On Riots

A Korean American Educator and former Community Based Leader Reflects

To my beautiful and beloved Korean American community.

I remember the LA Riots. I remember.

I grew up attending summer school at Minehaha Academy. Among my first part time jobs was at the Payless Shoe Source on Lake in Longfellow in South Minneapolis. I remember the whispers and muted conversations warning of the white supremacists in Blue Earth, in Rochester, over South, and embedded under the leadership of Bob Kroll.

I remember lying awake at night being afraid, and gaslit by my white parents that there were no such thing. And if there were, we were essentially untouchable. I remember this essentialism.

Years after, I remember being down south in North Carolina. On tribal ground, I remember holding my son in my arms. My son is the nephew of one of the greatest Occaneechi Saponi warriors in modern history, Johnny Blackfeather. I remember a friend of the family came to us. “The Klan is coming around. They’re going door to door, just lettin everybody know they’re gonna be burning a cross tonight. So. When did y’all say you were heading out of town again?” She looked over at my son briefly as he lay in my arms. I remember history repeating itself.

And so, for my community. My beloved Korean American community. I acknowledge I have been transformed in my Return to the community from my 30 years in the desert. From the wandering and painful isolation which resulted due to the cultural imperialism of…