Notes from everyday life

Life

A growing record of moments where family, literacy, museums, identity, and scholarship meet over time.

My scholarship and everyday life unfold together. As a father, educator, multilingual family member, and researcher, I keep notes on moments that make me pause.

These entries are not research findings. They are records of experiences, relationships, and questions that continue to shape what I notice and carry into my scholarship.

Recent Notes

Field Museum · Chicago

Pokémon, fossils, and a return to SUE

A museum panel comparing the shapes and names of different Pokémon fossils
From Pokémon fossils to paleontology
A child seen from behind comparing fossil forms at an interactive display
Looking, touching, and comparing
SUE the T. rex skeleton on display at the Field Museum
Returning to SUE

At the Field Museum, Pokémon offered my children a familiar path into the unfamiliar world of fossils. The exhibition placed imagined Pokémon fossils alongside the tools, forms, and interpretive practices of paleontology, inviting them to look closely, touch, compare, and ask how traces of past life become meaningful.

We also returned to SUE. Seeing my children’s excitement on meeting this familiar presence again reminded me that learning is shaped not only by new encounters, but also by revisiting places and objects that have become part of a family’s shared memory.

Museum learningFamily interactionPopular culture

Griffin Museum of Science and Industry · Chicago

A story traveling across languages

Editions of Anne Frank's diary in multiple languages, including Korean, displayed in a museum case
Anne Frank’s diary
Across languages

At the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, we encountered Anne Frank’s story through editions of her diary in many languages. A Korean edition rested among the books. My children stayed with the story with a concentration that surprised me.

Watching them, I thought about how a young person’s words travel across languages, generations, and places—and how literacy can make a distant history present within a family’s shared experience.

LiteracyTranslationHistorical memory

Ongoing Threads

Everyday Learning

Museums, libraries, playgrounds, neighborhood events, and family trips are places where I learn alongside my children.

Community Belonging

I value public spaces where multilingual children and families can be recognized, heard, and able to participate.

Family Literacies at Home

At home, books help us move across languages, histories, communities, and imagined worlds.

As a father of two Korean American children, I read with my sons across a shelf that includes culturally diverse picture books, wordless stories, graphic novels, humorous series, and histories beyond our own. Reading often continues through conversation, drawing, and family journaling in Korean and English.

Stories we read together
Cover of Where's Halmoni? by Julie KimWhere’s Halmoni?Korean American folklore Cover of Where's Joon? by Julie KimWhere’s Joon?Family, language, belonging Cover of Last Stop on Market StreetLast Stop on Market StreetBlack family and community Cover of Hair LoveHair LoveBlack family and identity Cover of DreamersDreamersMigration, language, libraries Cover of IslandbornIslandbornLatinx memory and belonging Cover of Separate Is Never Equal by Duncan TonatiuhSeparate Is Never EqualCivil rights and educational justice Cover of Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote by Duncan TonatiuhPancho Rabbit and the CoyoteMigration, family, and resilience Cover of All Different Now by Angela Johnson and E. B. LewisAll Different NowJuneteenth and freedom Cover of Frederick Douglass: The Lion Who Wrote History by Walter Dean Myers and Floyd CooperFrederick DouglassLiteracy, freedom, and leadership Cover of Drawn Together by Minh Lê and Dan SantatDrawn TogetherFamily, art, and communication Cover of Journey by Aaron BeckerJourney trilogyWordless imagination and adventure Cover of Dog Man by Dav PilkeyDog Man seriesHumor and graphic storytelling Cover of Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff KinneyDiary of a Wimpy KidHumor and everyday school life Cover of The 13-Story Treehouse by Andy Griffiths and Terry DentonTreehouse seriesComic adventure and imagination
Following questions into history
Cover of a Korean history comic한국사 만화A single volume represents the Korean history comics we read, including the Why? and Lee Hyun-se series. Cover of a world history comic세계사 만화A single volume represents our world history comics and the conversations they open across places and periods.

The books do not end when we close the covers. We return to them through questions, drawings, and journals that move between Korean and English.

A record that continues

I will return here to moments from reading at home, museum visits, teaching, travel, and community life. Together, these notes trace how experiences and social identities shape the questions I carry into my scholarship.

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