SEASIDE >> A mile away from the Demilitarized Zone between South and North Korea is a Unification Village, Tongil Chon. Most people in this community are farmers tending to soybeans, apples, rice and more. Many of them have experienced looming danger for most of their lives. Last year, these farmers’ quiet lives were amplified by a 23-year-old journalism student from Cal State Monterey Bay who wanted to know more about them.

Oscar Daniel Jimenez Iniguez, a fourth-year CSUMB student from San Jose was completing a semester abroad at Kookmin University in Seoul, South Korea, when he came up with the idea to interview farmers in the small farming community of Paju. An intern at KAZU 90.3 which is located on the CSUMB campus, Iniguez decided to create a two-part series for the NPR affiliate, detailing the lives of South Korean farmers and how their experience in agriculture differs from the agricultural industry in Salinas.

“I just kind of wanted to know the perspective of what farmers go through in literally the most intense situation ever,” said Jimenez.

While getting to know multiple generations of farmers, Jimenez said he realized how different their perspectives are on the idea of reunification.

“The older generation believes in reunification because there are still family members that are separated,” he said. “With the younger generation, it’s sort of like they feel that there are more pressing issues than reunification because it’s a history that they didn’t live.”

When an armistice was signed in 1953 during the Korean War, the Korean Peninsula was divided into the North and South by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) serving as a buffer between the two countries.

This zone is heavily militarized and to this day is still considered a war zone.

However, the DMZ is also a tourist destination. Guided tours take visitors through the community, avoiding areas which still contain active landmines. Without a tour, only members of the community and their guests are allowed in.

“I think all good story ideas happen in an empty room with an empty whiteboard,” said Jimenez.

“Nothing is there and you just have to find a way to get what you have to do, done. So we approached it as ‘where can we find villagers?’”

Jimenez and his classmates-turned-translators went to great lengths to get access to the village. Every year, the city holds the Paju Jangdan Soybean Festival for farmers to sell their goods to locals and tourists alike.

The group took an hour-long bus ride to the festival in hopes of introducing themselves and their idea to receptive farmers like Park Kyung-ho, who ultimately brought them into Tongil Chon as his visitors.

Even with the help of Scott Cohn, reporter and host at KAZU and Anthony Kuhn, NPR correspondent based in Seoul, Jimenez still had to convince his friends and translators this wasn’t a crazy idea.

“They thought I was some crazy foreigner that wanted to do something that was outlandish but they supported me,” he said. “They just thought, ‘wow, this is a crazy idea, but hey, let’s do it,’ and we did it. The bus rides and the train rides (to Tongil Chon) are some of the best memories that I have.”

Even though he was initially unsure if he would even get his undergraduate degree, Jimenez quickly realized journalism was his passion during an introductory class he took in 2022.

“Through my parents and a lot of amazing high school teachers and counselors, they convinced me to do my undergraduate degree,” said Jimenez. “I was kind of hesitant because I didn’t know if that’s a path that I wanted to take.”

He signed up for the journalism program on a whim, and soon realized that was the career path he wanted to take.

Through his introductory course, Jimenez says he realized “journalism (is) something that is so unique and so beautiful in the way that it tells people’s stories. If there’s something that I love, it’s the fact that I get to tell people’s stories and perspectives about how they view the world.”

Jimenez’ stories have been in the works for nearly a year. Now, he says he has a clearer vision of what he wants his life to look like.

Having recently applied to Seoul’s Yonsei University for the masters program in global studies, Jimenez hopes to be a foreign correspondent for an network in the U.S.

Because of his long-time interest in Korean history and culture, it was important for Jimenez to tell the stories of people who have long been overlooked when it comes to the DMZ.

“When U.S. media reports on North Korea, it’s very sensationalized. They don’t ever really talk about the North Korean people, they talk about the North Korean government,” he said. “With my project, I kind of … wanted to bring light to Korea as a whole without making it so that ‘these are the bad people and these are the good people.’ The people (on the border) are just like any other people but they happen to be in a situation that’s very sad.”

After reading or listening to his stories, Jimenez hopes to deepen Americans’ understanding and appreciation of another culture.

“Korean history is as rich as American history. That’s something that I want people to know,” he said.

“I want my story to basically give people a new perspective on a new culture and hopefully they either try a new Korean dish, go to a Korean restaurant or just try to (experience) new cultures.”