Kathleen Kim
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Kathleen Kim is the talented puppeteer behind Ji-Young, the electric guitar-playing, ddukbokki-eating seven-year-old Muppet character who made her debut on Sesame Street last fall. Kathy was born in Flushing, Queens to parents who immigrated to the States in the 1970s. Puppeteering was just a hobby until 2014, when Kathy — who had been working as a reality TV producer — was accepted into a program at Sesame Workshop and found herself fast-tracked into the niche world of professional puppetry. Kathy tells Juliana and Catherine how she first fell in love with the craft; what it’s like working on set alongside Cookie Monster, the Honkers and Abby Cadabby; and her experience hearing from so many Asian Americans about what the existence of a character like Ji-Young has meant to them.
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Juliana Sohn:
Today we are delighted to be joined by Kathleen Kim of Sesame Workshop. Kathy is the puppeteer behind Ji-Young, the Korean American Muppet who made her debut on Sesame Street this past November. If you have any kids in your life who watch Sesame Street, you might know that Ji-Young is seven years old, she loves skateboarding and playing electric guitar and her favorite food is Tteokbokki. Kathy grew up in the New York area, the daughter of immigrant parents who moved to the states in the ’70s.She spent most of her career working behind the scenes in television productions. Puppeteering was really just a hobby for Kathy until 2014 when she was accepted into a puppetry workshop at Sesame Workshop. We have so many questions for you about Ji-Young and your path through puppeteering, Kathy. Thank you for joining us.
Kathleen Kim:
Oh, thank you so much for having me on.
Catherine Hong:
Kathy, it’s funny to call you Kathy, because I went by Cathy through most of my life, and I still sometimes answer to Cathy. So, Kathy-
Kathleen Kim:
Yes, Cathy?
Catherine Hong:
… we know that Sesame Workshop developed Ji-Young as part of a larger initiative called Coming Together, which was about racial literacy. Right?
Kathleen Kim:
Mm-hmm.
Catherine Hong:
Your character Ji-Young was accelerated into being with the rise of hate attacks against Asians. Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to be taking on this character of Ji-Young?
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. It was a really accelerated path for Ji-Young. Usually when they introduce a new character to the Sesame Street canon, it takes, sometimes, years between the design, figuring out the voice and the character. But like you said, they had started this racial initiative a year or two ago, with the Black Lives Matter movement, bringing on a few black kid characters, Muppets.
And so when Sesame Street decided to do an anti-Asian hate special, they went back and forth about whether or not to introduce a new puppet. We literally just got together in a brainstorm with Sesame Workshop and the handful of Asian Americans who work at Sesame to brainstorm what we would want to see in a special trying to encompass anti-Asian hate, which is such a broad term because obviously there are so many different countries and cultures, within the Asian American diaspora that they weren’t really sure whether or not a puppet would really be appropriate for it.
But when they did decide that a puppet would be – that we could teach these lessons through an Asian character – it was really important that it was a specific culture, not trying to be like, “This is Pan-Asian Jade,” or have her be, “Oh, this is the tiger character.” To serve the diversity of Asian Americans, it felt appropriate to make her as specific as possible.
And because they already had a Korean American puppeteer that they had been training, that was a natural fit. And so I’ve had a lot of Korean people ask me, “Oh, is it because K-pop is so popular right now? Or because everybody’s watching K-dramas on Netflix?” And I’m like, “No, if I had been a Chinese puppeteer, if I had been a Japanese puppeteer, that would’ve made the decision.”
And so it came together incredibly fast. We had this brainstorm in spring of 2021. And during this, I don’t remember when it was, it was in the summer, my friend Liz Hara, who’s Japanese herself,she’s a writer at Sesame Street and wrote See Us Coming Together — she came up with the character of Ji-Young as being this loud, spunky, rocker character. And she actually surprised me because while she was brainstorming ideas for See Us Coming Together, she would text me on the side as being one of the other few Asian people at Sesame Street, “What do you think of this?” And one day she said, “Can I just get on a quick Zoom with you because I’m having real problem with this, and I want to talk this out. It’ll just take 10 minutes.” I’m like, “Yeah, sure.”And so I jump on Zoom and it’s not just Liz, but it’s all of our puppeteering peer friends and they got all on a Zoom call to surprise me with the news that I’d be playing the first Asian American Muppet.
Catherine Hong:
Oh my God. Wow.
Kathleen Kim:
And even more than the news of me getting the Muppet, just honestly having my friends who not necessarily they’re all at, they’ve done things at Sesame, but we just all came up together and to have this support was a very emotional thing. So then from the summer of knowing that this was going to happen, the design of the character was in process.
It was September, the third week of September that we shot the special. And so this was, for Sesame Street, an incredibly accelerated timeline. But yeah, it’s Liz and I, mostly Liz, but she wanted to get some input from me as a Korean American about Ji-Young. But I think it was important for both of us that she both embraced parts of her culture, but also pushed against stereotypes of Asian girls in this country. And so she’s loud, and she takes up space, and she’s a rocker, but she’s also proud of her heritage and proud to teach it to her other friends at Sesame Street. I’m still trying to figure her out.
Juliana Sohn:
So do you and Liz work together on story? Ji-Young seems like she was very closely modeled on you and your personality, too. You’re developing the character almost like an actor would. Do you also get a chance to shape the storyline as well?
Kathleen Kim:
The storyline honestly comes a lot from curriculum and research. They are very closely tied with writing and story because Sesame is an educational show. And so the character wise, Sesame very much prides itself on trying to do things right. And so they do have cultural consultants that come in.
When Liz was asking me, “What do you think her favorite food would be?” And I literally just gave her a list of typical foods that young people like and gave it context like, “Oh, well we eat Miyeok Guk for birthdays because of this. Or we love japchae, and we eat on certain holidays because of that.” But I just said tteokbokki is an equivalent of mac and cheese, I feel like. It’s this starchy comfort food. And so that seemed appropriate. Details like that, they’ve definitely asked my input on. Or when we have a script, we’ll do a table read and they give us opportunities to make suggestions or changes. There was one where one character trait was that like, “Oh, we love sitting down to dinner together. And halmoni (grandma) tells old stories from of the old country.”
And it’s like, that didn’t sit right. Because I’m like, I don’t know. I feel like most immigrant kids have the experience but our grandparents did not talk about the old country because there were so many painful memories. And so maybe in other cultures it’s appropriate to like, “Grandma would spin yarn by the fire.” There’s so much about my history that… And I feel like a lot of Korean Americans can relate to that
Juliana Sohn:
That’s so funny because my grandma was smoking three packs of cigarettes a day. Like,
Kathleen Kim:
Oh really?
Juliana Sohn:
Yeah. That was my halmoni (grandma).
Catherine Hong:
They don’t usually like to talk about the hard times at all.
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah.
Catherine Hong:
Yeah, they’re silent.
Kathleen Kim:
But it’s not something that you could Wikipedia. There is definitely different cultural things that Ji-Young will be planting here and there and talking about that I’m sure it didn’t always come from a Korean writer, or a Korean producer. They looked it up. Can we bring in a consultant? It’s definitely a collaborative process. I mean, that was why it’s so important to have… What I was surprised by was that on some Asian media outlets, they said, “Oh, there’s a new Asian American Muppet on Sesame Street. And guess what? Her puppeteer is also Asian American.”
I’m like, “Is that surprising?” And that’s sad that it is because obviously to have an authentic character, it only behooves the whole thing to have somebody who can speak from their own experience and make her feel real.
Juliana Sohn:
I think that is a new thing that we have come to realize is important there. I mean, it was not that many years ago that Asian characters were played by non-Asian actors. Behind the scenes, whether it be voices or whatnot, being voiced by actual people of that race, I think that’s a new development I think.
Kathleen Kim:
It’s crazy. Isn’t it? I mean, we are having that at Sesame where there have been, not too many, but characters who were not white played by white people, sometimes with an accent. And in this new anti-racism and embracing other cultures initiative that Sesame has taken very seriously, they’re shifting that over. And I know within certain, I mean, I’ve definitely heard grumblings maybe from puppeteers, from voice over actors, but I don’t think that the complaint should be, “They’re taking jobs from us.” The complaint should be, “Where has this been this entire time?”
Juliana Sohn:
Absolutely.
Kathleen Kim:
Why haven’t we been able to find… I did not grow up thinking that I was going to be a puppeteer because who… It was all a group of white dudes doing it when you saw the behind the scenes stuff. My Korean immigrant parents weren’t going to encourage me to do something that wasn’t established already. They wanted us, just like all of us, to end up in something safe and vetted: being a doctor, being a teacher, being a lawyer, whatever. And so it wasn’t for me. Even going into television production was like pushing against the grain.
Juliana Sohn:
One of the reasons why we wanted to have you on is that besides Sesame Street, puppetry is a real like, “What is that?” For many of us! And it’s not only first generation immigrant parents who may feel apprehension about their kid going into puppetry. I think anyone would, because it’s this big unknown field. How can you sustain yourself? Is that a real job? And you said that that wasn’t what you thought about doing when you were young. Can we take us back to young Kathy?
Kathleen Kim:
Sure.
Juliana Sohn:
And where did you grow up, and what were you like as a seven year old?
Kathleen Kim:
We grew up in Woodside, Queens, and then we moved out to the suburbs when I was about seven, or six or seven. And I was incredibly shy. I was very quiet. I would like to hide behind my mom if we would even go to a restaurant, because there were so many people there. I definitely loved Sesame Street and PBS and television just in general.
And I think, I always knew that I wanted to go into media of some sort, even if I didn’t know what the word for it was. Honestly, it wasn’t until I went to 한국학교 (Korean school) that I found my voice because I went to Korean school on Saturdays, and it was like school, but it didn’t totally matter. It was great to learn, but also it’s not like the grades went on any record. And so that’s where I started being a class clown a little bit because there was less pressure to be prim and perfect, and get good grades, and have teachers say good things at PTA meetings. I think that’s when I figured out that I was funny or performative.
Catherine Hong:
So did you speak Korean in the house at all?
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. I did speak growing up. And we had our shi halmeoni (grandmother) live with us for a few years. And so I feel like that was when my Korean was the strongest. But as an adult, I don’t really use it as much. And so it’s mostly Konglish with my parents.
Catherine Hong:
I hated Korean school. I don’t think I ever learned anything because I was so against it. Your parents sent you to Korean school, but you could speak. It wasn’t really to learn language? It was cultural to hang out with other Korean kids?
Kathleen Kim:
No, it was to learn how to read and write. And I can say I definitely got that from Korean school, but there was cultural stuff there, too. There was TaeKwonDo classes and dance, and then eventually just hardcore SAT classes because that’s really what all Korean parents want to give to their kids. But yeah. And so as a kid, I feel like… My parents wouldn’t let me go out for drama club. They wanted all the stuff that you would put on a college application, the newspaper and that sort of stuff. But I liked puppetry a lot. I would make a puppet out of a scarf with my glasses and do this thing at the lunch table or whatever.
But again, it wasn’t even in my mind that it was something that you could pursue, because like you said, it’s not even confusing for people who didn’t grow up here. People who grew up watching Sesame Street from the ’60s and ’70s, they still don’t… Nobody understands how it works. It’s such a niche performing art. I happened into it by accident, not accident, but by sheer, I feel like, luck. And I feel incredibly fortunate, but even now it’s just like, I’d been doing production work with a little bit of puppet stuff on the side. But these last couple years I’m like, “All right. Am I doing this?” I guess I’m a puppeteer now.
Catherine Hong:
Because when you say you were doing production work, you were working really in TV, at travel channel shows and the-
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. That’s right.
Catherine Hong:
… Discovery Network, things like that. Right?
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. The puppet stuff is just a funny thing that I was always interested in. I loved the Muppets and anything Jim Henson. I had started TV work at Discovery Kids in Nickelodeon, because I, again inspired by Sesame, I wanted to do educational TV. And then there was this huge recession in 2008, 2009 where everybody just lost their jobs. And I landed in reality TV and it was this booming industry that suddenly there was so much work in it. I’m like, “Okay, this is what I do now.” And this is a pretty good living. My husband — I don’t think we were married at the time — but he did a lot of comedy improv at the UCB theater in the city. And he found this class that was called Teaching Puppetry for Comedy Improv. And he’s like, “You like puppets. I like improv. This is a class that we could take together for fun.” And that’s really how it all started.
The teacher of the class, he had worked as a puppeteer for decades and he, I guess he saw something in me because he took me on as his assistant on little gigs here and there. And every time I got to do it, I’m like, “Wow, this is so cool. I get to live my childhood dream.”
Catherine Hong:
What kind of gigs was he doing and what kind of gigs were you doing?
Kathleen Kim:
I mean sometimes he would be a live comedy improv show with the puppets. Sometimes it would be a pilot that he was doing as a favor. And then he would bring me on. There was a couple YouTube music videos for… there was the Super Sprouts, which was like superhero vegetables. And it encouraged healthy eating and living for kids. And then, I don’t know, just things like that. And then there was this indie movie called The Fuzz, which was interesting.
Juliana Sohn:
Did you play the Fuzz?
Kathleen Kim:
It was like The Wire meets Sesame Street. I’ll say it’s not my style of puppetry where it gets a little blue. But the puppeteering is great. And I learned a lot because I was working as the puppeteer for a month. And I thought, again, “Wow, so cool. I got to live my dream for a month. Well, back to regular life.” Because who the heck works as a puppeteer for a full-time job?
Then a couple years later, that was when the workshop was happening. They do one every seven years or something to see who’s out there. And teach how they do puppetry because it is very specific. And so honestly, everybody from that improv class, they’re like, “We’re going to submit a tape. You guys should, too.”
And I’m like, “You guys, none of us are making it in. And you guys are crazy.” And the night before the submission was due, I had this terrible feeling of, “I’m pretty good at this. And I know these guys are okay.” And I’m like, “If they all get in, I feel like I’m going to regret it because I would have gotten in.” And that was really the only reason that I submitted a tape — the fear of regret. Not because I’m like, “This is my chance.” And to my surprise, I got in!
Juliana Sohn:
Okay. How many other people from that improv class got in, too?
Kathleen Kim:
Nobody else got in. But it was hundreds of submissions and I think it was 50 people. They split it up into 25 for the first half of the week and 25 for the second half of the week. And the people that were there were legit people who had been doing it. And I felt completely like a fish out of water. I was like, “These people are all going to school for theater and acting. They’ve been on stuff!”
I rode the elevator up with the guy who’s one of the leads in Avenue Q, and I had no idea. I was like, “Oh, are you here for the workshop, too? I’m really excited.” He’s like, “Yeah, me too.” And then we get into the conference room and someone goes straight up to him. He’s like, “Oh Jason, I saw you in Avenue Q. You’re incredible.”
And I’m like, “What? What, wait. What?” And everybody seems to know everyone. And I’m like, “They have the wrong guy.” Yeah, it was like that. And again, that workshop was like, “Wow, got to touch a Muppet, amazing. Back to normal life.” Truly, every step of the way I feel like I’ve been just tripping upwards, being brought onto stuff to see if, “Hey, we do need more women and we certainly need more diversity.”
It’s a completely white dude space and has been since the beginning with Jim Henson and all of his dudes. And I think for sure, my diversity honestly got their attention, but hopefully it’s more than that that kept me in the room.
But yeah, so from that workshop, they brought a bunch of us in to do a day, or two, or three to assist, do what we call right handing where we literally do the right hand of the puppet while the main performer is doing their right hand if they’re a righty. And most of them are controlling the head and the mouth. And their left hand either has the rod for the left arm, or if it’s what we call a live hand, puppet. Cookie Monster has gloved hands. So he can do this. His hand is in the left arm. And literally, a person called a right hander and assist will come in and fill out the right hands or pick up the right rod. If the puppet needs to do two independent things. Anyway, so they would bring us in to do that stuff for the background, do a butterfly, do one of the Honkers in Hooper’s store because there’s always a honker in Hooper’s store wiping down the counter. They start us off doing that.
Catherine Hong:
Okay. I’m so curious to understand a little bit more about the subculture of puppeteers. By now you must have a sense of the types of people who become puppeteers versus, maybe, types of people who go into comedy or the types who are actors. Is there a personality type, you think?
Kathleen Kim:
I don’t think that there’s one personality type, especially since it is so niche, there are people like me. And I will say it’s mostly women who started off doing one thing and then they tripped into this. And then there are other people who are born, come out of the womb like, “This is what I want to do.”
And I feel like if there’s anything that we have in common, it’s that, I don’t know. I guess it’s that, we tap into that inner kid in us. And for me, I think what attracts me to puppetry, it’s like animation, but in real time. You can literally take a pen or a little piece of felt and have it come to life in real time and give it a personality. I think in a weird way, it’s like world building where you can create your own little world, but it’s instant. Maybe for me, I don’t build puppets for people actually build their own puppets. There’s definitely a wide range of people who are attracted to puppets. But I feel like the ones who are successful in getting work and TV and film, they’re really good team players.
I feel like if you see what happens below the frame, below where the puppets are, it’s just tangle of humans. If you imagine all of us with our arms up in the air, and we don’t know where we are in the frame, or if we’re looking at what we’re supposed to be looking at. And so in order to control, make sure that puppet looks good, it looks like it’s alive, we’re all working off of small monitors.
Catherine Hong:
It’s so cool.
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. And it’s not choreographed like we can practice or anything like that. We oftentimes go to set, we’ve seen the scripts, we’ll read out loud the words, and then we’ll block it with the cameras really quickly. And then that’s it. We go and take one. You all have to get on the same page almost instantaneously with the least amount of having to explain it to somebody.
You just know, “Well, if I’m entering this and you’re already here, well, you’re going to have to correct it so that it looks like a good two shot.” But you can’t always like say it, you have to see it. And we all just instinctually know. And so I think that for successful puppeteers, you have to be able to communicate very quickly and just get on the same page and be playful.
There are serious puppeteers, but I think to do what we do, you have to have a silly, playful personality. I don’t know. I don’t know if that answers your question.
Catherine Hong:
It does. It’s interesting. And also makes me think about how physical it is, at the same time you’re improvising or obviously you’re acting, but you have to be so nimble.
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. People say, “Ooh, you must be so strong.” No, I think you just get really used to the discomfort of it, of having your arm up in the air forever. Or this is definitely a muscle that I’m still… The people have been doing it for decades, I mean, they can just keep going. And I’m like. Yesterday, I was doing the right hand for Oscar The Grouch inside of his trash can. And I’m behind the performer, but I have to make sure that his arm is the same, that it looks even to his other hand, even though I’m a foot behind him. You’re holding your arm out. It’s a lot of unnatural positions. And so the getting used to that is more or just as important than the actual physical… Flexibility also, and then just spatial awareness because we’re moving around. None of us are looking up. We’re all looking down at monitors and stuff. You have to make sure that you’re not crashing into people, that you’re not blocking somebody else’s monitor. You’re constantly just being aware of all the things.
It’s definitely a one man band, because you’re acting, you’re doing prop work. You’re looking at the frame, making sure that it looks good, voice acting. So yeah. It’s a lot of things at the same time.
Juliana Sohn:
Sounds hard. Sounds really hard.
Kathleen Kim:
The other hard thing is that on a monitor, it’s showing you, it’s not a mirror of the camera, it is showing you what the camera sees. And so camera left for you is right. And so if you’re trying to move this way, it’s hard to explain. It’s not a mirror image. It’s what the camera sees. And so everything that you’re doing has to be backwards in real time. It takes a year to rewire your brain so that you’re not like, “Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,” and overcorrecting in the wrong direction. And it’s just millimeters because, and to get geeky, but it’s a big part of how you make a puppet look real is where it’s looking. I think, because the second the puppet is here, as opposed to like, “Hi, welcome to Sesame Street.” Versus, “Hi, welcome to Sesame Street.” It takes the magic trick away. And so literally that focus, whether it’s looking down the barrel or looking up at the person that they’re talking to, is, it could be a matter of inches. And so it’s like, yeah, it’s a tough… And some of these guys have been doing it forever. They make it look effortless, and they’re absolutely brilliant at it.
Juliana Sohn:
We know that you played a character on Nora from Queens. Besides Sesame Street, how many other opportunities come up where they need a puppeteer?
Kathleen Kim:
Oh, that’s a good question. I don’t know. You’d be surprised. A friend of mine is working on a sci-fi show. And so he is puppeteering all the robots. During COVID, I had a friend whose job was to puppeteer RC controlled babies because during COVID, they couldn’t have actual babies on set. It’s not often, but because there’s not a ton of kids shows now that have puppets. 20 years ago, there were a ton on at the same time. But now with CGI, it’s pushed that out of the way a little bit, but there’s still opportunities for it.
Catherine Hong:
Wait, will you tell us a little bit about what it was like working with Awkwafina on the Nora from Queens?
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. I played Tony, Nora’s imaginary friend from her childhood who she always blamed for ruining her dad’s romantic relationships. And so originally, they had reached out to some known actors, but couldn’t book anybody in time. And so with weeks ’till production, they decided that maybe we just make him a big puppet, a big walk around mascot.
Nora Awkwafina is 5’2″. And so a lot of the people that I know who do Big Bird, who do all these walk around costumes, they’re all six foot something. And so to put a costume on top of a six foot something person, it’d be hard for them to be in the same frame. And so truly, my boss at Sesame Street is the puppet captain and he also plays Big Bird and he’s Kermit now, Matt Vogel, he texted me and said, “Are you available? Also, how tall are you, or more appropriately, how short are you?” And I said, “What?” And I literally got the job just sight unseen by being a shorter person. And they-
Juliana Sohn:
How tall are you?
Kathleen Kim:
… I’m 5’5″, 5’6″. So not short, but just shorter than … And then she was so excited. We got on a production call, and when she saw that I was an Asian woman, she freaked out. She was like, “Yes, this is representation on another level.”
Juliana Sohn:
That’s cool.
Kathleen Kim:
So she was super psyched. But she’s exactly how you see her in interviews and stuff. She’s really down to earth. I was really surprised at how she’s been so successful these last couple years, but she was really down to earth. She was really checked in with me because they made this costume so quickly, and it was really difficult to work and move in.
The whole thing was lined with two inch foam. And so it was just moving any part of your body just felt like you were working against resistance bands. And so she would just check in and make sure that we were… She’s like, “Don’t let them take more takes than you’re capable of doing. We can choreograph this, let’s figure this out.” So she was really collaborative, and smart, and really amazing to work with.
Juliana Sohn:
That’s so cool. I would like to hear what your parents thought when they heard that you were moving into puppetry, and maybe how their understanding of what you do maybe have changed since Ji-Young came, was introduced?
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. I mean, I guess I’ve never taken the traditional path for Korean first generation kid. And so I think they’re used to it. But the puppet stuff, I think they were just like, “Okay, cool.” As long as you’re making a living doing actual work, whatever, you’re a grown woman. But I tell the story, like when we were shooting See Us Coming Together, we were all in the green room and they were like, “What do your parents think? What do your parents have to say about you doing Ji-Young?” And I said, “I haven’t told them yet.” They’re, “Why not?” I’m like, “They’re not going to care. They wouldn’t care at all.” And they’re like, “That’s ridiculous.” And so I’m like, “No, I mean, once they see it, maybe they’ll get it. But it’s really nothing to write home about to them.”
And so my brother on our group family thread texted my parents. He is like, “Oh, Kathy’s doing something really cool this week at Sesame Street.” And so I said, “Yeah, first Asian American Muppet and she’s going to be Korean. And we’re going to debut her on the Thanksgiving day parade float.” And then … crickets!
And then I said, “So, I guess we’ll have to figure out maybe we’ll do Thanksgiving on Friday, or maybe we’ll order food?” And that was the only thing my dad… My dad responded, “Okay. We order turkey.” And that was it! That was his only response! Then my brother, he’s like, “Well,” and we start talking about food. And so my brother posts a picture of his dinner. He’s like, “Well, this is what I’m eating right now.” And my mom responds with a full paragraph of like, “Wow, that fish looks so great. Oh, 그 김치가 최고다 (That kimchi is the best).” Just, heart emojis and stuff like this whole paragraph about my brother’s little snapshot of his dinner. And I’m like, “Wait, what?” The next time I saw them, my parents, I think they realized, like, “Oh, maybe we made Ji-Yun (Kathy’s Korean name) feel bad.”
And so my mom’s like, “So you’re doing a what on Sesame Street? You’re going to be on the parade?” And I’m like, “Yeah, my new character. And it’s going to be the song that we’re doing from her special. And we’re going to sing Ji-Young’s song on the parade float.” And my dad’s like, “So you are going to be on the float?” I’m like, “No, my character.” And he is like, “Oh, [makes hand motion] this is going to be on the float?” I’ll tell you when they finally were proud of me, was when other Korean people started talking about me.
Juliana Sohn:
Exactly.
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. That is when. I was shocked and very honored that a bunch of Korean, I mean, it was picked up by the Korean news outlets in Korea. And so our family over there was sending them articles. My dad posted like a Chosun Ilbo article. And other Korean parents that I had family friends that we grew up with were calling them to say, “Oh my gosh, I saw the news and she’s doing such important work.” And that is when they were proud of me. It’s like, because
Catherine Hong:
This a common theme! We have found interviewing people on K-Pod that these huge celebrities here don’t get any acknowledgement from their parents until they start reading about them in a Korean newspaper.
Kathleen Kim:
That’s right.
Catherine Hong:
And they’re like, “Oh, you really made it.”
Kathleen Kim:
Yep. Yep. It’s when other Korean people start talking about you, that’s when … When they start talking about your kids. And so yeah.
Catherine Hong:
That’s pretty funny.
Kathleen Kim:
For this past Christmas, my mom gave me, or she passed on this beautiful Jade and gold necklace. She’s like, “This is Korean. You’re doing an important thing for Korean people, and you should have it.” And I cried because I’m just… We were on a group thread again. And my parents, they usually write in Korean and we write back in mostly English. And there were a couple sentences that I’m like, “Oh, I don’t know what that word is.” And I had to run it through Google translate and the words were, “I’m proud of you,” and also, “racism.” And I’m like I’ve never heard my parents say that! I had to translate that.
Catherine Hong:
That’s funny.
Kathleen Kim:
My mom’s saying racism. What? That’s crazy.
Juliana Sohn:
I have to say, I my kids are 15 and 18. And so it’s been a decade since I’ve watched Sesame Street. And I watched See Us Coming Together and I was surprised. I mean, I cried. I was so moved just to see them having the conversation, Alan, having the conversation, how everyone was so concerned about her. It just made me think, “I can’t believe this is happening.” I mean, it was really momentous.
Kathleen Kim:
I got to say, I really thought that she was going to fly under the radar. I thought we would have this special and it would mean something to us, but then it would just kind of go away. But we’ve had other Asian characters on kids shows before, but I think this is such a… We’re shooting right now the 53rd season of a show. There’s not a lot of shows that could say that. It’s an American institution. Muppets are an American institution. And to have something like that validate us and see us.
When we read this script first, Liz had sent it to me, and I got teary eyed reading it. And I read out a few times out loud. But when we did the table read in front of production in front of the cast and producers and the directors, there is a monologue at the end where she with the support of her community, she has the courage to go in front of the audience and say, “Hey, I belong here, too. Somebody said something that was wrong, but we all belong.” And I couldn’t get through the words, I was sobbing so much. And there was something about saying these words of being seen and validated in front of a room of white people felt… It was very emotional. And the response that I’ve gotten from mostly people our age, parents who grew up watching, not having our own, not having that mirror in media, feeling like we were on the outside that we were the other. It’s meant a lot to them.
And so I feel like I’ve gotten that response from other people. I guess I can’t see that I’m surprised. It was really just side swiped by all of it. Because again, it happened so fast. And I was so nervous, am I going to be doing justice to this role?
And maybe in my self defeating mind, I was like, “Maybe nobody will care.” We’re not really in the conversation of racism. Right? It’s about, we’re the silent other. It’s something that I take very seriously. The one thing that got me through the week was Leslie Carrara, who plays Abby Cadabby, I was telling her I was nervous and she’s like, “It’s not about us. It’s through us.”
And that got me through a week. It’s like, it’s not about me. And I think about how everybody, so many of these people are better technicians, and they’re better puppeteers, or better character actors. It’s like, you know what? It’s not about me. It’s not even about Ji-Young. It’s about this message of belonging that we’re all doing together. Your response, Juliana, has been that of a lot of people our age — just feeling validated and seen.
Catherine Hong:
I promised my friend I would ask you this because my best friend from high school is Jiyoung. Exactly. Well, she doesn’t hyphenate her name. But so she wanted me to ask, how did you guys come up with the name Ji-Young? Because it’s close to your Korean name, but it’s not your Korean name.
Kathleen Kim:
It is close to my… Yeah, I’m 지연 ( Ji-Yeun). But no, it had nothing to do with my name. Liz had just Googled some names and honestly, the story is that Sesame Street’s mission statement is making kids smarter, stronger, kinder. And so she just wanted to incorporate at least two of those words into her name, because as we all know, a traditional Korean name has two syllables and each has a meaning behind it. And so originally it was Ha-Eun but the “Eun” proved a little bit awkward.
Catherine Hong:
Hard to pronounce…
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. Which on one side we were like, “Well, should we just force people to get used to it?” But we went back and forth, and we had a meeting. It was me, Jenna Kim, who’s Korean, produced See Us Coming Together, and then someone from the script department who was also Korean. The four of us just got on a Zoom and just Googled different names.
Kathleen Kim:
And so we saw that Ji means smart. Young means strong or brave. But then we found out that Ji also means Sesame. And so we’re like, “Oh, well-
Catherine Hong:
Perfect.
Kathleen Kim:
It’s perfect. And so it went between Young-Ji and Ji-Young. We decided on Ji-Young. And then in her backstory, she has two siblings. And so it felt like it would be easier to go Ji, and then add kindness and intelligence to her siblings eventually.
Catherine Hong:
Did you happen to watch Sandra Oh’s show, The Chair?
Kathleen Kim:
No. I watched the pilot of it though, but I haven’t watched —
Catherine Hong:
Because her name was Ji-Yoon. And my friend who’s Jiyoung said that was the closest she had ever gotten to seeing her name anywhere. She actually screen-shotted the first scene where it says, “Ji-Yoon, Department Chair.” And then your character came, which is her actual name. Her kids asked her if they named the character after her. And she’s like, yes!
Kathleen Kim:
We’ve heard this story a few times from other Ji-Youngs. And one early on, this woman emailed Sesame Street. Her name is Ji-Young. She immigrated here with the family when she was very young, no one could say her name. Her teacher would always pause before reading her name in attendance, she always knew it was coming. And kids made fun of her.
And eventually, there was a girl named Michelle that lived in their apartment building. So that was a name that she just knew was an American name. She told people to start calling her Michelle. Even when she grew up as an adult, she legally changed it to Michelle. And so her whole life, she avoided using her name. She went to Michelle as a way to belong and to be more American.
And to now have this character who is American, she’s Korean American. And everybody calls her by Ji-Young and that was very impactful to her. And we all were very emotional when we read that email because we’re like, “Yeah, we’re doing it for her and her kids who can now grow up watching a kid who has a hyphenated name. And everybody just says it.” And it doesn’t make her any less American to be called that.
Juliana Sohn:
Could you do a little Ji-Young for us?
Kathleen Kim:
Oh yeah! Ji-Young is just like my voice. It’s just louder. And then sometimes she’s rocking. And so she does that with her voice because she likes to rock. But yeah, it’s just my voice, just a little bit higher and a little bit more kid-like. Maybe she slurs her words or she doesn’t know… She doesn’t know what she’s about to say sometimes, but she starts talking anyway. So it’s just that.
Juliana Sohn:
What does your daughter think about Ji-Young?
Kathleen Kim:
It’s funny. A lot of people ask. She thinks she’s fine. She’s not that impressed. I was literally pregnant with her on my first day of Sesame Street. And so she has not known… A honker did our birth announcement. And she’s visited the set a few times. Elmo and Abby and Cookie, they all send her happy birthday greetings on her birth. You know what I mean?
Kathleen Kim:
To her, it’s like, “Yeah, that’s cool.” She is proud that she’s Korean just like us. But honestly, the thing that got her most excited was finding out that her pencil was going to be on See US Coming Together because Alan… It wasn’t the See Us Coming, it was we did a, who are the people in your neighborhood? And the YouTube version of it, Alan says, “And I played the Sudoku puzzle. I’m a person in your neighborhood.” And he didn’t have a pencil on him. And so I’m like, “Oh, I have a pencil.” And he took it.
Kathleen Kim:
He gave it back to me. I’m like, “Guess what, Quinn. Your pencil is going to be on Sesame Street.” And she’s like, “My pencil? My pencil is going to be on TV.” And I’m like, “Yeah. And also your mom.”
Catherine Hong:
Your mom! I’m so happy we got to meet you.
Kathleen Kim:
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on. I think it’s really cool that you guys are giving voices to the Korean American community. So that’s great.
Juliana Sohn:
Thank you for coming on, and sharing your story, and also an inside look at Sesame Street.
Kathleen Kim:
I personally think it’s the funnest job that there is.
Juliana Sohn:
Thank you for listening to K-Pod, a production of Korean American Story. Our audio and visuals engineer is AJ Valente. Our executive producer is HJ Lee. You can follow K-Pod on Instagram @Koreanamericanstory. You can follow me @Juliana_Sohn. And you can follow Catherine @Catherinehong100.
Credits
Co-host, Producer, Photographer
Juliana Sohn @juliana_sohn
Co-host, Producer, Editor
Catherine Hong @catherinehong100
Audio Engineer
AJ Valente
Executive Producer
HJ Lee