I believe telepathy was at work from our first get-together, in the 1970s in Northern California, where she and I worked at the San Francisco Examiner and the Sacramento Union, respectively. Fifteen years junior, Connie was my favorite baby sister/religious aunt/tireless tiger organizer for the waves of newcomers from our war-ravaged homeland. We stood up for the voiceless and powerless, those brave Korean immigrants piggybacked with children, running penny businesses in the seething urban cores of America.

Her life’s work transcended gender, border, culture, race and ideology. Hers was a quiet, almost divine mission to give a clear voice to those who aren’t heard and can’t speak English. And she was a pioneer, achieving several major “firsts.”

Connie was the first Korean woman to earn professional journalism degrees at the Columbia School of Journalism, University of Missouri School of Journalism and Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern. She was the first Asian American with a full-time beat at several metropolitan dailies, among them the San Francisco Examiner and the L.A. Times. In many ways, she was the first Asian American to introduce Asians and Asian Americans in their full humanity for U.S. newspaper readers. And she was honored with a a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Journalists Association in 1997, when she was at the L.A. Times.

In 1982, a dozen of us first-generation Korean Americans working in the mainstream media launched the Korean American Journalists Association, at a time of tense relations between African Americans and Korean immigrants. Our urgent goal was to foster fair and accurate media portrayals of non-English-speaking immigrants and encourage their children to pursue journalism careers. Connie was the driving force. Without her passion and energy, KAJA, whose membership grew to more than 100, would have been an outfit in name only.

This effort became highly relevant a few years later, during the horrific 1992 riots in Los Angeles. Koreans call the riots “Sa-i-gu”—Korean pronunciation for 4-2-9, a reference to April 29, the date the disturbances began. About 2,300 Korean small businesses—and their American dreams—were wrecked in those riots. Just as the 1965 Watts riots had compelled the L.A. Times to hire its first black reporter, within a year of the 1992 riots, the Times hired Connie to be the window into the Korean community and the reporter covering the large and growing inner-city Korean community, as well as Asians throughout the vast L.A. basin. The L.A. Times’ Asian coverage changed noticeably. It’s no exaggeration to say Connie made the difference.

For decades, on top of her regular work, Connie contributed hundreds of columns for the English-language Korea Times daily and other major Korean periodicals. She found extra time to write countless articles and columns for struggling ethnic newspapers, including Koreatown Weekly and the Korea Times’ weekly English edition, both based in Los Angeles and both of which I founded and edited. All along, she demonstrated a rare gift for capturing the ethos of her homeland.

Connie’s grandfather had built 17 Christian churches in what is now North Korea, and as a toddler, she and her Christian missionary family fled Tanchon, in North Korea, to escape communism. After the Korean War, the family settled in Japan and, later, the United States. Connie was fluent in Korean, Japanese and English. Her style was confident no matter the language she spoke or to whom she spoke. Though only 5 feet 2, she had a big presence that always commanded respect.

Haunted by her mother’s last wishes to build Christian schools in North Korea, Connie left journalism in 2008, embarking on a rigorous six-year ordination challenge, earning a hospital chaplaincy, gaining a Master of Divinity degree and passing examinations to become an ordained Presbyterian minister.

Although she never went back, her love of her native land in North Korea never dimmed. I often heard Connie lament, “Why are we Koreans the only people in the world who cannot even visit our ancestral place three decades after two Germanys are no more?” Even in the days before pancreatic cancer finally claimed her, at age 76, one of Connie’s prized possessions was the rusty keys to her family’s now destroyed home in Tanchon. She never forgot her roots.

Her passing has been mourned by thousands in the Korean community and beyond. I only hope Connie has found the calm she deserves.