Jessica Lee
Great.

Abraham Kim
Today we have the unique opportunity of interviewing one of our distinguished members of CKA, Jenny Town. She’s a Stimson Fellow and the Managing Editor of the Stimson’s 38 North website. It’s a rich conversation between Jenny and Jessica covering a number of issues. She as an adoptee growing up in Minnesota and then going back to Korea later in life and that experience when she was an exchange student at Ewha Womans University. And then she delves into the challenges of what current Korean American adoptees face today. And her career as a North Korea analyst and the opportunity to launch 38 North website as a co-founder, which has now become one of the preeminent information sources for North Korean analysis and information. And then finally ends this wonderful interview on a very sensitive topic— and I think many folks who are in the policy world are familiar with— challenges that Asian American women face in the policy world. And I think it will be not only a meaningful conversation, but very important conversation that Jessica and Jenny has together. So over to you, Jess.

Jessica Lee
Well thanks Abe for the summary and you know, you’re absolutely right. The conversation really touched on a number of different personal as well as professional areas of Jenny’s life. You know, I couldn’t help but think about when Jenny was a toddler at the orphanage and the fact that she had a heavy Busan accent and then her life being really transformed overnight as she got to know her family and her new surroundings in rural Minnesota. And just this idea of being uncomfortable and being okay with being uncomfortable. And so she really does cover an extraordinary range of personal stories and inspirations to all of us. So really excited to share this interview with you all now. Let’s turn over to it.

Jessica Lee
My name is Jessica Lee and this is Korean American Perspectives brought to you by the Council of Korean Americans. I’m here today with Jenny Town, who is a Stimson Fellow and Managing Editor of Stimson’s 38 North, a website devoted to providing policy and technical analysis on North Korea. Jenny is also an Associate Member of CKA and also happens to work very close to the CKA office here in DC. It’s great to have you here in our office today. Thank you so much, Jenny.

Jenny Town
Thanks for having me. It’s my pleasure.

Jessica Lee
So Jenny, I thought we would start off by talking a little bit about your childhood growing up in rural Minnesota. You know, especially as a Korean adoptee. What was it like growing up in the Midwest and being a part of a community that may or may not be familiar with the adoptee experience?

Jenny Town
“May not” is an understatement. It was a character building, let’s put it that way. I was adopted when I was 3 and so when I came to America, I didn’t speak English. I did speak Korean. I spoke Korean with a very heavy Busan saturi [accent]. And so no one had any idea what I was saying. Even, I think when, back in the old days, they used to send them via airplanes and your parents would pick you up from the airport. So I guess they had brought an interpreter to the airport to try and ease the transition and she had no idea what I was saying. So apparently I had a real heavy southern [Korean] accent.

Jessica Lee
Wow.

Jenny Town
So, for the first few weeks and months it was apparently very difficult. I don’t really remember, I say 3 is kind of the magic age where I was old enough to know that this wasn’t normal, but young enough not to remember anything bad about growing up in an orphanage. And I did find out later that I grew up in an orphanage in Busan from birth until I was 3. So it really was character building. It was hard. My parents tell stories of how since I didn’t speak any English, we couldn’t communicate for a very long time. There was a point to which I stopped speaking altogether. And then for about a month, then just started speaking English in full sentences. So, you know, when you’re forced to do it, it is possible. But my brother is also Korean, also adopted and my brother and I were basically about the only minorities in about a 50-mile radius of the town that we grew up in.

So it’s a small town, Northern Minnesota. Most of the people have lived there for generations, and their families grew up there. So I’m pretty sure I’m related to most of the as well. And it’s a very kind of parochial environment. There’s a lot of embedded racism, a lot of what we would now call microaggressions. Because people didn’t even realize it was racist, they didn’t have any concept of what to do. And I remember in the early days, like kindergarten, preschool, people would be like, “Who are your parents?” These little Asian kids running around in the midst of all these blonde, blue-eyed people. And, I remember telling people, “Oh, I don’t know, because I don’t know who my biological parents are.” And they would just be so confused as to, well, “How did you get here?”

And I do remember like whatever vocabulary I had learned, I was telling stories already of like, “Oh, you mean the people who I live with” or you know, eventually I was like, “Oh, you mean my guardians?” And I was learning all this language to talk about my family. And eventually I learned the term “adoptive parents.” And so then, I think then people got kind of used to seeing us around cause there’s only two of us. It was easy to know whose kids we were. And it was hard, you know, being the only minorities and being very conscious of being the only minorities. And it’s pre-internet days where even to try and find information and study Korean and learn about Korea was a difficult task because you actually had to look for books at the library and you were limited to the resources that they had or the resources that your school had, which, when it comes to Korea ,was very, very limited. So there was a lot of soul searching from a very, very young age as to why am I here. What am I doing? Who am I? How do I get out of— how do I go home? And home to me was always Korea.

Jessica Lee
And so I wonder how that experience led you to eventually go to Westmar University in Iowa. Did you intentionally choose that school because of something you really liked or was it just very circumstantial?

Jenny Town
It was a very deliberate decision and Korea had a lot to do with it. Westmar University at that time had been bought up by a Japanese educational consortium called the Taikyo Education Group. So it was actually Taikyo-Westmar University. It was a bit of an experiment. This Japanese educational group had bought up five universities in America and a number of universities around the world, with the intention of creating a global education experience. So if you enrolled in one, you could technically take classes at others and move freely between them without— you know, your credits would transfer and that kind of stuff — without a lot of problems. So they had a heavy Japan focus and for a very small school in the Midwest, it was hard to find something that had a pretty robust East Asia program. Theirs were very China-, Japan-heavy, but they had just set up an exchange program with Ewha Womans University in Seoul. And so when I was being recruited, you know, I grew up pretty poor. And so I paid my own way through college and paid my own moving expenses and stuff. And I had been working since I was 13 so I was really independent-minded.

I only applied to two schools. I applied to University of Chicago and I got in but I didn’t get a scholarship. And then I applied to this university just because of their East Asia focus. And the recruiter talked about if I went there, I would be the first person to go on this exchange program, which was really appealing to me. And they also gave me some scholarships for music and speech. I was a state speech champion in high school.

Jessica Lee
And music?

Jenny Town
And music. I was first-chair flute and a soloist that won some solo contests and stuff. And I was a typical overachieving high school Asian student, but mainly because I had a plan. I knew I needed scholarships. I’d also played volleyball my senior year. I was supposed to be on the Varsity team but I blew out my knee during training camp.

So it’s like, okay, well if that one’s already been checked off, now I need to focus on getting scholarships in these other areas. And I did. And then the Westmar University also had a program called the Melton Foundation, which at that time was also a big experiment. Bill Melton is the guy who invented Verifone Industries, the magnetic strips on the back of credit cards and ATMs. And he was very interested in emerging technologies, and he started this organization back when the Internet was an emerging technology. What would happen if you gave communication tools to college students around the world? What would they do with this? And what could they come up with? And so we had five campuses that were tied into this. It was our campus in Iowa, a university in Germany, China, Chile, and India.

And it was another way to have a really international experience and really broaden the educational experience beyond just the classroom learning. And so there was a lot of things about Westmar that I really liked.

Jessica Lee
And did you end up studying abroad at Ewha?

Jenny Town
I spent my sophomore year at Ewha. The whole year.

Jessica Lee
And what was that like?

Jenny Town
It was pretty amazing. Of course, being a college student in Korea is a lot of fun when you’re not a Korean. When you’re not a Korean national, you don’t have to take it as seriously as Koreans do. But it was great because it was an Asian studies program at Ewha Womans University. It was a small program at that time. They’d had the summer program before, but I think the International Asia studies program was relatively new.

So it was a small group. We became very tight. I was there through two cohorts. And going home for me at age 19 for the first time since I came to America — it was my first time on a plane. It was my first time having a passport and getting a visa. I was actually going to China for two weeks for one of these Melton Foundation conferences before I was going to Korea. So it actually made it the transition a little bit easier. But I only bought one way tickets. So as a sophomore in college, buying one way tickets to a foreign country when you’ve never traveled is kind of a big deal.

And I remember as scared to death going to China first, but I was going with a group and I had my friends around me and stuff, but I remember we flew into Shanghai and at the Shanghai immigration, they stopped me at immigration. They wouldn’t let me through. They were yelling at me in Chinese, they threw back my passport and my entry card and I was terrified. I’ve never traveled [before]. And you hear stories about China and I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to jail, I’m going to jail, I’m going to jail.” I was like, “What’s wrong?” And he’s yelling at me in Chinese and so then I composed myself. I was like, it’s immigration in an international airport. He must speak some English, right?

So I asked him,”Is there a problem?” And he points at me and he yells at me. He was like, “Put your Chinese name on it.” And I was like, “But I’m not Chinese.” And he didn’t believe me. And so we had like this argument for the next 20 minutes of me trying to convince him that I wasn’t Chinese. And it’s like, I don’t know how you prove you’re not Chinese when you’re not Chinese to someone who’s convinced you’re Chinese. And because my first instinct then was, “I’m not Chinese, I’m Korean,” but I have a US passport. I didn’t think that’s going to help me. So eventually I’m waving my passport around like “No, American! American, see? It’s me!” and I think that was probably the first time I had ever told anyone, “I’m American, I’m American” and not Korean. It was a weird moment, but he finally let me through. And we had this conference. We spent about 10 to 12 days in China. And when the rest of the group was going back to the U.S.,I was on my way to Korea by myself. And I remember just crying all the way to the gates because I was just terrified.

I didn’t know any Korean. I didn’t quite know what I was doing. I’d only bought one suitcase and a duffle bag. And that was it. And so there was a woman in the gate who saw me crying and she came over to me and was talking to me and it turns out she’s a Japanese woman who was married to an American GI and they had adopted a Korean girl. She told me stories about her family and her life and it really helped calm me down and kind of collect myself before I got on the plane. And I went to Korea knowing enough Korean to say “Hello. Thank you. Goodbye. My name is Jenny.” That does not get you out of the airport. And then eventually when I was at Ewha, I had to also take a beginner level Korean class, which I was very happy to do because I didn’t even know there were two number systems and I knew the less useful one— the one that doesn’t include money. So I was just like, “What am I doing?”

And you know, luckily they had sent a student to pick me up from the airport and so she helped me out and they put all the international students in one dorm. So we did have some English networks we could use, but if I were leaving campus I was screwed. But my beginner level Korean class was crazy. I walked in the classes being taught in Korean and I remember I had no idea what she was talking about. Looking back on it now, I know that the first day of class, her lesson was talking about the proper usage of articles, like the Korean alphabet. I know “Hello. Thank you. Goodbye. My name is Jenny.” And so I was just lost and I kept asking the students, I was like, “Is this the beginner class? Am I in the right class?” And they’re like “Yeah”, I was like, “Do you know what she’s talking about?” And they’re like, “No”. So we were just sort of like a little bit lost and eventually she’s standing in front of me, speaking to me. I have no idea what she’s saying. And so the girl next to me eventually poked me and was like, “She just asked if you understand anything.” And I was like, “No.”

But she didn’t let me off and I had read her bio. I knew that she had studied in America, so I knew she spoke English, but she never spoke English to me. She refused to, which was actually a good thing, you know, it really made me learn faster. I actually learned Korean in a month. So I learned English in a month, I learned Korean in a month. And so within a month, I could speak full sentences and get around easy conversations, simple conversations. And I remember the end of the first semester, it was oral finals. She was asking me questions. I was answering her, we’re having a basic conversation and she starts to cry. She’s like, “Oh Jenny, I remember your first day of class and you didn’t speak any Korean and now look at you. You can speak Korean.” She’s like, “I’m such a good teacher.” I was like, “Oh yeah, I have nothing to do with this, but sure.” But she told me that normally the program was relatively young, and they technically only had three levels: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced. Since I passed the Beginner, I was supposed to move to Intermediate. But she told me that because of me, they decided to split up Beginner into Beginner A and Beginner B, as they’d never had a real beginner before. They’d always had people who had had at least some Korean or like Korean Americans who just didn’t know grammar but could have conversations. They’d never had someone start from zero before. And so because of me, then they had Beginner A. They split it into two groups so Beginner A was taught in English and then Beginner B was taught in Korean.

She said, “You know, instead of moving to Intermediate, I’d like you to stay in Beginner B.” And she was teaching Beginner B. And so the next group that came in was mainly Korean Americans. And again, they spoke some Korean, they just didn’t know any grammar. But she explained the grammar to them in Korean and they didn’t get it. And so she would explain the grammar point. They would all be very confused and then I would explain the grammar point and they’re like, “Oh, okay.” And she would just be like, “Oh, I’m such a good teacher.”

Jessica Lee
And during your time in Korea, did you have a chance to look for your biological parents? What would that look like if you tried?

Jenny Town
I did. When I went to Korea, it was not my intention to look for my birth family. But then, especially after the first semester, I had been in Korea for six months. I didn’t know if I would ever make it back to Korea. And I was like, if I don’t do this I’m really gonna regret it. I didn’t have a lot of information. And I did eventually run into people there. There were several Korean adoptees there. The ones that were there from Europe were pretty well-organized actually, and had good peer networks. The ones that were there from the U.S., we were all just flailing in the wind. We had no organization. We didn’t know what to do. We were just all lost children. And so the Europeans really helped us out. And there’s one woman in particular, she’s kind of known as like the godmother of Korean adoptees and especially helping those that have searched. Her name is Cho Mihee. And so Mihee was really instrumental in breaking down the barriers to searching because in Korea we’re not constituents, we didn’t have rights. We weren’t citizens, we didn’t have rights. And the laws were meant to protect the parents and protect the identities of the parents. And so we didn’t have rights to access our own records. And because of people like her and a lot of the work that she did, really kind of forcing agencies to deal with this issue, of forcing the government to deal with this issue and change laws, we now have rights to birth family searches. But at that time, I didn’t have a lot of information. The way that Korean adoption worked in the early days was that there was a Korean adoption agency and a U.S. adoption agency and they broker a deal.

And so I knew the American adoption agency and Mihee helped me figure out who the Korean counterpart was. And so I’d went to Korea social services, we went to see my records. And at that point, it always helped to bring a reporter with you to kind of force them into doing stuff they’re uncomfortable doing because they also don’t want the bad publicity of being the one to block everything. And so when I was at the adoption agency, we found my record that told— and each piece tells only a little piece of this story — what orphanage I grew up in Busan. And there was a full-page spread in this magazine, Wolgan Mal. The photographer had made like a whole series on these European adoptees and then me. But they had all found their parents and I was the only one who hadn’t, so they included me to just help me out. But because I was searching — Korea is not big on privacy laws — they actually published my contact information in the magazine. My physical mailing address and phone number.

So I started to get mail from men. Some were lonely guys doing military service somewhere. Old men. I had a couple of marriage proposals. And this happened with every stage. I became kind of a poster child for Korean adoptees searching. And so there was a lot of media. I was in a documentary and a couple of magazines and a couple of newspapers, on TV a lot. And so eventually, every step of the way had gotten a little different piece of the story, to the point where we traced back… to the orphanage where I grew up and the police station that handed me over to the orphanage, and I was able to find the clinic where I was born. And I actually met the doctor who delivered me as part of a documentary. It was really weird. At that point, she owned the clinic and the clinic’s name was also Ewha. It was Ewha Obstetrics Clinic in Busan and she was an Ewha grad. And so I think Ewha was in my destiny. And then it was really funny cause when we first met, we’re on camera. She comes up to me. I had been practicing my Korean as to what I was going to say to her. And the first thing I was gonna tell her was that I don’t speak Korean very well, in Korean. And I was, rehearsing this, I’m nervous. I don’t know what I’m doing. She walks into the room and the first thing she asks me is, “Do you speak English?” In English.

And I didn’t know what to say. It just threw me, it caught me off-guard because I was thinking, well, I could answer in Korean and then tell her I don’t speak Korean well because this is what I’ve practiced. But that’s dumb. Of course I speak English and she asked me in English and so it took me a good 30 seconds to formulate the word “Yes.” Then we were having a discussion and she was explaining to me that my mother was in labor when she was admitted. They didn’t keep records on it. They didn’t get her name apparently or her address or any of the identifying information. She was that far along. After she delivered me, the doctor had gone to another patient who was in labor and by the time she came back to check on my mother, my mother was gone and had left me there. She said it was the only time it happened at her clinic and she was like, “Oh, this was the first time it happened at her clinic.” But also, it was the only patient who never paid her bill because they didn’t know where to send the bill. And so I remember telling her on camera, “Well, don’t send it to me. I’m not going to pay it either.”

Jessica Lee
So to this day, we don’t know.

Jenny Town
Yes. So basically I’ve hit the end of the road as to what I can find out. And you know, I think my story is out there enough where if my mother ever wanted to find me, it would be easy for her to do so. But now it’s sort of on her and whoever might know about me. But you know, there’s no more records that I can find. That trail has ended.

Jessica Lee
So I want to go back to this theme that you touched upon earlier, which I thought was really striking. You know, the fact that we have Korean adoptees in the United States who come here legally, who are fully integrated as Americans in society, but they go through various challenges— not only in their upbringing but in finding a community, like you said. A support network, right? People who have had similar experiences and can relate. So I wonder if you could talk about how that has evolved, particularly with respect to the attention that certain members of Congress have been placing to address this loophole that exists. That affects about 32,000 adoptees, about 18,000, I believe, of which are Korean born. And so I wanted to get your thoughts on that, you know, legal issue in particular, but kind of more broadly, where is the Korean adoptee community in the United States today?

Jenny Town
International adoption is a relatively new practice and the Koreans really started it. Prior to the Korean War, international adoption was only allowed in exigent circumstances and in post-conflict zones. And usually through religious institutions. After the Korean War, the first wave of adoptees were GI babies. The country was war-torn. Everyone was poor, the country was devastated. And you had these GI babies, these half babies that Korea didn’t know what to do with. And so Korea was the first country to really make a business practice out of international adoption rather than just a humanitarian action.

Jessica Lee
You mean because of the sheer number of children?

Jenny Town
I think it was a combination of factors. One, it was a lucrative business. There was a high demand in the West for children and especially in the U.S., there were growing restrictions on who could adopt. And you know, in the U.S. where it’s a regulated system, it’s by social work standards. There’s a lot of vetting that goes on. If you wanted a baby, it could take you years to get a baby domestically. Whereas in the post-war era, you could get a child within weeks. At half the cost. And it was very kind of religious-institution-driven at that time, rather than strict social work standards. The vetting wasn’t as good. There wasn’t post-adoption services. It was really like, parents were told if you love your child, that that’s enough. Which isn’t necessarily the case. But yes, Korea was the first country to treat this as a business. And so the first wave of international adoptees are Korean. The first wave that came en masse were Korean.

And it was the case for several years that the only international, the only children being adopted internationally were Korean. But one of the things that wasn’t stressed enough in the post-adoption services, if there were post-adoption services, was this idea that  you need to get your child’s citizenship, your child needs to be naturalized. And I think a lot of parents thought, well, when the adoption is complete that my child is now an American citizen.

Jessica Lee
Because they’re legally part of their family,

Jenny Town
Yes, legally part of their family. And so there’s a lot of families out there where the parents either didn’t know or didn’t care and didn’t go through that process. And so those children didn’t necessarily know they weren’t American citizens because they had social security numbers and they could go through schools. And so usually the realization that they weren’t citizens only came if they got in trouble. 

I remember a story of a woman who was deported in the 90s for unpaid parking tickets. She had a number of unpaid parking tickets. But that’s how she found out that she wasn’t a U.S. Citizen and she ended up getting deported because of it. So what’s happening now, as the international adoption system grew and as the number of sending countries grew, there’s more and more regulation. There’s more and more post-adoption services. There’s better adoption services and standards. In 2000, Congress finally passed a law that made citizenship automatic for people who were legally adopted. But it didn’t grandfather in the adoptees who were adopted before 2000. And so the Adoptee Citizenship Act that’s going through Congress now is trying to remedy that situation to prevent other adoptees from being deported.

And so basically what it’s calling for is automatic citizenship for anyone who was legally adopted, which is kind of a no brainer, right? And there’s been a lot of support for that concept itself. But the other part of the legislation is to allow for those who have been deported to come back and to gain their citizenship as well. And this is where there has been controversy because generally the deportations are because of some kind of criminal activity. So then it becomes a very tricky immigration question because then you get the legislators especially that ask, do we really want to bring back criminals to our country? But they’re American citizens. They should be here. Even if they’re in jail, they still have the right to be here.

Jessica Lee
They have families. They have children.

Jenny Town
They have families here and in most of these cases they have no relationship with their home country either. And in the case of Koreans, until 2012, Korean adoptees were not even eligible for Korean citizenship because it was the special adoption law that was passed in 2012 which was the first time that Korean adoptees were allowed to present basically proof of orphanhood as their family registry. And since we didn’t have family registries before that cause were orphans, we couldn’t become citizens. And so, you know, in those cases that they were deported, they didn’t have Korean citizenship but they didn’t have U.S. citizenship either so there were cases of stateless people as well during these deportation processes.

Jessica Lee
So this seems like, as with many things in Congress, a very complicated issue and different factions that may be supporting more ambitious versions of this legislation and so forth. Do you think that there is a role for the Korean American community to play in educating ourselves about the issue itself and maybe even going one step further to organize, and advocate for change?

Jenny Town
Yeah, I think there used to be a lot of chasms between the Korean adoptee and the Korean American communities because of the stigma— which I always thought was really interesting. I understand the stigma in Korea. I didn’t understand growing up the stigma with the Korean Korean American community because, you know, it’s not Korea. We’re all in America flailing around in the wind. But I think there has been some progress over the years of the Korean American community trying to better integrate the adopted community because technically we’re about 10% of the Korean American population, but our issues aren’t considered Korean American issues. They’re considered adoption issues. We’re a large chunk of the Korean American community that’s not represented in the Korean American community agenda. But this is an immigration issue. This is an adoption issue. This is a community issue and Korean Americans, because there’s so many Korean adoptees and because Korea started this practice, really should be involved and be invested in how this plays out to our community, not just to those children.

Jessica Lee
I think because this is an immigration issue to a certain extent, in addition to it being more of an ethnic issue, just given the climate right now with what’s happening at the border with Dreamers and so forth, it seems like a particularly challenging time to tackle this issue. And that’s very unfortunate because like you said, this is a group of people who came to the United States legally through a legal process and should already be Americans, and yet they’re sent back for misdemeanors all the way to serious crimes. But nevertheless, they should be treated as Americans and not deported to a foreign country. So I understand how heartbreaking this issue must be for folks who have friends or neighbors or people who are going through that right now and experience a  sense of powerlessness, so this is certainly a challenging issue. But it is something that we should learn more about and certainly find ways to support. So I want to go back to some of the work that you’re doing here in Washington. You’ve talked about your experience in South Korea at Ewha, but I know you also studied in New York at Columbia University, and then eventually moved to Washington where you’ve been working for a number of years. So I wanted to get a sense, particularly for some of our younger listeners who are interested in foreign policy and national security work, how did you get started and what has this experience been like for you thus far?

Jenny Town
I’ve had kind of a long windy road to DC. To back up to when I was in Korea. Like I said, I’ve always felt Korean. I always felt Korea was my home. I tried very hard to learn about Korea and so being in Korea, learning about Korea was fascinating. It also was— and I’m gonna date myself here— it was the mid-90s, and this is right when news reports were coming out of North Korea, that there was a famine. And I remember talking about it with some of my fellow classmates and people in the community, and nobody believed it. And I was just intrigued by this. Like why wouldn’t you believe news reports of famine North Korea?

Jessica Lee
South Koreans didn’t believe it?

Jenny Town
South Koreans didn’t believe it. And it’s like, well, if North Korea is reporting that they have famine, why don’t the South Koreans believe that? And I think to me that was sort of the spark of my interest in North Korea and in North-South Korea relations over time. But then life happens and I went back to finish school in Iowa. Afterwards I moved to Minneapolis, spent a couple of years in Minneapolis, was interested in Korea and doing stuff on Asia in general. There are no jobs like that in Minneapolis, I can tell you that— especially not at that time. 

So my first job out of college, I was running a computer consulting firm during the .com era when you had to explain to people what the Internet was and what browsers were and what applications were. And it wasn’t like a job application, but an actual computer module. So it was a very different time. And I ended up working in advertising for a couple of years as a project manager. And I eventually moved out to DC to work for the college board. I got hired for a one-week temp assignment to do like a mailing project that I completed in about two hours because it wasn’t that hard. I spent the rest of the week there and helping out in different capacities. And by the end of the week they created a new position for me where I was Office Director / Special Projects Manager for Government Relations. And so that was kind of my first job in DC, in the DC community, starting to network. I was working on education policy, was a manager who was managing the other manager, which as a 26-year-old Asian woman, and  was met with a little resistance. Like, “Who is this girl?” They thought at first that I would be a very easy manager. I’m not. But my colleague told me, “Jenny, you don’t have to rule everything with an iron fist.” And I was like, “Well, I kind of do.”

And then I ended up leaving that to help start an international peace organization that was focused on the role of women in peace-building processes. Got burnt out on life, ended up going back to Korea for a couple of years and teaching English to really collect myself. I had actually always wanted to go back to Korea. My plan was after college to go back to Korea. But I graduated college right when the Asia Financial Crisis hit, which was not a good time to go back to Korea and try and find work as an American citizen. That that wasn’t gonna happen. So it took me about 10 years before I went back to Korea. Spent a couple of years there, and then came back more focused, knowing that I wanted to work on Korea issues and knew that in Washington, I needed to get my Masters. I’d already hit that glass ceiling of what I could do without a Master’s. In the meantime, I just wanted the exposure.

So my first internship was when I was 30, whereas basically volunteering at the Human Rights in North Korea project at Freedom House. And just because I wanted the exposure to the issues and to the field and build networks and stuff. They ended up hiring me as a Communications Consultant. So while I was in grad school, I was still working with Freedom House. And that’s when I met Jae Ku, who was my boss then. And when he moved over to the U.S. Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS, he eventually brought me over there as well and then he and I helped build that institute. So it was a long windy road.

I do believe that my success in the last few years is because I’ve had a long windy road. Like for instance, 38 North, Joel Wit and I started this back in 2010. I think there’s a lot of people who know the policy side of the game. Know how to write op-eds, know how to have networks to tap into things. But they don’t know how to present the information. They don’t know how to brand the information. They don’t know how to necessarily get it out in the world in an effective way. And I think my background in project management and advertising and brand management in public relations and communications and organizational development— all of this has helped contribute to the successes we’ve had at the institute and at 38 North.

Jessica Lee
You were recently named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2019 for your role in co-founding and managing 38 North. For those of us who are not familiar with 38 North, can you tell us a little bit about what it does and your day-to-day role?

Jenny Town
Sure. At 38north.org, we provide policy and technical analyses on North Korea. And when we started, our goal was to elevate the level of analysis and in public policy debates. North Korea is a country where it’s very difficult to get information about. And so people think they don’t have to. They don’t hold themselves to the same standards they would for other countries in being able to corroborate information, being able to have multiple sources before you report something in trying to verify rumors before you report on them, and being able to base decisions on actual data and not just assumptions. So what we tried to do was to say that North Korea is not unknowable. It is harder to study than most countries, but it’s not unknowable.

And so we tried to tap into the people who we know, who have expertise in this field, who have studied this field, who have worked with North Koreans, worked in North Korea, who could bring that expertise and that nuance and that understanding to the analysis and to the public policy debates. So that was really our initial goal, to be that platform for expertise and to try and make it still accessible, not just to a policy crowd but to the general public as well. We do a lot of media outreach also because most people learn about North Korea solely through the media. So good reporting matters. And over time we’ve added different features. 

We’re most known for our satellite imagery analysis. We monitor North Korea as WMD sites via satellite imagery. It’s one of those areas where we don’t have boots on the ground. And so all the data that we can get… and satellite imagery is one of those points of data that allows us to base decisions and assessments on hard data and not just what we think is happening.

Jessica Lee
Right.

Jenny Town
There are limitations of course, of what you can learn from satellite imagery, but it helped. Our goal now is to be kind of a digital resource center. A one-stop shop, a go-to for information and analysis on North Korea.

Jessica Lee
You and I have talked in our personal time about what it’s like to be a young Asian woman in this field. And I’ve also sat in meetings with you where you’ve provided incisive analysis that other people refer to throughout the meeting. So I know how highly respect that you are in this field. And I was wondering, how you navigate this space as a woman. Your work involves a lot of traveling, being in conferences and meetings where you’re the only woman. How do you conduct yourself and come prepared and just not let other things phase you?

Jenny Town
I think I learned from a very young age how to be comfortable being uncomfortable. It’s a very useful skill and there have been several times where I’m the only woman in the room or the only woman who’s not serving coffee in the room. And I’m always very conscious of that, but at the same time, I don’t let it get to me. And it’s taken a while. This is a field that is very dominated by old men, who don’t necessarily have a lot of respect for diversity. They don’t have a lot of respect for women. They don’t have a lot of respect for opposing voices. And especially for someone like me who doesn’t have government experience, I didn’t come from inside the beltway. I’m kind of an outsider, but I’ve been an outsider my whole life. So I’ve gotten comfortable being uncomfortable and I think half the time is really just showing up. Once you get the invitation, you have to show up and be prepared and know twice as much as everyone else and be prepared for people to assume you know, half of what everyone else does. It also helps, I don’t know if I should say this on the record, but it also helps to also be willing to be social in that process, especially on Korea stuff. You have to put in the time on the social side of stuff as well as the business side of stuff. Because once people start to see you as a person and not just a girl, it helps. And so I think there’s a lot of times where even some of the men that I work are so used to me being there that they kind of forget that I’m the only woman in the room, which sometimes can be awkward, but like I said, you roll with it.

I’m not a believer in you have to act like a man. I still show up in four inch heels and floral dresses and I’m okay with that. And I think everyone else has gotten used to it, too. But I think it’s more of being  prepared to be questioned. You have to be prepared for people to assume you don’t know anything and assume that you don’t belong there. You just have to believe you belong there. Own that space.

Jessica Lee
I know you met with our Public Service Interns recently at the Stimson center. And I heard feedback from the students of how important that exchange was in terms of your giving advice on being open to new opportunities and how to navigate this field here in Washington. So we appreciate everything you do at CKA as an Associate Member and as a supporter of this organization and for always being a resource to us when we come with questions about issues that are important to our community. Thank you for making yourself available today and we look forward to staying in touch and seeing all your future endeavors and accomplishments in this field. Thank you, Jenny.

Jenny Town
Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure.

Abraham Kim
Thank you Jessica for that fascinating interview. I didn’t realize that Jenny was named one of Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business in 2019. I didn’t realize that we had a celebrity in our midst for her co-founding and managing 38 North. For those of you who are interested in North Korea and obviously the fast moving security and economic issues that are going on there, I encourage you to check out  38 North. I read it very often when I do analysis. Thank you Jess for that fascinating interview and a rich interview that connects both personal and professional stories about Jenny’s life.

Jessica Lee
Yes. And it was great to see Jenny at the Stimson Center where she recently met with our 2019 Public Service Interns and shared her story about her work alongside David Kim, who is a research analyst and expert on North Korea and WMD issues at Stimson Center who has actually recently joined CKA. It’s great to see CKA members share these stories with our aspiring future leaders and opinion makers and we really appreciate Jenny and other members who take time to meet with our Public Service Interns throughout the summer. We look forward to sharing our next episode with you on our website, councilka.org. You can also find us where you get your podcast episodes and please feel free to reach out with any feedback, questions or concerns. Thanks and see you next time.

Abraham Kim
Thank you.