Kimberly Espinosa Interviews Joe Kim

Description

Joe is a senior at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. Over the years, he had learned to truly appreciate the arts. He writes almost daily about his emotions and thoughts in a journal; and although he cannot play Jazz music on his violin or piano, he has grown a great admiration for it. In fact, he is currently leading a school club he founded this year called Jazz Affinity Club, in which members are free to share and discuss certain Jazz pieces. He is also the president of the school’s Christian Club. But his most significant characteristic is his resilience, as he has continued to challenge himself academically despite the deaths of his parents in the summer of 2020. He hopes to someday be able to support his remaining family financially, though he still does not know what career path he wants to take.

Hi, can you please introduce yourself?

My name is Jae in Kim. People call me Joseph. You can call me Joe if you want. I live in Koreatown Los Angeles with my older sister, and two dogs. And I go to a school called LACES. And over there I'm the president of two clubs. One is called Jazz Affinity Club. And another, that's called Christian club. That's pretty much it for my introduction.

Where is your hometown?

I live in Koreatown Los Angeles. I was born in Walla Walla, Washington. I barely remember that place. And at some point, I moved to Colorado, Denver, Colorado, where I spent most of my childhood. And in third grade, I moved here, where I spent most of my life. So I guess the answer to that question should be Koreatown, Los Angeles, since I've basically just grown up here.

What are your thoughts on Koreatown?

It's a very, very populated place. It's very urban and, like, it's, you know, LA is known for being some sort of mosh pit of cultures, you know, like so many cultures just mixed together in some kind of bowl or whatever. That's LA. I think Koreatown is somewhat of a result of that combination. You have y American food, like elsewhere, but then you also have Korean food and supermarkets, and sometimes you even see Korean, or Asian fusion foods in Koreatown. I mean there aren't that many monuments in Koreatown unlike in Chinatown or. Little Tokyo. But it is a place where a lot of people just thrive. In my opinion, Koreatown is a pretty good place to live.There's some parts of it where it’s not the greatest, like not the safest place. But, you know, there is a whole lot of culture, everywhere. I mean it's not always evident, because there are not a lot of monuments. But yeah, it's generally a good place to live in. I


You mentioned the different cultures here. Do you think that that has somewhat influenced you in your personal life?

The mosh pit. The LA identity has a mosh pit of different cultures. It really affected, like how I view things, ‘cause you know, I go to a school in LA that’s literally called the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies. That place has white people. Black people, Asian people, Latinx people, like, yeah, it has so many kinds of people. And they all show different cultures. But then, we're all kind of influenced by each other. So we end up kind of being the same kinds of people in some way, I guess.

But I think before, if I hadn't come to Koreatown, then I probably wouldn't. First of all, I probably wouldn't have known how good food from other cultures was. And second, I probably. I don't know I might have been racist. Like, I don't like to think that I would have been racist. But, you know, it just depends on where you live, how you live, you know. I believe that both nature and nurture, have a very, like, strong influence over how you are ‘cause you know how people debate between like nature versus nurture and all that. I just think that both are pretty good.

Because I remember back in Colorado. Like, in that elementary school, they had like different races, but like, it was mostly just white, you know, I don’t mean that I didn't like being surrounded by white people, like, I didn't really care. But, based on that information, I think I might have been in a different kind of situation. At that time, I don't think I even met any Latinx kids. lt was just white, black, Asian, and that was it. At that time I didn't even know that Muslims existed. Like, I remember, I remember coming here. And in sixth grade. A Muslim person, started picking on me, she was being like really mean and racist against me. And I didn't know. Like, I didn't know whether she was like, Indian or whatever. I'm speaking on a very sensitive topic. So I'm sorry about that, I apologize. Is that a satisfactory answer, at least, like somewhat to some degree.

What have you been up to these days in quarantine?

Well, quarantine has really done some things to my family. It has taken away my parents. And it has challenged my faith pretty severely. But it has helped me to learn to be more responsible about my things since I'm basically just living with only my older sister, and two dogs. I didn't know anything about responsibility in terms of taking care of the apartment or just things regarding housing.

But now I have to worry about all that and like sometimes, I struggle to even eat because I used to always depend on my mom to cook something. But now, I have to cook something for myself and for my sister. And now I have to wash the dishes a lot more frequently. But I'm still trying my best to do well in school. And I mean I've been given opportunities to learn new things as well. For example, KSP Katherine reached out to me, and she told me, “Oh, you should apply to KSP”.

I'm like, “You know what, if I'm going to learn more about something that I don't really dwell on, then it'll be an opportunity for me to explore what I like and what I don't like before even going to college” So, I feel pretty grateful for that.
or I eat something. Or I try to eat something. And then, after school, I take a break by laying on the bed or playing
But other than that, my life right now can be summarized like this: I wake up, brush my teeth, and take my classes. I just sit there, take notes, or I take a test, and sometimes during class I play games. And during lunch, I play games, with my dogs. I can either start cleaning up around the house or apartment, or I can start on my homework.

When I feel more productive, I start with my homework. But sometimes when I'm not feeling very productive I just lay on my bed. And I just stay there and think until I see the sun going down. And I'm like, “Oh shoot, I have homework that I need to do.” And what happens in the night varies because I can either spend it working on homework, either by myself or with friends. Or I can play games with my pastor, and some of his old youth kids, you know, so that's always fun. But, yeah, as you can probably tell, it's not the best lifestyle. It's full of laziness, I guess.

What was your experience and process going back to school? Even though it is online. I'm sure it was a process and it still is. But how much time would you say that it took for you to feel some stability and to adapt?

Back in 11th grade, at the beginning of the second semester, we were still going to school physically, and I was like, “Oh, this coronavirus thing is going to like, it's only going to last like a week or so. And we're just going to go back to school.” I wasn't even saying goodbye to my friends like, “Oh, see you in a week!” I didn't know what was going to happen. And I was excited, because we were having a week off.

As time passed, I was hearing news. Oh, school is not going to be available until April 1. And then I started hearing something about Zoom. What’s that? What’s Zoom? I was asking my friends, and they were telling me It's this communication platform. I think I'm pretty sure that they plan to use it for online classes. Now it’s like online classes. That seems like it would be very easy to pass classes, if everything were online, or cheat on tests, because everything is online and you're not in class class physically—you can just do whatever behind the screen without the teacher knowing, because you're just at home. So I was like, oh, easy A’s. Yay, you know?

That was until my mom brought my grandma from the senior home to our home because my mom was listening to the radio and the radio was like, “Oh, you guys, if you guys have any relatives in the senior home you should get them before COVID gets to that senior home.” My mom was like, “Oh, my, my mom's there, I should get her before COVID gets there.”

So my mom retrieved my grandma. We had this whole hospital bed set up in the living room, so that my grandma could just lay there. And it was a horrible experience. Like, my mom got COVID. I got COVID. My sister got COVID. I saw my mom crying a lot—like breaking down, emotionally—because, because my grandma was literally dying in front of us. Like her eyes would roll back into her head. And there would be saliva just building up in her mouth. I think I'm pretty sure that's what happened. And the living room was basically just a whole contamination zone, I guess.

And my mom was trying to prevent me and my sister from going any further from the couch. But then, eventually, you know, we just went to the living room like whenever we wanted. But my dad got COVID when he had a patient because he ran an acupuncture clinic. and one of his patients was showing coronavirus symptoms. And that's how my dad got it.

So here we are—just all of us, just sick. And my grandma had to be sent to the hospital. She passed away soon after, and her ashes were sent on an airplane to New York to be buried next to my grandpa. As for my parents, my dad went to the ICU first, and then my mom followed. And through it all, it was, it was a horrible experience because I would hear crying every day. But my sister and I were getting support from the community, like, a lot of support like people were bringing us food, and they were just spreading our story in social media, I think.

Through it all, I was just trying to keep up with my work online. And I was like, I guess I stood my ground. Yeah. ‘Cause I didn't want to give up on school. I didn't want to stop taking classes. I didn't want to slack off and stuff, you know, like, I even tried to do an essay. But I couldn't because there were too many things happening at home. So I asked my teacher if she could extend the deadline for the reasons that I was having trouble at home. And because of that, my English teacher, my vice principal and I met in a Zoom meeting. And we established that it would be a good idea to tell my teachers, not to give me any work anymore, and to finalize my grades. So basically I ended the semester early.

At that time, I didn't want to give up. Like, I was like, oh, but I want to finish the semester, in the same way that my peers are finishing the semester. But at the same time, I have to deal with this, you know? I just wanted to have a normal life. I honestly didn't care about whether it was online, whether it was in person. I mean I don't think I would have been able to go in person anyway because my mom was sick. She was in the ICU.

Otherwise, I would have had to take Uber or I would have had to have my sister take me, but she probably wouldn't have been very willing, especially during that time. So either way, whether we were going to meet physically or online. I think I might have just been excused from school. Either way, I just didn't really care. I just wanted to have a normal education, like a normal time learning. I wanted to be a normal person. I wanted to have a normal life. But, you know, things just didn't work out that way. But now that I have healed from my grief a little bit, I feel like I've just gotten used to this kind of lifestyle: just attending class online and loafing around.

Could you describe for me any highlights from the past year?

I guess, a really good thing that developed from the quarantine or my time in the quarantine was that I got to hang out with my pastor every day. I mean I still hang out with my pastor every day. ’Cause he plays games, video games with me. But through that. I think I'm, like, able to see how a Christian is supposed to—well, while not supposed to—but how a Christian can live his or her life. I guess like whenever I have questions about Christianity, I can just ask my pastor. He's kind of like a substitute for my dad ‘cause my dad was a pastor, and I used to ask my dad everything that I could think of.

It's really nice that we're online because I can just be there and talk to him whenever I want to. That's one of the highlights. I'm trying to think of another highlight. I guess I've gotten better at talking. Because through online school. I've been able to just, just talk to my college counselor. And my teachers, as if they're just like homies—no I shouldn’t say homies; I feel like we're friends or like we're able to be like friends. And I've been able to express my thoughts more easily not only through my writing but through speaking to them. You know, like, I've been able to open up. So, I guess that's better for me. And, yeah, those are all my highlights, of course, but those are just two examples.

Participants

• Joe Kim
  
• Kimberly Espinosa
  
• Katherine Yungmee Kim
  

Interview By

• Katherine Yungmee Kim