Where would you say your hometown is?

My family moved around a bit when I was a lot younger, but I spent all of elementary school and most of middle school in this suburb of Los Angeles called South Pasadena. It’s a really small town, and I still go to school there. I would say it’s my hometown.

Do you go to South Pasadena High School?

Yes, I do.

Do you have any connections to Koreatown from your childhood? Have you lived there?

My paternal grandparents worked in Koreatown for a very long time. [They relocated there] a few years after leaving Korea in the late 1960s. They first went to Texas, but a few years later, they moved to Koreatown. My dad grew up partly in Koreatown. My grandparents started an accounting firm there, where they worked until a few years ago, so it’s quite an old firm. My dad still works in Koreatown; he actually works for the Koreatown Youth and Community Center (KYCC). He’s in the same building where we (Koreatown Storytelling Program participants) meet.

Do you go to any other places in Koreatown?

I don’t go to Koreatown that much because the area I live in is surrounded by other busy suburbs like Pasadena or Alhambra. We’re also kind of close to downtown, but I don’t go anywhere after KSP. There have been several times over the past three or so years that I’ve gone to KYCC events, gone out to dinner, or taken family members out to dinner [in Koreatown] — that’s our go-to.

Is your dad’s work at KYCC the main connection you have to Koreatown?

Probably. I don’t really have many family members who live in Koreatown. Most of my [family] on my dad’s side lives in Orange County. My mom’s side is on the East Coast, near the New York area. My dad is really the only connection I have in Koreatown.

You talked about meeting with extended family members [in Koreatown] for dinner. Do you have any significant memories from that?

Well, one of the funniest and probably most prominent memories is from when I was really little. I would get random fevers, and my dad couldn’t take time off [from work to be with me] at home when I was sick, so I would have to go to his work. Back then, he still worked for my grandfather, so it was fine for me to be [there], so I would just kind of hang around in his office. I can’t really speak Korean, so his co-workers — these older ladies — would try to talk to me, and I would just kind of nod along.

Do you think living mostly away from Koreatown influenced your Korean-speaking ability or connectedness to Korean culture?

For sure. Actually, there’s this place called Young Nak, and when I was younger, my parents enrolled me there to learn how to speak Korean. I hated it. For one, my parents’ Korean isn’t super good because their parents worked a lot, so they didn’t get to speak to their parents in Korean. They couldn’t really help me with anything, and all the other kids [at Young Nak] spoke Korean well — they spoke it at home. I just kind of got tired of [studying Korean]. My brother and I had to [attend Korean language classes], but we complained so much that they finally let us quit.

My brother and I have talked about this several times over the past few years. We used to live in Fullerton, which is a very heavily populated area full of Korean people. We’d say things like, “Oh, if we had just stayed there and hadn’t moved to South Pasadena, where there are [fewer] Korean people, we probably would have been able to speak fluently or at least speak some Korean.” Fullerton is sort of similar to Koreatown in that way.

Could you give me a loose timeline of where you lived and moved during your childhood?

I was born in the Bay Area. When I was about 2 years old, we moved down to Fullerton, and I stayed there until I was around 4. Then we moved to South Pasadena, and I spent most of my time there until around April 2020, when we finally moved to L.A. I’m actually living in a neighborhood called El Sereno now, but it’s not super far from South Pasadena or downtown.

Since you live in El Sereno but go to school in South Pasadena, were you already going to South Pasadena High when you moved?

I’ve always gone to South Pasadena schools. I went to elementary and middle school there. My mom is a teacher at the middle school. She teaches sixth-grade English and English Language Development (ELD), so we were able to move away and still go to South Pasadena schools because she worked for the district and didn’t want me to go to the local public school.

Do you know why that is? Did you know people from South Pasadena High School, and did that make you want to stay?

Yeah, it’s a really small town, and I’ve been there since kindergarten. I kind of know everybody since there are three elementary schools and one middle school. Once I got to middle school, I started meeting everybody in my grade, and not too many people moved away or transferred in. I know almost everybody in my grade.

Is that part of why your parents didn’t want you to go to another public school?

I don’t think they would have minded that part. To be honest, I think it’s because the area I’m in is kind of gentrifying right now. The local public school, which is part of the Los Angeles Unified School District, isn’t necessarily that good.

Since you don’t go to school in the neighborhood where you currently live, do you have any connections to it besides living there?

My current neighborhood? No, it’s mostly that we decided to live here because it wasn’t too far.

Moving around a lot in your childhood can impact what you consider your community or hometown. It seems like South Pasadena is mainly where you know many people. Is it hard to define your hometown since you’ve been moving around so much?

I don’t think so. Even though I was born in the Bay Area and then moved to Orange County, I was too young to remember most of it. I would have preferred to move around a little bit more because South Pasadena is so small. It feels like you’re in a bubble since there’s no one new to meet.

Do you think South Pasadena has a large Korean population compared to places like Koreatown or Fullerton?

Koreatown has a really large Korean population. South Pasadena also has a lot of Korean people, but it’s not really a Korean community. It’s very mixed. I would say it’s like 60% Asian, 30% white people, and 10% everybody else, but most of the Asian kids are Chinese. Maybe a good chunk of them are Korean if I’m including the Wasian (white and Asian mixed) kids. There’s a large Korean population, but there’s also a pretty large biracial population — we call them Wasians. There are a lot of mixed [white and Korean] kids, so there are a lot of Korean Americans.

Do you think the demographic in Koreatown would have been better for you? Would you have preferred to grow up in a community where there were a lot more Koreans?

I don’t know whether I would have liked it or not. The Korean kids who came from Korea when they were a little younger or those whose parents are not very Americanized — I’m not great friends with any of them. They all seem pretty nice, but again, it’s just a cultural difference. Honestly, I think I would have been fine either way, but I would be a different person.

Were both of your parents born in America?

My mom was not, but she came to the U.S. as a toddler. My dad was born here and can speak fluent English. Both of my parents speak English fluently. My dad’s English is perfect since it’s his first language. He doesn’t speak much Korean, but he can understand it. He’ll just respond in English. My mom’s Korean is a little bit better because it’s her first language.