President’s Messages
Interim President’s Welcome
I am delighted to welcome you to the Korea-US Washington Forum homepage.
KUWF is an assembly of members who have worked in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area in different professions with widely varying experiences. It is a place where we take time off from our respective work places to engage in open and informal discussions on topics affecting the United States and the Republic of Korea.
Our members and their guests gather together to exchange information, carry on debates, and try to promote a better understanding and cooperation between the two great countries.
Whether we meet each other on line or in person, we want to leave each meeting enriched by the experience and feeling refreshed from having gone out of our routine and listened to ideas, views, dreams, and sentiments from different perspectives.
We hope this kind of exchanges and personal interactions will help us gain better and wiser judgment in living our lives and carrying on our business in our respective fields and communities. In the process, KUWF hopes to make a small contribution toward peace and harmony in the world.
Sincerely,
Gregg Brazinsky, Interim President
KUWF
[NOTE: YongSang Kim resigned as the President of the KUWF on July 24, 2023.]
Gregg Brazinsky
KUWF President YongSang Kim’s Remarks/ 김용상 KUWF 회장 취임사
April 25, 2021
Dear KUWF members and friends,
It is with my great honor that I stand here today as the President of the KUWF. As many of you are already familiar with, our Forum started under the name, Washington Korean-American Forum (WKAF), in 2007 by former Congressman Jay C. Kim and a few other prominent Korean Americans in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan area. Back then, we would often gather in Jay Kim’s Vienna VA house whenever there were visitors from Korea and we would also invite as guests, Korean Embassy officials and secondees of Korean businesses. Many of them are now back in Korea and also in leadership positions of their organizations, including Korean government agencies, various public and private entities, media, academia and in various other fields.
In 2019, we revamped our Forum and got it incorporated as Korea-US Washington Forum (KUWF), as a US Federal income-tax exempt non-profit incorporation under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), organized exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes. Under the leadership of Dr. Young-Key Kim-Renaud, we continued our meetings and stayed as active as we could despite the challenges of the global pandemic.
As of April 2021, I have assumed the role of the President and I have given some thoughts as to our future. I believe we have two unique opportunities.
The first is geographical expansion opportunity presented to us by relocation of our key members, such as the Founder Hon. Jay C. Kim, Richard Shin and myself to Seoul. The second is the generational expansion opportunity.
First, Geographical expansion opportunity. Our members are now in Seoul and also other parts of the world as well as in Washington D.C. We should hold regular meetings both in Washington DC and in Seoul. We will also have as many ad hoc meetings whenever there are opportunities regardless of the location. We should also collaborate with other organizations, such as Former Members of Congress, Changjoon Kim Academy of Politics and Economics, the Federation of Korean Industries, Kwanhun Club and Korean-American Club.
Second, generational expansion opportunity. We have proud and strong 14 years of history. We started with very successful and established leaders and have reached a point now that we could benefit from recruiting more of new and young members from the upcoming generation. That does not mean we aim for the generational shift, but we are aiming to expanding our generational reach which will bring new energy to our Forum. By such an expansion, all our members, regardless of age, gender, nationality, and profession, will all benefit from the vibrant discussions and activities of the Forum.
Our Forum is a platform where we can meet new people, encounter new thoughts, and enrich the lives of those around us. We have a very good base and we’ll grow from here. I invite your active participation as well as active recruitment of new members.
Yours truly,
YongSang Kim (김용상)
KUWF President Young-Key Kim-Renaud’s Remarks/ 김영기 KUWF 회장 이임사
January 23, 2021
Dear KUWF members and friends,
I am delighted to see you all again, albeit only on screen. My remarks today, while covering the current status of our Forum, also serve as my last regular formal speech as President of KUWF.
I would like to start by saying that I am most grateful for all the support and friendship you, as KUWF members, have shown me and other members during the last four years that I have served at this distinguished organization. Above all, I have learned so much from all of you through our discussions and while building our website (kuwf.org). We come from diverse backgrounds but are united by our common interest in promoting knowledge and a good relationship between Korea and the United States of America.
Our Forum started under the name, Washington Korean-American Forum (WKAF), in 2007 by former Congressman Jay C. Kim and a few other prominent Korean Americans, who were born in Korea but were active in the Greater Washington, DC Metropolitan area.
During my tenure as the President, it was decided that our forum should expand in terms of our interest and most crucially in terms of our membership. We have widened our initial focus on economy and politics to encompass all areas that may concern the Republic of Korea and the United States. Our members are no longer limited to people of Korean heritage but now consist of Korean and non-Korean persons and even institutions, regardless of their expertise and background, who have operated in the Washington, DC metropolitan area.
In 2019 we were incorporated as Korea-US Washington Forum (KUWF), as a US Federal income-tax exempt non-profit incorporation under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), “organized exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes.”
In 2020 we welcomed the Korea Economic Institute of America as our first institutional member.
Each of our regular meetings has had a specific theme, and the issues that we have covered recently include history, politics, society, economy, art, science, philanthropy, business, Korean studies, US-Korea relations, North-South Korean relations, Nationalism vs. Globalism. Each one has provided a wonderful opportunity to learn not only from the invited speakers but from our members from different walks of life. Many of the featured speakers have been our own members.
I would like to mention two recent major initiatives: (1) the KUWF Prize; (2) a charitable donation. Given the nature of our membership, we cannot organize specific external activities to enhance good Korea-US relations on a grand scale like some other individuals or institutions with more means. Therefore, there has been a proposal to establish the KUWF prize, which will recognize and support those leaders who do make efforts that are close to our core mission. There has been a specific proposal for the first award, which was presented to the Board of Directors. The proposal was approved by the simple majority of the vote by the Board members, but two members expressed strong objection, mainly for procedural reasons. As the President, I have decided to table the matter, as our bylaws do not make any mention of the Prize and we don’t have any committee overseeing the process. This will be an item on the agenda to be revisited by our next President and other members.
The second new matter is a small charity effort to participate in the food program to help feed America’s hungry. The year 2020 was a catastrophic one for the entire world, but especially in the United States. In this very rich country, it is shocking to learn that 12.7 % of the population is “experiencing food scarcity” (NY Times, p. B5, Dec. 18, 2020). For a US population of 330 million, this means 42 million hungry people–an order of magnitude comparable with S-Korea’s total population.
I presented to the Board of Directors a proposal to donate to the Capital Area Food Bank (www.capitalareafoodbank.org) a small donation, partly out of the money we have saved by meeting online instead of having our good dinners. Our donation of $4,200 included a $2,100 contribution by three Board members, with the matching grant coming from the KUWF coffers. This was voted for by the Board of Directors with a simple majority. In a letter of acknowledgment of the receipt of the gift, Radha Muthiah, President & CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, wrote that our contribution would “help provide almost 10,000 nutritious meals for those most vulnerable during the pandemic – children, seniors, women, and men – our neighbors.” I hope we could continue this practice as part of our regular activities and culture, especially as a 501(c)(3) organization partly with a charitable purpose.
My term as the President was supposed to end in April 2020. At your kind request for me to serve at least one more year, I accepted it, mainly because I was heavily involved in reincorporating our Forum, securing our non-profit status, and also building our new website. Having completed these goals, I am happy to hand the baton over to our new President, who will be elected during today’s meeting.
With my heartfelt thanks and best wishes for KUWF’s continued health and prosperity,
Yours truly,
Young-Key Kim-Renaud (김영기)
KUWF President’s Inaugural Speech/ 김영기 KUWF 회장 취임사
March 24, 2019
Dear Members and Guests,
Today, I have the honor and great pleasure to preside over the inaugural meeting for our reborn Korea-US Washington Forum and to host this celebration at my home. By serendipity, we are also celebrating an important birthday, that of our fellow member and founder of our organization. In fact, in our appreciation — and as a birthday gift–I decided to make the date of our incorporation March 27, his real birthday, so that he and KUWF will be forever connected.
A dozen years ago, the Honorable Jay C. Kim, member of the U.S. Congress, created the Washington Korean-American Forum. The idea was for a few Korea-born American leaders residing in the Washington, DC area and interested in promoting good relations and cooperation between the U.S. and the Republic of Korea to get together and to exercise our duty and privilege to participate in American political life. For this reason, we became a non-profit organization and were incorporated as a 501(c)(4) association. We were not really an activist group, but still we did make our voice heard clearly, for example, while the Free Trade Agreement between the two countries was being discussed.
Recently, the members of WKAF have had serious deliberation about being a completely non-profit, non-partisan organization, and decided to be incorporated as such, and under a 501(c)(3) status. Our new organization, the Korea-US Washington Forum, in fact, shares the same goals and mission as those of WKAF. Then one could wonder why a new organization? One major difference between the two is that members of the new organization no longer need to have been born in Korea. There are many scholars and nonacademic thinkers, who are seriously interested in U.S.-Korea relations and could both benefit and contribute to making this alliance work for humanity and world peace and prosperity. In fact, their participation is closely related to the vision we have for the Forum.
Therefore, our members now are even more diverse, coming come from different places and backgrounds, but they still must have worked professionally in the Washington, DC area. New members are nominated by current members. Nomination letters with the candidates’ names and photos are submitted to the President. If the President and the Chair of the Admissions Committee support the nomination, then the Board of Directors vote on the nomination. With a majority of the votes, the candidate will be welcome to the Forum as a regular member.
We are believers in life-long learning and the best approach to it is through dialog. In fact, civilization started with people talking to each other. We are societal leaders and teachers, and when we continue to dialog with capable people in areas different from our own expertise, our field of vision could widen, our ability to listen to others expand, and the result from such meetings of people from different walks of life could indeed impact society much more than small group activism. This is our vision and hope. We are not afraid of expressing individual views that may be quite different from the majority, but we are also ready and willing to be persuaded by others’ good arguments based on reason, intelligence, and experience.
We want to discuss issues in a civil manner, however different others ‘views may be from ours, as we believe that what is lacking in today’s competitive environment is a true, constructive dialog. We have come a long way from very discriminatory ways of thinking and living, but man-made tragedies keep happening, because people are basically becoming more and more insecure, and insecurity comes from the fear of the unknown, including friends and foes. We need to have more dialog because dialog feeds our curiosity, makes us happy when we are heard, and enlightened when we listen to the others.
We would also like to do something concrete, beyond our discussion, in the future. It is our hope to establish one or more prizes to be awarded to a person or a group of people who have contributed to world civilization by continued dialog and learning. We’d like to encourage younger generations to do the same. This is a dream for the time being, as we don’t have the material power to do these things as yet, but where there is a clear vision and will, such dreams can come true. At least it is my hope.
Now, I’d like to invite everyone to introduce himself/herself briefly. After which we will hear the inaugural address by the Honorably Jay C. Kim. Former Congressman Kim who is famous for having been the first Korean American ever to be elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, but his achievements before assuming public service were already impressive. He was known as a self-made man, a serious scholar, engineer, entrepreneur, a great leader, and an innovative person. Now he has been back to Korea for some time, where he is eagerly advising Korean managers, sharing his diverse experiences and wisdom, which will certainly impact Korean society in a most positive way. Let us give a warm welcome to Jay C. Kim.
Young-Key Kim-Renaud
President, KUWF
WKAF President Young-Key Kim-Renaud’s Inaugural Speech/ 김영기 WKAF 회장 취임사
2017년 4월 1일 우래옥
멀리서 오신 존경스러운 회장님, 기업인님들, 워싱턴 한미포럼 회원 친구님들,
지금 세계가 뒤숭숭하지만 화창한 봄날이 앞날을 밝은 것으로 보이게 합니다.
우리는 자라면서 “암탉이 울면 집안이 망한다”는 말을 흔히 들었고 지금도 그렇게 말하는 사람이 많습니다. 여성을 비하하는 말은 한국에서뿐 아니라 세계 전체에서 수도 없이 많습니다. 한자의 예만 하나 들어 보아도 질투(嫉妒, 嫉妬)는 남자고 여자고 다 할 수 있음에도 마치 여자만 하듯이 둘이다 “계집 녀” 변으로 씁니다.
그렇지만 시대는 변했습니다. 옛날에는 여자가 말띠면 팔자가 사납다고 하였으나 요새는 오히려 박력있고 사회활동이 왕성하여 성공할 운명이라고 합니다. 한국말로는 새들이 울지만 서구 여러 말에서는 새들이 노래합니다. 암탉이 울면 비범한 일이라 모두 감탄하여야 할 뿐 아니라 소프라노라 훨씬 더 높은 음으로 노래할 수 있습니다. 그런데 이렇게 단연코 많이 참석하신 남성들 앞에서 여성의 우월함을 겁 없이 말씀드린 것에 대해 사과 말씀을 드리고 싶습니다. 제가 지금 말씀을 이렇게 드린 것은 미국과 한국의 강연 문화에 둘 다 적합하기 위하여 한 것입니다. 즉 미국 사람들의 연설은 농담으로 시작하여 관중을 우선 편안하게 하고 친근함을 느끼게 하려는 것입니다. 동아시아 연사들은 대개 잘 못 한 것도 없으면서 우선 미안한 마음을 보입니다. 그렇게 함으로써 거만하지 않고 겸손한 마음을 보여 청중들을 편안하게 하고 친근감을 느끼게 하려는 것입니다. 결국, 목적이 같으니, 인간들이 가지는 보편성을 보이는 증거입니다.
저는 한국에서 산 것보다 두 배 이상을 외국에서 살며 다문화 환경에서 이렇게 다른 문화를 이해하려 하고 그를 위하여 분석하고 설명하는 것으로 일생을 살아온 사람입니다. 사실은 미국에 오기 전에도 저희집 환경이 외국인 방문객이 많았고 지방에서 온 손님도 많았습니다.
그런데 지난 12월 갑자기 예고도 없이 김창준 WKAF이사장님과 전 회장님을 포함한 이사회 저녁 초대를 받고 나갔다가 승낙을 안 하면 밥만 굶을 것이 아니라 그 식당을 떠나지 못한다고 하셔서 인제 은퇴한 교수로 재미있는 것만 하며 신나게 놀기만 하려던 저 자신과 식구와의 약속을 깨는 운명에 들어간 것입니다.
그러나 제 본성을 버릴 수가 없었습니다. 저는 일단 일을 맡으면 할 수 없이 하게 된 일이어도 재미가 생깁니다. 그래서 맡은 일을 기쁨으로 사랑으로 열심히 봉사할 마음이 생겼고, 무엇보다 그것도 제 운명이라는 생각이 들었습니다. 처음 미국 대학원에 입학원서를 내면서 제 장래 희망이 한국과 미국의 다리가 되는 것이라고 했습니다. 그리고 그 희망에 맞춰 일생을 살아왔다고 생각합니다. 그리고 이 정답고 존경스러운 분들과 같이 그 목적에 계속 맞추어 일하는 것이 얼마나 결국은 저를 신나게 할 것이고 노는 일과 별로 다른 것이 아닐 거라는 것을 느끼게 되었지요.
제가 이때까지는 한국학을 하며 한국을 세계에 알리는 일을 하고 살아왔습니다. 그러나 그것을 한국을 위해서라는 생각보다는 미국과 다른 나라 학생들과 민족들의 호기심에 어느 정도 답을 주는 동시에 무엇보다 타민족들의 지식의 폭을 넓혀주고 더 나아가 본인들에 대한 자아 성찰을 해 보게 하는 중요한 과제를 실행하고 있다고 생각하고 일하였습니다.
제가 한 번 남 카롤라이나 여행 중, 안내자 하나가 거기 사람들은 아시아인들과 같다고 했습니다. 첫째 그들은 밥을 먹습니다. 둘째 그들은 조상을 숭배합니다. 셋째 그 들은 죽을 때 고향으로 돌아갑니다. 그래서 제가 혹시 한국에서 죽지는 않을 가능성이 더 클 지도 모르지만 제 마음이 고향으로 돌아갈 생각을 하게 되는 것 같습니다.
제가 이때까지 미국인과 다른 외국인들에게 한국학을 통하여 자신들의 발전을 도모하였다면 이제부터는 비슷한 일로 제 친정인 한국, 한국인들의 발전을 위하여 사는 것이 극히 자연스러운 목적이고 운명일 것 같습니다. 결국은 어느 쪽을 향하든, 어떤 방식으로든 한미관계를 원만하게 하는 일을 할 수 있다면 계속 행복하리라 믿습니다. 이런 의미에서 겸손한 마음으로WKAF의 회장이라는 중책을 저를 믿고 맡기신 이사진과 회원님들에게 실망 안 시켜드리도록 열심히 노력해 보겠습니다.
감사합니다.
WKAF 회장 김영기