SUNDAY SPOTLIGHT: Lauren Yoo

By Judy Park,
Bluedevilhub.com Staff–

Junior Lauren Yoo first came to the U.S. when she was eight years old, but soon moved back to South Korea. Several years later, Yoo returned as an eighth grader.

She says that her first impression of coming back to U.S. schools was that they were very different from those in Korea.

“The people and atmosphere were very different,” she said. “Here, students have time to do extra-curriculars but in Korea, students have no time for anything but studying. So the school system is pretty rough and crazy to the point where [people in the after-school academy] teach you stuff that they don’t even teach you in school,” she said.

“And because of this, the students have no reason to actually pay attention during class but instead give a 100 percent effort in after-school academy, which everyone pretty much has to go to, because they can just study on their own,” she added.

When Yoo came to the U.S., she says that the language barrier was a tough obstacle to overcome.

“I didn’t know the language and so it was really difficult and lonely for me,” she said. “It was really hard to deal with the transition and intense change of cultures.”

But Yoo was able to find a friend; junior Gloria Li helped her get through some of these obstacles.

“I was that weird Korean girl and she saw me and and talked to me,” Yoo said. “She actually turned out to be a fan of Korean culture. She helped me a lot; helping me to get through my struggles.”

Li said that it was really fun to spend time around Yoo, as she was interested in Korean culture and Yoo helped her to learn more about it.

After going to school and hanging around her newly-made friends, Yoo integrated well and started to fit into “the crowd.”

She even performed in Holmes Got Talent, a talent show that took place at Holmes Junior High. Yoo said the event really helped her overcome her struggle to fit in, as she had to sing in front of a big crowd of people in English.

“It was a really fun experience, even though my friends originally forcefully signed me up, and I got criticized some, but other than that it was cool,” she said.

Now, as a junior in high school, Yoo has joined many activities and extra-curriculars that continue to help her with her language struggles, including speech and debate and Math and Science Tutors (MAST).

“These clubs actually help me a lot. For example, in speech and debate, I do speech and so I have to memorize a speech and perform it and so it’s basically acting and performing […] in English, so that helped a lot,” she said.

“Also, MAST is basically where I tutor others in math and science and having to teach someone in another language actually really helps to improve one’s skills,” Yoo said.

In this year’s first speech and debate tournament, Yoo and her partner took second place, and in the second tournament, they placed first.

“I was pretty proud of us when I found out that we got first place after the second tournament,” she said. “We worked really hard and so I kind of think that we really deserved this; I’m not talking about just first place, but just improving was awesome.”

Looking back at herself now, Yoo thinks that she was a real outcast and did not have many friends.

But one of her closest friends–junior Jenny Chung, who attends Woodland Christian School–got a different first impression. Chung says that the first time she met Yoo was about three years ago, and she remembers that Yoo was very bubbly and crazy.

“It was very different from what I heard from other people’s first impressions,” Chung said.”But I mean, I would be like that if I was in her situation. Lauren actually helped me integrate and transition when I first came to America so it’s awesome how she used her experiences to help out other people like me.”

Yoo hopes to continue helping people who have to face language barriers like hers.

“I don’t want anybody going through as many struggles as I went through when I came here and I hope I can help as many people as possible,” she said.