Gunman's Wrath Divides a Community

Victims have been buried and classes at Virginia Tech have resumed, but the Korean community where the killer was raised continues to struggle with deep generational differences and an unprecedented bout of soul-searching.

Young Korean Americans, more so than the children of many other immigrant groups, talk of leading a double life -- immersed in American culture by day, then reverting to traditional Korean family life when they return home at night. One world encourages them to express emotions and explore new freedoms. The other expects them to obey without question and keep their doubts and fears to themselves.

"As second-generation Koreans, we have two almost totally separate cultures lashing at us," said Dan Kim, 19, a freshman at George Mason University. "It's really hard to balance the Korean communal-identity culture and the Western individual-oriented culture."

Many older Korean Americans, raised in a culture that assumes collective guilt for acts that shame their society, reacted with public apologies after a 23-year-old immigrant from South Korea killed 32 people at Virginia Tech. But now they are questioning whether their traditional values may be depriving their children of healthy emotional outlets.

"This incident has made us all very aware of the need to reach out and discuss these problems more," said Esther Park, director of the Korean Community Service Center of Greater Washington in Annandale. "But Korean people are good at hiding and pretending. It is hard to get them to talk."

Korean Americans are among the Washington region's largest and most established immigrant groups, with more than 143,000 members. The community has a solid reputation as hardworking and family-oriented. Its breadwinners have found durable niches running dry cleaners, coffee shops and groceries. Its social life has focused around dozens of suburban churches and civic groups.

Yet area Korean American leaders say the community has remained insular, reluctant to examine or expose its problems and narrowly focused on economic and educational success. As a result, they say, tensions between the generations, and between old and new cultural ways, have tended to fester in silence.

Now, the Virginia Tech shootings have exploded that silence. The news that the campus gunman was raised in the local Korean community has gotten people talking about long-taboo topics such as mental illness and started them looking for a healthier balance between Korean and American values.

One immediate example of the generational divide was the starkly different way first and second-generation Koreans viewed the shootings.

"My first thought was for my son's safety," said Young Hee Kang, 47, a Fairfax County resident whose son is a freshman at Virginia Tech. "He and his friends, who are mostly Caucasian, kept on assuring me he would be fine. My son said, 'Nothing bad will happen, Mom. The gunman was a sick person. I am part of the American melting pot.' "

Many Korean American students said they not only felt no need to apologize for the actions of Seung Hui Cho, the gunman, but were resentful that older Koreans, including Seoul's ambassador to Washington, had publicly expressed a sense of remorse for an atrocity that they view as bearing no relation to them or their origins.

"This was one person committing a horrendous act. This wasn't someone representing the whole Korean community and culture," said Jacob Kim, 22, a senior at George Mason University who immigrated at age 7. "It's not something that we as Korean Americans need to feel ashamed or afraid about."