Why Should Delaware Care?
Delaware is home to over 1 million people from diverse backgrounds, including more than 3,400 Korean Americans. A growing interest in Korean culture was evident at this year’s Delaware Korean Festival in Wilmington.
Visitors to the Delaware Art Museum last Thursday were met with the aroma of garlic, scallions and other spicy dishes featured at the Delaware Korean Festival, an event that has grown throughout the past decade from a small, child-focused cultural showcase into an annual community-wide celebration.
The concept began with a group of local mothers who wanted to instill pride in their Korean heritage among future generations. Jin Twilley of Wilmington had her 5-year-old and 7-year-old children in mind when she launched the festival in 2015. She soon realized the event also presented an opportunity to teach other Delawareans about Korean culture.
“Everybody’s loving it,” Twilley said during this year’s festival. “Now we are less about spreading [awareness], but now we are enjoying it together. That’s the difference over the years.”
One of her now-teenagers, who grew up attending the festival, helped run trivia and games this year. Twilley said she is excited to see how the festival has offered the younger generation ways to get involved and learn about their heritage.
The festival began with traditional folk music called gayageum sanjo, played on a Korean string instrument called a gayageum. Musician Eunyoung Lee also played “Amazing Grace” and improvised melodies. The event featured talchum, a Korean mask dance, and ended with a taekwondo demonstration by Tiger Kicks Martial Arts Delaware.
“The energy here is so wholesome and welcoming,” said Stefanie Colon, a festivalgoer from Wilmington. “It just feels very alive, and I’m just so in love with the culture. It’s beautiful.”
Colon watched three people play modeumbuk, a Korean drum ensemble, which she described as mesmerizing.
This year’s festival also featured food fit for a variety of palettes, including traditional plates such as kimchi, bulgogi (beef), tofu, jeyuk bokkeum (spicy stir-fried pork) and japchae, which is a dish full of savory noodles with assorted vegetables.
The event also included raffles for rare items, like certain snacks only available in Korea, trivia, chopstick challenges and Korean-inspired arts and crafts.
Svetlana Kogan and Joey Loey enjoyed the spicy pork and beef dishes served outside the museum. The friends met up that evening to enjoy the annual festival. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
Chilapa Brown was one of the festival’s attendees who was participating in one of the crafts. Down the table on goers learned how to spell their name in Korean. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
Young Maia came with her parents to the festival. She was creating a tiger paper fan- the animal symbolizes strength, courage and good luck in Korean culture. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
Moedumbuk is an upbeat style of traditional Korean percussion. The group performed that Thursday evening at the Korean Festival. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
The Delaware Korean School has been established in Newark since the 80s. The non-profit bilingual school was fundraising at the festival that day to continue their efforts in educating other about Korean culture and language. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ
Delaware Korean Association President Sanghoon Kim said he was excited to see all the food and culture highlighted at the festival.
He recognized that Korean culture has become more mainstream in recent years, largely thanks to K-Pop, the globally popular music genre that blends pop, hip-hop, R&B and electric dance music. That broader renewed interest has trickled down to local Korean community events as well.
Kim said the festival stands out as one of the only events of its kind in the area.
“We need something like this in Delaware,” he said.
Delaware’s Korean community at a glance
After launching the festival nearly a decade ago, Twilley collaborated with the Delaware Korean Association to bring more members of the community together.
The First State now boasts more than 1 million residents, which includes a growing Korean community supported by local churches and volunteers.
Iz Balleto, the Delaware Art Museum’s cultural programs manager, estimates that a majority of Delaware’s roughly 3,400-plus Korean residents live in the Wilmington and Old New Castle areas.
“I think it’s great for us to always know about their traditions, their cultures and also how they have been growing here,” she said. “But I’m always grateful because they’ve always been true supporters of the Delaware Art Museum.”
Twilley said the Delaware Korean School now has roughly equal numbers of American students and Korean American students, compared with a predominantly Korean or mixed Korean American enrollment prior to the festival’s launch in 2015.
The Delaware Korean Festival included a taekwondo demonstration. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
The public could purchase a spicy pork platter or a beef platter accompanied by kimchi and japchae, stir-fried noodles with vegetables. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
Seoyeong Jang and her mother Chung Ea Lim went to the festival for the first time since the Covid pandemic. They are part of Delaware’s larger Korean community who have seen the population grow over the years, particularly in church. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ 
University of Delaware students performed a K-pop dance routine the evening of the Delaware Korean Festival. The university has a student-run K-pop Dance Club, signaling the popularity of this genre of music as of recently. | SPOTLIGHT DELAWARE PHOTO BY CRISTAL SANCHEZ
The growing community is also evident through the Delaware Korean Association, a Wilmington-based nonprofit that shares community resources and promotes Korean culture and language. Kim, the association president who attended the recent festival, said he has been getting requests from people to learn to speak or sing the Korean language.
Kim described Korean culture as open-minded and welcoming to everyone. He said he wants to be able to dance together and have fun together.
Festival attendee Sean Park used to work the lunch line during previous festivals, but this year was able to simply enjoy the festivities with his family.
The Wilmington resident and art museum member said volunteering at and attending the festival has helped him connect with the Delaware Korean community while also helping to preserve Korean culture for generations to come.
“I think we’re a bit underrepresented in Delaware statistically, not in the Philly metro area,” he said. “We need events like this just to preserve that culture and just have some options for Koreans in Delaware and to showcase our culture, too.”