Koreatown Stories
Every year, Koreatown Storytelling Program works with high school journalists and neighborhood older adults in Koreatown, Los Angeles, and its neighboring environment to celebrate and document their stories. Our curriculum includes in-depth workshops on oral history, journalism, photojournalism, community history, interview skills, technology how-tos, and dialogue around cultural traditions, immigration, and civil rights.
Each cohort focuses on a different theme in our community. Please read below to find out more about our past and present cohorts.
Traditional Healing Arts (2024-2025)
In 2024-2025, KSP explored the traditional healing arts in our Koreatown community. We were interested in learning from the diverse range of healing practices and modalities within our largely Latine and API community, including acupuncturists, herbalists, shamans, botanicas, curanderas, and kabarajis. KSP interviewed, gathered, and archived oral history narratives about the traditional healing arts from our primarily limited-income, immigrant community, where the majority of countries of origin (Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Korea, Bangladesh, and Mongolia) have strong cultural roots in these modalities. Many residents of our community understand and/or practice these traditions, rituals, and methods, but these voices are rarely explored, documented, and archived. We invited traditional healing artists to lead workshops and demonstrations in their areas of expertise and enjoyed learning from and with our Koreatown community.
LGBTQIA+ (2023-2024)
KSP’s 2023-2024 cohort explored the LGBTQIA+ community in Koreatown, Los Angeles. We recorded the life experiences of our multiethnic and multilingual LGBTQIA+ older adults — their home countries, cultural traditions, childhood, faith, family, immigration, coming-out (and not coming-out) narratives, intersectionality, experiences with discrimination, milestones, and celebrations. Our curriculum studied the history (and threat to) LGBTQIA+ rights and educated our participants on LGBTQIA+ cultural competencies. We partnered with organizations and artists that reflect the cultural heritages and identities of our community to learn from the rich perspectives of Koreatown.
