Nuclear frustration for Korean Americans

The Los Angeles Times has a great article today about the Korean American reaction to the recent nuclear tests in North Korea:

Concern percolating for weeks through the local Korean American community came to a head Tuesday as news of North Korea's purported test of a nuclear weapon sparked anger, worry — and a small measure of hope — in Koreatown markets and cafes.

The news dominated the front pages of local Korean-language newspapers and television news programs in Los Angeles, which has the largest urban population of ethnic Koreans of any region outside the Korean peninsula.

More than 1,500 Korean Americans met to pray for their native country earlier this month at the Glory Church of Jesus Christ, near Grand Olympic Auditorium in downtown.

Obviously the world has a vested interest in the current events in North Korea, but it is the Korean-American population in particular that is most connected to the crisis. Korean-Americans are angry at the South for years of supposed "appeasement" of the North. Many more are angry at President Bush, accusing him of being "soft" on Pyongyang. Some support their claims with evidence, others are simply venting the frustration of a anachronistic conflict, a vestige of the Cold War that awkwardly exists in a 21st Century world. Their anger often seems unrefined, and on the surface, it is.

But we often forget that amidst Six-Party Talks, a nuclear standoff, and UN sanctions there is a human element: families divided, children lost, and millions suffering at the hands of a despotic regime. Millions have died, and even more face the now-imminent threat of nuclear war. Within a media context, we are so frequently exposed to the political tags "North" and "South" Korea that we often forget a sad truth: they are still the same people.

To understand this is to begin to understand the frustration of the Korean-American community.

--Eugene

Comments

[Aileen Shane]

I hope that the history of family values held by Koreans, Chinese and South Asians will save the lost populations of this polluted planet from annihilation. We are all one.The highly educated do not help us. Keep it simple. It is.

[Aileen Shane]

I hope the ethics of the PEOPLE of Korea and China will prevail and live under their respective despots. Human and family values may yet save the rest of the polluted planet from annihilation