York, watch out for your district assemblyman — Ron Kim (D-Flushing), the state legislature’s first-ever Korean American member, chased and caught a thief on the streets of downtown Flushing last week.

The assemblyman reportedly tackled a 25-year-old man, Daniel Fish, to the ground after hearing the young man snatched a purse from walking mother with a stroller around 1 p.m., according to the New York Police Department.

A good Samaritan got the bag back from Fish, but he fled after.

That’s when Kim — walking to his office near Main Street and 38th Street — saw the Samaritan chasing after Fish. He joined the chase, all the while calling 911.

Kim and the Samaritan had lost Fish when someone shouted, “That’s him!”

Kim tackled Fish to the ground after another foot pursuit and held him there until police got to the scene. Kim’s glasses were reportedly broken in the process.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Via a reader tip comes this blog posting from a Korean-American adoptee who was born in Korea and abandoned by his mother on the streets of Busan before being sent to an orphanage.  He was adopted by an American family, but now needs help locating his sister:

I have tried before to locate my sister. I have failed. Part of me wants to never try again. A lot of me hates that part of me. I will try again because there is always a chance she might see this. One can hope.

My name is Jason Chandler Cushman and I was born in Pusan, South Korea in 1981. I have a sister who is a few years older me. I believe she is probably 37 now and her name was Ahn Jung Hee, my birth mother’s name is Kim Ie Soo. Our mother left us on a street when we were young. I was 2 years old and my sister was 5 I believe. We were taken to an orphanage and my mother later returned for only my sister. That was the last time I saw her. I found this out when I returned to Korea in 2000 during a Holt International Motherland tour. I was 18 years old at the time.

In 2002 I pulled a prodigal son and asked my father for the rest of my college tuition so that I could return to Korea to find the rest of the answers from my 2000 trip. I was determined to not return until I found them. I did not find my family, but I found an answer. A simple one from my birth mother. “Stop trying to see us and do not try to find your sister. She is still with me.” My sister was probably 23 at the time.

I am now 34 years old and have long since given up most hope of seeing them. But then I began this blog in 2013 and created a realistic way of reaching them. If they care to be found and if anyone cares to share my story so that my sister might see it. My blog has been viewed over 300,000 times from South Korea alone. I pray that maybe one of those people can share my story in such a manner that it might be seen by the one I seek. [An Opinionated Man]

You can read more at the link to include additional photos in an effort to help contact his sister.

Here is a feel good story about a Korean adoptee and US soldier stationed at Camp Casey who found her biological family in South Korea:

Sgt. Faith Vazquez calls Defiance, Ohio, home, but she also lived in Hawaii and other duty stations with her mother and Navy father. Her then-childless parents adopted her through a Seoul agency when she was 4 months old.

“I never grew up feeling adopted,” said Vazquez, 23, American Forces Network detachment commander at Camp Casey.

She joined the Army after high school graduation. Her first assignment was a one-year tour at South Korea’s Yongsan Garrison.

Vazquez yearned to know more about her heritage but let her tour pass without searching for her origins. “I was 18, and I didn’t feel mentally ready,” she said.

She then set off for three years at Fort Riley, Kan., where her husband now serves in the Army.

She returned to South Korea for a one-year unaccompanied tour in October, conflicted over whether to seek her birth family. She didn’t want to slight her adoptive parents.

But with an adopted co-worker’s encouragement, she contacted the Seoul agency that processed her adoption. Within weeks, the agency phoned: “Faith, we’ve found your family.”  [Stars & Stripes]

You can read the rest at the link.

Protestors, including Korean-American groups, demand in New York on Aug. 28, 2015, that Republican presidential hopeful Jeb Bush apologize for accusing Asian people of abusing the birthright citizenship law. (Yonhap)