One Family ‘Feels More Korean’ Here

Since leaving their native South Korea in 1977, the Choes had almost forgotten what it was like to live among Koreans.

For eight years, the family lived in Lancaster and Ontario, two Southern California communities with small Korean populations.

Then two years ago, Song Un Choe decided to move his wife and five children to Hacienda Heights, where he owned and operated a liquor store. The community lies at the heart of an Asian enclave in the eastern San Gabriel Valley that includes an estimated 15,000 Koreans.

Helen, 15, the youngest daughter, said it was strange at first to walk down the halls of Wilson High School in Hacienda Heights and hear students chatter in Korean.

“Now that we’re here and are surrounded by Koreans, you can’t help but feel more Korean,” she said. “Back in Ontario and Lancaster, I didn’t want to marry a Korean guy.

“I thought the best thing was to date and marry Americans. But once you meet all these Korean guys, you find out they’re not half-bad.”

But her sister, Susie, 19, said she felt more secure outside a Korean community. In Lancaster and Ontario, she said, she was viewed as a novelty, not as part of a growing Korean population perceived as a threat by longtime white residents.

“I was really shocked when we moved here. I guess I expected people to accept me. In Lancaster, I was treated as an equal. No one labeled me a Korean,” she said.

“But in Hacienda Heights people turn their faces against you because

you are Korean. I was disappointed by the segregation. All the Chinese people stick together, all the Korean people stick together and all the American people stick together,” she said.

The sisters agree that living in Hacienda Heights has been good for their parents. Their mother, Soyol Choe, who speaks broken English, has been able to find work at a Korean-owned dry cleaning shop. The second income has enabled the family to send two other daughters, ages 22 and 19, to college. One attends UCLA, the other the University of California, Irvine.

Living amid a large Korean community has also made it easier for the children to preserve parts of their culture as they rush toward becoming Americanized.

Much of this Korean heritage is being passed on through the Young Nak Christian Church of Eastern Los Angeles, with which the family has strong ties. It is one of more than a dozen Korean congregations that have formed in and around Hacienda Heights and West Covina since 1980.

“We are very Americanized, but we still have Korean morals and strict standards,” Helen said. “It’s like we’re half and half. Either way is fine for me.”