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Cho (Joseph) papers
3323
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Contributing Institution:
USC Libraries East Asian Library
Title: Joseph Cho papers
Creator:
Cho, Joseph
Identifier/Call Number: 3323
Physical Description:
12.46 Linear Feet
11 boxes
Date (bulk): 1982-2015
Abstract: Joseph Cho (1943 - ) is a Korean American journalist, entrepreneur, and politician. He served as a councilmember and mayor
of the City of Cerritos. The collection consists of photographs, VHS videotapes, cassette tapes, CDs, DVDs, scrapbooks, correspondence
and other documents mostly dating from the 1980s to the 2000s. The items are on the topics of the City of Cerritos, council
meetings, election campaigns, Korean American history, events in Southern California, a unification of North and South Korea,
and other aspects of Joseph Cho's life.
Language of Material:
Korean
, English
.
The Joseph Cho papers comprises 11 boxes of mixed materials mostly dating from the 1980s through the 2010s, including 1 box
of photographs and photograph albums, 4 boxes of multimedia materials (VHS videotapes, cassettes tapes, CDs, and DVDs), 3
boxes of scrapbooks, and 1 box of printed materials (pamphlets, brochures, and magazines) and 1 box of manuscripts. Topics
include the City of Cerritos, City Council meetings, Council members, election campaigns, political events, Korean American
society and history, Korean shops, Korean church events, Joseph Cho's book release events, interviews, events on unification
of North and South Koreas, and other topics. One box contains manuscripts of materials collected from the Northeast China
(given to him while he was studying at the Yanbian University): Korean folksongs (570 pages), independence fight songs (1018
pages), and two biographies of Korean independence activists in Manchuria (218 pages).
Biographical note on Joseph Cho
Joseph Cho (1943 - ) is a Korean American journalist, entrepreneur, and a public servant. Born in Kyushu, Japan, he grew
up in South Korea, and received a bachelor's degree from Seoul National University in 1966. Prior to immigrating to America
in 1974, he worked as a high school teacher, and served as an Air Force Officer during his compulsory military service.
He started his life in America working as a janitor and a gas station attendant. By 1975 he found a job as a computer programmer
at the Los Angeles County Data Processing Department, where he was promoted to Assistant Manager within three years, a record
career progression at the time. He founded his first business in 1978, a real estate company which was highly successful.
After the South Korean Military massacred up to 2000 civilians (exact numbers not known) during the May 1980 Kwangju Uprising
in South Korea, he began in 1981 to publish a new magazine called The Korean Street Journal . The weekly publication, based
in Los Angeles, served as a leading voice for the Korean Democracy Movement for ten years, all the while struggling to withstand
the immense political repression that the Korean military regime employed against Cho and his publication. The publication's
goal came to fruition with the Korean Civil Revolution of 1987, which ushered a new era of democracy in South Korea.
For his next venture, he founded a printing business, which was also very successful. Selling the business allowed him to
comfortably retire in 2002, before reaching the age of 60. Retirement allowed him to pursue his lifelong dream of going back
to school to earn a Ph.D. degree. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Yanbian University in China in 2006. His dissertation is
titled 朝鮮半島核問題硏究 [The Nuclear Problem on the Korean Peninsula]. After completing his Ph.D. degree, he and his wife, Lucy,
founded the Lucy and Joseph Cho Foundation to give scholarships to promising young students in the Cerritos area.
Joseph Cho then began a career in public service by running for the City Council in his hometown of Cerritos, CA. After two
unsuccessful attempts, he won an election in March 2007 for the Cerritos City Council Member. In 2009, his council colleagues
voted to appoint him as Mayor Pro Tem, and in 2010 they voted to appoint him Mayor of Cerritos.
In 2017, after his retirement from the Cerritos city council, Joseph Cho founded the nonprofit organization KUSPI (Korea-US
Peace Institute). The organization's mission is to educate the American and Korean public about the root cause of the conflict
on the Korean Penin¬sula and offer solution to resolve the nuclear crisis and bring peace to the Korean peninsula.
Joseph Cho is the author of numerous books on the crisis in the Korean Peninsula: 북한은 변하고 있는가 [Has North Korea been changing?]
(삼민사, 1990); 한반도 핵문제와 통일 [The Nuclear issue and reunification in the Korean Peninsula] (삼민사, 1994); 통일로 가는 길이 달라진다 [Reunification
in the Korean Peninsula] (오름, 1998); 북핵 위기와 한반도 평화의 길 [Nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula: A study of nuclear proliferation
in North Korea and a road map for peace] (한울아카데미, 2006); and 평화가 먼저다 [Peace first] (한울아카데미, 2013). In 2010 he published his
autobiography소명 [My Calling], a condensed version of which appeared as a chapter in a 2013 book containing biographies of
several prominent Korean Americans that was published by Queens College in New York.
He and his wife have two sons and one daughter and three grandchildren.
COLLECTION STORED OFFSITE. Advance notice required for access.
All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Department of the East
Asian Library at eal@usc.edu. Permission for publication is given on behalf of the East Asian Library as the owner of the
physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained.
Rights Statement for Archival Description
Finding aid description and metadata are licensed under an Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
[Box/folder# or Item name], Joseph Cho papers, Collection no. 3323, Korean Heritage Library, USC Libraries, University of
Southern California.
This collection was processed by Jiin Park in February 2020. Processing included arrangement, physical re-housing of materials,
and the creation of this finding aid.
The collection is arranged in five series:
1 Photos, photo albums, and postcards
2 Multimedia materials
3 Scrapbooks
4 Printed materials
5 Manuscripts
Subjects and Indexing Terms
California -- Photographs
City council members -- California -- Los Angeles
Elections -- California -- Archival resources
Korean American men -- California -- Los Angeles -- Archival resources
Korean Americans
Politicians -- United States -- California
Brochures
Clippings
CD-ROMs
Manuscripts
Scrapbooks
Videotapes
Cho, Joseph -- Archives