Cailey Beck

Youth Participant

Cailey is a senior attending New Covenant Academy in Los Angeles. She has always loved to write and serves as an editor on her school newspapers as well as head writer in Yearbook. When she isn’t trying to finish one of her short stories or scripts, Cailey can be found at volleyball practice or fulfilling her duties as a student council officer. After college, she plans on becoming a journalist and becoming the next Hamilton. Cailey’s mother works in the garment district, so she spent her childhood visiting downtown on the weekends. 

Cailey’s story →

Kimberly Espinosa

Youth Participant

Kimberly is a junior Chicana high school student at the RFK Community Schools campus, located near the heart of Koreatown, Los Angeles. As a community organizer, their lived experiences as well as those lived along with their parents, have especially ingrained in her solidarity for the working class. They are an organizer for Extinction Rebellion Youth L.A. and One Up Action L.A., youth-led groups taking collective direct action upon the environmental emergency. After school, they are the Co-President of KYCC BRIDGE, a volunteer-led tutoring program. They also recently founded the Community in Unity Club, to learn more about historical social movements, and build mutual aid efforts. Kimberly looks forward to majoring in Sociology while focusing her studies and advocacy for Indigenous communities. In the meantime, they are learning more about their Indigenous identity through oral history.

KIMBERLY’S story →

Lucy Hwang

Youth Participant

LUCY  is XXXs been involved in her school paper, LACES UNTIED, for three years and currently serves as a copy editor and page editor for the Feature page. Having participated in the KSP’s first pilot program, Eun looks forward to exploring the garment district through intergenerational dialogue and broadening her world views. Being interested in politics, Eun has interned with Grace Yoo in her run for LA City Council and is also a member of the Youth Democracy Leaders Los Angeles Cohort, a program that seeks to involve Angeleno youth in local politics and increase youth voter participation in Los Angeles. 

Abigail’s story →

Dale Lee

Youth Participant

DALE is currently a junior at her school, New Convenant Acadent. She loves art and tries to paint as much as possible. She runs the school newspaper with her friend, Jadyn. She is also the secretary of her school’s student council. She became interested in journalism when she took a journalism elective during the summer of her sophomore year, she thought it was an interesting topic and wanted to participate in this project. She lived almost all her life in Koreatown, and through this project she hopes to learn more about it. 

cheyenne's story →

Eunice Shin

Youth Participant

EUNICE is a junior at New Covenant Academy in Los Angeles. She attends school in Koreatown and has lived there for a large portion of her life. Koreatown is her home, and she is interested in preserving its history and getting to know members of the community. Jadyn is currently co-founder and head writer of her school’s Journalism Club, and is also a member of the Yearbook Club and the Student Council. Although journalism has always been an interest of hers, starting the club at her school last year was Jadyn’s first experience with it. She wants to gain experience outside of school through this program. If she could, Jadyn would move to a cottage in the woods and sell paintings for a living. Unfortunately, that isn’t the case, so in the future, she hopes to be an English professor. In her spare time, Jadyn likes to paint, collect poetry books, and watch Studio Ghibli films.

jadyn's story →

Joe Kim

Youth Participant

Joe is a senior at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. Over the years, he had learned to truly appreciate the arts. He writes almost daily about his emotions and thoughts in a journal; and although he cannot play Jazz music on his violin or piano, he has grown a great admiration for it. In fact, he is currently leading a school club he founded this year called Jazz Affinity Club, in which members are free to share and discuss certain Jazz pieces. He is also the president of the school’s Christian Club. But his most significant characteristic is his resilience, as he has continued to challenge himself academically despite the deaths of his parents in the summer of 2020. He hopes to someday be able to support his remaining family financially, though he still does not know what career path he wants to take.

Joe's story →

Rebecca Louie

Youth Participant

Rebecca is a sophomore at Marlborough School, in Los Angeles California. She is passionate about journalism, and has held both writing and editorial positions on her school newspaper. Having also previously studied photography, printmaking, and architecture, she has an interest in the intersection of writing and art in the media. Though she has never explored it before, she is excited to learn more about the Koreatown Garment District, from both its storytelling and design aspects. Rebecca swims competitively and dedicates her free time to her family, friends, and her books. She hopes to pursue a career in journalism, publishing, or anything that will allow her to travel around the world.

REBECCA'S story →

Abbi Park

Youth Participant

Abbi is a freshman at Orange County School of the Arts in the Creative Writing conservatory. She is published in literary magazines like Down in the Dirt and Plum Tree Tavern. Abbi is also a magazine editor for HerCulture and the Communications Director for the Junebug Journal. Through KSP, she hopes to discover and unearth the history of the Korean Diaspora.

ABBI'S story →

Sarah Jho

Program Coordinator

Sarah was born and raised in Koreatown, Los Angeles. She is a 2020 graduate of Yale College where she double-majored in the History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health and Molecular, Cellular, and Development Biology. At Yale, she helped lead Negative Space, an Asian American oral history project. She is entering medical school in fall 2022, and is interested in incorporating the medical humanities into her future career.