{"id":82956,"date":"2019-03-28T17:11:49","date_gmt":"2019-03-28T17:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/portrait\/esther\/"},"modified":"2019-03-28T17:11:49","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T17:11:49","slug":"esther","status":"publish","type":"portrait","link":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/portrait\/esther\/","title":{"rendered":"Esther"},"content":{"rendered":"

Esther is the Co-Senior Officer for KYCC\u201ds <\/span><\/i>Youth Drug Abuse Prevention Program<\/span><\/i><\/a>, a 10-month weekly program where high school students engage their community and peers through substance use prevention. She is a senior at the <\/span><\/i>Humanities Magnet at Hamilton High School<\/a> <\/span><\/i>and has been an active YDAPP member for four years. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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

My hometown is Koreatown. I was born in <\/span>Alameda<\/span><\/a>, California and during my elementary school years, I wanted to live in Koreatown, but we lived right outside its perimeter off of Pico Boulevard. Most of my childhood and life now is centered around Koreatown. My family members, our church, and my friends are all in Koreatown. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

We moved to Koreatown when I was in the fifth grade. I live diagonal to <\/span>Wi Spa<\/span><\/a>, a Korean-style <\/span>jimjilbang<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u2014it\u2019s a big bathhouse with different saunas and rooms. You basically spend time there with friends and family to unwind and have a good time. I couldn\u2019t go often because of finances and time, but their <\/span>patbingsu<\/span><\/i><\/a> is really good. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the daytime, my neighborhood is not that busy, because it\u2019s a little bit on the outskirts of Koreatown. But at night, it\u2019s different; it gets busy and lively. Right across the street, there are two churches and their services are very loud\u2014there\u2019s music, singing and talking. At the back of our block, there\u2019s a gay club called <\/span>The Silver Platter<\/span><\/a>. A lot of people walk around the block trying to find it. <\/span><\/p>\n

Also, I am a Co-Senior Officer for <\/span>YDAPP<\/span><\/a>, which stands for Youth Drug Abuse Prevention Program. I have been doing it for four years now. I got involved because of my neighbors. They use marijuana quite often. The smell, their activities, whenever they host parties–it would affect our household as well. The walls in our apartment are thin and it happened so often that it wasn\u2019t avoidable. It was disturbing for me because my siblings are being exposed to that environment. <\/span><\/p>\n

Through YDAPP, I recognized the importance and impact of drugs on the youth community. In the past few years alone since I\u2019ve been involved, marijuana has been legalized and there\u2019s the whole rise of <\/span>Juuling<\/span><\/a>. So with that going on in the background, at school, I can see conversations among students becoming more open to trying other substances. In elementary school, we would\u2019ve said \u201cNo, what are you talking about?\u201d Now, seeing how open these conversations are in high school, it became apparent to me how important it is to have the right information, so that I can share that with my friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

At a YDAPP leader, I plan meetings. We try to set up projects and workshops for the year. I oversee that my group is on task and that we\u2019re producing work. Right now, we\u2019ve decided to present to the <\/span>KEY Summit<\/a>.<\/span> Our presentation is on peer pressure and its relation to drugs. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

In elementary school, Koreatown was where all the cool activities were for all of my friends. It was where we would hang out, go to <\/span>Madang<\/span><\/a>, watch movies at <\/span>CGV<\/a>.<\/span> And then in middle school, it became an opportunity to learn more about my Korean heritage. I visited different restaurants tried traditional foods and watched documentaries on the L.A. Riots. <\/span><\/p>\n

And now, because I\u2019ve seen Koreatown through so many different versions, I see it as a malleable community\u2014it\u2019s strong and growing to encompass many people. There\u2019s so many different diverse groups, such as ethnic groups. I started to talk to more people to see how they view Koreatown. I know this person named Carlos. Ethnically, he is Latino. I told him I find Koreatown to be the core of what reminds me that I\u2019m Korean. And he told me Koreatown before was even more Korean than it is now. So, to discuss these different phases of what Koreatown has gone through…it\u2019s tough to categorize because it\u2019s going through so many changes. <\/span><\/p>\n

These days, I see more political participation. Last year, my mom was involved in garnering votes against <\/span>the creation of Little Bangladesh<\/a><\/span> from Koreatown. It was splitting the land into two. Economically, I feel like we\u2019re gaining more from the new buildings coming up\u2014there\u2019s a lot of construction going on. I have mixed feelings, but overall I\u2019m quite confident in the future that is being built right now. We\u2019re headed towards something good. <\/span><\/p>\n

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

Madang<\/span><\/a>. Because they have <\/span>Aladdin<\/span><\/a>. And <\/span>CGV<\/span><\/a>. Aladdin is a Korean bookstore that sells new and used books. They\u2019re in Korean and English and various other languages. I go there before YDAPP starts and I just browse through the English section to see if there\u2019s any books that interest me. And if it\u2019s in my budget, I\u2019ll buy it, and if it\u2019s not, I\u2019ll take it and read it there. There\u2019s a little bench in the back corner of the shop, and so I just sit there and read. Usually, the books I pick up I\u2019ll just borrow them in the school library or from a friend. I have a lot of friends who are bookworms, so they\u2019ll often have the books I\u2019m interested in, or they\u2019ll recommend books to me. <\/span><\/p>\n

Right now, I\u2019m reading a lot of Korean web novels, because my Korean reading skills are low. Since it\u2019s online, it\u2019s easier to read. I\u2019m currently <\/span>Solo Leveling<\/span><\/i><\/a>, which is a very game-ish, fantasy book where the protagonist undergoes a major transformation where he\u2019s able to level up his own abilities at his own pace. It\u2019s in Korean and in English, so I can go through both. I recently got the book called<\/span> Please Take of My Mother<\/span><\/i><\/a> in English and I plan to get the Korean one after I finish reading it in English.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Esther is the Co-Senior Officer for KYCC\u201ds Youth Drug Abuse Prevention Program, a 10-month weekly program where high school students engage their community and peers through substance use prevention. She …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-82956","portrait","type-portrait","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/portrait\/82956","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\/82956\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kyccla.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}