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www.groovekorea.com / January 2015 86 from korea To laTin america and back going Their own way Projects like Somos are hoping to increase the awareness of Latin culture in the Korean collective consciousness, since Latin America has traditionally been a low priority for Korean business interests and immigration alike. While more than 5 million Koreans live in China and the U.S., only 50,000 have settled in Brazil, and around 30,000 have spread to Argentina, Guatemala, Peru, Chile and Mexico. Mean - while, in Seoul, it is estimated that there are only around 2,000 Latin Americans living in the city. Some Latin Americans in Seoul embrace these differences between cultures. Raul Ver - gara and Cristina Nuñez run the Latin Ameri- can Center of Korea in Itaewon. Their mission is very clear: “Basically, to connect the local Korean community with the local Latin commu- nity,” said Vergara, who also sees the objective as a means of uniting the Latin Americans living in Seoul. “We have a Latin community, but we are not connected. You will find a lot of people doing different things, but we are not aware of each other, what we are doing.” Nuñez, who is from Venezuela, uses her ex- perience as an artist to run creativity workshops at the center, attended by both Latin American and Korean children. “I think Korea and Latin America can make a great mix,” she said. “Because maybe here it is good that the people are so strong, they work so hard and the results are good, but (it’s) also too stressful. Maybe the other side is not so good, but if you mix everything, the discipline of Korea and the spontaneity of Latin America, I think it’s a good mix.” The benefits are clear to Vergara, a musician who does coordination with the Seoul Philhar - monic Orchestra. He wishes to bring together Edited by Jenny Na (jenny@groovekorea.com) COmmuNITy ‘I’m here to encourage LatIn amerIcan peopLe to not waIt for someone eLse to do It for us. we have to be the fIrst ones to motIvate these sort of thIngs happenIng.’ rauL vergara, LatIn amerIcan center of Korea One Seoul resident who migrated in both di- rections is Paik Un-he, who goes by the name Graciela and was born in Korea to Korean par- ents. She moved with her family to Argentina when she was 8 years old, but returned to Seoul 14 years later. Having grown up in Ar- gentina and Uruguay, and with Spanish as her mother tongue, she found it difficult to settle back into Korean life. “We were like foreigners in our own country,” she recalled. “My Korean was rather poor. The worst mistake was thinking we were Koreans and that we could deal with it.” During her time working with the Colombian and Mexican embassies in Seoul, she empa - thized with the difficulties faced by those born and raised in Latin America when they came to the city, the isolated groups of diplomats, priests, nuns, teachers and their families. She saw that some Seoul residents had problems integrating, even when they formed close rela- tionships with Koreans. Graciela recounted the story of one Latina who married a Korean man slightly older than her. “After a few months they had difficulties because she didn’t speak Korean and he didn’t speak Spanish very well,” she recalled. “Her mother-in-law was an old lady, always cranky, complaining about this foreign daughter-in-law. They couldn’t understand each other and they didn’t share anything in common except for the son. So they de cided to divorce.” Graciela also tells of conflicts over finances, as happened with a Latin American man who married a Korean woman. “Her father was working and her mother was doing the invest - ments, buying houses, selling, doing everything in the house,” she recalled. “She wanted to do the same thing with this Latino husband. But he could not accept that.” However, Graciela believes that the Korea of today provides a more conducive environment in which Latin Americans can socialize as well as do business. “I think it’s getting easier. Because we are more open, there are more people who speak English, people who have studied abroad,” she says. “But still I think it’s not that easy.“ others like himself and Nuñez, despite what he sees as a lack of support from the numerous Latin American embassies for projects like his. Instead, he says, they are focused on strength- ening business channels between Korea and their respective country. He says each ambas- sador has their own agenda, whether it’s to promote music, sports, study abroad programs or food, and “it comes down to the countries’ intentions, what motivates them.” Although he says there is some limited sup- port from the Seoul authorities for the Latin American community, he issued a rallying cry to those Latin Americans living in the city. “Once in a while there’s the Latin American festival organized by the city of Seoul,” he claimed. “It’s great that they’re doing it, but if they’re not doing it, we would have nothing. So I’m here to encourage Latin American people to not wait for someone else to do it for us. We have to be the first ones to motivate these sort of things happening.”