Collection is open for research.
Gift of The Immigrant Story, June 2021 (RL2021-057).
Joseph Hyon Kye was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1987. When he was six years old, his family relocated to the United States, first living in Boston, Massachusetts, before settling in Seattle, Washington, a few years later. In 2009, he earned a bachelor's degree in American cultural studies from Yale University. He taught English in San Francisco, California, and in Redmond, Washington, then decided to pursue a career as a musician. In 2012, he and Natasha K. Kye were married, and the couple settled in Sacramento, California. In 2016, they relocated to Portland, Oregon. Kye gave music lessons through Brave Youth Orchestras and played shows with his band, Joe Kye and the Givers.
Oral history interview with Joe Kye, by Sankar Raman and Allison Merkel, SR 12311, Oregon Historical Society Research Library.
This oral history interview with Joe Kye was conducted by Sankar Raman and Allison Merkel on December 23, 2020. The interview was recorded for The Immigrant Story, an organization that documents and archives the stories of immigrants and refugees in the United States. The interview was conducted remotely using Cleanfeed software due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this interview, Kye discusses his family background and early life in Seoul, South Korea, and talks about his family's reasons for immigrating to the United States in 1993. He describes his experiences as a Korean immigrant in the U.S., including learning English, adjusting to American culture, and acting as a translator for his parents. He discusses his early interest in music and playing violin, talks about his early career ambitions, and shares his experiences at Yale University. He speaks about his reasons for not majoring in music at Yale, instead pursuing a career as a high school teacher; talks about his marriage to Natasha K. Kye; and discusses his decision to pursue a career as a musician. He speaks at length about the development of his music career in Sacramento, California, and in Portland, Oregon, and talks about telling stories while performing his music onstage. He closes the interview by discussing the difficulty of working as a musician as a new parent and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joint copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society and The Immigrant Story. Use is allowed according to the following statement: In Copyright – Educational Use Permitted,
A podcast about Joe Kye, "I Never Thought That Could Be Me" by Allison Merkel, was based on this interview and published on The Immigrant Story website at