Scholar Profile

Carolyne Kama

A profile of 2006 APIASF scholarship recipient Carolyne Leilani Kama from Hawaii. Kama is attending Columbia University, majoring in economics and mathematics.

By Carolyne Kama

When my grandmother, or as I fondly called her in Korean, halmony, prepared a meal for the family, she always began each meal telling her grandchildren “jal muh-juh.” Translated literally from the Korean language, this phrase means “eat well.” But to my halmony eating well connoted “eat well to gather strength for the next day, for the next journey that lies ahead.” Having immigrated to Hawaii to work in the pineapple plantation fields, she knew of the arduous tasks that the next day could bring but always faced her hardship knowing that she had eaten well.

As I entered my first year of college at Columbia University, I took her phrase into account everyday. By no means will I say my freshman year was that of the long journey my grandmother took to survive in Hawaii; I will say that her determination to gather that strength to learn from new experiences has stayed with me.

With my mindset of “eating well,” I have discovered and experienced many cultural exchanges on campus. As the Community Chair for Columbia University’s Asian Pacific American Awareness Month, I had the opportunity to work with the Head Children’s Librarian, Sue Yee, of the New York City Public Library in Chinatown and Kam Mak, a renowned Harper Collins illustrator, to create a program where children from the Chinatown area could gather together and share their cultural experiences with one another through story telling. Working with those kids, I’ve gained a greater appreciation for the understanding of one’s culture and for the importance of higher education among Asian and Pacific Islander Americans.

APIASF serves as a beacon for many incoming first year students, and I was no exception last year. Not only had APIASF and its sponsors relieved me of some of the financial burden of attending my college but they have also broadened my understanding of the lack of encouragement APIA students face when it comes to higher education. For all that the APIASF has given me, I am truly grateful, and I plan to contribute what I’ve “eaten well” and learned from Columbia University, as an Economics and Mathematics major, back to my community.

From my background as an educator at the Ralph Bunche School in Harlem and my work as a youth consultant at Hawaii’s Domestic Violence Clearinghouse and Legal Hotline, I’m in the process of creating a proposal that will integrate the awareness of domestic violence into the health curriculum of a New York City Public school which is located in a low socio-economic community. With this project and others on the way, I hope for their success, and I’m determined to obtain it with the fierce perseverance that my halmony had at the end of each meal.

In response to what she had said at the meal table I always answered, “Neh halmony, jal muh-juh kay-yo.” “Yes grandmother, I will eat well.”