Breaking Barriers by Spreading Culture

Sook Gi Kim jumped at the chance to move from South Korea to the United States 20 years ago, yet she was shy, fearful and uncertain.

Even though she had been trained in Seoul as a registered nurse, she could not envision being part of the American mainstream.

So much has changed in her life since then. She got married, had two children and lives in an upper-middle-class suburban home in northwest Fullerton. But a large part of her Americanization--as she terms it--came by taking an active role in putting her kids through school, first as a teacher’s aide and now as a leader in parents’ groups trying to promote cultural understanding.

“I have made a lot of friends,” said Kim, 42. “They gave me the courage. I could step into the mainstream. I won’t be as timid as before. I don’t want to be a spectator.”

Kim devotes much of her time to Sunny Hills High School, where she is first vice president of the Parent-Student-Teacher Assn. and president of the Korean Parents Support Group.

“I realized that human beings and human nature are all the same,” said Kim, whose husband, Yong Ho, is a family doctor. Their two children, Kirn and Jean, are students at Sunny Hills. “As parents, the role is the same. We want to give them the best environment, the best care, it’s all the same.”

The interaction of the Asian culture with American society has become ever important at Sunny Hills. In 1983, 16% of the students were Asian and 74% Caucasian. This year, 38.6% of the school’s 1,970 students are Asian and 48.8% are Caucasian.

Because of these changes, Kim helped launch a series of forums for parents of all ethnic groups in an effort to promote cultural awareness. Kim hopes that students will learn from their parents and that the dialogue will erase tensions between ethnic groups at the school.

“As long as the human race is there,” Kim said, “any kind of segregation is there, whether it is race or social status, we must break through the barrier. . . . Understanding other cultures and other people is most important in breaking down the barriers.”

The Korean Parents Support Group does everything from interpreting school activities and policies in Korean to alleviating a new parent’s fear of their children’s gaining friends who don’t share their cultural heritage. Kim draws upon her own experience. When her son brought home a Caucasian friend, she worried about what he would think: Was the house clean enough? Would he think we were different?

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” Kim said. “They are kind of intimidated to see their children go to the mainstream.”

Kim has launched a campaign to buy books about Korean culture for the school library. The group also is raising money for a new videocassette recorder for the language department and other educational materials to support Korean language classes.

“In America, there is so much giving,” Kim said. “The people are so generous. I wanted to contribute. I like paying the debt back to society, to share my blessing with other people.”

COLOR, Sook Gi Kim, 42 Occupation: Homemaker, former registered nurse. Organization: Sunny Hills High School PTSA vice president, Sunny Hills Korean Parents Support Group president, Orange County Korean Family Counseling board member. Address: Sunny Hills High School, 1801 Warburton Way, Fullerton, Calif. (714) 870-3406