A new exhibition, “Building Our Region’s Korean Communities,” will open in late July at the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California in Riverside.

The exhibit’s grand opening event, 6-8 p.m. July 24, will also be a celebration of the 15th anniversary of the creation of the Young Oak Kim Center for Korean American Studies at UC Riverside. The event will feature guest speakers and a Korean cultural performance, and Korean fusion refreshments will be served, according to a news release.

Altura Credit Union is the exhibit’s presenting sponsor.

“We are incredibly appreciative for Altura’s unwavering support for this important part of CRIISC’s mission,” Sabrina Gonzalez, executive director of the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California, said in a news release.

The exhibit recounts how Korean American pioneers in Riverside, Redlands, Reche Canyon and Upland traveled thousands of miles across the Pacific to build communities. Visitors will learn how Koreans in Redlands bought land before the Alien Land Law Act prohibited it, how Koreans’ expulsion from the fruit harvest in Hemet caused an international incident and how local Koreans organized to support Korea’s independence from Japan.

The impetus for creating a narrative around California’s Korean pioneers began when the Young Oak Kim Center developed an exhibition on Pachappa Camp in Riverside, said to be the first Koreatown in the United States.

That display was transformed into a travelling exhibition, on the road since 2024, with stops in San Francisco, Virginia, New York, New Jersey and Chicago. It features Korean democracy leader Dosan Ahn Chang Ho, who founded Pachappa Camp during the period he began to lead the Korean independence movement.

That traveling exhibit will be the centerpiece of the new “Building Our Region’s Korean Communities” exhibit at the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California. Curators of the traveling exhibit were Edward T. Chang, founding director of the Young Oak Kim Center, and Carol K. Park, Young Oak Kim Center research assistant.

“Building Our Region’s Korean Communities” was researched and curated by Audrey Maier, public history director at the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California. The Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California is at 3933 Mission Inn Ave., Suite 103, Riverside. For information, go to inlandcivilrights.org.