Ellen Ahn

Ellen Ahn is the Executive Director of Korean Community Services, a Buena Park based non-profit that provides social services and outreach to the Korean community in Orange County. In this interview she discusses how programs at Korean Community Services pivoted to provide COVID-19 pandemic related support, histories of Korean communities in Orange County, and ongoing civil rights struggles.

KEYWORDS: Korean, Korean Americans, healthcare, protests, community, COVID-19, immigrants, Los Angeles, Orange County, LA Riots, schools,

Interview Transcript

Nonprofit community based work is always eventful. Of course, right now living through the biggest pandemic in the century, COVID-19 is really important work for us right now. We are doing Coronavirus testing. And so I always think about how is COVID-19 affecting the Asian community. Are the resources there for COVID-19 positive patients and for people who are at high risk in our community.

Nonprofit community based work is always eventful. Of course, right now living through the biggest pandemic in the century, COVID-19 is really important work for us right now. We are doing Coronavirus testing. And so I always think about how is COVID-19 affecting the Asian community. Are the resources there for COVID-19 positive patients and for people who are at high risk in our community. We’re a community clinic. So we have Korean providers and Korean physicians who work. We serve 1000s of Korean patients that are all either Medicaid, so low income insurance or uninsured. Oh, and how can I forget? There’s a lot of unemployed now. Usually unemployed means you’re in need of dollars, like the stimulus or the assistance checks. But it also means you’re uninsured. And so we’ve been very busy getting people enrolled in Covered California and the other health plans, so people don’t lose their health care coverage. So all of this on multiple fronts, our job is to take care of all of these programs that are COVID-19 related, but making sure they get out into the Korean community. And making sure the Korean community participates in all of these statewide and national kinds of things that are designed to keep our economy going and keep people healthy and safe from COVID-19. 

  • KCS COVID Testing Site. Photos courtesy of Ellen Ahn.
  • KCS COVID Testing Site. Photos courtesy of Ellen Ahn.

[History of Korean communities in Orange County]

The biggest impact was probably after the 1965 Immigration Act when immigration barriers a lot of them were loosened. And there was a flood of Korean immigrants that came in the 1960s and 70s and 80s. And, even 90s, [though] less now. And, because of the base population in L.A., the beginnings of Korea Town in the 1970s, many Koreans settled in Los Angeles—including my family. And in Orange County we’re a secondary migration that took place in the 1980s. As people lived in Koreatown, they just realized, like all immigrants, you want to go to a place with a good school district and a good neighborhood. And so people were looking at communities like Cerritos—Whitney High School—Fullerton—Sunny Hills High School, now it’s more Troy High School. And people started buying houses. And that was the kind of the big wave in the 80s and 90s. And that’s where our Korean history really started growing. 

[Reflections on Black Lives Matter protests]

The real push came after the LA riots. Close to 2000 businesses burned in Koreatown. And it was really traumatic for the Korean community. And so a lot of people just did not rebuild. They said, “Screw this,” and then they moved out. And many of those who moved out moved to the suburbs—the Valley, the South Bay, and clearly Orange County. So there was a big bump in population during that time. And it’s very poignant. Right now we’re living through the Black Lives Matter protests. And of course, when I think about the issues today, this week, tonight, one of the most memorable things was the 1992 riots in Los Angeles. Because my hometown was burned, and was looted. And so as a community based organization, I actually just finished an email discussing with other community leaders and staff about what is the role of an API organization in this. Aside from standing in solidarity, and writing a letter, and things like that. The BLM movement has brought up a lot of—I mean, they’re issues that we’ve all known, but it’s erupted. Clearly George Floyd erupted, that incident erupted a lot of underlying issues. And so those are things that I do think about, and reflect on. Sp, I have a lot of hope. I mean, some of the protests these days make me kind of sad, because this is just the same stuff [from] 30 years ago, 60 years ago. I mean, it’s kind of a repeat, which means very little has changed. What’s different this round is it’s so widespread and across the country, and it has so much support from so many different parts of the population. And that means our country is changing.

Interviewers: Su Jung Kim and Jenny Jihyun Kim

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