From Washington DC, this is the Korean American Perspectives, a new podcast presented to you by the Council of Korean Americans. I’m Abraham Kim, the Executive Director of CKA and I’m joined here in the studio with Jessica Lee, Senior Director of CKA. How are you doing, Jessica?

Jessica Lee

Good, thanks Abe. Well, thank you everyone for tuning into this new podcast series. Through Korean American Perspectives, we aim to showcase the diversity and incredible stories that are inherent to the Korean American experience and to highlight issues of national importance to our community.

Abraham Kim

Everyone has a story and how they became who they are today. And we’re really lucky to have interviewed two Korean American leaders, Eugene and Carol Choi, a husband and wife team currently running the company United Exchange Corporation. We’re going to learn about how they grew up in Orange County, CA, the company they are running together, and their philanthropic story and efforts in Irvine and beyond. So on behalf of CKA, Jessica traveled to Irvine to meet with both of them to capture their story. Jessica, tell us about what are some of the highlights of your interview with them?

Jessica Lee

It was such a great conversation, And you’ll hear more about our conversation shortly, but I was really struck by their insights having grown up in Orange County at a time when there weren’t many Asian Americans and what it was like to try to maintain Korean language and culture, and seeing their community evolve, and what role organizations like CKA can play in uplifting Korean Americans who are becoming more and more influential in society. We spoke at length about why they give back and how they define philanthropy. It was just something that really left a lasting impression in me given that, like Eugene and Carol say, Korean Americans are not known to be as philanthropic as we might be other than giving to our churches. And so I’m kind of delving into the why that is, and why it’s important to give back to our local community and beyond, I thought was really provocative. So I’m really excited to share this episode with you all and over to you Abe.

Abraham Kim

Well, thank you. I look forward to this interview and now Eugene and Carol Choi.

Jessica Lee

My name is Jessica Lee and I am your host of Council of Korean Americans new podcast series called Korean American Perspectives. Today I’m pleased to interview Eugene and Carol Joy to hear about their careers and business and philanthropy as well as get their perspectives on key issues that are affecting Korean Americans in Los Angeles area. Thank you so much for your time, Eugene and Carol. So Eugene, you’re CEO and President of United Exchange Corp and a leader in consumer packaged goods industry. You’ve also been a CKA member since 2016 and Carol, you’re a businesswoman, entrepreneur and a philanthropist with ties to numerous institutions and community based organizations here in Irvine. You’re also a trustee of the UC Irvine Foundation and a board member of UCI Alumni Association. So just to start us off, can you both tell us a little bit about your background, where you grew up, where you born here in the United States or did you emigrate at a young age from South Korea?

Eugene Choi

Of course. I was born and raised in Korea. I came to the states with our family when I was 15 years old and we moved to actually Orange County in Pacific Irvine. And we still live in Irvine, believe it or not, after all these years. So our family settled in Irvine ever since 1978. And we’ve been living here ever since then. So I’ve been living in Orange County all my life pretty much. I’ve been living in this bubble for quite a while.

Jessica Lee

Right. And Carol, what about you?

Carol Choi

I immigrated with my family as well in 1969 to the United States. So it’s been exactly– this year is our 50th year anniversary that we’ve been here in the States and I lived in Cyprus and Irvine as well. And I think those are the only two cities that I have lived in.

Jessica Lee

Right. And how did being Korean American, growing up impact you in any way? Were you proud to be a Korean American? Was it, did you feel any differently from your peers or was it more or less normal and uneventful?

Eugene Choi

Well, I think a lot of things that changed since we moved to Orange County back almost more than 40 years ago. Really growing up in Orange County, in Irvine, there weren’t as many Asians back then. In fact, when I was in high school, I was one of the very few Asians in any of the classrooms. And since then you’d look at the population, now in Irvine, there are more than 50% of the population in Irvine are all Asians now. And even when you look at a school like a UC Irvine, more than 60% of the entire student population is Asian. So last 40 years, a lot of influx in terms of Asian community and the population grew into Orange County.

Jessica Lee

And Carol what about you?

Carol Choi

I was always very proud to be Korean American. My mom has always told me as an example, hibiscus flower, is the Korean national flower. And she always told me, you know, just because you lived in the United States, you can’t turn into a rose. You are who you are and that’s being Korean American. So she’s always kind of put that to me ever since I was little. And so that culture is very special to my heart and under any circumstances I’m a Korean American.

Eugene Choi

Yeah. And in terms of being a Korean American, I lived with our family for many, many years and you know, I speak the language and I’m very fluent and my parents are very comfortable speaking in Korean. So I really speak the language at home. You know, we eat Kimchi and rice every day. So being a Korean really doesn’t go away because you live and breathe at home every day. That identity, being a Korean person or Korean American persons just stays with you. At least for me.

Jessica Lee

It’s a part of who you are. And you’re totally comfortable with it. And growing up, were there any important lessons or wisdom that really shaped your life and continues to influence you today?

Carol Choi

Well back in 1969 when I came, my mom and my dad made me write diaries everyday because there was no Korean school, there was nothing but it was very important for them to go ahead and so that could speak with my grandparents, my grandma who lived with us.

Jessica Lee

Oh so you wrote the diary in Korean?

Carol Choi

Yeah, I wrote the diary in Korean because that was really critical for them. Every time I spoke English and we had this large five gallon, you know like sparkling water bottle where I would have to go ahead and you know, put in a quarter every time I spoke English because they say you will learn English whether you like it or not because you’re living in America but to speak Korean, that’s extra special and I want you to communicate with your grandma in Korean because that’s the only language she learned. That she knows. And so every night up to high school, I have written in Korean my diary. So we have a lot of apple boxes with all these diaries filled in my mom’s garage because that was very important for our family to learn Korean. And you know, back then I didn’t want to because there was no school or anything, but it was probably one of the best lessons that I have now because our company is running an international trade, export business. And if I didn’t speak Korean, I think it would be very difficult because of all the suppliers that we have in Korea. So I’m very grateful for the insights that my mom and my dad had on me regarding to be able to speak Korean. And that’s like, you know, it’s very important in our family. And so we teach that to our kids as well. And so they also know how to speak and write Korean and everything. So I think it’s just that upbringing in the family is critical.

Eugene Choi

Well, I think for me, I just growing up our family always attended church and I’ve been going to our family church for many, many years. I know it was a very small church. It’s a Korean Presbyterian church. I’ve been attending with our family and when we got married, we actually went to the same church with my parents. And when we have kids, our kids were growing up with the Sunday school and what have you. So I think having your community, your kind of close knit community within that church circle I think really helped us kind of shape our belief and what it takes to be a good citizen and what it takes to be serving other people and what it takes to give to needy and the marginalized. So I think some of those beliefs and the practice of giving, I think it really came from a lot of the church upbringing I would say.

Jessica Lee

So here we are in the United Exchange Corporation building. Tell us what it was like when you entered this business, I guess some 20 years ago, was there something about sales marketing, distribution of consumer package goods and things like that, that drew you to this particular business and how did you manage to grow this business so widely?

Carol Choi

So United Exchange Corporation I founded the company back in 1993 and it was bringing value to the consumable goods. So I don’t know if everybody knows this but the first company that I started is our supplier was LG. Everybody knows LGs phone, but they don’t know the fact that they started in Korea, the first manufacturer that started the toothpaste and they were supplying all the army and everybody else. So that’s how LG got started. And so we were doing a private label HBA toothpaste items.

So bringing something that is valuable and there’s a lot of private label and there’s a lot of generic products, but you know, it’s bringing value, the same value private label’s side of the business to the consumer without paying for all the advertisement, like crest and Colgate and the active ingredient being the same. So I always felt, you know, for the people that needs the same, basic things, and they can’t afford to get the brand yet, you could always go ahead and go with the private label that is as good or even better than the national brand, which we call it. And because you’re taking off all the advertisement costs on the branded awareness and you know, in order, in regards to sales, I don’t think you could do, you could take anything personally because you know, when you’re in sales you go ahead and you go try to sell to your buyers and you know, buyers have all their reasoning why they go ahead and complain about your product or why they don’t need your product.

You know, you can never take that personally because for one of the experiences that I had when I first started this company, I went back 18 times to the same buyer. She had issues with the colors, she had issues with the consistency, she had a lot of issues, but I never gave up. I went back and made those corrections because it wasn’t about me. It was about the product. So with that consistency and with that perseverance, after going back there 18 times, she decided now I knew that it was going to be her product. She needed to carry that product from me. So going back 18 times, she decided, yeah, you know what, it’s everything that I thought of that you went back and forth with me. And so even now, 25 years, she’s still my number one buyer up to now, after 25 years I’ve started working with her. So you can never take anything for granted and never take anything personally when you’re in business, but you’ve got to always work on it and persevere.

Jessica Lee

Right. Eugene, did you meet Carol through the company or were you–

Carol Choi

I scouted him.

Eugene Choi

Yeah. So I was in the high tech field for 15 years and I think back in 2000, I finished my MBA at that point and that’s when Carol really started her company a few years back and had a few people in the office. I had a very small warehouse to keep the merchandise and she needed a lot of help actually at the time. And she was asking for help to come into the company and helped her run the business. And that’s when I stepped in to come in as a kind of business manager. And since I’ve been working in more of a corporate environment, I’ve seen a lot of things that had to be done as a business organization. And I brought in some of those practices I learned as a business manager and help develop products and help grow the company from that point on. So ever since then, I’ve been doing this for about 20 years, so I have two kind of careers in a way. I have first career kind of as a career person who was trying to move up the corporate ladder and second career kind of as an entrepreneur trying to run this business and grow this business.

Jessica Lee

Right. Building it and expanding it and wow.

Carol Choi

I’m grateful. I’m really grateful. Yeah. Because, I mean there is no, because we work together, we see each other every day and then we go home together and everybody says, do you guys really have a marriage life or do you guys ever fight? Of course we have our differences. But one thing that I think that keeps our marriage and keeps this business together is that we have respect and we have trust. He’s my best partner. He’s my best friend. He’s my best husband, kids for my dad. But that’s really important when you have two people working together, cause we know it’s almost like you see each other have 365 days? Right? And that’s a lot of time. A lot of hours. But because I have that respect and even in our operation business, there are certain things that he manages such as, he manages all the odd national sales team.

He manages all the operations and he manages all the finance and the QA [quality assurance]. And what I do is I manage the marketing team, the product development team and so, and the purchasing team. So it’s kind of divided, right? And we don’t try to go ahead and we report to each other to certain, you know, knowing what’s going on. But we really go ahead and respect where if that’s the final decision that that person has or Eugene has made, I have no quarrel that I go ahead and follow it and have that respect. I think that is really I think that is just the best thing that we have with each other.

Jessica Lee

You make it sound so easy. I’m so envious.

Carol Choi

It’s not that difficult because you know what you’re good at and you know what he’s good at. He tried to bring the best out of both of you.

Jessica Lee

That’s brilliant. That’s absolutely brilliant.

Eugene Choi

At the end of the day, she’s the boss though.

Jessica Lee

So I want to kind of fast forward and talk a little bit about what’s happening here in California and talk about your involvement, not just with the Korean American community but really with, with your community at large. What would you say are some of the challenges facing the Korean American community in California today? And how far do you think our community has come since the LA Riots? Eugene, do you want to start us off?

Eugene Choi

I think there are some generation gap from what I see as far as the first generation Korean Americans who immigrated into this country and there too I think a major gaps that I see. One is a language gap and the other one is a cultural gap because they’ve grown up in Korea and they moved their life into a new country and totally a new environment and they really don’t have much familiarity with the culture. They need to adapt into the US life. Whereas the second generation, they are typically either born here in the states or they grew up as a youngster who immigrated with their parents. So they really do not understand the way their parents grew up in, in Korea. And sometimes they do not understand the way their parents think or the way their parents behave in certain ways because that just not in line with what this culture requires in the U.S. So sometimes I see gaps in terms of the thought process between the first and second generation and in terms of trying to understand each other from both perspectives.

And I think a lot of times for the first generation you do have some sympathy and understanding of their point of view because they really do not understand the culture and the language and from second generation standpoint, they do need to have a more understanding of the first generation because they just came to the states from there. You know, the Korean lifestyle they are so comfortable with or they are used to and they do need to understand more about the traditional, the Korean value and culture. And sometimes I see that as a gap in Korean American society.

Carol Choi

For me, you know, after the riots, I don’t think we’ve moved, I think we’re getting there slowly because you know, we have a lot of the second generation that are involved in that are are engaged in the communities and that are educated here. And I don’t think that we’re not as naive as when we were at that time. However, I think it’s very, very important that all of our parents has sacrificed to come to the United States for the American dream. What is that American dream? For them it was education and it was for us to have better lives. Sometimes we forget that because we’re so busy with our own lives. Sometimes they feel very lonely and they feel disrespect from us. So I think us, when we talk about everybody, whether we like it or not, we are Korean Americans or American Koreans.

It’s in our blood. Whether you’re born here or not because of our motherland and because of our parents, it’s very important that we are the bridge because our kids that are born here are almost second or third generation. We need to be the bridge for our parents and our kids. So when you’re like at our age, people call us the sandwich age because we have to go and take care of our parents as well as our kids. So we’re at this conjunction right now. But it’s critical that we build this bridge because we do have cultural differences. We do have communication gap and right now where we are, it is a generation transition period. So it is critical that we acknowledge this and that we are informed with both sectors and that we come together with collaboration and understanding of where each other’s point of view is.

And I hope we could do that. I hope CKA could do that with the Korea and the American, where we are structured right now because sometimes I hear like, oh well we’re Americans. Well, yes we are but you have to remember we all, everybody, I mean we all at night go and have kimchi or whatever and we liked that because part of us still, we long for that and we love going to Korea. Why? Cause there is something where we feel very comfortable and that’s all good. So we can’t just go ahead and just put it in our back burners. But we have to acknowledge it, accept it, and really be the true bridge of the Korean American culture and our community.

Jessica Lee

I think that’s right. I mean, as you know, as somebody who has a child who thinks about these issues, I think there is a part of us that’s very proud of the fact that we’re so well assimilated and we’re part of the fabric of American society and we’re successful and we’re trying to really do something bigger than ourselves and be really out there. But as you just pointed out, part of it too is just a recognition and understanding that we have this identity that is both Korean and American and to completely deny your Koreanness doesn’t, you know, it’s not true to who you are.

And so, and it’s hard because not all of us were raised to retain our Koreanness and the language and that cultural understanding. But certainly as you become part of the American society and you reflect, I mean a lot of CKA members that I speak to talk about that, you know how it wasn’t really until they were 40-50 years old where they turned back and they said, wait a minute, there is something special about being Korean. And also I want to see more people who look like me and who lived through my experience in my shoes. It shouldn’t just be me, alone. So I think all of those things that you said are right.

Abraham Kim

What a fascinating conversation thus far Jessica. I particularly like the part where Carol’s mom used to make her pay money to speak Korean and that’s pretty funny. I know actually having grown up in California, I know some parents actually wanted their kids to speak Korean at home, but I know some parents didn’t want them to speak Korean, actually speak English because they felt like if they spoke Korean it would impact their ability to learn English quickly. So it’s fascinating to hear some of these stories.

Jessica Lee

Yes. And I really enjoyed hearing about Carol’s childhood memories of keeping a Korean diary because that actually was something that I had to do as well growing up. My parents were very concerned that raising their three kids in New York that it’d be a matter of months before we forgot our Korean. And so, you know, these are the little stories of you know, struggles, but also incredibly valuable lessons that I think our parents teach us about maintaining our dual identities.

Abraham Kim

Yeah. I look forward to actually, this next part I think about philanthropy and giving back. I think that’s an exciting part of their story. We’d love to delve into. So let’s turn it back over to you, Jessica.

Jessica Lee

You know, you talked about upbringing and I understand that your mother has really played a major role both in that understanding and also through, SoMang Society, which is a nonprofit that your company obviously has supported over the years. Tell me a little bit more about your mother and philanthropy, your philosophy there.

Carol Choi

So my mom is a registered nurse, so I think she has this whole Nightingale perspective on everything. She has the heart of gold that wants to go in and help with anything. It doesn’t matter what it is, she’s out there. She’s now 85 and she has an organization called SoMang Society and it’s about helping Alzheimer’s and Korean senior elders with their, you know, being well, dying well, and aging well and things to that nature. And so what I’ve learned from my mom while I was growing up is being able to be always– the giving part is not just about finance or it’s not just about your time or it’s not just about your talent– but I think where she got this and where I learned is what Eugene was saying is that Christian faith background. What’s important that my mom has taught me is it all starts from your upbringing and your family.

That is critical because if you don’t see your parents practicing, it’s hard to go ahead and be a role model when you are not doing anything and you’re taking your, telling your kids, this is what I want you to do. That’s never gonna happen because your kids are looking at you all the time. And I look at my mom and she always had been just always at front, always trying to go and help others and share everybody, share with what she has with everyone, and just embrace everyone. So this philanthropy, philanthropists being, when you were saying were philanthropists, I’m like, what is really a philanthropist? It’s just sharing what you have. It’s really simple. It’s not as what people, it’s not as glamorous. I don’t think it’s any of that. It’s very simple that I’m sharing my day today with you. I’m sharing my time with you.

I’m sharing my food with you. You know, I’m sharing what I have with you because I’m making a difference in impacting our community and our daily lives. And I think that all starts from home and from your upbringing when you’re a child. And I think with the Christian background, we had that in our family. So I’m so grateful for that. So, you know, when I met with Eugene, Eugene’s faith background it all, just we’ve never argued about donating or we never argued about helping because that’s one of the reason why we’re here today. You know, this country has given us a lot of opportunities and a lot of great platform for us to grow. It’s time to pay back in every way that we can and that’s impacting our community in many different level.

Eugene Choi

Yes. So that being a philanthropist you know, can be a big word. So I kind of looked it up in a Google and what, is the definition of being a philanthropist? And it says, it’s a person who donates time, money, experience, skills or talent to help create a better world. And anyone who can really make a contribution with the talent or treasure or time can be a philanthropist regardless of status or net worth. So it’s all about giving a gift of your treasures, which is, you know, time is a treasure and talent is a treasure. And obviously the financial or the money factor is a treasure to help a life better for other people. So that, that’s kind of what the definition says. And I think anyone can be giving to other people and to go back to the society and be able to help other people to make this society or the community, a better place to live.

Jessica Lee

What kind of world do you want to leave behind for your children? I think both of you kind of touched upon the various themes, but you know, when you think about the future and you know the lives that your children and your grandchildren will live, will have is there something, whether it’s value based or some kind of principle, that you really want to impart on them that you think will be really important and a lasting kind of legacy of yours?

Eugene Choi

I think we like to look at the basics in terms of a family value and that’s something we would like to leave with our two children. We have two children, they’re all grown up now, so we’re empty nesters and have a really simple message to our children that while they live in this society, you know, to look at their family values and at some point they’re going to have a family of their own. And no matter really what happens to your career or your life or anything else that the fundamental value always stay with your family unit. And I really want to emphasize with our kids that that’s probably one of the most important thing that you have to focus as a person to make sure your family unit will be healthy, be able to grow and be able to function as a single unit. And if we can teach our children that, I think we’ve done our job, right? That’s the way I believe.

Carol Choi

Adding to that, I think having faith is very important. That’s a gift from the Lord. And I think having that Christian love base is critical. Our children or what I would like to see them is really be responsible for their words and their actions with humbleness. Because I think your words in action is who you are. And I think that is very, very critical. And I always think there is two things that we all have in common in humans: we have a heartbeat that we, everyone, it doesn’t matter what race or what color you are, we all have a heartbeat and that God only gave us 24 hours. They didn’t give you a single more second. So with those two things that we have all in common, I feel that if everyone was to do, in their own way, they’re best in whatever fashion or whatever way that they could impact positively to the community, I think it will become a wonderful, and I want to think that way.

If I have to be a dreamer, I’m going to dream, not going to, I’m going to really emphasize on the positiveness and on the gratefulness that we all have. You know, you travel all over the places, you know when you come back here, there’s so many things to be grateful for. With different stages in our lives and with different things that’s going on in, you know, in the world, I think to be very healthy in not just your mind or your physical or anything, I think to have that always that thankfulness, that gratefulness and that positivity is what impacts all of us and brings us the best in us. I want to be that dreamer and I want to believe in that. That’s great.

Jessica Lee

I think that’s really eloquently put. We have just a few minutes left. I want to kind of get back to this topic of philanthropy again. You know, I think the way you broke it down in terms of the term being just a simple act of giving that’s rooted in this sense of common purpose, I think was really beautifully put. What can we do you know, whether it’s CKA, whereas individuals who care about the Greater Korean American community, what can we do to instill this sense of philanthropy and giving back? You mentioned earlier about the importance of giving to churches, and I think there is also more of an awakening, particularly among younger folks, that we need to invest in our communities through civic groups and civil society organizations as well. But, can you talk a little bit about why that culture of philanthropy might not be as strong within the Korean American community as compared, to say, Jewish American communities. And what can we do about that?

Eugene Choi

Well, I don’t know about other ethnic groups, but I think specific to a Korean American community and it goes back to more of the immigration life where the first generation parents would come to the states. They’re very busy trying to make a living and try to survive in this new environment. And that’s a tremendous challenge they have to face. And oftentimes they do not think about what it takes to be a good community person. And your kids actually will see that actually growing up and when your kids are not seeing the kind of community service that your parents are not used to handle on a daily family life, they really don’t get to see it or they really don’t get to learn from it. So I think a lot of the audience here, the first generation, I probably don’t think there are too many first generation, a lot of the, either 1.5 or second generation audience who is kind of listening to this podcast.

They’ve kind of grown in this culture and they’ve adapted to the U.S. lifestyle and that’s something they can do to teach their children or teach their peers by doing something simple things. You know, if you have children, get them involved with the school. I mean there are many types of school volunteer work they can do as students as well as parents. So get involved with the school. There are many of community volunteer work that they can get involved. And just by being a volunteer day, learn from it and learn from other people the way other people volunteered their time and their energy and their resources into make a better community by volunteering and just getting involved with the school and community activity will be really a learning ground for a lot of the people.

And I think that’s how I learned to be giving to the community. My kids all did girl scouts and boy scouts and as parents we all got involved to help out, not only with the troops but with the community service and what it takes to participate as a good civil servant and be able to help other people, the needy and, and be able to see things, be able to see the community in a different way where they need help for those people who are marginalized, who are poor, you reach out to them and be able to give hands and be able to help others. I think just throughout those processes, I think people will be able to learn more and open up their heart for giving.

Carol Choi

In regards to our community, especially the first generation, I think they do give and they do give a lot, but it’s only to churches and I think there is an issue with that, personally. Not saying not to give to churches or you know, giving your tithes and that’s all great. But I think because we live in this community and we want our kids to be focused and be able to go ahead and impact as leaders and to share their talents and everything, it’s important to be involved and engaged and collaborate to work with the different organizations that the community has. Because at church you do learn, and so I believe that in upbringing kids or even us now, there’s three things that you need your school, teachers, or faculties to be involved in their life to learn and educate them.

You have your family that needs to teach the kids the basics and the fundamentals, the foundation and then you need your church to give you the faith background. Within all of those three things that’s in collaborating, we could go ahead and go to the different organizations and be able to share what we have learned from that. And it’s like, unless you know, at Girl Scouts, I know there was an event where all the kids, were there was handicaps that people had wheelchair and had crutches and everything. Well, unless you are on that wheelchair and unless you have broken leg before and been on crutches, you don’t know the difficulties what they go through. So there was this one time where my daughter had to go through all of this and she felt how uncomfortable and how it was painful to see other people looking at them differently.

So unless you’re there, you really don’t know. And through these organizations you could go ahead and know what kind of differences you could make by feeling them and by knowing that you could go ahead and be able to help them out. And I think that’s what we’re trying to go ahead and teach our community because our first generation was all about church and that’s fine because that’s where they can communicate. They can speak in their own language tongue, which was perfect and they helped one another. And the kids all grew up in from church and from kindergarten to Sunday schools to everything. That’s all great. Now we’re at a different stage; now we have the second generation, third generation. Now we need to go ahead with everything that we have learned from our community. We need to go ahead and now impact the other American organization because that’s what’s going to be bringing us to be more engaged with the community and enrich ourselves in this life that we live in.

Jessica Lee

I think that’s exactly right. I mean even in my time at CKA the words that you just used Carol, engaging, collaborating, and really building bridges with folks that don’t look like us. You know, we have done that work and it is so hard. Unless you’ve done it yourself, it’s really easy to just, you know think about them in abstraction and never really understand that we’re talking about painstaking work, right? Because these are people who don’t have the same backgrounds and the same stories. So for example, in Charlotte, North Carolina, two years ago, we engaged with the NAACP and the Korean American and the African American community on almost a year long dispute, after a violent altercation between a Korean American store owner and a African American female customer. And so, that work was grueling, but as you point out, it’s so vital for us to do that work instead of being in our bubbles because guess what? We are part of the American society. 

And so we can’t ignore that there are folks around us that we need to talk to that we need to communicate with and try to better understand. So I want to thank you so much for all that you’re doing. We barely scratched the surface in terms of the depth of your involvement. But you know, suffice to say that what I’m taking away from this conversation is that this is just a very deeply personal matter for you both and that you’re doing this not for glory, but really because you believe that you’re making a difference that this is going to really have a lasting impact. So I want to give you all a chance to just impart any last minute wisdom for folks who are listening, who might be interested in your career paths or want to think more about ways that they can give back. Do you have any final words for us?

Eugene Choi

Well, I think I’d like to talk a little about CKA cause they’re not too many organization from a national level where a lot of the Korean Americans primarily the second generation can get together and be able to really learn from each other. So I think it’s a very difficult to meet the kind of a like minded Korean Americans really who’s willing to serve the community. So I think it’s a great organization where they can join the group and be able to learn from each other. There is so many talented people when I see the group and there is just so many successful professional people who’ve done very well. And it just shows when you come to these gatherings and it’s a great place to network and be able to support each other and really participate in purpose driven activities.

And I think the group can really build a cohesive network to really drive this national interest on behalf of not only the second generation but even the first generation as well, and really be able to represent the entire Korean American community and be able to raise voice for the mainstream. And I think it really has to be led by the second generation to really to build a bridge between the generations and be able to promote collaboration because of the first generation, when you look at their side of things, they do need help because there’s some certain gaps that they had to overcome with the communication and the cultural understanding. And the second generation really doesn’t have that issue. So I think they really need to take the torch and be able to really embrace the entire community and be able to be in a leading position to make a better life for the entire Korean American community. And I think we have a great opportunity through CKA to make this happen.

Carol Choi

Jessica, I just wanted to say thank you for the opportunity and the time and I think we’re at a very exciting moment in time in our history in many ways, in many, many ways and all different level. So I think we all have our roles and what need to do to impact and make differences in our community and in globally as well. So, you know, let’s just go ahead and do what we are the best at whatever we do. And I think just words speaks for its actions and so that we could all go ahead and make differences in our own ways.

Jessica Lee

Thank you so much because you didn’t care. All that is Eugene and Carol Choi of United Exchange Corporations speaking with me today in Cyprus. Thank you again and we look forward to staying in touch with you. Well, on that note, we’re so excited to welcome you to this new series, but we also welcome your feedback. So please let us know if there are individuals that you’d like us to highlight, stories or issues that you think really deserve closer examination, and feel free to reach out to us at podcast@korean.councilka.org.

Abraham Kim

Well, thank you very much everyone for listening in and again, as Jessica mentioned, we love your feedback and we’ll be doing 10 shows as our prototype experiment, and we would love to get your feedback and how to refine this and make this even more educational and more impactful for our community.

Jessica Lee

We also want to thank our producer, Kevin Koo at CKA, who has been working behind the scenes to make this podcast series a reality. And so thank you Kevin, and thank all of you for tuning into today’s episode.

Abraham Kim

For more information on our episode and the show notes, check out our website at councilka.org. Thank you for tuning in and I hope you enjoy the series. Thanks everyone.