The campus Korean Expo is next Sunday night, and Jennifer Seo is getting anxious.

She’s worried people won’t show up to the Korean Student Association-sponsored party that celebrates that country’s culture with Tae Kwon Do and dance performances. But worse, she’s worried the event will be a target.

“We’re worried about people wanting to do harm to the Korean Expo because so many Korean students will be gathered together,” said Seo, president of the Korean International Student Association.

Seo, like many of what she estimates are 500 Korean students at the university, is grappling with the idea that one of her nationals is responsible for the horrific death of 32 people at Virginia Tech. And like many others, she is also worried about anti-Asian-American sentiments that may be seeping past Virginia state lines throughout the country.

As reports of a mass shooting broke on Monday, the shooter of the 32 victims was only identified as an Asian male. A headline on Goldsea.com, which bills itself as an “Asian American supersite,” said “Virginia-Tech Shooter of 32 Unidentified but Believed to be Asian.” A posting on Craigslist.com, the popular online classifieds website, gave a list of “Some of the Asian Terrorists Victims.”

Hours later, the shooter was identified as 23-year-old, South Korea-native Cho Seung Hui. On Wednesday, Korean President Roh moo Hynn repeated official condolences to reporters in Seoul and said the country’s government will try to keep the shootings from impacting South Koreans in the United States.

Jen Park, president of the Asian American Student Association, said she got reports of students on the campus who heard people whispering “there goes another one” or that they should “go back where they came from.”

“I thought our campus was better than that,” said Park, a senior business major. “I didn’t think it would be an issue, considering how diverse our campus is.”

Yet the concerns seem to be striking a chord the hardest with older generations. Parents of Asian American students have told their children to be careful and have pressed them not to walk alone.

“My parents called to tell me not to do anything stupid,” said Tae Kwon, a junior business major. “I haven’t experienced anything in Maryland, but it’s very possible that something unfortunate could happen. They told me not to get into any confrontations and to watch my back. They told me to be careful.”

Indignance also erupted over media attention on Hui being born in South Korea, because he moved to the United States in 1992. Some students disagree with him being portrayed as a foreigner due to the long time he spent in the U.S.

“I don’t like that they keep bringing up that he came from South Korea,” said Dong Parady, a junior economics major and board member of the Asian American Student Union. “They portray him as if he was a foreigner, like some one from a different side of the world who never got acclimated to our society. They keep saying he is an Asian 23-year-old male. He is someone, not our own, someone alien.”

As Seo put it, people should think about his psychological problems more than anything else.

“He had mental problems,” Seo said, “not race problems.”

Contact reporter Kristi Tousignant at tousignantdbk@gmail.com.