Staff

Becky Belcore, Co-Director
Dae Joong (DJ) Yoon, Co-Director
Karn Saetang, National Organizing Director
Nancy Wu, Finance Manager
SaeHee Chun, Communications & Development Associate
Sang Hyug Jung, Rapid Response Coordinator
Sookyung Oh, D.C. Area Director
Young Mi Shim, Service Coordinator

Staff Bios

Becky Belcore, Co-Director, becky@nakasec.org

Becky Belcore has joined NAKASEC’s staff as Co-Director with Dae Joong Yoon as of January 2017.  Becky recently was the Program Manager of the AAPI Civic Engagement Fund, a national initiative which supports the year round civic engagement efforts of Asian American organizations, and an independent consultant for community-based organizations and foundations in the greater Chicago area.  She previously worked as Lead Program Officer for Woods Fund Chicago where she coordinated grantmaking and special projects.  She also spent 15 years mainly as a community and labor organizer, and worked as the Executive Director of the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC), NAKASEC’s Chicago affiliate, and the Midwest Regional Coordinator for the Service Employees International Union.  Becky also is a co-founder and member of the Adoptee Rights Campaign, which advocates for the Adoptee Citizenship Act and other adoptee related issues.

Dae Joong (DJ) Yoon, Co-Director, djyoon@nakasec.org

Dae Joong (DJ) has more than 19 years of community education and organizing experience in the areas of immigration policy, health access, civic participation, voting rights, environmental justice, and economic development.  He is no stranger to NAKASEC.  He was part of the founding of the organization in 1994 and helped lead successful campaigns in its early years.  These campaigns include the 1995 “Justice for Immigrants” Washington Post ad campaign opposing anti-immigrant legislation, the Restoration of SSI and the national Fix 96’ campaign, a multi-faceted campaign in 1996 that promoted civic participation and electoral organizing.

Prior to joining NAKASEC, DJ was the executive director of the Korean Resource Center (KRC) since July 2003.  He supervised many community-led research projects, such as the Asian American Voter Exit Poll, Building Health Community Focus Group, and Los Angeles City Services Survey.  He is also the founding board member of the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center (KRCC) in Chicago and served as the national president of Young Koreans United (YKU).  He currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Strategic Concept in Organizing & Policy Education (SCOPE), a member of the Community Advisory Board for the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Social Services, and a member of the Advisory Board for the City of Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs.  He identifies as a 1.5 generation Korean American and is bilingual in English and Korean.

Karn Saetang, National Organizing Director, ksaetang@nakasec.org

Karn was born, raised, educated, and agitated in Chicago, and has been able to work with multi-racial grassroots organizations in Chicago, the Bay area, and Portland.  In Chicago, he previously worked and advocated at various grassroots organizations around environmental justice and education equity, and was an organizer at the Korean American Resource & Cultural Center to organize Asian American youth around immigration reform and the DREAM Act.  He served as the Director of Student Organizing at Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth in San Francisco, where he organized black and brown youth and working-class families around education justice and ending the school-to-prison pipeline.  In Portland, OR, he served as the lead organizer of Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon (APANO), where he worked with high school students to start a youth-led organizing group that started and won an ethnic studies campaign for Portland Public High Schools.  He also helped form the Portland chapter of Asians 4 Black Lives, which works with Asian Americans to organize around the liberation of black people and anti-racist work.

Nancy Wu, Finance Manager, nancy@nakasec.org

Nancy is a 2nd generation Chinese American and a born-and-raised Chicagoan.  She has a B.S. in Accounting and is a Certified Public Accountant.  Prior to joining NAKASEC in February 2017, Nancy had experience with both corporate and non-profit accounting and tax issues.  Her hobbies include woodworking, illustration, taking long walks with her rescue dog Bailey, and volunteering at the local animal shelter.

Sang Hyug Jung, Rapid Response Coordinator, sang@nakasec.org

As the Rapid Response Coordinator, Mr. Jung listens to the stories of immigrant community members, connects them with needed services, and assists them in amplifying their voices in the larger American society.  While managing NAKASEC’s 24 Hour Rapid Response Hotline, he hears about challenges and concerns expressed by Korean American immigrants on a daily basis.  Previously, Mr. Jung worked on DACA and other immigration reform-related projects at the Korean Resource Center in Los Angeles and has been a strong leader and advocate for just and humane comprehensive immigration reform..

SaeHee Chun, Communications & Development Associate, schun@nakasec.org

A native of Annandale, VA, SaeHee graduated from college in May 2015 with a major in Asian Studies and double minor in Film Studies and Korean.  SaeHee first met NAKASEC and became engaged in immigrant rights issues in college when she worked as a summer campaigns intern and had the opportunity to go on the Dream Riders van tour in 2013.  Her currently work areas of focus are traditional and social media and logistics for mobilizations or staff gatherings.  Outside of work, she enjoys watching movies and playing gayageum.

Sookyung Oh, D.C. Area Director, soh@nakasec.org

Sookyung returns to NAKASEC to lead organizing and campaign work in Virginia as D.C. Area Director.   Previously, Sookyung was NAKASEC’s Immigrant Rights Project Coordinator and later Program Director, providing support to our national network to uplift experiences and facilitate leadership of Korean American and Asian Pacific American communities to strengthen national, state, and local campaigns for immigration reform and health reform.  Most recently, she served as a public policy analyst for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).  She also worked at the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis in Richmond, VA as a state policy fellow (sponsored by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities).  Sookyung began her career providing social services to limited English proficient Korean American seniors and building organizational capacity for a wraparound community health and social services in Philadelphia (Jaisohn Center).  Active in her local community in Washington, D.C., currently Sookyung serves on the board of the ACLU-DC and volunteers with Westminster Presbyterian Church.  She holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania and a M.P.A. from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.  She is a 2nd generation Korean American and lifelong Philadelphian.  In her free time, she enjoys being outdoors (running, hiking, cycling), cooking complicated recipes, listening to blues music, and doing paper crafts. She REALLY enjoys reading comic books.

Young Mi Shim, Service Coordinator, shim328@nakasec.org

Young Mi was born in Seoul in 1972 and came to the US in 2004.  She graduated with a degree in Computer Programs at a university in Korea and taught art classes at a cultural center afterwards.  In the US, she is still participants in art exhibits, but now focuses her energy on providing services to the Korean American community in Virginia.  Her son, Peter, is an active member of NAKASEC and is the person who introduced her to the organization.  She loves the work she does after learning more about human rights through her son and NAKASEC.