"Seoul-America" on America's "Soul": South Koreans and Korean Immigrants Navigate Global White Racial Ideology

• Published in: Critical sociology Vol. 32; no. 2-3; pp. 381 - 402
• Main Author: Kim, Nadia Y
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 01.06.2006
• Subjects: Hegemony; Ideologies; Immigrants; Los Angeles, California; Race; Racism; Seoul, South Korea; South Korea; United States of America
• ISSN: 0896-9205
• DOI: 10.1163/156916306777835231

Although students of race have produced impressive works on global Western racism, their mostly macro-level focus has not addressed how marginal groups respond to Western racial ideology & do so based on state & cultural influences. To capture Asians' localized responses to white-American superiority specifically, the author conducts a comparative case study of South Koreans & Korean American immigrants, fitting groups given US geopolitical dominance in South Korea since 1945 & large numbers of Korean immigrants in the USA. Drawing on 66 combined interviews (in-depth, open-ended, & focus group) in Seoul & in Los Angeles County, the author finds that while South Koreans & Korean Americans at times similarly adopt & resist white racial hegemony, their responses differ by way of state & cultural ideologies & practices. The US military presence in South Korea, supported by the Korean state, & imported American mass media culture centrally shape the residents' narratives. In the United States, the American "racial state" & attendant cultural ideologies ("democracy," racial categories) figure centrally in Korean Americans' narrative responses to hegemony. The author concludes with the implications of localized analyses for global racism scholarship. References. Adapted from the source document.