Korean-Americans to host benefit

"Forget what you do for others but never forget what others do for you." That is the motto by which Sun City Summerlin resident Chon Edwards lives. She is president of the Korean-American Women's Association, Inc.

The group plans a fund-raiser show for 7 p.m. Nov. 13 at Sun City Anthem Recreation Center, 2450 Hampton Road, in Henderson. Admission is $20 per person. Call 837-8390 or 242-6640 for more information.

The roughly 80-minute show will feature Anthem resident Sue Kim-Bonifazio -- of the famous Kim Sisters -- and her brothers. Kim-Bonifazio and her brothers regularly perform at Las Vegas events, but normally for short stints. This is the first time they will do a whole show and can expand their performance.

Benefits from the event will go toward KAWA's ultimate goal of purchasing a house. The group needs a place where it can hold meetings, conduct classes and temporarily house Korean women stuck in Las Vegas.

"They come here and they think they're going to win a jackpot," Edwards said. "They lose it all and end up on the streets."

Kim-Bonifazio knows a bit about being in a tight situation with an uncertain future. When she was 8, her father was assassinated by North Koreans.

Her mother, a well-known singer in Korea, "like Elvis Presley was here," took the seven children and they all began performing pretty much anywhere they could in the war-torn country.

They were often paid with items such as candy and liquor, which her mother exchanged for rice and vegetables on the black market.

The Kim Sisters went on to secure a four-week contract with the Thunderbird Hotel in 1959. The four-week engagement resulted in other Strip hotel contracts and they ended up settling here.

In between casino engagements, the Kim Sisters toured the world and appeared on many television variety shows. They hold the record for the number of appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show: 22.

Over the years, Kim-Bonifazio and her family brought 45 other relatives to Las Vegas, doing it one at a time. Her husband John Boni was casino manager at the Sahara Hotel in those years and made sure they got jobs as dealers.

But KAWA can only provide temporary help to Koreans who arrive in Las Vegas with little more than a dream.

The Las Vegas group was formed in January 1998. Edwards was responsible for starting similar groups in seven other U.S. cities including Tampa, Fla., Atlantic City, N. J., Tucson, Ariz., and Washington, DC.

The first group she formed was in 1963 and stemmed from an incident when Edwards was called in to translate for a young Korean woman who had been injured.

"I saw this woman, her head wrapped (in white gauze) like a helmet," she said. "Her husband, an American G.I., had hit her over the head with a chair, cracked open her skull." She shook her head. "Some men, they marry Korean woman and just want her to be a like a maid."

The incident spurred Edwards to hold seminars for Korean brides to help them adjust to American culture. She's been doing it for decades. Last year she traveled back to Korea to talk with military wives there.

No matter what military base she arranges to visit, the first thing she tells new brides to do is "learn the English language and learn it well." Then she covers cultural differences and what living here is really like.

Coming to America, she said, is everyone's dream. She said she wants to help that dream keep from turning into a nightmare.

Edwards, 76, is used to public speaking. She has an English degree from Tong Guk University in Seoul Korea and also graduated from the National Academy of Broadcasting in Washington, DC. She worked for the eighth Army Education Center and helped establish the first Korean Brides School in 1957.

She also served as a member of the Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the services under former Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger and she is the author of "Kimchee and French Fries: A Woman Torn Between Two Worlds."

After retiring to Las Vegas with her with her husband Jack, a former Federal Aviation Administration worker, she helped establish KAWA here. It began with about a dozen members. The number now stands at about 80. The group meets the second Tuesday of each month at Jong-Ga Restaurant, 953 E. Sahara Ave. in Commercial Center.


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