Before Seoul Foreign School had its infamous hill (with the even more infamous morning bumper-to-bumper traffic uphill) and a sprawling, beautiful campus with an elementary school, middle school, high school and British school, the Yeonhui-dong neighborhood had humble beginnings, with the school being surrounded by rice fields. In part due to Yonsei University, a small group of foreigners in the area formed a community that also later grew into what became the students, families and faculty who made up the SFS community. It was a small, tight knit group where, according to Fred, “if you did something, you were pretty much found out.”

Fred Underwood grew up at Seoul Foreign School in the 1960s and 70s, attending from kindergarten to high school (except for third grade and junior year). Because of this, he  experienced the overlap of the school community and his own church community on a deeper level. During school breaks, his family would spend their time at Daecheon Beach on the western coast of Korea in Boryeong, Chungcheongnam-do Province, where some teachers and other families also spent their summers. 

"[This] one group that went to Seoul Foreign School went to Seoul Union Church, so we would see each other all the time. And that community and this whole foreign school community from my era overlaps enough that we [built] on each other… [The] parents of some of our friends, or sometimes [our] teachers would be involved with teaching you how to swim, or how to identify the stars, or what the shells were… And it was just a great affirmation of the same community that you are [a] part of here. And because it was connected a lot by missionaries, it helps you see that, oh, Seoul Foreign School is part of what, you know what connects us.”

And while there were many times he felt affirmed that he was a part of the SFS community, one of the major challenges that he faced was having a confident sense of identity and belonging, which he saw other alums come after him also struggle with during their times of reflection at various school reunions over the years.

"I think [not being] in your home culture, or even if you are in your home culture, you've been elsewhere enough that finding that home is difficult. So [communities like] SFS become a way of building your identity. Seeing that that same sense of identity being formed in the school was very similar [for other alums].”

This sense of identity and belonging was bound by the one common factor every student or faculty member had—that everyone had the Seoul Foreign School experience which came with all the nuances of cultural integration and racial differences due to its unique nature as an international school in Korea. And it also came with some instability—because people were always coming in and out of the community, moving from one country to another, it was difficult to stay connected. 

But he also attributed this transiency and diversity he was so used to seeing as later being one of the things that equipped him the most, in his career and his ability to build relationships wherever he went. Growing up within a community full of people from all different backgrounds, religions and cultures later turned out to be one of his greatest strengths. He naturally took cues from his Third Culture Kid experience, which seamlessly transitioned him to work in a field that was shifting to be more inclusive, especially as it pertained to a diversity of racial, social or ethnic backgrounds.

"Throughout my career, working with different populations and being able to… It’s that sort of feeling you get as a Third Culture [Kid] that well, I’m not really part of it, but I want to listen and take my cues and try to understand and see where I can fit in.” 

Fred worked in real estate, but specifically in diversity and inclusion, also called equity work—making sure that the industry was including a more diverse group of people to “better reflect the consumers it was serving.” It was after getting his Masters in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago that Fred settled in the city of Chicago, Illinois, a very dynamic and “ethnically identifiable” city.  Real estate in the U.S. was  known to be highly segregated, and there were many grassroots community activities going on in Chicago at the time, where “the dynamics of race and racial change” was showing its effects in the political sphere.

Early on, Fred noticed that most of the professional real estate community was 95-96% white, during the early 1990s, when the U.S. population was around 70% white, and he started engaging largely with the African American communities in these grassroots movements. He served on the National Association of Realtors in the United States as the Director of Engagement, Diversity and Inclusion from 1990-2021, “bringing people into the decision-making and leadership of the association,” and has extensive experience helping to form identity based groups, including those Asian American and LGBTQ+ professionals. Prior to that role, Fred worked as an Equal Opportunity Specialist at the Chicago Regional Office for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, also coordinating the Fair Housing Program for the City of Evanston, Illinois. 

The experience of community that Fred had at Seoul Foreign School was one that carried into his livelihood—one that championed diversity and placed value on inclusion. Fred’s community, and the way he viewed that community, ultimately helped propel him towards a path of being at the center of important conversations surrounding diversity and inclusion. Fred’s willingness to look outside the real estate circle he belonged to, in part came from a place of being exposed to people of diverse backgrounds and the sense of belonging within his community at SFS. 

"If we want to really understand Community, we have to look just outside our circle, and see who else is here. And who's not. [Identifying] who's not at the table, who's not talking, you know, part of the decision-making.” 

It’s when we are open enough to look beyond our comfort zones that we can eventually affect change, as Fred did during his career. For Fred, his background and community helped shape the lens with which he saw the world, one that was beyond just simply belonging somewhere, but one that was challenging and inspiring. 

"I would hope that SFS [would] really build on the special gift that you have as a student, as a person, a child that's grown up in another culture that's not your own, and what it gives you because it takes a lot away from you… When I was in my twenties, I definitely didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere. I felt like a newcomer everywhere I went, but the strength that it brings you [is] the strength to identify with others.”