Summer 2004
NAKASEC and its Chicago affiliate the Korean American Resource Center (KRCC) sent one Korean American youth to be a part of the New American Freedom Summer.Surim Esther Hong joined more than 100 students and activists in Mississippi for a three day training led by Civil Rights activists of the 1960’s.After the trainings, participants were split into two groupings that would conduct voter empowerment work in Arizona and Florida.These two states were symbolically chosen to highlight the death at the borders issues in Arizona and refugees issues in Florida.
Hong was part of the Arizona team where she went through extensive trainings on migrant border issues and conducted various voter empowerment efforts for two weeks.She has since taken back her experience back to Chicago, where she will be working on empowering Korean American voters through KRCC’s Korean American Vote 2004 campaign.
