Area Koreans nurture their roots

By Sara Gilbert Frederick
Special to The Free Press

MANKATO November 16, 2008 11:25 pm

— Church was a struggle for Lauren Park.
Although Park, who was born in Korea, had lived in the United States for several years and was gaining more and more confidence with the English language, she had a hard time keeping up during church services.
“Church was almost like an English class for me,” she says. “I had to concentrate so much on the words that it wasn’t very spiritual for me.”
Park’s wish for a sermon in her native tongue coincided with Julie Kim’s desire to maintain the Korean culture for herself and her family. She was born in Korea but grew up in Chicago, as did her husband. Their two children were both born in the United States.
“It’s getting harder and harder to maintain that sense of culture,” Kim says. “Even for me. English is my first language; I’m definitely more fluent in English than I am in Korean.”
Park, too, wanted her children to grow up with a Korean influence. “I wanted them to understand me and the culture I grew up in,” she says. “I try hard to understand them, and I hope that they will be able to understand me as well.”
As the two women started talking about their own needs, they found out about Jonathon Lee, a Korean pastor serving a Methodist church in Le Center. With his help and two other families, they started a Korean church in Mankato in February 2007.
About 30 people now regularly attend that church service, held 12:30 p.m. Sundays at the Centenary United Methodist Church at Second and Cherry streets. Most of the service is in Korean, including the hymns, but a summary of the sermon is available in English as well.
As the congregation grew, so did the opportunities to get together. Many of the adults in the group, for example, began meeting every Friday evening for a Bible study. During that meeting, their children study the Korean language with international students from Minnesota State University.
“The teacher is wonderful this year,” Park said. “She gives a lot of homework. So I love her — but maybe my son doesn’t so much.”
Now they want to share the connections they’ve made to their culture with the rest of the community — especially local Korean adoptees and their families.
“We want to be able to give back to the community,” Kim says. “We have an opportunity to share our culture with those who want to learn about it. That’s a great thing that we can do.”
They started with Korean Culture Night, a celebration of Korean dance, food, art and other cultural aspects held last summer. That led to plans for both a language school for adoptees, which they hope to launch in January, and a Korean Culture Camp tentatively scheduled for August 2009.
The language school will be held on Friday evenings at Centenary. The camp will span three or four days with time to focus on language basics as well as activities such as tae kwon do, Korean dancing and singing, and traditional games and toys. They’ll try to incorporate the culture of modern Korea as well.
“We saw a need for this,” Kim says. “There’s a good number of Korean adoptees in the area, and we know that a lot of them go up to the Twin Cities to culture camps and to find exposure for their families and themselves. We thought, why should they have to go so far?”
Laura Stevens plans to involve her two children, both Korean adoptees, in the language school and the culture camp.
“It’s not that I necessarily want them to become fluent in the language,” she says. “But I do want to introduce them to that part of the culture, and that’s something we can’t do ourselves. I’d also like to be able to put them in touch with people who can possibly be mentors for them as they get older.”
Sharing a positive message about their culture is what it’s all about to Park and Kim.
“Physically, we can’t just blend in,” Kim says. “Our children will always know that they are different. So we want to instill something positive for them about that. We want to give them a sense of pride for their culture. And that’s something they can give back to the community as well.”

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