Jimmy Byrne is a Korean adoptee, born in Haman-Gun, South Korea as 조윤호 and raised in upstate New York. After a career of over a decade in performing arts management, he moved to Seoul to study Korean and explore the culture of his birth. Jimmy now lives in Chicago and leads NAKASEC’s fundraising efforts to support the movement for immigrant justice; he is also active with NAKASEC’s project Adoptees for Justice, advocating for the Adoptee Citizenship Act. Jimmy has served on the boards of Chicago Gay Men’s Chorus and KAtCH (Korean Adoptees of Chicago).

Special areas of interest

Tennis, writing, foreign language study, music, art, singing, K-Dramas

John Kim is a digital organizer at National Korean American Service and Education Consortium. He immigrated to the United States from South Korea when he was 11 years old. He is a 25-years old undocumented immigrant who has been a part of the immigrant justice movement since 2017. Living in Washington, DC, he organized around other various issues including, but not limited to, racial and economic justice, anti-war, peace, Palestinian liberation, and workers’ rights. He graduated from the George Washington University with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in International Affairs and hopes to use his knowledge to bring peace and justice in the United States and around the world.

Special areas of interest

Philosophy, Geopolitics, Videogames, Painting

Nancy Wu joined NAKASEC as the Finance Manager in 2017 and now serves as its Finance and Compliance Director. She oversees the organization’s accounting processes and compliance management. She is a lifelong Chicagoan and a second generation Chinese-American. Nancy has a Bachelor’s degree in Accounting from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a CPA. Prior to NAKASEC, she worked as a tax advisor for a mid-sized accounting firm with both for-profit and nonprofit clients and was the Finance Manager of BYP100 Education Fund.

Special areas of interest

Baking, family time, dogs, drawing, financial empowerment, 90s boy bands

Rachel Koelzer is an organizer, writer, activist, and advocate passionate about healing and connection. Currently, she focuses on advancing systemic and structural equity for current and future generations as the Communications Manager for NAKASEC and its intercountry adoptee-led project, Adoptees For Justice. Rachel’s work is rooted in a vision of a future that embraces every living being and is informed by her diverse background as a caregiver, youth organizer, and yoga therapist, and her experiences as a transnational, transracial Korean American adoptee.

Special areas of interest

Being in nature, abolition, family time, naps, force-free dog training, somatics

Arnie Choi, is a second generation Korean American who grew up in the East Coast but now calls Chicago his home. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago with a degree in Economics. Prior to joining NAKASEC, Arnie has been a member of the board of directors for both KACS and HANA Center. Professionally, Arnie has lead operations in economic consulting, technology industries, and start ups.

Special areas of interest

Technology and baseball

Hyunwoo Ward is a Chicago based team member working for NAKASEC’s operations team. A former member of the FYSH youth group at HANA Center and volunteer for NAKASEC at various actions, Hyunwoo has been involved in the fight for immigrant rights from a young age. He graduated from college with a degree in film studies.

Special areas of interest

Retro gaming, movies, biking

Youngwoon is from Daejeon, Korea and moved to Lynn, Arkansas in his teenage years. He worked at HANA Center prior to joining NAKASEC and is deeply inspired by the people who organized and struggled that led up to the birth of NAKASEC such as Madangjip, Young Koreans United, Yoon Han Bong and the people of Gwangju Uprising. He is a firm believer of the extraordinary strength of the ordinary people. He also believes deeply in the Chicago White Sox.

Special areas of interest

Learning languages, eating tacos, tending a garden, making jokes

Gayoung Chung is an Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies and affiliated with the Cultural Studies and School of Education at University of California Davis. She has a PhD in education policy studies with a minor in Asian American Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Liz Hanna Rubio is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the UCLA Asian American Studies Center. She is a second generation, biracial Korean American who is dedicated to telling the stories of immigrant justice activists and their struggles to reimagine belonging and coalition in the U.S. A mom, a runner, and aspiring vegan chef, Ms. Rubio is a Southern California transplant from New York City.

Emily Kessel (Kim InAh) works for a federal agency at the Department of Commerce in Washington D.C. and also serves as President of the AAPI Employee Resource Group. She first became involved with NAKASEC as the Policy Coordinator and Advocacy Director in the Virginia office and has been a co-founder and active volunteer of organizations focused on passage of the Adoptee Citizenship Act. Previously, Emily worked at Cultural Vistas in Washington D.C. as the Program Director of Exchange Visitor Programs. She is a Minnesota native who lived in Korea as a Fulbright grantee and M.A. student for a program based in Hawai’i.

Jonghun Kapsong Kim is the Korean American Community Development Director at MinKwon Center for Community Action, where he has worked in this role since 2019. Previously, Mr. Kim was a reporter with the Korea Daily in New York for over two decades, which has a national circulation of 270,000. He also served the Korean American community at KIRC in Washington DC and the Korean Resource Center in southern California.

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber and social practice artist, writer, and educator who works to center immigrant and disenfranchised communities. Her work often revolves around skill sharing, specifically sewing techniques, to create multiethnic and intergenerational sewing circles, which become a place for empowerment, subversion, and protest. Solo exhibitions of her work have been shown at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Chicago Cultural Center, Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, and Hyde Park Art Center. Her upcoming solo exhibitions include Talking Back to Power: Projects by Aram Han Sifuentes (2022) at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and Who Was This Built to Protect? (2022) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, where she is currently the inaugural Getting to Know You Artist in Residence. She has been a recipient of a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, Map Fund, Asian Cultural Council’s Individual Fellowship, 3Arts Award, and 3Arts Next Level/Spare Room Award.

Irene Shin (Herndon, VA) is a longtime community organizer. She serves in the Virginia House of Delegates and is the first Korean American woman to run for and win a seat in the Virginia state legislature. Ms. Shin also worked as the Senior Director at Crowdpac, a political tech platform, where she helped thousands of candidates run for office and win. She also serves on the boards of the Competitive Commonwealth Fund, Spread the Vote, and Sister District Project.

Saba Nafees holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Mathematics and a Ph.D. in Mathematical Biology from Texas Tech University.Born in Pakistan, her family’s immigration journey has been documented in an award-winning PBS documentary, Dream With Me.