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 newspaper as well as being a head writer of her school’s 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 creating 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 Chicana high school junior at RFK Community Schools, near the heart of Koreatown. As a community organizer, she notes that her parents' lived experiences have ingrained her solidarity with the working class.

She is an organizer for Extinction Rebellion Youth L.A., a youth-led group taking collective direct action on environmental emergencies. After school, she is a volunteer and historian for KYCC BRIDGE, a volunteer-led tutoring program. She recently founded the Community in Unity Club to learn more about historical social movements and to build mutual aid efforts.

Kimberly looks forward to majoring in sociology, focusing her studies and advocacy on Indigenous communities. In the meantime, she is learning more about her Indigenous identity through oral history.

KIMBERLY’S story →

Abigail Eun

Youth Participant

Abigail is a high school senior at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. She was born and raised in Koreatown, Los Angeles. Abigail has been copy editor and feature page editor at her school paper, LACES Untied. She has interned with Grace Yoo’s L.A. City Council campaign 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 turnout in Los Angeles. This is her second semester with KSP.

Abigail’s story →

Cheyenne Kim

Youth Participant

Cheyenne is currently a junior at New Covenant Academy. She is the student council secretary and co-runs the school newspaper with her friend, Jadyn, who is also a participant in the Koreatown Storytelling Program. A journalism elective sparked Cheyenne’s interest in journalism during the summer of her sophomore year. She has lived in Koreatown for most of her life and hopes to learn more about it through KSP. She also loves art and tries to paint as much as possible.

cheyenne's story →

Jadyn Kim

Youth Participant

Jadyn is a junior at New Covenant Academy in Koreatown, Los Angeles. She has lived in Koreatown for most of her life. She is the co-founder and current head writer of her school’s journalism club. She is also a member of the yearbook club and student council. Through KSP, Jadyn hopes to gain further experience in journalism, preserve Koreatown’s history, and have the opportunity to meet members of the community. In the future, she hopes to become an English professor. In an alternate life, she would move to a cottage in the woods and sell paintings for a living. In her free time, Jadyn enjoys painting, collecting poetry books, and watching Studio Ghibli films.

jadyn's story →

Joseph Jae In Kim

Youth Participant

Joe is a senior at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. Over the years, he learned to truly appreciate the arts. Although he cannot play jazz music on his violin or piano, he has grown a great admiration for it. He founded and currently leads the Jazz Affinity Club, where members are free to share and discuss jazz pieces. He is also the president of his high school’s Christian Club. He writes almost daily about his emotions and thoughts in a journal.

His most significant attribute 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 be able to support his remaining family financially someday, 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 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 the world.

REBECCA'S story →

Abbi-Hope Jihye Park

Youth Participant

Abbi is a freshman at Orange County School of the Arts in the creative writing conservatory. She was interested in the Koreatown Storytelling Program because her grandfather worked in the garment industry and her grandmother owned a watch business in Los Angeles.

She is published in Down in the Dirt, Plum Tree Tavern, Scarlet Leaf Review, and Quail Bell. She is also a magazine editor for HerCulture, a publication that amplifies the voices of women.

At school, she co-leads the TEDxOCSA program and serves as president of two clubs, TechTeam and Geckos & Bearded Dragons. During her free time, she enjoys traveling with her family, coding, developing websites, and spending time with her bearded dragon, Mola, as well as her leopard geckos, Jack and Jill, and her crested gecko, Leo.

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, as well as molecular, cellular, and developmental biology. At Yale, she helped lead Negative Space, an Asian American oral history project. She is entering medical school in the fall of 2022 and is interested in incorporating the medical humanities into her future career.