Lunch with Lee
For most teachers, a blazer isn’t a fashion staple for everyday work attire. But for Eugene Lee, history teacher, his daily ensemble consists of his signature jacket paired with anything from slacks to sweatpants. Today, Lee wears a gray Obama t-shirt underneath a navy blazer with a “Feel the Burn” button pinned to the lapel. He’s been wearing the button since Super Tuesday on March 7.
As a passionate advocate of Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, Lee pours his “heart and soul” into campaigning for the Vermont senator. Although he doesn’t believe the senator will win, Sanders serves as a “message candidate” for Lee, in which his ideologies greatly appeal to the middle class of America. Sanders’ position on issues of income inequality, wealth distribution, and especially college tuition not only appeals to Lee — it resonates with him.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland to South Korean-born parents, Lee was a sheltered child who longed to fit into American culture.
Lee’s first look at where immigrants stood in American society occurred in his parent’s grocery store. “Growing up I saw my parents work really hard. But that’s the thing about immigrants — even if they’re both college graduates in South Korea, when they come over here, even if you overcome the language barrier, people don’t usually recognize your education level. In fact I think a lot of people who come to the United States are very well educated, but the very fact that they can’t speak English results in them getting discriminated against and getting marginalized,” Lee said.
Lee’s parents’ long hours helming the family business meant that his grandparents often took care of him. His grandfather, a “huge movie fan”, would take him to the local drugstore to rent VHS tapes to watch at home. (The first movie he watched: the Robin Williams’ Popeye.) Lee would even go through his grandparents’ house looking for tapes to watch, where he would experience “some of the best memories of my childhood”. This voracious movie-watching was a part of his assimilation into American culture, as Lee and his grandparents bonded over the American-born characters of Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin.
But blending into society proved challenging. Growing up in the ’80s, Lee was the only Asian student at Perry Hall Elementary School which consisted of mostly white and black students. Lee knew right away that he was different and it made him “very conscious” of his identity. He faced racism very early in his life whether it was in a classroom or outside of one.
When Lee was 7 years old, his parents took him and his sister to Ikea. While the parents shopped, Lee and his sister, 6, played in the ballpit until three white children approached them and made fun of Lee, calling him names, making fun of his race, and pulling back the sides of their face to mock their Asian eyes. Lee’s sister picked up a plastic ball from the pit and threw it at one of the kids, prompting the store to call Lee’s parents to pick up their children. “This really was the first time I faced racism,” Lee said. “At home, I was constantly surrounded by love and acceptance, and then to come to Ikea and experience this was just really shocking. I felt ashamed about how I looked. It was a rude awakening for me and it made me terrified to go out and interact with people. I continued to face racism as I grew up, and it’s just something I’ve had to deal with ever since.”
Discrimination followed Lee throughout his childhood, and as he grew older, he noticed that issues of race and ethnicity were not just limited to his personal encounters, but also to the “real world” in everyday life.
“From an early age, I got to see, depending on where you lived, the different ethnic lines, the racial lines that was divided. When I visited my parents at the grocery store which was in a black neighborhood, I realized, ‘Wow, everybody here is black’. And when we moved up to the Baltimore County, all my neighbors were white. And when we moved in my grandparents’ house, it was mostly blue-collar, working-class Americans. So from an early age Baltimore showed me that America was racially and economically divided. It wasn’t academic, it was just evidence,” Lee said.
At 10, Lee’s father wanted his family to move back to Korea due to the racism they faced in Maryland. There Lee studied in Kangnam, the education capital of Korea. But Lee struggled to keep up with the other students due to the language barrier as he had spoken English all his life. Even though he went to a “cram school” and took piano and taekwondo lessons — a typical schedule for Korean students — Lee still felt like an outsider. He was an Asian kid in Baltimore and an American child in Korea.
But, just like in Baltimore, Lee would go home at the end of the day and turn on the TV, specifically Channel 2, the American Forces Korea Network which broadcasted shows like Batman and Spiderman cartoons, Saved by the Bell, Nightline, and even the OJ Simpson trial. TV was a tradition in Maryland for Lee and his grandparents, so TV in Korea was an important reminder of home.
“I realized I was always a kid from Baltimore, and nothing was going to change that,” Lee said.
So when a presidential candidate like Bernie Sanders, who also came from a working-class, immigrant family, builds a platform on solving economic and social injustice, his messages hold a very personal meaning for Lee, especially because he feels they are both outsiders.
“With a background as an Asian kid growing up in Maryland, and an American kid growing up in Korea, Bernie really appeals to me as an outsider with a great message — a message that speaks of justice and equality. And it’s difficult to send that message to older people, people who fear change.”
At 14, Lee’s parents divorced, and his mother wanted to take Lee and his sister to Southern California because she felt he would fit in better there academically. There, Lee attended Fullerton College and Cal State Fullerton to earn a degree in history. But history was not his “ideal choice”. Lee wanted to be an artist, or at least work in the creative field. But when he didn’t receive an art school scholarship, Lee couldn’t afford to go to art school. Instead, Lee rededicated himself to academics. Thus, Bernie Sanders’ proposal for free higher education is yet another reason Lee aligns himself with the ideologies of the candidate.
While at Fullerton College, Lee became politically active.
In the wake of 9/11, Lee attended his first anti-war rally, protesting President George W. Bush’s declaration of war against Iraq. And from there, “everything suddenly fell into line”.
“I was always very interested in social justice, and I became very interested in ideas such as socialism and communism that were thought of as being evil and Anti-American. I’ve always been attracted to things that were more taboo and things that were not normal, so it was just natural for me to become more involved,” Lee said. “Obviously, we know that communism doesn’t work. But compared to our version of capitalism, socialism was an idea I really liked. And you can see that with the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, where we together as a country decide what’s best for all of us.”
Lee majored in history along with receiving an English credential. He taught social science for eight years at private and charter schools in Southern California before applying for a job at BOHS.
“I was the first one to interview [with Principal Jerry Halpin],” Lee said. “And that’s just my personality — I wanted to be the first one there. I might not come from the most affluent background, I might not be the tallest or the most handsome person in the room, but I can tell you this: no one is going to outwork me. That’s just the Korean spirit. That’s just the Baltimore spirit.”
As for politics, Lee is deeply invested in this “weird, but extremely important” 2016 election. There’s a poster on the front of his desk about the PBS-hosted Democratic debate (“Bernie lost that one; I was disappointed”), a poster which Lee created to encourage his students to take interest in the election.
“I’m not trying to teach class warfare; I’m not trying to say to eat the rich. I just want students to understand that this is part of the idea that we need economic justice, we need economic freedom,” Lee said. “What is freedom, really? If you break your leg, you have no freedom. You can’t walk. If you’re not educated, you’re not truly free. You won’t understand how the world works.”
Behind Lee, who now sets the pen he had been absent-mindedly twirling aside, is one sentence written across the whiteboard in black ink: “The ends justify the means”. At the front of his desk are two personalized license plates (one for California and one for “Maryland’s #1 Fan”), a black skull, a gay pride sticker, an anonymous Compliment Gram (“Thank you for being such a great teacher. You are so funny and kind,” it reads.), and the Democratic Debate poster. His black podium dons the Presidential Seal. His walls bear the Baltimore Orioles banners.
The identity that Lee felt “conscious” of in his youth is now profoundly demonstrated in his classroom. A liberal. A history buff. A politics hawk. An Oriole fan. A Sanders fan. A son of immigrants. But most importantly, an American.
