[INTERVIEW] Korean American politician in Irvine fights racism, misogyny

Tammy Kim, a member of the Irvine City Council, talks during an interview with The Korea Times at Fairmont Ambassador Seoul Hotel in Yeouido. Courtesy of InPR

Tammy Kim confronts anti-Asian discrimination, stands up for Irvine's Asian community

By Ko Dong-hwan

It was 2021 when a group of Korean War veterans stormed into an Irvine City Council meeting and walked straight up to Tammy Kim, one of the councilmembers at the session. Upset with the Korean American for having disagreed with their request to introduce a new cemetery for war veterans in a neighborhood of Irvine, California, they shouted that she could not do that to those who had fought for her country in 1950. It was the second time that a group of veterans had confronted her in such a manner, but she was more prepared that time around.

"They said, 'We came to your country and saved you and your country so I should be grateful'," Kim, who was elected a city councilmember in 2020, told The Korea Times. "I told them that my country is the U.S. and I wasn't even born yet when the war ended more than 70 years ago."

The 50-year-old politician said such finger-pointing by war veterans never occurs to white people of European descent in the United States, but only to those of Asian descent. Many Vietnamese-American politicians in Orange County experienced similar insults from those who had fought in the Vietnam War, according to Kim.

"No one else is treated that way except us (Asians)," said Kim, who moved to the U.S. from Korea following her first birthday. "No matter how long you've lived here, how much you've accomplished, you are never really acclimated to American society because people always want to remind you that you're a foreigner. It must be difficult for people in a homogeneous country like Korea to understand the nuances of what it means to be an American through discrimination."

Kim, who visited Seoul last week for the Global Korean Politicians Forum, a gathering by politicians with Korean roots from across the world, had also raised her voice against recent misogynic incidents that have occurred in the U.S. When a gunman killed eight people at a spa in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2021, six of whom were women of Asian descent and four of them of Korean ethnicity, she took the matter personally, taking every opportunity to make public speeches about what was wrong with America.

Tammy Kim visited the Irvine Hindu Mandir to celebrate Guru Purnimam, a festival to honor one's chosen spiritual teachers, in July of this year. From Tammy Kim's Facebook page

"The police said the gunman was just 'having a really bad day,'" said Kim, who won her seat in the 2020 election with more than 43,700 votes, the most votes for any City Council candidate in Irvine's history. "After that, I spoke a lot throughout the U.S. because of the country's problems with anti-Asian racism and misogyny ― especially because of how Asian-American women are so easily treated like sexual objects in the West."

Kim said there are many stereotypes she has to fight against. Part of them stem from American servicemen who fought wars in Korea and Vietnam and saw local women through a distorted lens that largely ignored their human rights.

"They brought those misconceptions about Asian women back to the U.S.: that we are subservient and an object of sexual thoughts," said Kim. "And I think what happened in Atlanta was the perfect culmination of all those things that exploded in one incident. I was just so disgusted that I had to use my voice to really bring awareness to that specific type of racism against women."

From Korean-English language exchange to Korean American voter rights

Kim's political footsteps often crisscross with those of Asian immigrants and residents in California, including Koreans. They were the ones who gave her the reason to become a politician, who voted for her and who still expect her presence around their daily activities.

She first built up her reputation through founding and operating a nonprofit in Irvine that functioned as a Korean-English language exchange to help Koreans get used to American life. It grew big, with rising demand from the Korean community for information about various local social services like immigration support and which doctors to call. To support them, she merged the nonprofit with a local Korean welfare center to establish the Korean American Center in 2017. It became the city's largest social service provider, serving the approximately 110,000 Korean Americans in Orange County ― the second-largest concentration of Koreans in the U.S. The South Korean government, recognizing the center's role for the local Korean community, designated it in 2018 as the Irvine King Sejong Institute, to make it a hub for promoting Korean culture and language.

"I also worked on voter engagement, like language access in voting, to make sure that our rights as Koreans and Korean Americans are protected," said Kim.

Tammy Kim hosted students from the AOI College of Languages in Irvine for a tour of the Irvine City Council in August of this year. From Tammy Kim's Facebook page

Her tight-knit involvement with Koreans as well as Asian communities paid back when she ran for city councilmember. Kim said there were two reasons behind her election victory: one, she started her campaign early, almost a year and half before the election; two, the city's massive Asian population who supported her.

"Irvine is the No. 1 fastest-growing city in California and No. 10 in the whole U.S.," said Kim. "And it's growing mostly with Asians. I have been working a lot with the Chinese and Taiwanese communities as well on different projects and programs for many years. So when I decided to run, I got a lot of support because they saw all the work I was doing in their communities, including a language access committee for voters' rights and working on the census to make sure that everyone is counted."

High turnout by Asian-American voters also contributed to her surprise election victory. When she got the voting results back, the turnout of white Americans was 87 percent. Asian-American voter turnout recorded the same figure, shattering a local misconception in the city that Asians don't vote.

"It's important as Korean Americans and as elected officials to come here (Seoul) to understand our roots, history and how we can be an advocate for the Korean Peninsula and peace in the region," said Kim, who first participated in Global Korean Politicians Forum in 2019 while campaigning for her city councilmember bid.

Having lived in Irvine for over two decades, Kim's commitment to reaching out to Asians started taking shape when she was working at various technology firms in charge of talent acquisition and setting up policies for interviewing. She was one of a few Asian Americans who were promoted to the executive level, while most Asians remained in lower positions as field engineers.

"Very few Asians are given opportunities to work in revenue-generating positions or sales positions," said Kim. "Because many Asian Americans were precluded from having those jobs, I was very proud of having increased the number of Asians and Koreans being hired for customer-serving positions and ensuring that there's a path to promotion and management training for Asians and Koreans in those technology companies."