[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 72 (Thursday, May 3, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E939]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       IN REMEMBRANCE OF TOM KIM

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. NANCY PELOSI

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, May 3, 2007

  Ms. PELOSI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to native San 
Franciscan Tom Kim, a trailblazing community leader, organizer, and 
youth activist of Korean heritage, who recently passed away at the age 
of 64. Tom Kim lived in San Francisco all his life, growing up in 
Chinatown, residing and organizing in the predominantly Hispanic 
Mission District, and in the predominantly African American and 
Japanese-American Western Addition.
  Tom was a mentor to many of our local and national community and 
political leaders. He was a staunch unionist, having joined the 
International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union upon becoming a 
longshoreman after graduating from high school.
  Tom was a champion of the oppressed and underrepresented, especially 
for our youth. As a catalyst for social justice, Tom co-founded the 
Real Alternatives Program to help alienated and troubled youth find an 
alternative to street life and the juvenile justice system. He was one 
of the first to advocate for community-based alternatives to detention. 
Many of the modalities for which he advocated early on are now accepted 
as the best practices in youth work today.
  Tom was in the forefront of founding numerous groundbreaking 
organizations that trained and inspired a lineage of professional 
social workers and psychologists serving the Asian American community--
the first national Asian American Social Work Training Center; the 
first national Asian American Psychology Training Center; Asian 
American Social Work Training at one of California's State 
Universities--San Francisco State; San Francisco-based Asian American 
Communities for Education and Asian Youth Substance Abuse Prevention.
  At San Francisco State University, Tom helped establish the College 
of Ethnic Studies and was an early faculty member, teaching juvenile 
law and community alternatives to detention, as well as Asian American 
Studies. In 1972, he helped organize the first Asian American Mental 
Health Conference, which was held in San Francisco. Sponsored by the 
National Institute of Mental Health, this seminal conference gave voice 
to overlooked, underserved, and negatively understood Asian Americans 
to communicate their needs and concerns.
  Tom was a leader in policy development. He held a number of policy 
positions--White House consultant for the International Year of the 
Child proclaimed by the United Nations in 1979; member of the 
California Bar Association Committee on Juvenile Justice; member of the 
President's Commission on Mental Health, Asian American Panel; 
consultant to and witness before the United States Select Commission on 
Immigration and Refugee Policy in 1979 and 1980; and member of the 
oversight committee for the 1980 United States Census.
  I was honored to work with Tom when he co-founded the groundbreaking 
Asian Pacific Caucus of the Democratic Party, which debuted at the 1984 
National Democratic Convention in San Francisco. The Caucus became a 
vehicle for Asian Americans to figure prominently in the democratic 
process.
  Tom never forgot his own community. He co-founded the first 
bilingual, bicultural organization that provided Koreans in Northern 
California social services, a senior center, and direct service 
programs, such as immigration and crisis intervention. He was the first 
Executive Director of the Korean Community Service Center of San 
Francisco.
  Tom also started the first Korean American ethnic heritage project in 
the United States, co-producing ``Lest We Forget: Korean American Oral 
History Videos,'' featuring prominent Korean Americans such as Olympic 
diving champion Dr. Sammy Lee, and United States Army Col. Young Oak 
Kim, who served with the highly decorated 442nd all Japanese American 
regimental combat unit during World War II.
  I extend my deepest sympathy to Tom's family, especially to his two 
beloved sons, to whom Tom was a devoted father.

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