KAVC Recognized With The “Korean of the Year” Award

On January 13th, at the Manhattan Times Square Marriot Marquis Hotel, the Korean American Voters’ Council (KAVC) was awarded the “Korean-American of the Year Award” by the Korean American Association of Greater New York (KAAGNY) during the 51st Annual New York Korean-American Night/Korean-American Day.

With “Stepping Forward” as its theme, the celebration was attended by New York State Comptroller DiNapoli, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and New York City Comptroler John Liu.

The following people were awarded by the Korean American Association of Greater New York (Yong Hwa Ha, President):

The Korean American Voters’ Council (Korean-American of the Year Award), Jongmu Cho, Chief Editor of the KAAGNY 50th Anniversary History Report and Dongju Park, President of the Korean Seafood Association of NY (Community Service Award)

Special awards were awarded to:

John Oh, US Army Doctor (Public Benevolence), Michelle Park Steel, Vice Chair of the California Board of Equalization (Political Empowerment), Juju Chang, ABC News Anchor (Media), Hyosuk Seo, Pyeonkang Acupucture (Honorable Mention), Pfizer, Inc (Business)

The KAVC delivered a short speech regarding the award.

The Korean American Voters’ Council was created in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, in which we witnessed that the fruit of our hard labor destroyed in an instant, Koreans were portrayed as being racist perpetrators while we were the victims, and no one defended us from these accusations.

From the Riots, we learned a lesson: without Korean community’s own coherence and strategies to survive, the solidarity among minority communities was meaningless.

Despite the fact that there are many talented Koreans in American society, if they do not understand the stark reality of the Korean community and have not realized the need to embrace it, they do not provide any form of help to the greater good of Korean-Americans.

To participate in American political process, as a grassroots organization, KAVC has concentrated its efforts on voter registration, increasing voter turnouts, and raising new leaders for the community. For the past 15 years, we have been striving to make Korean-Americans known and get the respect that we deserve.

In addition, we have realized that we are in a crucial position where we must work diligently to help improve the relationship between Korea and the US through our self-developed grassroots influence in politics.

We sincerely thank each and every one of our fellow Korean Americans that have supported KAVC.

 We express our gratitude to the Korean American Association of Greater New York for presenting this award to us. We will take this award as an encouragement to fight even harder for Korean-Americans.