Hello, my name is Myung Hee Oh. I immigrated to United States twenty five years ago and lived in the greater Los Angeles area ever since. I was a business owner up until two years ago when I retired. Now, I volunteer at different organizations for numerous causes during my free time.
What do you do?
After retirement, I’m currently studying to become a care provider for the elderly and patients at hospitals. My hope is to provide for seniors who have difficulties living on their own.
How did you get involved with KRC?
I first learned about KRC through a Korean newspaper. I read in the newspaper article about KRC’s vision to serve the community through volunteering, serving, and advocating for community members who need help in different areas, such as immigration and health access. KRC provides various service for the community, so I was instantly interested and showed up to volunteer.
How would you describe your community?
Our community is a great community of senior citizens. Many community members, including seniors, don’t know about several of the issues that affect their lives, such as health access and immigration. I’m part of the Community Health Promoters (CHP) group in KRC and we advocate on health and immigration-related issues that directly impact our community. We fought for affordable senior housing units and built two new low-income senior apartments in Koreatown Los Angeles.
What do you think is the civil issue of the day?
First, I care about affordable housing because there are so many seniors who are not able to provide for themselves, nor have access to affordable housing. Second, it’s civic engagement, specially voting in this upcoming elections. Many of our community members are unaware of how to register or when/what to vote for. I’ve been vigorously participating in phone banking for the last few weeks. We call our Korean speaking seniors in Koreatown and Orange County to encourage them to vote for the primaries in June and presidential election in November.
What is something you are looking forward to this summer?
I want to work harder to help people in poverty, especially the homeless who live on the streets. I’ve been helping the homeless for the last twelve years, and I want to provide more for them. I want to volunteer as long as I’m healthy and able to help anyone in need.
