Empowerment, Our Voice and Our Place
Jason Kim
Councilman, Palisades Park, New Jersey
Korean diaspora: past, present, and future
Success of Immigration
Three categories of the measure of success:
- Political
-voter registration: very low political power and involvement of Korean Americans.
-involvement and interaction of both voters and candidates; more Korean American
leaders should be encouraged and allowed to attain important positions.
-stronger, more coherent voter blocs need to be organized around issues that are
crucial to our community's needs.
- Social
-Korean Americans need to create drive forces to unify the community rather than
be in conflict. Ways to accomplish this:
* Remember history
* Individual and social channels of community involvement and participation; community organizations.
* More volunteerism and mobilization needed.
-these efforts need to be meaningful and enjoyable to the people involved so that
they would continue to pursue these initiatives. Ex: the Jewish community makes
the traditions and culture of Judaism accessible, something to be proud of and to
genuinely have fun with. Therefore, it has become a lasting goal to maintain.
- Economic
-severe lack of funding.
* not enough money in most colleges to sponsor and maintain Asian and Korean American
history and language classes.
* not enough funds for foundations and various NGOs to enable them to have much
involvement or impact with the community
-need financial investment by individuals as well as organizations
-tithing: setting aside a tenth or whatever amount towards preservation of our culture
and language
Prototype —Jews achieved all three measures of success.
Ideology
-we need to disseminate the ideology that maintaining our culture is useful to us
all, including non-Korean Americans, and we are able to defend that point.
-we need concrete projects and function, yet the ideals come first. We need to
inspire individuals to enrich themselves economically and politically to set up
the groundwork and make these goals possible.
-We must set the course with the best directions for the Korean American community
to go.
This page last updated 11/5/2005 jdb
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