Esther Hyun

Esther Hyun

Esther Hyun is currently a special education teacher at a public middle school working with
students under the Autism Spectrum. She loves working with kids with Asperger’s Syndrome –
many of whom she finds more infinitely more interesting and appealing than “neuro-typicals.”

Prior to being an educator, she appeared in over seventy commercials, industrials and print jobs.
TV and film credits include a co-starring role on Baywatch; voiceovers for HBO’s Happily Ever
After Series – The Princess & The Pea and Puss in Boots; “Mathnet” on Square One TV; a
geisha on WWF Monday Night Raw (as a favor to an agent); and a featured role on High
Frequency as a contestant for the Miss Big Booty contest who hopes to win by stuffing her butt
with tissue paper. In addition, she has appeared in a handful of NYU and UCLA student films.

She has fond memories of taking acting class with the sublime Wynn Handman and Julie
Bovasso in New York; and of being a scholarship student decades ago at the New Dance Group
Studio training with such luminaries as Bertram Ross, Sophie Maslow, Miguel Lopez and Nanette
Glushak, among others.

She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College with a B.A. in Liberal Arts and is three classes shy
of receiving a master’s degree in Special Education from CSUN.

She spends her spare time being a softball mom; curbing her addition to Facebook and the TV
series “What Not to Wear;” and promotes problem-solving strategies, self-actualization, diversity
and multiculturalism in her classroom. She also hopes to actively keep the memory of her
humanitarian father, alive. Her father, Dr. Bong Hak Hyun conceived of the Hungnam Evacuation
in North Korea and together with Col. Ed Forney and General Ned Almond, miraculously saved
100,000 civilians during the Korean War. Later, while studying for his doctorate degree in
medicine Dr. Hyun was barred from taking his medical board exams because he was Asian. At
the time, it was illegal for Chinese and Japanese doctors to take medical board exams due to an
archaic Asian exclusionary law dating back to the 1920’s. With assistance from his mentor, Dr.
Philip Custer, he was able take the board exams on appeal because he was Korean - not
Chinese or Japanese and the law was ridiculous. The state of Pennsylvania was finally forced to
strike down this discriminatory law.

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