Going Global

Lee Ann Kim with actress Sandra Oh San Diego Asian Film Festival PAYING MORE THAN LIP SERVICE TO Going Global by Henry DeVries Lee Ann Kim with actor George Takei ormer San Diego TV news anchor Lee Ann Kim believes you can never start too soon to Street, says Kim. “I can sing all the jingles from F TV in the ‘70s.” Kim has a few well chosen words for job learn the vocabulary of the global economy. seekers and career climbers. She can vocalize “My husband, Louis Song, and I are both She studied Spanish for four years in high the speech in one of four languages. ethnically Korean and we just enrolled our two school and was a journalism major and Spanish “In any job today employers are looking for children in a magnet Mandarin Chinese school” minor at the University of Maryland. She chose people who are bilingual, trilingual and quadri- says Kim. “They are in Mandarin immersion so Spanish for practical reasons that paid off in her lingual,” says Kim. “We now live in a global by the time they graduate from high school and career. speak fluent Chinese they can go anywhere in society. Speaking foreign languages just makes “I knew if I was going to pursue journalism the world because that is the number one lan- you more marketable.” then Spanish would be a better language than guage in the world. “ Kim, a high-profile anchor at KGTV/Chanel German, French or Japanese,” says Kim. “In 10 for 13 years, covered many big stories in- Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea and many of the TV markets, like Houston and San cluding the Cedar Fires, Santana and Granite emigrated to Chicago at the age of three. In Diego, if you are equal to someone else on Hills high school shootings, the Heaven’s Gate addition to Korean, English and Spanish, she your resume but you speak a second language suicides and the Republican National Conven- also “speaks” American Sign Language. She like Spanish or Chinese, then you are the one tion. She left the station in 2008 and today is might need to learn Mandarin to keep up with they will hire because we now live in a global making news as the founder and driving force the kids. society. That second language is extremely im- portant.” behind the San Diego Asian Film Foundation, “I learned most of my English from television the presenters of an annual film festival that shows like The Electric Company and Sesame has attracted more than 100,000 movie goers. Continued on next page 2 I Winter 2012 I extension.ucsd.edu I (858) 534-3400 In any job today employers are looking for people who are bilingual, trilingual and quad lingual. Lee Ann Kim, Executive Director, San Diego Asian Film Foundation Growing up as an Asian American immigrant of passionate volunteers, the festival opened in your community as a volunteer, stopping in the Midwest in the 1970s, Kim says she felt on August 9, 2000 with a sold-out screening of making excuses about what you don’t know, isolated and marginalized. Adults made fun of The Debut and ended with the Sundance Grand and surround yourself with people who are how her parents spoke (despite her father being Jury Prize winner Girlfight with director Karyn smarter than you. an M.D.) and others made her and her three sis- Kusama in attendance. About 3,500 people “You know what sucks? To be the smartest ters feel that they didn’t belong in America. attended the first festival, showing there was a person in the room,” jokes Kim. “That’s because demand for independent cinema. “I was constantly asked, ‘Where did you you are always telling people what to do and come from? Are you Chinese? Japanese? What’s The second film festival moved into a com- you can never learn. Life is a process of learning. Korean?’ So I grew up as a storyteller answering mercial theatre venue (Hazard Center in Mission You can never know enough. Always have peo- these questions,” says Kim. “My mom, who Valley) and took place in September 2001, two ple who are smarter than you that you can learn couldn’t speak English well, always told me: weeks after the 9/11 tragedy. The 80 films that from and grow. I always hire that way too.” n ‘No matter what you say and do, people don’t premiered provided a way for San Diegans to see you, they see all of us.’ My goal through heal through stories that promoting tolerance journalism, storytelling and the film foundation and cross-cultural understanding. Soon after, is to show people that if we understood that we the festival achieved 501 (c)(3) status, becoming Learning a Language Puts are really all the same, then the world would be the San Diego Asian Film Foundation (SDAFF) in the World in your Hands. a better place.” 2002. Since then, the foundation has premiered UC San Diego Extension offers foreign more than 1,000 films and videos from around Her San Diego Asian Film Festival first began language courses from Arabic to the world. Celebrities in attendance have ranged in 2000 as a three-day event at the University Spanish, and certificate programs in from Margaret Cho and Grace Park to George of San Diego. Kim had no prior film festival or Spanish and Translation and Interpreta- Takei and MC Hammer. fundraising experience, but came up with the tion (Spanish/English). Academic credit idea while serving as president of the San Diego Kim has received numerous community ser- is offered for successfully completing Asian American Journalists Association. With vice awards for her commitment to mentoring pre-approved language immersion the help of filmmaker Mark Arbitrario, film critic young people. The advice she gives to those programs in Mexico and Spain through Beth Accomando, local journalists, and a team that she mentors and employs is to get involved our Travel Study program. For more information, see page 20. Winter 2012 I extension.ucsd.edu I (858) 534-3400 I 3.

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