AACE INTERVIEW: Susan Park / Activist
Helping Korean Seniors
“We’re visiting grandma Kim tomorrow. She lives 3 minutes away from our restaurant. She is a Korean American activist. She needs service providers who speak Korean. Her son speaks English. Grandma Kim is in her 90s and we assume her son is in his senior years”
In a world of disparity, with the 1% to the ones who live day to day with nothing more than a bed in a shelter, we see people like Susan Park and Farid Zadi bring food and the basics we take for granted each day, toothbrushes, shampoo, a room of their own, a home of their own. One of the groups unseen by most are Korean Seniors, most speak very little to no English and have many barriers set in front of them to find housing and support. Susan and Farid have started a fundraiser to help support unhoused Korean Seniors.
Susan is an outlier, she is a force of nature that works tirelessly to look after those society does not see. Susan is featured here not like our usual cannabis interviews, however, she embodies what the community is about, sharing and giving. I hope you can join her and Farid’s path to help those in need, please explore the links below and find out how you can help the unhoused Korean Seniors in Los Angeles here.
My name is Susan Park. Korean name is 박지영. I immigrated from Seoul to Los Angeles with my family in 1975. I was five years old. I’m bilingual. Bilingual heritage language speakers need to help the API community. I own Revolutionario North African Tacos (ww.revolutionario.com) on Jefferson Blvd near USC with my husband, Farid Zadi. He is a French-born Algerian Berber. We have two children. Kamilah is a fourth year political science major at UCLA with plans to go to law school. Our son Elias is 16 and in 11th grade. He has similar plans. We are a multicultural and multilingual family. I also speak some Spanish and French. I am a published writer and food historian. Www.smokingkorean.com and I also revived Gidra, an Asian American progressive magazine.
MISSION
Help unhoused Korean American seniors and Korean Americans on the brink. I am also in touch with every Asian American community/grassroots organization. I want to work with other Asian American groups to help them duplicate what I am doing for Korean Americans. The first organization that I’m working with is CCED (Chinatown Community for Equitable Development). We are first working on food drop-offs for a 20 unit SRO with 30 tenants in Chinatown. But there are many more buildings that house extremely low income Chinese and Southeast Asian seniors. Procuring heritages foods is of paramount importance.
The long term goal for this initiative is to have permanent services for marginalized Asian Americans and to effect policy change. There is a group of young and progressive Asian American attorneys who will come on board.
Brown Bags for Everyone is a Skid Row initiative.
I know that there is enough food to feed everyone in Skid Row with dignity. It’s a problem of commercial kitchen space, distribution, and labor costs. I need funds to close my restaurant 4-5 days out of the week to cook, packaged, and distribute food in Skid Row. Currently, I package meal kits or cook hot foods for Skid Row three times a week for two-three hours at a time at my restaurant. I would like to do this full time out of my restaurant to make the point that it can be done.
I want to change the conversation and narratives about unhoused folks and problem solve by approaching issues laterally and through different lenses. I also help folks who live in my neighborhood out of my restaurant, Revolutionario North African Tacos.
FACEBOOK FUNDRAISER for Unhoused Korean Seniors
Donations can be made via Venmo @gidrareturns
If you need a tax-deductible form you mail checks made payable to “The Smoking Korean” to 1436 Jefferson Blvd, Los Angeles California 90007.
