Thank you LEAP

San Francisco was amazing. The students had a great time and I learned so much more than I expected to. Our schedule was jam-packed with great educational and community experiences but overall we just had a great time bonding.

With that said, a big THANK YOU!! to all the generous, kind-hearted, funny, intelligent, beautiful (hehe) people over at LEAP, the board members and LIA interns who contributed to the success of the trip. The students and Summer Youthe Empowerment Program (SYEP) staff all signed a card and left it at LEAP's office so that anyone visiting can see it. Thank you truly.

After our successful fundraising efforts, the Korea Times visited our fundraiser and our picture appeared on the (Korean) news!! Hurray!! ^___^ We raised about $500 from the fundraiser itself, so it turned out to be a huge success.

Equipped with new tea-making skills and plenty of snacks, we began our road trip and ended up at our first stop: the National Chavez Center in Keene, California. Here, we learned about Chavez's passion for farm laborer's rights using nonviolent methods and inspiring the world with the Great Grape Strike. When we got there, we accidentally took a picture standing on top of his grave! without knowing but the tour guide didn't get too mad.

We arrived in Oakland, CA around 5:20 pm. Our first stop was the Korean Community Center of the East Bay (KCCEB). We met up with the Korean youth group there and learned about their projects, educating the youth community on domestic violence and date rape.

After that, we went to Su Ra restaurant and enjoyed a delicious, traditional Korean style meal. In our reflections, Jae wrote an entire entry on just the food we had during our trip. yummm.

We ended the night at the Golden Gate Bridge. Unfortunately, the man who took our picture could not find the flash button ^^;;

Saturday morning was a lot of fun. We had a great breakfast with orange juice that cost $3.50 (go inflation!) and started on our tour of San Francisco's Chinatown. We were led by Chinatown Allyway Tours which is a youth program from the Chinatown Community Development Center. We learned about how these youths used adopt-an-alley project to clean up the streets and make a better Chinatown for everyone who lived there.

The famous I-Hotel! which was, of course renovated. Our guide told us 8000 people applied for a space in this 150 unit low-incoming housing development. We also walked by Gordon J. Lau Elementary school, the historic "oriental" school created for Asian students in 1859.

Craziness ensued as we hurried to finish our delicious Dim Sum lunch at the famous Gold Mountain Restaurant and scrambled to make it to the ferry on time. Unfortunately, only one group made it on and Christable teacher was the one supervising!!

After our ferry trip to Alameda, we met with the other group who drove over there and spent some time at Alameda beach.

Mathew ended up getting a little too comfortable in the sand...

Afterwards, we ended up at the Korean Church in Alameda (sorry I will get their name soon) where we watched the Bay Area's first Oral History of Korean American Immigraton. We watched this documentary that showed the perspectives of Korean senior citizens in America and their experiences in this country. Afterwards, we talked about the generation gap between old and younger Korean American generations, and what steps we might take towards closing this hole.

We ended Saturday night at Caroline's apartment in Oakland with the movie Enchanted, that our charming, tough Kenny brought to watch.

The guys pretended like they were unhappy, but we know they were singing along in their heads.

Sunday morning, we made a final trip to the infamous Fisherman's Wharf in downtown SF. We shopped, looked around, played arcade games (Dance Dance Revolution!) and made our way back home.

(Kenny towering over everyone in the middle)

As they say, the drive is half the fun. In this case, the drive back...?

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this trip's success. All of us, the students, staff, and parents at the Korean Resource Center are very grateful for everyone's help.

SYE~P!!!

Happy Community

Wow, I wish I had some pictures, but yesterday and today were amazing days.

I was amazed and inspired by all the guests, the speeches, and the hard work everyone put into the gala yesterday, but I was also very touched by the generosity our board members and fellow interns showed me and SYEP today at lunch.

I received a total of $1103 from the board members and LIA interns today, thank you ALL so so so so so so so so so so soooooo very much. I am writing this post right now because I won't have internet access all weekend, but I will update as soon as I can with pictures from the fundraiser today.

Thank you LEAP for your compassion : ) and caring.

On with the fundraiser!!

let us dream

The CA Dream Act, which would help long-time American resident undocumented students eventually gain citizenship status, has been pushed to the brink but kicked back each time it was up for poll decisions. It almost passed like 6 times since 2001, but we never had that one extra kick to send it flying. We NEED EVERYONE's HELP!!!

http://www.petitiononline.com/SB1301/petition.html


This is an online petition that was recently started, so when i signed it, i was only #28. i believe we can get that times a million.

Please do your part, every signature, every conversation, every vote helps.

drink TEA!!!

Hey so for EVERYONE OUT THERE READING THIS:

The Korean Resource Center Presents:

TEA HOUSE FUNDRAISER

Friday July 18

5pm - 8pm

brought to you by the Summer Youth Empowerment Program (SYEP)

general admission: $10

students: $5

COME and be ENTERTAINED by our SYEP students who are working hard to raise money for their efforts to support the DREAM ACT and fund their San Francisco Road Trip.

Especially for all our API community members, LEAP, and just anybody, please come and enjoy CHEAP KOREAN SNACKS like shaved ice treats and FREE MASSAGES.

There will also be a funny DANCE PERFORMANCE as well as a MAGIC SHOW!!

so please, please come! all LIA Interns would only pay $5 ^^, and the students really need your support.

Thank you!!

soccer/volley/dodge/ball?

OMG I LOVE my CBO.

Goodness I am so happy working here.

Today we went on a registration drive to sign up new Korean American naturalized citizens today at the Convention Center. It was rough trying to get people signed on but some people were very warm and supportive and signed right on.

it was interesting because me and my co-intern Green were waiting towards the exit door 300 ft away from wehre the people were streaming out (there but have been 1000s of people there today) so by the time the Korean naturalizees got to us, they didnt want to sign on and the two of us got less than 10 registerred together. However, the 2 middle school boys who volunteered to come with us today got 30 between the two of them because they stood closer to the ceremony and I guess people respond better to little children. figures!!!


anyway, it was fun but that was not the most fun part because for lunch today, not only did we eat dduk bokki (korean spicy rice cake dish delicious!!) but after lunch, we played a game of soccer/volley/dodge/ball in our tiny little ghetto parking lot with two chairs and an old TV cable tied in between them for the court divider. LOL

omg and then Will kicked the ball over the building and we opened up the ladder and he climbed up to get the ball but then he couldn't get down aHAHAHahaHAHAHAHa

omg i wish I had taken pictures. did anybody??

week 2.5? ok no more week-ing

Ok. I didn't know we're posting 2 per week so I guess i'll try to post something every other day.


But fun things are happening all the time, which means a lot more work too, but I don't mind i'm trying to keep up (even though i'm already falling behind o_o).


So yesterday, I went to the MIV's (Mobilize the Immigrant Vote) MOVE Training for LGBT issues. MIV is like a coalition of a bunch of different nonprofs in LA and Korean Resource Center was a facilitator for this training. We basically learned how to talk about LGBTQ issues. I went there to help facilitate (yay!) and to learn (yay!!) and take notes for the meeting (-__-). but it was very interesting. The MIV members that were there were Coalition LA, CHIRLA, and CARACEN.


I met some cool peops. FUN!


Today will be even more fun. YAY Projekt Newspeak is coming in to give our SYEP students a workshop on spoken word poetry. WORD!!!!!!!! i'm really excited heheeeeeeee

This is some Projekt Newspeak work...they look like an interesting group ^^;;

On a side note, Kirstie and I had a great interview at Beverley Soon Tofu yesterday, here's a sneak peek:

YAYYYYYY

week 2 -- lots of work!!

Alright, so I'm posting for week 2 in the middle of week 3 but all good!!

So after my first couple of days at NAKASEC, I was introduced to all the different programs that NAKASEC and KRC (Korean Resource Center) are working on together. They are essentially in the same building but two separate non-prof entities. Anyway, my projects for this summer include:

1. working with the Summer Youth Empowerment Program (SYE~P!!)
i never thought that i would be teaching the new SATs but i will be learning extensively from my new princeton review book and teaching the writing/reading sections

we have 11 students, 7 boys and 4 girls who receive FREE sat instruction here. we also take them on field trips and last week, we went to the Korean American Museum and saw an exhibit of koreatown pictures.

The kids are ROWDY. but they're great. they're smart and funny and just good high school kids and one of our goals this summer is to raise awareness about the Dream Act and help undocumented students reach their educational goals. we are working on a group project (reminds me of something...) to help the community.

i am also working on raising funds (~$2000) for a weekend road trip to San Francisco for the kids. we are stopping by keene and fresno to learn about the history of immigrant Chinese workers. carwash? raffle? dodgeball tournatment? help!?#$?


2. AB540 awareness/activism
Assembly bill 540, to put it shortly, is what helps undocumented students attend college. i am working to organize a press conference and 2 forums on AB540 so people who might need this information can come out and learn about teh process.

still in the works. scary!! but exciting


3. Moments in Koreatown project
This is something I am designing for youth in Koreatown to take some sort of a virtual tour of Koreatown. I'm doing a lot of koreatown work this summer!! WORD

4. Ballot Initiatives/voter education
i'm researching and comppiling info on the november ballot initiatives so we can get together here at nakasec and krc and made educated decisions about what stance to take



ok so those are the overarching categories but each one has a lot of parts and i'm too lazy to flesh it out.



HURRAY COMMUNITY HAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYY