{"id":82924,"date":"2020-08-13T05:04:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-13T05:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/portrait\/cailey\/"},"modified":"2020-08-13T05:04:00","modified_gmt":"2020-08-13T05:04:00","slug":"cailey","status":"publish","type":"portrait","link":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/portrait\/cailey\/","title":{"rendered":"Cailey"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cailey Beck is a rising senior at New Covenant Academy and lives in Little Bangladesh, Koreatown. As an extremely introspective girl, she loves to read, study the world, and learn about global issues. She\u2019s involved in a wide array of extracurriculars, such as being a writer\/editor for New Covenant Academy\u2019s newspaper, The Husky Herald; a secretary in the student council; a starter on New Covenant Academy\u2019s Varsity Girls Volleyball Team; and a member of the yearbook committee. In her free time, Cailey enjoys writing for her blog, working on short stories or scripts, watching movies, and reading. She hopes to attend UC Berkeley and wants to major in Philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Where is your hometown?<\/b><\/p>\n

I was born at the Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A. Afterward, I lived in Santa Clarita until I was around 7 or 8. Then I came to Koreatown. When I first came here from Santa Clarita, I really missed it. I hated L.A. and how dirty it was. But now that I think about it, I\u2019m glad that I live in L.A. People in Santa Clarita are kind of racist\u2014it wasn\u2019t full-out racism, it was more subconscious. People were drawn towards the people who looked like them.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My teachers used to favor certain students more. I remember they would give out gold stars if you were a really good student. I never really got one of those compared to one of my classmates who was white with blond hair and blue eyes. She got them every day. I was a really good kid, and I never got in trouble. Now when I look back, I kind of look at it differently. I can\u2019t remember specific instances, but there were definitely times when my friends would say stuff about Asians. You can\u2019t blame them because they were kids and they didn\u2019t know any better, but there were those small things. So looking back, I can definitely see that there was [racism]. It wasn\u2019t malicious though, it was just kind of ignorant.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some students actually bought gift cards for their teachers. Personally, I would buy gifts for my teachers, but that\u2019s because I really appreciate them. Right now, at the school that I\u2019m going to, I\u2019ve been with my teachers for three, going on four years, so I would definitely give them gifts just to appreciate them. But, if you\u2019re a kid and you\u2019re doing that, I feel like it\u2019s the parents saying, \u201cCan you look after my kid?\u201d It\u2019s kind of a bargain, but it\u2019s also a way to say thank you. I don\u2019t want to label it like they were bribing their teacher, because it could\u2019ve been innocent. I guess that kind of gift-giving culture is anywhere, because even in Korea richer parents would give teachers money, and those kids would be treated a little bit better. They\u2019d get in a little less trouble or be graded a little less harshly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you live or work in Koreatown?<\/b><\/p>\n

I live in Little Bangladesh, which is basically right outside of Koreatown. They\u2019re kind of the same. It\u2019s pretty nice here. Usually, in Koreatown there\u2019s a Korean store on every street, but in the area that I live in there are no Korean shops. It\u2019s all Hispanic or Bangladeshi, so that\u2019s kind of different. I feel like living here is the same as it would be in any other part of Koreatown. There are a lot of fruit and taco stands.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sometimes I feel a little bit unsafe when I\u2019m walking home. I definitely wouldn\u2019t go out at night. I\u2019ve been conditioned to think that L.A. is dangerous. You see the news and you hear stories. Growing up in the city, your parents are always like, \u201cIt\u2019s dangerous to go outside, don\u2019t go outside.\u201d So you kind of learn to be distrustful of your surroundings. It\u2019s not a specific instance; it\u2019s just a general idea that it\u2019s dangerous here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s loud in Little Bangladesh. Sometimes you have to wonder whether it\u2019s a car backfiring or a gunshot. It\u2019s that kind of area.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019m obviously biased, but I think that although it is true that the people who wanted to expand Little Bangladesh had a right to do so in a legal sense, Koreatown has been here for much longer and has an incredibly rich culture that shouldn\u2019t really be tampered with. Korean people have been living here for generations, and now over two million Koreans are in Los Angeles.*\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Koreatown is a really special place where these two cultures exist in a harmonious way, which is pretty rare. While I understand where the people of Little Bangladesh are coming from, I think that Koreatown should be given precedent, considering its historical and cultural significance.<\/span><\/p>\n

What are your thoughts on Koreatown?<\/b><\/p>\n

I might be biased, but it\u2019s the heart of L.A. This small square in the heart of L.A. is my whole world. Koreatown is important to me because I don\u2019t know anything else. As soon as I cross Wilshire, I\u2019m lost. Anytime I go anywhere here, I encounter places I\u2019ve made memories with people I know, and I love that. I used to go to the Shatto Bowling Alley a lot. I\u2019ve been going there for school, or with family and friends, since I was a kid. I\u2019ve made a lot of memories at Madang and the plaza right next to it. I spend a lot of time with my friends there. It\u2019s like the go-to place when you\u2019re hanging out with people. You\u2019ll eat at Madang, then you\u2019ll go play pool, and then you\u2019ll have dessert. Within those two blocks, you can do so much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because it\u2019s so central, my friends and I can do whatever we want. One of my friends used to live a block from our school, so we used to go to her house every day and have barbecue parties after school. In the summer, we\u2019d buy meat from Target, eat it and go swim.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve spent my formative years here; I became a person here. And I\u2019m so grateful for that. I\u2019m so lucky to have been exposed to my culture and so many different experiences by growing up in K-Town. It\u2019s sappy but that\u2019s how I feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

A big part of Downtown is the Fashion District and a lot of those people live in Koreatown. A lot of the Korean and Mexican owners and all of the workers live in Koreatown. By name, it\u2019s <\/span>Korea<\/span><\/i>town, but if you actually look at the demographics, it\u2019s Mexican, Korean, White, etc. When I was in elementary school, all of the people in my apartment building were Korean. But before I moved out, all of the people who were living next to us were all White. It\u2019s not a bad thing\u2014it\u2019s just surprising because it\u2019s undesirable to live here.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Koreatown is really dirty. I went to meet my family in a suburban part of Florida and, compared to Koreatown, it was extremely clean. It\u2019s hard to open windows here because your floor ends up being covered in dust and there will be microparticles all over your door. But in Florida, there\u2019s no trash on the streets. In L.A., the streets and the sidewalk have dirt and gum on them, but in Florida, there\u2019s like <\/span>nothing<\/span><\/i>. It\u2019s like it was just paved over. It\u2019s all the rain, and the air is clean. The air is humid, but it doesn\u2019t smell in Florida compared to L.A. When you\u2019re walking around, you smell a lot of things like urine and poo or gasoline, but in Florida, it\u2019s just the smell of clean air. When you see suburban towns in movies, that\u2019s what it looks like.<\/span><\/p>\n

There have been a lot of African American and White people moving in, which is kind of like <\/span>gentrification, but it isn\u2019t necessarily a bad thing. <\/span>I know it pushes people out [of the area], but I feel like it makes neighborhoods safer. It makes things more crowded and dirtier than before, but in the long run, <\/span>it makes me feel proud that Korean culture is getting some recognition. We were this tiny divided country and we had so many issues.<\/span> Korean people were heavily oppressed during the war\u2014there were rules on how short you could cut your hair as well as strict curfews and people would mysteriously disappear \u2014it was really corrupt. <\/span>Korea has advanced so much.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How has quarantine affected you and your family?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, my mom is still working. She goes downtown for her clothing store. For the first few months, she didn\u2019t, but for the last four months, she has been. We have hand sanitizer everywhere. We\u2019re taking basic precautions right now, the ones mandated by the government.<\/span><\/p>\n

How do you feel personally about COVID-19?<\/b><\/p>\n

To be honest, I feel like I am separated from my body. It feels like it’s not happening to me. It\u2019s kind of surreal. I’m talking to my friends every single night and we’ll play Minecraft together. But there is still that sense of isolation…technology can only do so much, you know. It can bring you face-to-face and help you communicate, but there’s no physical presence.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is so privileged for me to say, but I feel like quarantine really gave me a chance for introspection\u2014slowing down and reflection.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For example, I started meditating recently. I used to do it a lot in my junior year but I stopped for a bit. I got back into it. I like to use guided meditation apps. My favorite one is called Insight Timer. It’s so good. There’s so many courses there, too. Meditating definitely makes you more patient. It makes you less angry and irritable, but I\u2019m still working on that because I\u2019m a really angry person. Meditating has really helped a lot. Meditating could go two ways. For people who aren’t in touch with their feelings, they could use meditation as a way to be more in touch with their inner lives and thoughts. But for me, I’m too in touch with my feelings. I think too much. Meditation has really helped me to relax and empty my mind and have a blank slate. Before, I used to have constant traffic in my head, like a radio. Meditation has helped me to quiet it. I meditate every day, before I sleep for ten minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

What have you been doing during quarantine?<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been studying and reading a lot. I\u2019m taking an online psychology course. I got a bunch of books for my birthday and I\u2019ve been watching a lot of movies and TV shows. I stick with <\/span>The Simpsons, Bob\u2019s Burgers, Adventure Time<\/span><\/i>…I\u2019ve watched all ten seasons of <\/span>Bob\u2019s Burgers<\/span><\/i> in two months. It\u2019s not super addicting but the show makes me feel really safe and relaxed because I can\u2019t watch high-intensity shows like <\/span>Breaking Bad<\/span><\/i>. Right now, I\u2019m reading the<\/span> IQ84<\/span><\/i> Series, <\/span>Sense and Sensibility<\/span><\/i>, and like 10 other books.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is your favorite place in Koreatown?<\/b><\/p>\n

My favorite place in Koreatown is at a plaza around 6th and Western. I love the <\/span>a\u00e7a\u00ed<\/span> bowls from UbaTuba. <\/span>Every time I go to UbaTuba I always get the same thing: a legal-style a\u00e7a\u00ed bowl with banana and granola. I can\u2019t go now because of quarantine, but during the school year, my friends and I would go after school a couple of times a month or every time we hung out. But most of the time we would just Uber eats it to whomever\u2019s house we were at on that day.<\/span><\/p>\n

Before the quarantine, all we did was eat Yupdduk and go to noraebangs. We ran around eating Ubatuba acai and playing pool. My friend used to live in the apartment next to me and in the lobby, there was a communal pool playing area where we used to go after school and play for pool for, like, three hours. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cailey Beck is a rising senior at New Covenant Academy and lives in Little Bangladesh, Koreatown. As an extremely introspective girl, she loves to read, study the world, and learn about global issues. She\u2019s involved in a wide array of extracurriculars, such as being a writer\/editor for New Covenant Academy\u2019s newspaper, The Husky Herald; a secretary in the student council; a starter on New Covenant Academy\u2019s Varsity Girls Volleyball Team; and a member of the yearbook committee. In her free time, Cailey enjoys writing for her blog, working on short stories or scripts, watching movies, and reading. She hopes to attend UC Berkeley and wants to major in Philosophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82924","portrait","type-portrait","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait\/82924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/portrait"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait\/82924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}