[Eye Interview] Korean American director on why he followed five US politicians of Korean descent

On Thursday morning, Korean news outlets reported that New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim had just become the second Korean American to win a third term in the US House of Representatives.

Along with Kim, US Congresswoman Marilyn Strickland, who is of Korean descent, won her reelection bid as the representative of Washington state's 10th District in the US midterm elections.

Korean American politicians Young Kim and Michelle Steel, both of California, were in the lead and likely to secure their seats again in the US House, as of Thursday afternoon.

Prospects, however, did not look so bright for David Kim, who was hoping to unseat an incumbent representative in California.

While not quite sweeping, the election results clearly show how Korean American representation in US politics is changing.

If you are wondering why this representation matters, the answer can perhaps be found in Korean American director Joseph Juhn’s new documentary “Chosen,” which followed the five aforementioned politicians back in 2020.

The documentary skips any unnecessary introduction and gets straight to the point with a clip of an old Korean man yelling about the importance of the 1992 LA riots in Korean American history.

The riots were sparked by a sense of social outrage and injustice after the acquittal of four police officers charged with excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King, a Black man, that was caught on video. While chaos reigned across Los Angeles, tensions between Korean Americans and African Americans at the time led to a disproportionate outbreak of violence, looting and arson in Koreatown. To make matters worse, police and politicians largely turned a blind eye to the shop owners whose lives and property were in danger.

“He was yelling and dropping F-bombs to a group of college students and he was just emphasizing over and over how important learning about the LA riots is in understanding and defining our Korean American identity,” said director Juhn, recalling the moment he documented during an interview with The Korea Herald on Oct. 28.

The director, 38, who was going through an identity crisis as a Korean American university student at the time, said the old man’s passionate speech moved him greatly.

“I wanted to start the film with that clip because that's the very moment where my life was changed,” he said.

After that day, he began to see the LA riots as a critical event that split the history of Korean American society into two -- before and after the riots.

Not only was the riot a turning point in which ethnic Koreans living in the US started to identify themselves as Korean Americans -- rather than Korean immigrants -- it also made Korean Americans feel the need to realize political power for the first time, Juhn added.

Juhn was also inspired to create “Chosen” by a book and an article he read in 2020.

In “The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir” by former US national security adviser John Bolton, the Korean American director took note of a section about US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s Hanoi summit.

“The nuance of it suggested that the peace on the Korean Peninsula has been disrupted by Trump, Bolton himself and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s impulsive decisions,” he said.

After reading about the influence that a few American politicians' decisions can have on Korea, the director could not stop thinking that things could have been different if there were Korean American politicians present at the summit.

Around that time, he also came across an article that said five candidates of Korean descent were running for office that year in the lower house of the US Congress.

“I thought, ‘Can they be the solution?’ That is how the movie began,” he said.

When showing the election journey of the five candidates of Korean descent, Juhn said he took extra care to be fair.

“Although the film’s story mainly revolves around David Kim, I did not want it to become a film that supports a certain party or that promotes or supports a certain candidate,” Juhn said. “I tried not to be biased as much as possible.”

The director emphasized that he worked hard to make sure that all the candidates’ individual stories were told while also showing their ideological differences so that they are not lumped into one single category as candidates of Korean descent.

He added that David Kim has the most running time in the film with his stories being told in greater detail because he hoped to expose many problems that Korean American society has as a whole in the movie.

“I wanted to genuinely look into various existing conflicts within our Korean American society,” he said. “I often get feedback that it touches some very uncomfortable topic that is not expected.”

Through David Kim’s case as a recently out gay man, Juhn said he was able to effectively touch on diverse issues of Korean American society, including generational conflict between first-generation Korean Americans who hold conservative views and the more progressive younger generation, and their intensely conflicting views on LGBTQ+ issues.

The fact that David Kim was an underdog who did not get much spotlight or coverage in the mainstream media also was an aspect that interested the director.

David Kim was the only candidate who failed to win his election, while the other four were successfully sworn into the 117th Congress.

“I did not expect David to lose by such a small margin. Our staff also thought that they might be working so hard for nothing. The environment was not great and it was all done by volunteers,” the director said, sharing his experience watching Kim’s election campaign. “It was really surprising.”

Also sharing some of the memorable responses from the audience at the Jeonju International Film Festival earlier this year, the director talked about how the film can be relevant and informative to the Korean audience.

“They said they got to know Korean Americans' lives better. Some said they only had the image of Korean Americans living a better and more privileged life in the US. But they found out through this film that immigrants suffered as a minority and also had to experience LA riots and Asian hate crimes."

Juhn added many of the responses noted a similarity between the political environment in the US and Korea’s current political situation: A deep division along ideological lines with one side with conservative views and the other with progressive views.

“The topics that are featured in the film including generational conflict, ideological conflict, LGBTQ+ and cultural diversity issues all are relevant to ongoing problems in Korea,” he said.

Juhn added that by taking a look at how Korean Americans deal with these conflicts, Koreans can learn from them as if they were looking at a mirror.

Toward the end of the interview, Juhn delved into why he thinks stories about Korean American immigrant families such as “Pachinko” and “Minari” are getting so much attention globally.

“I think the diaspora narrative is universal,” he said. “A diaspora is a population that lives outside of their motherland as minorities.”

The director stressed that he believes that narratives of those who lived in these special circumstances have a universal power to appeal to audiences.

Juhn, too, felt that power when he accidentally met a third-generation Korean Cuban taxi driver during his vacation. He was an ordinary lawyer at the time.

"I followed his family for three years and created a documentary 'Jeronimo' (2019). It is my first film. That is how I became a director," he said. "At first I wanted to make a short YouTube video that can introduce this family and it grew from there."

His first film was seen by over 20,000 people in Korea when it opened in theaters and selected by 17 film festivals around the world.

Those powerful diaspora stories should not be classified as just more Korean content or “gukppong” -- a usually derogatory Korean term to describe nationalistic works -- simply because they are related to Korea, Juhn added.

“If possible, I want to create a movie about Joseonjok (ethnic Korean Chinese) in the future because they are being discriminated against in Korea. I think it is unfair so I want to tell their story. I also hope to tell stories about North Koreans and also Zainichi (ethnic Koreans in Japan) people like those who appeared on ‘Pachinko.’ There are so many stories that I want to cover,” he said.

“Chosen” is now in local theaters.