Ethics Probe Spurs Disappointment, Anger at Press

On the night Jay C. Kim was elected to Congress last November, Keith Kim cried for joy.

“I was so excited and grateful, tears streamed down my face,” said Keith Kim, a Korean-American community leader who has known Jay Kim for a quarter of a century and awaited returns at Kim’s headquarters on Election Day.

The victory was a milestone in the 90-year history of Koreans in the United States, and it helped soothe the pain of ethnic Koreans who were reeling from the devastation of the 1992 riots.

“Our community was down, we were weak and our morale was at rock-bottom,” said Eui-Young Yu, a Cal State L.A. sociologist who has known Kim since the 1960s. “Jay Kim’s victory gave us the lift we needed.”

Yu, a liberal Democrat whose politics are 180 degrees in opposition to Kim’s, nonetheless wanted him to succeed as the first Korean-American congressman because his actions would reflect on his people--a sentiment shared by millions of people from Los Angeles to Seoul.

Since the disclosure of alleged campaign irregularities in July, Korean-Americans have anxiously followed the case. They hope that investigations will clear Kim but worry that any controversy involving the country’s most visible Korean could dampen the hopes of others who aspire to political careers and could hurt the community’s image.

“There is a lesson to be learned from this,” said Keith Kim, adding that regardless of cultural differences, Korean-Americans seeking office should follow the letter and spirit of campaign regulations.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” said Jay K. Yoo, a former Los Angeles lawyer who is president of Kyung Won College near Seoul.

Korean-Americans are disappointed that Kim has opened himself to investigations into his alleged use of corporate funds for his political campaign. But their disappointment is accompanied by intense anger at the Los Angeles Times, which published front-page stories that led to the investigations.

Seokuk Ma, a Korean-American businessman who doubles as a volunteer special assistant to Kim, spearheaded a monthlong campaign to boycott The Times last summer. Many were upset by the prominence of the stories and thought that Kim was being singled out because he is a Korean-American. Korean-language TV and radio stations ran many critical commentaries about the articles.

“Allegations against Jay Kim are relatively minor yet they received more extensive coverage than stories about corrupt politicians,” said attorney T.S. Chung, a Democrat who unsuccessfully ran for the state Assembly in 1991. “Was it a Times motive to keep a young immigrant community in its place?”

Times Editor Shelby Coffey III said: “The Times’ motives are full and fair coverage of our political system and its practitioners. To infer anything else is to misunderstand the role of the newspaper in examining society and its institutions.”

Kapson Yim Lee, editor of the Korea Times English edition in Los Angeles, said in an interview that she is disappointed in Kim, whose victory she had celebrated in a front-page editorial.

“Many in the community are angry at The Times but we should be just as upset at the unpreparedness of Kim (for high office) and our own unquestioning support for him,” Lee said.

K.W. Lee, the dean of Korean-American journalists who has spent nearly four decades in journalism, attributes Kim’s problems in part to cultural differences in Eastern and Western value systems. He said that Kim, like many immigrants, may not fully appreciate the importance of separating personal business and public life.

“The first generation is handicapped . . . totally preoccupied with surviving,” Lee said. “We are like Sisyphus pushing the rock. We had no time to create core values” that conform to the American standards.

Until Kim won the Republican primary, many Korean-Americans were ambivalent about his candidacy, partly because he was not particularly active in the community. But Korean-Americans jumped on the bandwagon for the general election, raising more than $100,000 for his campaign.

Now Kim’s supporters are mobilizing Korean-American communities nationwide to get a head start on his reelection campaign and to encourage the younger generation of Korean-Americans to get involved in politics. The Korean-American Republican Assn. of Los Angeles recently held an “Evening with Jay Kim” fund-raiser.

At the Pomona Valley Korean United Methodist Church in Claremont, where Jay Kim is an elder, the congregation has been praying for him, said the Rev. Eun Chul Lee, pastor of the church, who has known Jay Kim for 15 years.

“Knowing his character, personality and faith, congressman Kim would not do something wrong intentionally,” Lee said.