Race/Related: Why Are Korean-Americans Deeply Divided?

Plus: Mothers' Reflections for Mother's Day View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, May 12, 2018 [Join Race/Related »]( [Korean-Americans in Los Angeles watched a live broadcast of the summit meeting between North Korea and South Korea month.] Korean-Americans in Los Angeles watched a live broadcast of the summit meeting between North Korea and South Korea month. Jae C. Hong/Associated Press [Jennifer Medina] Jennifer Medina Sylvia Kim knows that many older immigrants from Korea were gripped by the historic turn of events in the region in the last month, glued to the television during the summit meeting between North and South Korea. So was Ms. Kim, who works with North Korean human rights groups. She is also the director of an Asian-American civil rights group in Orange County, Calif., and pays close attention to the immigration debate in Washington. Some Korean-Americans, like Ms. Kim, view many of President Trump’s remarks about Koreans as racist, including a widely reported incident this year. After Mr. Trump was briefed by a Korean-American intelligence official, he turned to her and said: “Where are you from?” When she answered that she was from New York, he asked where “your people” are from, later suggesting that the “pretty Korean lady” should negotiate for North Korea. “I think he is absolutely clueless about the Korean-American community and the Asian-American community more broadly,” Ms. Kim said. The Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration has largely focused on immigrants from Latin America and the Middle East. But the fastest growing group of undocumented immigrants comes from countries in Asia, including China, India and the Philippines. By some [estimates]( roughly [one of seven]( Asian immigrants do not have the legal right to be in the United States. Earlier this year, several conservative political leaders in Orange County began passing resolutions backing the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California’s so-called sanctuary state law. Ms. Kim was eager to fight back and tried to get others groups in the Asian-American community to organize protests. “I could not find any A.P.I. partner organizations to work with,” she said, referring to groups that work on behalf of Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders. “They just kind of disappeared.” In Southern California, young undocumented immigrants from South Korea have begun to embrace roles as activists, fighting against the Trump administration’s policies on immigration. But for many older Korean immigrants who arrived decades ago, the fight over immigration in the United States is of little interest. The question for immigration activists is whether, and how, they can get more Asian-American voters involved. This week I wrote about how Mr. Trump has created deep divisions among Korean-Americans. Some admire his foreign policy, while others are angered by his talk on immigration. [[Read]( “Awe, Gratitude, Fear: Conflicting Emotions for Korean-Americans in the Era of Trump”] Share Your Thoughts: How do you see attitudes toward immigration shifting in your own families and neighborhoods? Do you know your family’s legal status upon arrival in the United States? Is immigration a topic spoken about openly in your family? Have you tried to get previous generations of your family involved in politics, particularly immigration? If so, how did they respond? Email me at jennifer.medina@nytimes.com. I might contact you to hear more about your story. Jennifer Medina is a national correspondent for The New York Times based in Los Angeles. Mothers’ Reflections for Mother’s Day [Flora Lee Peir, second from right, with her parents and sister in 2001.] Flora Lee Peir, second from right, with her parents and sister in 2001. [Flora Lee Peir] Flora Lee Peir When I turned six years old, my mother issued just one guideline: Everything you do will affect people’s opinion of the Chinese. The next year, she added another: Everything you do will reflect on our family. We became cultural envoys in the North Texas suburbs. Mom ran a Chinese school, the local Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce and many organizations in between. I acted as her eyes, ears and translator. I was a dutiful ambassador. I followed the rules. I drafted letters and speeches. When asked, I gave cultural presentations in song, dance and writing.  I did just well enough at school not to discredit the race. I like to think I made Mom and Dad look good, too. And when I left for New York, I escaped their shadow. Here, I cannot fathom my children being the sole sample size for people who look like them. Here, my mother’s column does not run in the Chinese newspaper, and her name does not command awe. I can help my children read and write Chinese, but any further cultural exposure – dumplings, mahjongg, banquets, music lessons, martial arts, soap operas – feels like a reach. Why do I stall in passing on these cultural gifts? Because I associate so much of them with my mother’s greatness. I want to be like her, but I cannot be her. We grew up in different times and different places, and I would be doing both of us a disservice if I merely stepped into her footprints. But I, too, must find a way to inspire and elevate my children, and perhaps become my mother’s ambassador to them. Flora Lee Peir is an editor at The Times. She lives in Queens with her husband and three children. [Aisha Khan, second from left, with her mother and siblings in London, 1980s.] Aisha Khan, second from left, with her mother and siblings in London, 1980s. [Aisha Khan] Aisha Khan My mother is always telling me that I am spoiling my children. She says this indulgently, in our weekly video chats where she catches glimpses of my older daughter’s wild hair color and dramatic eyeliner, or hears of the younger one’s latest meltdown. Growing up in India, my sisters and I were rarely allowed any sort of makeup. My mother made most of our clothes herself, modest and loose-fitting. She scolded us about waste. We had a strict sunset curfew. And I don’t think she ever said “I love you” to us. She practically pushed us away if we tried to hug her. It was just the way she was raised: no hugs or kisses, no flowery language. I inherited some of that discomfort with displays of affection, but after moving to the United States and having children of my own, I’ve slowly become much more demonstrative. Where once I thought I’d be like my mother, and make sure my children have an upbringing like mine, and stay true to their heritage, each year I get laxer. Sure, I occasionally sew an outfit for them, and make my mom’s best recipes, and even put coconut oil in their hair sometimes. But I find my teenager’s experiments with hair and makeup amusing (Teal eyeshadow for your yearbook photo? O.K., Honey). When she wraps herself around me and nuzzles closer, I hold her tight and tell her “I love you.” On visits to my mom, I don’t let her wriggle out of my bear hugs. Every now and then as I’m hanging up a call, “love you, too” echoes back over the ether. Aisha Khan is an editor at The Times. She lives with her husband and two children in Queens. [Corina Aoi with her mother, Scharla Nunes, in Los Angeles in 1980.] Corina Aoi with her mother, Scharla Nunes, in Los Angeles in 1980. [Corina Aoi] Corina Aoi Now that I am expecting my first child very soon, I think of my mother often. I think of how young she was when she raised me as a single mother. I think of how she had me, her only child, when she was 24 years old. I think of how she was a black woman giving birth to a very light-skinned biracial baby in 1979, when interracial relationships were not as common. My dad, who is Mexican and European, was not there during my delivery, and my mother sometimes recalls how nurses would double-check our wristbands to make sure that I was hers, and that there wasn’t some kind of mix-up. She has also been mistaken as my nanny. I don’t imagine I will have the same experience, but since my husband is also biracial (half-Japanese and half-Irish), our daughter could end up looking so different from us. Will a nurse double-check our wristband if our daughter is a few shades darker or lighter than ourselves? Will I be mistaken as my daughter’s nanny? Corina Aoi is a product manager at The Times. She lives with her husband in Manhattan. Want more coverage of race and gender? [Sign up here for Gender Letter]( a new newsletter on gender issues and culture, delivered weekly. You can also check out the latest project from our gender team, [45 Stories of Sex and Consent on Campus](. ADVERTISEMENT Connect With Us. Join us at 9 p.m. Eastern on Wednesdays as we examine topics related to race and culture on The Times’s[Facebook page](. Should newspapers apologize for their history of condoning, and even inciting, racial violence? This week we spoke with Bro Krift, the executive editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, which [recently apologized]( for its coverage of lynchings, and Brent Staples, an editorial writer at The Times, who [has written]( about the newspapers that legitimized racial terrorism in the 19th and 20th centuries. [[Watch]( [The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened last month in Montgomery, Ala., is the nation’s first major effort to confront the thousands of lynchings inflicted on African-Americans.] The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened last month in Montgomery, Ala., is the nation’s first major effort to confront the thousands of lynchings inflicted on African-Americans. Andrea Morales for The New York Times Readers’ Voices  A sample of responses to our recent coverage of lynching.  “My grandfather brought my 4-year-old father to the lynching of James Scott in Columbia, Mo., in 1923. Mr. Scott was buried in an unmarked grave in Columbia, in the same cemetery where my grandparents and the leaders of the lynch mob are buried. Our family contributed to a memorial to Mr. Scott and the other victims of racial injustice buried there, and we acknowledged my grandfather's role. I hope Mr. Scott is represented in the new memorial. I will travel to see it someday.” — Janna Stewart of Alaska  “So many white Americans still deny any responsibility for our heritage of slavery, murder and repression. Nonetheless, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative that created the memorial, like Mandela and Gandhi, has got it right. The only way upward from our barbarous past is through forgiveness. That doesn’t mean we forget; probably the best way of remembering is by considering what needs to be forgiven. Another good way of forgiving -- and for whites like me of forgiving ourselves -- is to work to undo the consequences of our troubled past.”  — Patrick Gleeson of Los Angeles  “Claiming that memorials like this attack or unfairly persecute whites does nothing except avoid the serious introspection and intellectual consideration that our country's history demands. Is it uncomfortable? Our momentary discomfort and some serious thinking is a small thing to ask, especially in light of the terror and fear that the victims memorialized at this place experienced day-to-day up until their deaths.”  — Travis Shedd of Arlington, Va.  We want to hear from you. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [racerelated@nytimes.com](mailto:racerelated@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). Want more Race/Related? Follow us on Instagram, where we continue the conversation about race through stunning visuals. [Instagram]( [INSTAGRAM]( Around the Web Here are some of the stories that we’re talking about, beyond The Times. Race and the Royals: A View Inside Kensington Palace [[Vanity Fair]( Donald Glover's 'This Is America' Holds Ugly Truths To Be Self-Evident [[NPR]( The Southern Strategist [[The New Yorker]( ADVERTISEMENT Editor’s Picks We publish many articles that touch on race. Here are a few you shouldn’t miss. 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[The Racial Spectacle of DNA Test Result Videos]( By AMANDA HESS As DNA test results are shared publicly, they become a tool for talking about race, often in ways that obscure its realities. [From Japan to Harlem, a Gospel Singer Is Born]( By JAMES BARRON A traditional Japanese pop singer, TiA, joined the choir of a church after hearing the rhythmic sounds through the wall of her apartment in Harlem. FOLLOW RACE/RELATED [Instagram] [racerelated]( Get more [NYTimes.com newsletters »]( | Get unlimited access to NYTimes.com and our NYTimes apps. [Subscribe »]( ABOUT THIS EMAIL You received this message because you signed up for NYTimes.com's Race/Related newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Manage Subscriptions]( | [Change Your Email]( | [Privacy Policy]( | [Contact]( | [Advertise]( Copyright 2018 The New York Times Company 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018