Democracy in Korea
Our Story
NAKASEC’s history is rooted in the democracy movement of South Korea.
The Korean War in the 1950s ravaged the peninsula and its people. In 1953, an armistice agreement was signed between the now-North and South Koreas and their political allies, enacting a ceasefire and formally dividing the peninsula.
Following the armistice agreement, two dictators assumed control of what became South Korea. As a result, the South Korean people – especially workers and students – began to organize. In May 1980, the South Korean people rose up in the southern region of Gwangju to resist decades of oppressive military dictatorship rule. One of the student organizers of the Gwangju People’s Uprising, Han Bong Yoon (“Mr. Yoon”), had no choice but to flee South Korea or be persecuted for his activism.
Yoon Han Bong and Young Koreans United
Mr. Yoon, one of the first Koreans to be granted political asylum in the United States, initially founded an early NAKASEC network partner in Los Angeles to build an overseas solidarity movement to support democracy in South Korea.
As he mentored and inspired more young leaders, mainly low-income recent Korean immigrant youth in their teens and early twenties, other grassroots organizations sprouted up across the country. Working together as a network, they saw the growing needs of our community in the United States and began organizing towards immigrant justice.
U.S. history
Two wide-reaching events catalyzed the founding of NAKASEC by our local affiliates. The first was the Los Angeles Uprising of 1992, after four white police officers who severely beat Rodney King were acquitted on all charges, and the Black community in Los Angeles rightfully took to the streets to express their outrage and demand justice. During the uprising, roughly 2,200 small businesses in Koreatown, primarily owned by low-income Korean Americans, were destroyed. Instead of responding to the calls for help, the police dispatched officers to the predominately white and wealthy suburbs. Soon thereafter, California’s Proposition 187 was introduced, barring undocumented immigrants from all public services including public schools.
Within this context and the subsequent wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, Korean American communities realized the need to organize our community and build coalitions with other communities of color with shared values toward collective liberation at the national level. As a result, NAKASEC was formed in 1994.
1994
FOUNDED IN
+400
VOLUNTEERS
55,000
COMMUNITY MEMBERS
Our Values
NAKASEC was founded by local Korean American organizations from across the nation who saw the need for a prominent, national voice for the Korean and Asian American communities in the United States. To guide their organizing, our founders developed the following principles: Live Right (바르게 살자), Know Your Roots (뿌리를 알자), Live Strong (굳세게 살자), and Live Together (더불어 살자). These original organizing principles are the core values that NAKASEC uses to guide our work today.
Though the context for these principles is always evolving, the interpretation and lessons that can be drawn from them remain relevant today.
Live Right
(바르게 살자)
To live right means to struggle for justice. At NAKASEC, we strive to live right by pushing for genuine, holistic justice. This means we will not support anything that attempts to pit our community members against one another. We refuse to bargain the safety of our community in exchange for the oppression of another community.
To live right also means to center the most marginalized of our people. This is why at NAKASEC we work to engage and build the leadership of recent immigrants, undocumented immigrants, queer and trans folks, adoptees without citizenship, women, youth, seniors, disabled people, formerly incarcerated individuals, and all other vulnerable community members.
Know Your Roots
(뿌리를 알자)
The original founders and members of NAKASEC were primarily Korean American and established NAKASEC with the mission of exploring their ethnic history and pushing for a progressive Korean American agenda at the national level. Since then, NAKASEC has grown both in membership and cultural identity as more folks from diverse backgrounds have become involved. We are excited to continue to grow and organize as an Asian American community!
NAKASEC retains our cultural heritage by engaging our members with traditional aspects of our different heritages that teach universal lessons (i.e. using traditional Korean drumming as a form of resistance and meditation for healing).
Live Strong
(굳세게 살자)
As low-income Korean American immigrants, the founders of NAKASEC interpreted “live strong” as working through the hardships of being immigrants in a new country and exposing the real challenges our community faces. We maintain our founder’s vision of a world that thrives with equality, humanity and love. Today, we interpret “live strong” as committing ourselves 100% and engaging everyday people through bold and creative strategies such as our DREAM Action outside of the White House for 22 days to #ProtectDACA or biking from border to border for #Citizenship4All. We here at NAKASEC throw down for our people.
Live Together
(더불어 살자)
In addition to living together as Koreans, our founders understood the importance of living harmoniously with other ethnic groups. At NAKASEC, we know that we are stronger together, so we strive to organize with other communities towards a shared vision. We are in strong solidarity with Black, Latinx, and other marginalized communities as we know our liberations are tied together.
