In a bi-monthly series of posts, we will spotlight different Korean-American cities, selected not only for their numbers, but also for their visibility in mainstream America. Our research was guided by the following criteria: population, famous and/or influential locals, programs, and hotspots.

Minneapolis & St. Paul, MN.

The Twin Cities—Minneapolis and St. Paul—are known for many things, such as its many lakes and thriving art and music scene, but it’s also home to a flourishing Korean American community.

We asked Minnesotan Kevin Ost-Vollmers, founder of and blogger behind Land of Gazillion Adoptees, about what makes the oft overlooked city “Korean American.” Here’s what he told us:

Minneapolis is home to a thriving Korean American community. Difficult to believe? For evidence, go to the University of Minnesota’s Dinky Town area during the lunch hour and walk into any of the numerous restaurants and coffee shops, and chances are you’ll see a lot of Koreans. Go to the Korean Presbyterian Church, which serves the sizable Korean population in Brooklyn Center and Columbia Heights, on Sundays and view a sea of black hair.

Some of the most recognizable Korean adoptee names within the broader adoption community reside in Minnesota as well – Ami Nafzger, executive director of AdoptSource, social worker JaeRan Kim, and writer Sun Yung Shin, to name a few.

The booming population of Koreans in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, and in Minnesota in general, is due not only to a vast number of immigrants, but also to adoptees from the Motherland—the latter of which is estimated to comprise 50% of the state’s rich Korean population (Korean Quarterly, 2008). As a result, many of the people and organizations we are about to highlight have ties to the KA adoptee community.

Numbers

• 16,813 (Minneapolis-Saint Paul metro area – 2010 Census)

Visibility

Kevin Ost-Vollmers and Jane Jeong Trenka

• Award-winning writer and activist Jane Jeong Trenka is most notable for her books The Language of Blood and Fugitive Visions: An Adoptee’s Return to Korea. Her highly personal accounts illustrate her struggles of growing up in rural Minnesota, her birth family reunion in 1995, and the assimilation challenges she faced when she moved back to Seoul in 2004. She continues to add to the adoption discourse through her blog, Bitter Angry Ajumma.
• What better way for children to connect with their heritage than through song and dance? The Chang-mi Korean Dance and Drum group was created in 1984 with that purpose in mind, and since then has provided a creative outlet and community for Korean adoptees to explore their cultural roots. Brooke Jee-in Newmaster is the founding member of the group and is now the artistic director and owner of Korean Heritage House. She is currently leading a Kickstarter project that aims to help fund her group’s travels to perform at the ChoongHyun Babies’ Home Memorial at the end of March.

Brooke Jee-in Newmaster (right) with her Chang-mi Korean Dance and Drum Group

• A passionate social worker and writer, JaeRan Kim explores the history and current issues of her fields on her personal blog and Harlow’s Monkey. The latter blog humanizes the ‘monkey love experiments’ of Harry Harlow by exploring the ideas of biological attachment in international and transracial adoptions. Through her blogs, Kim gives voice to adoptees who are often forgotten in the gatekeeping discussions about the ethics and politics of adoption.
• There are many adoption-related blogs, but no other centralizes and supports the visibility of the adoption community as Land of a Gazillion Adoptees (LGA), run by Kevin Ost-Vollmers and Shelise Gieseke. Himself an adoptee, Ost-Vollmers devotes his creative energy to the LGA blog which highlights, raises questions, and celebrates the accomplishments of Korean American adoptees in Minnesota, the U.S., and beyond.

Programs

Korean Culture Camp

• One of the oldest cultural camps in the U.S., the Korean Culture Camp of Minnesota is a nonprofit summer day camp program that aims to help Korean American children embrace being Korean without emphasizing the adoption factor. Typical camp activities include Korean language lessons, Taekwondo instruction, and learning the history and culture of the Motherland.
• “Giving Voice to the Korean American Community,” Korean Quarterly is a nonprofit publication serving ethnic communities of the Twin Cities and and northern Midwest. The publication’s entire staff consists of Korean American immigrants, adoptees, and adoptive parents. Features include profiles of notable Korean American organizations and leaders, and coverage of events deemed relevant to the KA community.
• AdopSource is a nonprofit organization that helps Korean American adoptees and the greater adoptee community in Minnesota have “a sense of belonging through their shared experiences.” Services offered by AdopSource include Korean culture and language classes and birth family reunion support.
• The Korean Heritage House provides the meeting grounds for a previously mentioned organization: the Chang-mi Korean Dance and Drum group. In addition to dance and music classes, members can participate in Korean cooking classes or a number of clubs including the Asian Adoptee Youth Club, Chingu Kids & Parent Play Club, and K-Pop Dance Club.
• AK (Adopted Korean) Connection is a nonprofit run for and by Korean American adoptees in MN. The site’s mission is to foster a community for adult adoptees, and each month, a social event allows members to gather and have fun. February’s event will be an exciting afternoon of rollerblading at the Metrodome!

Hotspots

A heavenly pie of Korean BBQ pizza from Pizzeria Lola

• Green Spoon is a cross between a sooljib and cafe, offering a full espresso bar omelets in the morning, and soju and delicious odangtang (declared a “super soup” by the Star Tribune) at night. On Wednesdays, Green Spoon serves unlimited wings and fries and unlimited beer for only $20!
• Having undergone a remodeling makeover, Hoban Restaurant exceeds all expectations in serving authentic Korean food. We recommend sticking to the classics; get the pajun, soondubu, or dolsot bibimbap.

  Kimchi Jjigae and bulgogi from Sole Cafe

• Escape from the cold with a hot meal at Sole Cafe. Voted “Best Korean Restaurant in 2011,” Sole Cafe is vegan-friendly and prides itself on using fresh produce from the local farmer’s market.
• With a menu that boasts Korean-inspired pizzas, Pizzeria Lola has quickly grown to become the go-to place for a tasty pie in the Twin Cities. Co-owner Ann Kim is one of 90 certified pizzaiolos in the U.S., and LGA’s Kevin proudly endorses the pizza joint, saying: “Nobody combines kimchi, banchan, and pizza dough like Ann Kim, one of the new superstars in the restaurant community.”
• Open until 2AM (4AM on Fridays and Saturdays), Do Re Mi Karaoke is a great place to feel like a rockstar among your friends. Do Re Mi’s menu is provided by Hoban, and the karaoke offers a Happy Hour Sunday-Thursday from 6-9pm.

Locals

Mayda Miller and Ed Bok Lee

• Deborah Johnson is the CEO of Kindred Journeys International, columnist for Adoptive Families magazine, and the ex-director of the Ties Program, an organization that helps adoptive families travel to their children’s birth countries.
• Kim Jackson established the HERE Project, the first portrait book of Korean adoptees living in Minnesota. She also works with the Korean Quarterly as a Graphic Designer.
• After earning his MFA from Brown University, Ed Bok Lee went on to write a national bestseller in poetry titled Real Karaoke People. His latest book Whorled has been named one of the 2011 Minnesota Book Awards finalists.
• Sun Yung Shin received the Asian American Literary Award for Poetry in 2008 for her first book of poems titled Skirt Full of Black. She is also the co-editor of Outsiders Within: Writing on Transracial Adoption with Jane Jeong Trenka and Julia Chinyere Oparah. Her next book of poems, Rough, and Savage, is set to be released in the Fall of 2012.
• Other notable locals include playwright Katie Hae Leo, soulful pop singer Mayda Miller, Hak Cheol Shin, who was a speaker at the first TEDxHanRiver and is 3M Company’s Executive VP of Industrial Business , and comedian Amy Anderson, who is currently based in LA but was raised in the city of lakes.

We’d like to give a special thanks to Kevin of Land of Gazillion Adoptees, the folks at Korean Quarterly, and Slanty of Slanty Eye for the Round Eye for helping us with the legwork for this article.

Have a city you’d like to see featured? Get in touch and give us some inside tips.

Melissah Yang contributed to this post.

“I’m done,” she tells the new issue of Entertainment Weekly.  “We just finalized our agreement,” continues Heigl, 31, who played Dr. Izzie Stevens on the ABC medical drama for six seasons. “Everyone had been working really hard to find an amicable and gracious way of letting go and moving on. It’s sad but it’s what I wanted.”

She says she wants more time to focus on her 16-month-old daughter Naleigh, whom she adopted from South Korea with husband Josh Kelley last September.

“I started a family and it changed everything for me,” says Heigl, who took a three-month leave after welcoming her baby girl. “It changed my desire to work full-time.”

Source: US Weekly

Nice pickup by our friends at Angry Asian Man on Jenna Ushkowitz singing the 80′s hit “True Colors” on the TV show Glee. Jenna is an adopted Korean girl from New York who’s now belting it out on Fox’s new hit TV show.

Here’s a snippet of her auditions for Glee.

Katherine Heigl is on maternity leave from her TV show “Grey’s Anatomy” so she can spend quality time with her newly adopted baby girl, Naleigh.  Mrs. Heigl is actually celebrating her daughter’s birthday today, which is a day before her own birthday.

“She was actually born the day before me in November, which I thought was really serendipitous and just kind of like a sign.”

Katherine Heigl, the Grey’s Anatomy star, has announced she’s expecting a baby…. from South Korea.  She’s begun the paperwork for adopting a 10 month old South Korean baby.  What you may not know about Katherine Heigl is that her own sister Meg is an adoptee from South Korea.  Of course she has a heart for Koreans!

Her full name is Nayleigh and her nickname will be Leigh, RadarOnline.com learned. The baby is approximately 10 months old.

“She is thrilled,” a source close to the situation told RadarOnline.com. “She and Josh are so happy.”

The idea of adoption is nothing new for the actress, as she told USA Today two years that it’s something she’s “always planned.”

“I’m done with the whole idea of having my own children,” Heigl said.

“[It] doesn’t seem like any fun. I don’t think it’s necessary to go through all of that.”

What you also may not know is that there are approximately 200,000 Korean adoptees worldwide and about 100,000 reside in the U.S.  South Korea has one of the more prominent adoption systems in the world.  I once visited an orphanage in South Korea back in the 80s, and my heart was really broken by seeing all those kids.  Good for Katherine!

Source: Radar Online

Join the Korea Society NY for a screening of Adopted, a documentary film that explores seldom spoken about aspects of international adoption through two stories. A 32-year-old Korean-born woman makes one last effort to bond with her dying adoptive mother, while a young couple, flush with hope, begins the process of adopting a baby girl from China. This  emotionally intense film juxtaposes hope and possibility with a view of adoption that does not shy away from its intrinsic complexities. Though the two families are at the opposite ends of their journeys, the stories converge to show that love is not always enough to make a family work.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with filmmakers Barb Lee and Nancy Kim Parsons.