Billy Yoon

Billy Yoon is the current owner and steward of Koreana Gifts and Arts, a legacy boutique shop in Los Angeles selling vintage Korean crafts. He was born in Inglewood, California, to a family whose legacy is deeply intertwined with that of Korean American history in the 20th century; his maternal grandfather, Choong Sup Park, left Korea under Japanese occupation to work in the sugarcane plantations of Hawaii before arriving in Riverside at the invitation of the activist Dosan Ahn Chang-ho. His paternal grandfather, Kyung Hak Yoon, worked as a migrant farmer as one of the first Koreans to immigrate directly through San Francisco in 1903.

Raised in the “midtown” neighborhood of 1960s Los Angeles—southwest of today’s Koreatown—Billy recalls growing up during a point in L.A.’s history when the entire Korean community was centered on a single block near Jefferson Boulevard, where one of the earliest Korean American churches still stands to this day. Although the city boasts a large Korean American community today, Billy notes that this was not the case in his youth. After a pivotal decision to withdraw from a medical path in college, he pursued a degree in the arts, eventually dedicating fifteen years to teaching art in public schools. In 2003, he transitioned from education to business, taking over the store which he used to frequent as a child with his mother.

Today, he manages what is arguably the world’s largest collection of vintage Korean dolls, as well as other hand-painted wooden pieces and traditional instruments. For Billy, life is an ongoing act of curation and conversation, believing that every person we encounter holds a piece of knowledge we have yet to discover. “One of the great things about LA,” he reminds us, “is that we have everybody here.”