Abstract
Julie Uhm participated in this interview in her first semester at Brown University in 1989. She discusses her Korean heritage and her high school experience as an Asian American in New Jersey. She explains her encounters with racism throughout her life and broadly describes her observations of race relations in the United States and on the Brown campus. Uhm notes that Brown was not her first choice school but the homogeneity of other campuses influenced her decision. The majority of the interview is spent discussing the Third World Transition Program (TWTP) – a program that welcomes new students to Brown and provides an exploration of systems of oppression that exist in our society today, including racism, classism, sexism, cissexism, heterosexism, ableism, and imperialism. Uhm extensively shares her experience in the program and her opinions about it. Other organizations that are mentioned are the Asian American Student Association and Friends of Southeast Asians.
Recorded on November 27, 1989 in the Applegate Lounge, Hope College, Brown University, Providence, RI
Interviewed by Mala Yee
Suggested Chicago style citation: Uhm, Julie. Interview. By Mala Yee. Pembroke Center Oral History Project, Brown University. November 27, 1989.
Biography
Julie Uhm was born in Korea and moved to the United States when she was eighteen months old. She attended high school in Montclair, New Jersey and went on to graduate from Brown University in 1993 with an A.B. in business economics and an Sc.B. in engineering. She received a law degree from Columbia University and obtained a position as an associate in the corporate department at the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore. She married Christopher Kao of the same law firm in 2004.