Conversation WITH THE REV. DONG CHUNG KWAK : Mending Broken Immigrant Lives

Korean tradition dictates that the oldest son is responsible for caring for his aged parents. But increasing Westernization of the Korean community has challenged that notion and some seniors, especially women, are being forced out on their own. The REV. DONG CHUNG KWAK, who already runs a home on the outskirts of Los Angeles’ Koreatown for immigrants with drug and alcohol problems, is now focusing on the elderly homeless. He talked at his House of Agape (House of Love) with DANIEL T. YI and TRIN YARBOROUGH about the problems bedeviling a community in the midst of assimilation.

The first calls from elderly Korean ladies--we call them halmoni, or grandmothers--began coming in about three years ago. They had been abandoned by their families and had no place to go. There has been a steady trickle of two or more calls per month ever since.

Word has spread through the local Korean community that here at the House of Agape anyone can find shelter. But I had to turn them down because the House of Agape is a home for recovering addicts with drug, alcohol and gambling problems. Right now, we have 15 living here, all of Korean descent. But because my goal is to help anyone who needs help, I began to get an idea of how these recovering addicts could together build a home to shelter these women.

I know what it is like to be homeless. I came to America from Korea 18 years ago. I was young and brash, and it wasn’t long before I became involved with gangs. I [ended up] a homeless drug addict, stealing and begging on the streets of Los Angeles for five years before I was finally able to give up drugs. The Rev. Chung Sang Oh of Grace Korean Church in Norwalk took me in, letting me live and work there for two years while I attended seminary to become an Assembly of God minister.

In l992, I founded the House of Agape in Los Angeles with my wife, Su-jin, who has been a wonderful and untiring partner in all of my work.

Many in the Korean community don’t like to talk openly about problems of drug addiction and homelessness in our community. It is taboo. Although in general they are not very expressive of their criticism, it has been very hard to gain their acceptance and support. Earlier this year, I sent letters to 228 of the almost 1,000 Korean churches in this area and only one replied, with a single donation of $200.

Agape’s support has come from three sources: about one-third from five Korean churches; one-third from individual donors, like a very dedicated older Korean widow who is financially better off and has promised to donate whatever we need to buy the land if our savings are not enough; and one-third from my wife’s family in Korea, especially her aunt, a very kind and devout Christian.

I love America, but the emphasis here on independence and individualism can also breed indifference. You could live in a big apartment complex, separated from your neighbors by tiny walls. Yet if someone were to die next door you wouldn’t know. You wouldn’t care if it didn’t affect your own life.

This attitude sometimes has had the effect of eroding traditional Korean values. In Korea, the family is very close-knit. Many Korean families come to America as a nucleus that includes husband, wife, children and the husband’s parents if he is the oldest son.

Frequently, the elders want to be part of decisions involving the family. Here, given the issues of privacy and so on, younger people sometimes feel the elders are meddling in their business. The sons feel encouraged to tell their parents to go live on their own, often on meager Social Security checks. Usually they are afraid to tell their fathers. But after the father dies, the sons and daughters-in-law are not as shy about telling the elderly mother to go live in a home. And the mother may feel very uncomfortable in a home where they don’t speak Korean and have different foods and customs. So when word got around that we had this home, House of Agape, the women didn’t understand at first it was for addicts. We began putting aside money to buy some land for a commune for them. We found a beautiful 35-acre lot atop a mountain in Riverside County, and are in the midst of final negotiations to purchase it.

It is not desirable to anyone else, with rocks everywhere and no running water or electricity. But we don’t need much. Our commune will be nearly self-sufficient. We’ll grow most of our own food, have electricity from a generator and build the house ourselves in the older style of Korean country homes, using the rocks.

Building the house will be a lot of work, but it is a very important part of recovery to do physical labor and to gain self-worth by doing something meaningful for others. Many of the recovering addicts have experience in construction work and carpentry. When the home is complete, the women will move in and House of Agape residents will visit frequently, carrying out the Korean tradition of respect for the elderly by helping with chores and repairs. It will be good for everybody.