May 4, 2011

Contacts:

Karn Saetang, KRCC, karn@chicagokrcc.org (773-293-4050)

Angela Kim, KRC, angela@krcla.org (323-937-3718)

Olivia Park, NAKASEC, opark@nakasec.org (202-299-9540)

NAKASEC Scholarship Program Aims to Provide Bright Students with a Chance to Dream

^4th Annual DREAM Scholarship Fund Launches Nationwide

Download the application: DREAM Scholarship Fund

The application deadline is June 17, 2011.

Download the DREAM Scholarship Fund flyer in English and also in Korean.

Today, the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) and our affiliates the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC) and the Korean Resource Center (KRC) are excited to announce the launch of our DREAM Scholarship Fund. Founded in 2007 by Korean American youth who for the past decade have campaigned for the passage of the DREAM Act, the Dream Scholarship Fund will award several $1,000 scholarships to students in California, Illinois and nationwide who face undue financial hardships. The scholarships are created largely through grassroots fundraising within our communities and by our student organizing groups, Fighting Youth Shouting Out for Humanity (FYSH) in Chicago and Alliance of Korean American Students in Action (AKASIA) in Los Angeles.

“For those who do not have enough financial means to pursue higher education and their life goals, the DREAM Scholarship Fund is like a candle keeping a steady light of hope for many students like myself. I have been able to follow my passion for the arts, photography and interior design,” said Han Joon Kim, one of the recipients of the 2010 DREAM Scholarship Fund, who is currently attending the University of Wisconsin – Madison.

“While many of the students in AKASIA and FYSH have financial needs ourselves, we are honored and empowered to know that our fundraising goes toward helping fellow students to follow their dreams. The DREAM scholarship is a way for us to build up our community as we continue to organize, educate and campaign for social justice and change,” said Angela Kim, student leader of AKASIA in Los Angeles.

Download the application: DREAM Scholarship Fund

The application deadline is June 17, 2011.

To donate to the DREAM Scholarship Fund: http://krcla.org/dsf

• There is likely to be less than 1 week to make sure DREAM Act passes this year. Tuesday is a key vote to allow the Senate to consider DREAM as an amendment to the annual military spending bill. With 60 votes, DREAM can then be considered as an amendment.

What’s going on?

• Immigration reform or DREAM Act should not be a partisan issue as it impacts people in all states. We hope that all Senators will step up, Democrats and Republicans alike. Leaders from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus recently announced a three-prong legislative strategy for immigration reform in the fall, which is to 1) push for passage of the DREAM Act, 2) introduce a new comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate and 3) press the White House to provide administrative relief.
• There is a sense of urgency. If DREAM Act is successfully voted on as an amendment to the annual military spending bill, the Senate must vote again to pass the bill before DREAM Act can become law.

Stand With Immigrant Children and Young People to Gain Access to Higher Education for All. Recently there has been a surge of activism across the country for the DREAM Act. There are 1.7 million undocumented immigrants under the age of 18 nationally. Every year, 65,000, undocumented students graduate from high school unable to realize their potential and fully participate in American society.  Ethnicities of undocumented students are quite diverse. Many came to the US as children from various parts of the world. In fact, about 15% of Korean Americans are undocumented. In California, we have AB540 that helps students access in state tuition regardless of status.  About 25% (one quarter) of all AB540 students are Korean American – more than any other Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) group.

At different moments in history, we have seen, especially in economic downturns, politicians demonize people such as immigrants as scapegoats. We have to recognize that this is a win-win for America. We hope that fairness and reason will prevail over emotional and political opportunism.

Make Your Voice Heard. Your participation is one step toward building a just and humane America.

Nationwide Targets: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R- KY). In Illinois, we are also targeting Rep. Mark Kirk (R – 10^th District).

What To Do:

1. If your Senator is not listed above, call Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) toll-free at 866-877-5944.
2. If your Senator is listed above, or to share your support for DREAM Act with those Senators, call 866-996-5161 to reach the Capitol Switchboard.
3. To reach Rep. Kirk’s DC Office, call 202-225-4835.

Sample Script:

I’m calling from (your city and state), to make sure that Senate Minority Leader McConnell / (Your Senator) knows that we need his support for the DREAM Act to pass this year.

[Listen to response] Will the Senator vote to pass the DREAM Act this year?

Let us know you called. Leave a comment on our page, tweet or “Like” our Facebook statuses about DREAM!

Like the pictures below? Take one and pass it along! We encourage people to use it as your profile picture on Facebook and other social networking sites you may have!

Suggested photo caption (copy & paste):

DREAM Act faces an important vote on Sept. 21. Call Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) toll-free at 866-877-5944 and tell him to support to DREAM Act. Visit ow.ly/2Giq4 to find out who else you can call.

[Click on picture for original size]

Similarly, Arizona state government is planning to profile people for their immigration status. This type of racial profiling is unacceptable and the spirit of Gwangju demands us to stand up for the fight. We need to do something to bring justice for immigrants. Six to seven activists from Chicago’s Korean American Resource & Cultural Center are participating in the 50-person pilgrimage being organized by several community groups. They will walk from Chicago to the Immigration Detention Center in Woodstock IL to call for an end to deportations of law-abiding immigrants and the inhumane separation of families. They preceded their journey with a presentation at the Chicago Freedom School.  

Arizona: National Day of Action Against SB1070

In the wake of the passage of the egregious and deplorable SB 1070, our voice for justice is more important than ever.  SB 1070 is the most far-reaching anti-immigrant legislation the U.S. has seen in years.  It will allow police to stop and question people simply based on “a reasonable suspicion” that they are undocumented, detain individuals for not having proper identification, and criminalize individuals being present with a friend or family member who is undocumented. With the signing of SB1070 in April, along with HB2281, which proposes to embargo funding for schools that include certain types of ethnic studies in their curriculum, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer is fomenting a climate of hate and intolerance that will have a devastating impact on Arizona residents, particularly immigrants and communities of color.  Stand with Arizona’s immigrant community to say NO to these discriminatory laws that harm not only immigrants, but our nation as a whole.  A delegation from Los Angeles will be leaving by bus on the morning May 28; if you’re interested in joining, please contact Olivia Park at opark@nakasec.org or 323-937-3703.  What: March to the Arizona State Capitol When: Saturday, May 29 at 8:00 a.m. Starting Point: Indian Street Park (at E. Indian School Road and N. 3rd Street), Phoenix, AZ

Several national & local media coverage links below:

• Huffington Post
• Washington Post
• The Arizona Republic
• Fox News – Chicago
• ABC7 – Chicago
• Phoenix Business Journal

Youngsun Song of KRCC Chicago at Wrigley Field (4/30/2010)

Photo credits to the Associated Press.

Contacts: EunSook Lee, NAKASEC, 323-937-3703
Dae Joong Yoon, KRC, 323-937-3718 (Los Angeles)
Sohn Sik, KRCC, 773-588-9158 (Chicago)

NAKASEC Statement on Senator Schumer’s Outline for Immigration Reform

(Los Angeles, CA)  In response to a legislative outline for immigration reform that was released today by Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), EunSook Lee, executive director of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), issued the following statement:

“On March 21, over 250,000 people rallied in Washington, DC and on April 10, major mobilizations were held in cities across the nation; each pressuring President Obama and Congress to take action on immigration reform. The movement was further galvanized with the passage of SB 1070 in Arizona, one of the most odious and anti-immigrant laws this country has ever seen. SB 1070 sparked a national outcry and illustrated the clear need for leadership by the Senate and President Obama to act decisively to fix our nation’s immigration system. Absent that, rogue states will seek to enforce federal laws as they please.

“NAKASEC acknowledges that it was community pressure that resulted in Senator Schumer’s release of the legislative outline for immigration reform. While further review is necessary, we are encouraged that this framework is comprehensive and includes an inclusive legalization component and addresses family immigration backlogs. But we are gravely concerned about the enforcement provisions. We firmly believe that enforcement that does not ensure protection of communities will be disastrous.

“NAKASEC understands that the introduction of the legislative outline is a step forward but this does not replace the clear and urgent need for the Senate to introduce a bill. Our communities are increasingly becoming impatient and seriously concerned that Congress and President Obama will not honor their promises to the American people. Moreover, it must be a significantly improved bill that does not continue the raids and deportations that have devastated immigrant families and workers.

“On May 1^st, International Workers’ Day, NAKASEC and its affiliates will be joining hundreds of thousands of community members to march in Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. Along with many other cities across the U.S., we will be marching for immigration reform in 2010, good jobs for all, and stopping the deportation of families.”

Contacts:
Kat Lee, KRC, hayeon@krcla.org
Eunyoung Lee, KRCC, eunyoung@chicagokrcc.org

Building a Stronger America, One Dream at a Time
Dream Scholarship Fund: Helping Students Reach Their Fullest Potential

(Los Angeles) The National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC) and Korean Resource Center (KRC) are excited to begin the application process of the Dream Scholarship Fund. Founded in 2007 by Korean American youth who have tirelessly campaigned the last nine years for the passage of the DREAM Act – tailored legislation that would provide a path to legalization for eligible immigrant students who grew up in the United States – the Dream Scholarship Fund will award $1,000 scholarships to students in California and Illinois with financial need and who face undue hardships.

“Students are tomorrow’s leaders and an investment to their future is an investment to a creating a more vibrant, creative, and healthy country. That is why we at FYSH and AKASIA, youth groups in Los Angeles and Chicago, are fundraising within our communities and building the grassroots support for the Dream Scholarship Fund. We believe that every individual deserves a fair chance to study, get their degree, and become the doctor, teacher, engineer they dream of being – this value is at the core of the Dream Scholarship Fund,” said Hye Joo Kim, member of Fighting Youth Shouting Out for Humanity (FYSH) in Chicago, IL.

“Immigrant students have been working for the passage of comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act since the late 1990s. We believe that reform is vital in rebuilding America’s economy and that is why we are working towards that goal this year. But while we continue to build the immigrant rights movement, our peers need support in continuing their studies. That is why the Dream Scholarship Fund was created and we hope that new immigrant student leaders will be identified and given the opportunity to fully give back to society,” said Jeffrey Kim, Co-Chair of Alliance of Korean American Students in Action (AKASIA) in Los Angeles, CA.

For more information, to download an application, or to make a donation to the Dream Scholarship Fund, please visit nakasec.org/blog/2010-dream-scholarship-fund. Please note that this year, the Dream Scholarship Fund will not receive applicants from states outside of Illinois or California. Applicants from Illinois may visit www.chicagokrcc.org for more information; applicants from California may visit www.krcla.org. Deadline for applications is May 15, 2010.

• On February 26th, KRCC will organize a movie night to educate and raise funds for the Trail of Dreams. Members of FYSH, KRCC’s youth group, will be collecting fast pledges and the money saved from fasting will be donated to the Trail of Dreams.

• On February 27th, students, parents, teachers, and workers will unite and walk 18 miles in Los Angeles in solidarity with the Florida to D.C. Trail of Dreams and urge the passage of comprehensive immigration reform and the DREAM Act (downloadable flyer).

Korean-Americans learn Spanish to help out at work:
Business owners attempt to cool tension with Latino workers

By Antonio Olivo
Tribune reporter

November 9, 2009

In a city long known for ethnic ghettos and virtual walls between segregated neighborhoods, Sue Choe is something of a trailblazer. The Korean-American is hustling to learn Spanish.

“Bienvenido a mi tienda,” Choe proudly welcomes visitors into her Koreatown Laundromat, over the rumbling of dryers.

The businesswoman’s cultural leap is not only an acknowledgment of how fast many neighborhoods are turning Latino. It’s part of an urgent attempt by Korean-American leaders to quell escalating tensions in the neighborhood.

Aware of an ugly history between Korean-Americans and African-Americans — one that erupted into violence in some cities in the 1990s — Korean business owners are trying to soothe mutual suspicions with Spanish-speaking workers and customers. The effort is mostly born of an increasingly interdependent employer-employee relationship.

It is just one of the ways in which new waves of Immigration and intermigration between neighborhoods is fast changing the city, mixing new combinations of ethnic groups together and forcing them to search for ways to coexist as so many previous generations of immigrants did.

It is not only Latinos and Koreans in Albany Park, but other newcomers and established communities, such as blacks and Hispanics in Chicago Lawn, Poles and Hispanics in Humboldt Park, Italians and Hispanics in Heart of Chicago, and Chinese, Irish and Hispanics in Bridgeport.

“We need to have a dialogue. Immediately. The sooner, the better,” says Ray Kim, senior vice president of the Chicago Korean American Chamber of Commerce in North Park. “The tensions … are getting worse.”

As with blacks in years past, some of the hostility between Koreans and Latinos can be chalked up to the usual urban frictions, and a few unfortunate cases where teenagers have either shoplifted or hurled racial epithets at Korean shopkeepers. In turn the shopkeepers have become overly suspicious of all Latinos, Kim said.

But the problem mostly lies in the cultural clash the groups face when the Koreans’ need for labor runs up against Latinos’ need for jobs.

At Chicago’s roughly 10,000 Korean-owned laundromats, restaurants and other small businesses, Latino immigrants have become the primary labor pool. Some volatile workplace battles have erupted, further fueled by cultural misunderstandings and a language barrier.

Latino workers, many earning less than the minimum wage, complain that their Korean bosses neglect to pay overtime and are often callous about days off or job-related injuries.

In turn Korean owners, at times unfamiliar with U.S. labor laws, see ingratitude and disloyalty in their employees’ complaints. They argue that their up-from-the-ground businesses are a team effort that also has the owners working long hours.

“The Korean mentality is that it’s not that easy to establish a family relationship (in the workplace), but when it happens, it goes a long way,” says Charles Cho, a dental laboratory owner, explaining the importance Koreans place on employee loyalty. “Spanish workers? Easy to make friends, but also easy to go.”

In some instances the disputes have hurt both sides.

In 2005 Latino immigrant workers filed a class-action lawsuit against an industrial cleaning company for unpaid wages and other allegations. The suit sent shudders through the Korean community when the $400,000 legal expense ultimately forced the business, Yoo’s Cleaners, to shut down.

While the two-dozen workers got money through a court settlement, they also ended up unemployed, says Tim Bell, lead organizer for the Chicago Workers Collaborative, a non-profit group that works on behalf of Latino workers and has filed several labor complaints against Korean business owners.

“It was pretty ugly,” Bell says.

That case and similar lawsuits spurred Bell’s group and Korean community leaders to begin trying to improve relations. Last year the Korean American Resource and Cultural Center, a non-profit group advocating for immigrants, launched an awareness campaign that sought to find middle ground between the two groups.

Above all, they found, there was a lack of communication.

That’s where Blanca Joo comes in. A Guatemalan immigrant who is quick with a laugh, Joo married a Korean bus driver who was so smitten he proposed in 2005, three months after they met.

She now teaches Spanish inside Korean American Community Services, one of Koreatown’s oldest nonprofits, which also offers sewing classes and a Head Start preschool program to neighborhood Latino families.

Describing the first months of her marriage as “a mountain of culture clash,” Joo says she has come to appreciate the Korean tradition of togetherness — the emphasis on family and the way that communal eating is cherished.

In her Spanish classes Joo and a handful of Korean students grapple with their unwieldy English as she tries to teach them her native language and they thumb through Spanish-Korean dictionaries.

“I think we teach each other,” says Choe, one of Joo’s pupils.

Choe, who arrived from Seoul in 1974, takes Spanish classes for two reason: her ministry work in Bolivia and the awkward exchanges with her Latino employees and customers reminded her of the difficult history Koreans had with African-Americans. The date April 29 is seared in many minds as the moment when those tensions fueled some of the violence during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Now when Choe exchanges Spanish pleasantries with her workers and customers, she says she sees herself in the young immigrant women striving for a firm footing in a new country.

“We had a very hard time,” she says, recalling her early years in Chicago. “I had a baby, and I had to work the night-time shift.”

Choe’s employees seem appreciative. During the holidays they’ve even begun to look forward to the Korean food their boss brings.

“She’s very communicative with us,” remarks Elvia Diaz, who has worked for Choe for two years.

Still some subjects lie beneath the surface. With her boss out of earshot, Diaz ventures a question in hushed Spanish.

“When do you think is the appropriate time to ask about time off for vacation?” she wonders. “It’s been very hard with my children when they’re out of school and they don’t want to give me the days off.”

Copyright © 2009, Chicago Tribune