Season of Giving: Director of Asian Women's Shelter Su Young Jung is on a Mission to Help Women in Need
“Although it was never easy to pour your heart out at work, my job taught me how to be real human. The human connection that we have at work with survivors and colleagues is the power to how we survive and thrive.” Born in Korea, today’s woman dreamer Su Young is currently the Director of the Asian Women’s Shelter in San Francisco, where she works tirelessly with women in need. In this inspiring interview with Women Who Win for our Season of Giving series, Su Young reflects on her journey emigrating to the U.S as a young girl and learning English as a second language to her dedicated work in the gender based violence field and women’s shelters. She gives her advice to young women looking to join nonprofits and give back, and shares her favorite holiday traditions. Enjoy this powerful story!
1. Tell us your story. You were born in Korea, and then moved to Texas to study. You are currently the Director of Asian Women's Shelter in San Francisco. Tell us more about your journey, and one of the key lessons you learned along the way.
I was born and raised in South Korea. South Korea is a gorgeous country full of breathtaking nature, fabulous people, and yummy food; but it is also a very small and competitive country. As you may have heard how Asian parents' are, my parents, as well, were passionate about their children's education. From young, I was exposed to different cultures through traveling and part of extra curricular activities. As my mom wished, I grew up as a confident and fearless young woman who was ready to explore the world.
When I moved to Texas to learn English (and maybe conquer the world), my confidence was brutally shattered by . Not to mention how different Texas was from my imagination of THE great USA, I had a hard time understanding the Texan accent and felt extremely lonely in a strange place. At that time, there were not many international students at my college. Biology and Chemistry classes in my undergrad courses were so hard that I had to listen to the recording of each lecture until 5am in the morning.
As time went by, I made friends in college and started to enjoy the newness in my life. One class - abnormal psychology, really got me interested in human behavior, which I ended up deciding to study more. The more I learned about the depth of relationships and challenges in one’s life, the more I became passionate about working with people. Everyone has different stories in their lives and it was fascinating for me to see how each individual makes various choices in life. I extended my study in Master’s in Mental Health Counseling. During the internship at a substance abuse facility as part of my graduate work, I met many people whose lives had been very colorful despite their wills - some experienced numerous traumas from family and others, but they were working on bettering their lives through very difficult journey to being sober. Some shared near death experiences by gang members or even their own family members, but again, they all survived and led their lives proactively. I found the resilience in my clients was the most amazing thing I had ever seen and I thought I would be always happy if I had an honor to walk with people in their journey to regain and strengthen their resilience. Upon the last semester in my graduate work, I was lucky to get hired at Womankind, formerly known as NY Asian Womens’ Center - the beginning of my career in Gender Based Violence field. I worked for a while as a counselor/advocate for survivors of GBV and witnessed hopes, despairs, happiness and sadness.
Although it was never easy to pour your heart out at work, my job taught me how to be real human even at work while connecting to survivors and my admiration in the potential that every person innately has continued. One thing that I am grateful for my experience is that I persevered with my frustration about myself and gave chances to changes. The openness was the key to find what I want to do as my career.
2. What is the most rewarding part of your work? And why is giving back important to you?
It is extremely hard to recognize successes in our line of work, if we are mainly focusing on quantitative data or results. Besides the resilience that I mentioned earlier that I truly cherish from survivors, I find joy in working with like-minded people at my agency. Whatever hardship we encounter at work, my colleagues have such kindness to offer safe space to listen to colleagues and compassion to process their challenges. The human connection that we have at work with survivors and colleagues is the power to how we survive and thrive.
I find it meaningful to serve others in need, so it is pretty natural for me to choose what I want to do as my career. Let’s just remind ourselves that we are all recipients of work done by many people ahead of us in our community and this society. Your skills and time could also be used in a purposeful way to add to your community!
3. What is your advice to other women looking to work in the nonprofit space?
I meet with many young people who are passionate about making differences in the world. Sometimes, they want to be part of the movement to address the gender based violence issue. However, things may look different from what we all want - Nonprofit organizations are not the place to pay their employees the highest salaries, and are still work places with protocols and funder requirements. Nevertheless, at most nonprofits, you get to work with people who care about you as a person and have more opportunities to expand your horizon to learn different parts of how the agency runs.
4. As we approach the holidays/season of giving, What is your favorite holiday tradition?
I love Thanksgiving dinners where friends and family gather to update their lives and have fun! At AWS, we also have a fun thanksgiving supper with staff and survivors! We eat lots of food and have great company.
5. This is a fun one! As the platform for women dreamers, what is your next big dream?
I dare to dream and am constantly in a conversation to with my Executive Director at AWS, to secure more resources to support our staff’s livable and good wages. It is a long journey, because lots of funding streams are restrictive and competitive; while our compassion for survivors continues to grow and we often stretch ourselves without good compensation. However, I believe in communication and a will to make differences, so I am hopeful!
Thank you Su Young for sharing your story with us! We are excited to have you in our global women’s network!
WHO WE ARE