Local educator publishes collection of personal essays

꿈꾸는 청춘: A Gift of Dream, Love, and Work
by local writer Julie Kang

꿈꾸는 청춘: A Gift of Dream, Love, and Work is the second published collection of essays from Dr. Julie Kang’s journals from her teens, twenties, and thirties. 

Growing up as an immigrant girl from a single parent home, three strikes were against Kang’s personal identity. However, with the guidance of excellent and caring teachers, Kang was able to succeed through education. While her mother could not come to school because she worked 12 plus hours to make ends meet without government support, hard work and big dreams defined and shaped Julie’s professional identity as an educator. By sharing her personal and professional experiences during her teens, twenties, and thirties, she hopes to plant seeds of hope and dream to our young immigrant students as they pursue education, love, and professional careers.

This book is also about the intersection of gender, race, class and age. As a Korean American woman, being a wife, daughter, mother defines and intertwines with Kang’s professional identity as a teacher, former chair of the first Korean American community bank, and now as a board member of the Dale Turner Y. Being a teacher of color, it’s no coincidence that her passion around equity and excellence in education focus more heavily on Title, Learning Assistance, and English Language Learner Programs. Through community outreach work, Kang hopes to represent the voices of the voiceless and empower students and parents.

“As a 1.5 Korean American, we are in a unique situation to bridge the gap between the first generation and the second generation. However, this can happen more effectively when the communication is not hindered by limited languages -- meaning that the first generation should learn English to stay engaged in the local and state community while the second generation children should learn or maintain their heritage languages. Because I believe in maintaining heritage language and honor funds of knowledge, this book is first being published in Korean.” 

Julie Kang will speak at
Third Place Books
on May 26, 4pm

Using her personal experiences as a foundation, Kang has implemented the Biliteracy Project in the Shoreline School District. She empowers ELL and immigrant students to maintain their bilingualism because languages are assets and will lead to additional opportunities not available to monolingual students. She also collaborates with immigrant families and encourages them to maintain their heritage languages at home.

Kang’s family foundation, The Sonshine Foundation, donated the publication cost and all of the proceeds from the book sales will be donated to the United Seattle Korean School to support Korean language, culture, and history education.

Kang has planned two book signing events in our community. The first one will be at the Lynnwood Embassy Suite Hotel on May 5th at 5pm in Korean and the last event will be at Third Place Books on May 26th at 4pm. Her book is the first Korean language book published at the Third Place Press in the Third Place Books.

Julie Kang, Ph.D., NBCT, is a Parent Academic Liaison, working with the Title/LAP/ELL Programs.