In my map, I started off wanting to show the gathering places of Korean immigrants and Korean Americans and then put that in correlation to the BEST (according to a website) Korean restaurants in the United States. I wanted to put this in relation to the contribution of immigrants in the United States to help address the pervasive myths on how immigrants are “drains” to the system. Nationalism and white supremacy have been a problem in the U.S. since its conception, but it seems to have gotten even worse in the recent years.
A lot of people don’t understand and refuse to understand how the immigration process works and while they would do almost ANYTHING to make their lives better for themselves or their children, they don’t care that others would do the same. I think what this map shows at this point is the impact of what communities would lose if there were no Korean immigrants or Korean Americans. Los Angeles would lose a whole section of their city without them. America would lose a part of its history. I do not know how people can go about their lives without acknowledging the contributions immigrants have made to America.
What I wanted to do with my map doesn’t necessarily have to do with my project now but what I would like to add to it is immigrant stories around these various restaurants listed and also add restaurants that aren’t listed. I know that the list I pulled from probably had some arbitrary reason to make the restaurants on the map the “best” so I would like to do more in that realm. I want to ask the questions on why those particular restaurants are the best and also, I would want to know who made that list and why are they the authority on one restaurant is better than the other. Are they authentic Korean restaurants? What does authenticity mean and why does that make it better?
So, in reality I think my map is the first step of a very vast project that I would like to do that plays off of what I will be doing with my capstone. I want to tell these stories so people can see what people have to do to “make it” here. What were the sacrifices? What did you lose? What did you gain? I honestly wasn’t sure if this map could help my project at all but I really think it did help inform how I would like my capstone to be perceived and what it can contribute to back to other communities.
I had a friend tell me a few years ago that “food is fellowship” and those words really stuck with me. I saw it to other people to and I hope that they feel as strongly about them as I do. It brings people together and its cross generational. I mention this in my capstone proposal when I talk about connections and how food is one of the first connections we make with people. It could be something like a coffee date, going out to dinner, holidays, anything! Food makes events better too! Who wants to go to a wedding if there isn’t food after?!
In Korean how we say “how are you?” to people we know is, “밥 먹었어?” (bahp mokeoso) which translates to “Have you eaten yet?” and I really think that it is a beautiful question to ask. Its how people show love and that they want to spend time with you. That’s why I think the stories around food are so important.
I am not sure that my map shows that without context so I hope that is ok. I think this project in general showed how versatile mapping can be as well creating the visual impact needed for people to understand what change can do. Its like when you say Covid has a 99% survival rate so its no big deal but then when you look at the actual number and apply it to a city you will see that a whole city gets wiped or half or more of a population in a state. Maps are a good way to share statistical data but they are also good at telling stories. I didn’t really think it had that ability until I started hearing other people’s projects and trying to make something myself. It’s a really cool way to do qualitative and quantitative work on one platform and in one project.
It can be a timeline and a way to share stories, which is what I plan on doing. My project changed a lot (like it’s pretty much completely differed) too between when we started the map project to now. I do feel a little constrained by what specifically can be added to the map as well as not having the ability to give the map “movement”. It makes it up to the reader to explore a lot unless there is something I am missing about MyMaps and what it is capable of doing. It is very sleek though and I was a little begrudging when we initially had to do the project but I think the points that I started to add is what drove my map to become what it became rather than me having a complete vision and making the map do what I wanted. I let the map tell its own story and tell me where it wanted to go since I didn’t know where I wanted to go in the first place but I am glad that it took me to such an important place. The stories mean a lot to me and I know that they mean a lot to other people too.