An activist, skateboarder, b-boy dancer, and adoptee, all at the same time.

I interviewed Benjamin over a long conversation that felt more like a reflection than a formal Q&A. He spoke about growing up as a Korean adoptee in Minnesota, and how hip hop, punk, and skating became ways to rebuild identity and community. What stood out was how he described love not as emotion, but as action: something you give through art, activism, and presence. Every story he shared carried a quiet conviction that change begins in the smallest acts of care, and by the end, it was clear that his life isn’t just about movement, but about helping others find theirs too. Please enjoy.

1. Can you please introduce yourself, your hobbies, interests, and your work?

My name is Benjamin Coz. I am a South Korean adoptee and was adopted to Minnesota, USA when I was 6 months old. I grew up in Duluth, MN for most of my life and then moved back to Korea after finishing college with a degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin Superior. I lived in S. Korea for 4 ½ years before I moved back to the US and attended UChicago, completing my master's in social work, specializing in social administration and international social welfare. I moved back to S. Korea in 2017 and have been engaged with adoptee community organizing since then.

I studied social work because I wanted to create changes in my own life and communities in an accessible and intersectional way. Much of my philosophy and what I wanted and still want to do is informed by the idea of love, something that was instilled in me by my adoptive parents, my Korean mother (who was a Haenyo), whom I met when I was 11, and the wonderful mentors, friends, and people I’ve met along my life’s journey.

My life growing up as an adoptee and someone engrossed in counter cultures: punk rock, skateboarding, and hip hop culture as a bboy, formed my outlook and activist work I do. I grew up personally grappling with themes around identity, race, and the concept of belonging. Many of my friends and communities came from adverse situations from all walks of life, and they are all driving inspirations in what I try and do. Punk Rock, Skateboarding, and Hip Hop/Breaking are all cultures that facilitate radical self and community love - to create something out of nothing - the metaphorical idea of alchemy comes to mind, i.e., taking something that seems worthless or difficult and transmuting it into something beautiful.

It is my opinion and life philosophy that we may choose the circumstances we are thrust into in life, but the choices we make and how we choose to use our time on this earth are things we do have control over and reflect who we are when we leave this earth. A lot of my friends around me, and myself included, grew up in difficult situations of every different shape and experiencing this first and secondhand drove me to try and become someone who could help the people I saw around me and the hard situations they were in. You can use a hammer to hurt others or build something with what you have - and we all have things we can give to the world around us.

2. How has b-boying/skating (please choose one) helped you develop your identity? 

Punk Rock, Skateboarding, and Hip Hop culture to me are best described as “everyday forms of resistance”. There is a concept from the queer community called “third spaces”, which is the idea of creating identity and community grounded in shared collective experiences - not necessarily by identity, race, immigration status, gender, religion, or anything really. It’s not a radical concept, rather one that involves being present for yourself and others, and building awareness around this. All of my counter cultures are loud and unapologetic. They taught me love and curiosity for people and the world around me when it was very hard for me to self-manifest it.

Creating third places means making spaces where people can be seen, heard, and respected. So much of our world is based on silencing, but in my spaces that I try to co-create, it’s just as much about speaking as it is listening, with perhaps the latter being more important. There is a phrase that comes to mind: we are given two ears and two eyes and one mouth so we can look and listen twice and speak once. Holding an audience for someone who needs to be seen and heard is something we can ALL do. It costs nothing and is fundamental to the human experience. What a beautiful notion it is to contemplate that we can validate someone else’s existence by being in communion with them; active presence is a profound thing.

3. Growing up as an adoptee, how has your sense of home or origin shaped the way you move through communities now?

It informs everything I do. Growing up as an adoptee in the Midwest meant that I was subjected to racism (both external and internal). But simultaneously, there were so many lovely friends, mentors, and family members who gave me a perspective of gratitude and to focus on the things I can control in my life, i.e., how I react to situations. We teach others through love, not through fear and disrespect. A lot of the hate we see and experience in the world stems from ignorance and a lack of human connection.

4. Can you talk a little bit about the activism work you do? What is your role, and when do you feel that you are making an impact?

I am a cofounder of the organization Solidarity and Political Engagement of Adoptees Korea and a current member of Ibyangin. The work we do is built on the backs of the decades-long work of other adoptee activists who started building the counter-narratives, advocacy work, and activism to create space for actual adoptee experiences in the way we lived them. Formerly, much of the narratives around adoption came from adoption-agency centric rhetoric on the idea that adoption is a “beautiful” thing; cotton candy words that translate into benevolent Western adopters who were “saving” children from a destitute orphan orphan-ridden South Korea post-war.

These narratives are convenient to swallow because they center parents and adoption agencies being the saviors in all of this - who doesn’t want to be the hero in their own journey? Most of our parents, families, and even we as adoptees were led to believe that adoption was this benevolent thing that redirected guilt, shamed single-unwed mothers in Korea (90% of us came from single unwed mothers), and gave us “better” lives. We are often told to “be grateful” and accept what was given to us and not create our own narratives. It aligned itself with racial politics and geopolitics in the West as well as with Asians being seen as docile and most assimilable to white families. But we, in fact, are the most impacted by it, with our past, culture, Korean families, identity, and agency being erased along the way.

My work has always been centered on creating third places for myself and other adoptees to create space, identity, and narratives that honor our actual thoughts and feelings around adoption as an institution and identity to hopefully create internal and political change that honors our voices. Our existence is inherently political. This spans across educating ourselves and others, the creation of all art (visual, musical, performative), policy and institutional change, and meeting with vested stakeholders to better inform the many intersections of adoption: immigration, gender identity, social welfare, psychology, social sciences, and so much more.

5. Do you ever feel that your art is less about performing identity and more about building it?

This question is exactly what art is. It is LITERALLY about identity and community creation. Art is a window into the soul. It creates a space where we are meant to introspect into ourselves, society, and the world around us. It is meant to be honest and challenge what we believe to be true, and help us come up with better ways to challenge ourselves to grow. Great art is inherently uncomfortable because it forces us to reconcile with ourselves and our world.

6. Are there any hardships–occupational, personal, intellectual–that you've overcome in your life, and what has been the significance of that personal journey?

Every day is a hardship, but we are given the gift of life to choose how we shape our reality. That starts by meditating and thinking about what is important to us, and most importantly, we are left with the choice of how we want to manifest our own philosophy in the world around us through our words and actions.

7. Both b-boying and skating began as forms of claiming space that society ignored. How do you see public space as political?

Public space is the forum where anyone can be heard, and it needs to exist, and not privately owned and regulated. They are not ignored because the whole point of them is that they are in your face and demand your attention. They are tools we are given to make others listen, and it’s not always in a complicated message. The most powerful messages that resonate with people are often not overly diluted in complicated words. Hip Hop, Skateboarding, and Punk Rock say: I am here now. See me, hear me, and engage with me. They are unapologetic in nature because the places they came from - people needed voices that seemed to be forgotten and disenfranchised.

They are youth cultures that instill radical empowerment for young people to be unapologetically themselves and go with gusto into creating the present that they want to see. It is a very unsafe world for young people. Creating spaces where the young and diverse people can gather to be seen and heard is a powerful thing. The youth are the literal engine of the world. I don’t know how many people need to hear this message now, but it is one that younger me and many others desperately needed to hear with all the silencing in our world. You are important. You matter. Create what you want to see in the world and give it to others.

8. Is there a trick, move, or gesture that feels like it carries a story every time you do it?

My art in all its forms manifests from me, which is all just an amalgamation of my experiences and the beautiful people in my life who loved and guided me. Why would I not want to share that with others? Many of my crafts are mementos to my friends and family members who are no longer in this realm as we experience it now, and to those I continually build with in the present. There is no higher way I can think of living my life than to continually manifest the messages of love that are interlaced with my identity now. Being an artist is akin to being human: to continually grow and reinvent yourself and the world around you.

9. Anything else you want to say?

Love others. Give to the world around you. Find your passions and take them as far as you can, and share them with others. My bboy name is Cozy, and the acronym I created for that is this: Complacency Orients Zero Yield. It’s a reminder to myself to always be uncomfortable and strive to build more. It’s okay and necessary to make mistakes because that is how we learn.