Speaking Up

Kyu-Young Kim

Saint Paul, Minnesota | Korean

Before moving to Minnesota for a job in the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, I was a violin student living in an apartment near Lincoln Center in New York City.  One day I was riding the elevator with an elderly woman with a thick Russian accent.  I remember so clearly the disgust in her voice when she said to me, “I hope you didn’t leave any of those menus.”  

“Excuse me,” I said, momentarily confused.  Then I realized she thought I was a delivery person for a Chinese restaurant.  “I live in this building,” I said, with irritation.

“All I know is that you people are always leaving menus all over the place,” she sneered.  

I got to my floor and got off.  I was furious and vented to my friends and family, wishing I had called her out.

The next time I ran into the woman I was with my sister.  Sure enough, she said the same thing to me, and my sister, knowing about the previous encounter, went ballistic, calling the woman a racist right to her face, and getting in more than a few choice four-letter words.  There were others on the elevator who just tried to ignore the whole scene.  Eventually, I had to pull my sister off the elevator when we got to our floor.  

***

This happened over 20 years ago.  I hadn’t thought about it for so long until my 11-year-old daughter asked me recently, “Is Asian hate over?”  I had told her about the Atlanta shootings and the escalation of violence against Asians in this country, and about a week later she asked me that heartbreaking question.  I never would have called that little incident an example of Asian hate until this year, but now I know better.  I told my daughter about the racist woman in the elevator.  

“No sweetie, it’s not over.  But you don’t have to be scared.  You need to speak up like your Auntie.”  

Kyu-Young Kim is a Korean-American violinist and arts administrator who lives in Saint Paul, MN. His appointment as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s Artistic Director in 2016, while still maintaining his role as Principal Violin, was the first time a playing member had been tapped to take the artistic helm of a major American orchestra. Under Kim’s artistic leadership, the SPCO opened its new Concert Hall at the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts to great critical acclaim, toured throughout the U.S. and to Europe, and won a Grammy Award in 2018.