Mentoring Rewards
Open house showcases Korean American program
By Jason Ma

Laughter rang out in Golden Gate Park from five dozen picnickers striving to pass an orange or get a leg up in a relay, all while pursuing a greater goal: that of bringing the city’s Korean Americans together through mentoring.

“The premise is very simple: There is somebody out there who understands what you’re going through,” said Sang Kim, director of the S.F.-based Korean American Mentorship Program, which held its second open house Saturday.

Kim said his nonsectarian group is the only one of its kind devoted exclusively to matching Korean American children and adults. “The idea is that same-ethnic mentoring has benefits that exceed any big-brother, big-sister program,” Kim said. “There’s something to understanding the background of parents’ expectations at home and at school.”

Saturday’s shindigs kicked off with a barbecue of all-American hamburgers and hot dogs, followed by games designed to break the ice. Then the group heard from a panel that made the case for why each participant should become more involved.

“It wasn’t this kind of social gathering,” mused panelist Sue Kwon as she recalled the need for a KAMP-like group while growing up in the East Bay.

Kwon, a reporter for KRON-TV (Channel 4 in San Francisco), said her family’s church sponsored programs, but that they too often turned into arenas for parents to brag about their children’s grades. “We never had laid-back things like this to go to,” she said.

The reporter attested to the personal rewards of mentoring, saying that she herself had mentored several interns at the TV station and helps manage student programs run by the Asian American Journalists Association, based in San Francisco.

Successful mentoring, though, requires more than just interest, said Kim, whose group last year matched eight children with young professionals. Ann Shim, who sits on KAMP’s board of directors, pointed out that Korean Americans are themselves very diverse when it comes to cultural assimilation. Teens who live in the East Bay or South Bay are more likely to speak English as a native language and to be “Americanized”; for them, a mentor is more of a friend and an advice-giver, Shim said. On the other hand, many of the teens living in the city itself are recent immigrants who could use a mentor’s help in learning about American customs and the English language.

Take Daniel Kim, 17, who arrived from Korea two years ago and has developed a mentorship with a KAMP participant for the past 10 months.

“If I have a bad feeling or something I could talk to him about school or American culture,” he said in English. In Korean, he added, “He helps me in a variety of ways.”

His mentor, Arthur Cho, said working with KAMP provided the fulfillment of helping other Koreans and Korean Americans. “Koreans are very close, as far as being a group-based culture,” he said. “To me, being around another Korean is sort of a natural state.”