One Saturday afternoon, I brought my kids to the Federal Way Community Center for swimming with my son’s friends and their mothers.

All of us were Koreans.

I sent my son to the men’s locker room with older boys, but after he changed, he came to the women’s locker room to see me. At the time in the women’s locker room, there were a few young boys around my son’s age who were not Koreans. But one lady pointed at me and my son and said that he shouldn’t be there, and read to me the post on the wall, word by word, very slowly. She treated me like a Korean woman who cannot read nor understand English.

I wouldn’t be that (upset) if my son was the only boy in that room, but he wasn’t the only one — yet he was the only one she pointed out. All I could see was that he was the only colored boy among those.

I was so upset and didn’t know what to say to my kids because I really don’t want my children to get into those situations, yet they are still too young to understand about discrimination.

So, I just walked away from her. I didn’t want to ruin my precious Saturday …

Kyung C. Jung is a Federal Way resident as well as the Korean Community Liaison for Federal Way. Send comments to

editor@fedwaymirror.com.