Mark Keam, whose Korean name was Sun Yeop Kim, immigrated to the United States with his family at the age of fourteen.

As a young man, he was fascinated by politics and by the promise of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition, with its vision of an alliance between minorities and immigrants of color. In Northern Virginia, he became a political activist, organizing Fairfax County in support of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

In 2009, he was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates, having defeated fellow immigrant Esam Omeish in the Democratic primary.