Multicultural Children in South Korea: Racism, Stunted Citizenship and the Transnational Lives

• In Event: 598 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session.
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Race and Assimilation

Abstract

The paper examines new perspectives to view the children of so-called multicultural families in South Korea who are represented by the families created by internationally married couples of Korean husbands and foreign-born wives. The paper highlights three aspects: racism, stunted citizenship, and transnational lives. The paper stresses the importance of race in understanding what has been presented as discrimination based on ethnic or cultural differences. Doing so, the paper argues that identifying racial differentiation and discrimination could help identify effective measures to combat discrimination against the children of Southeast Asian immigrants. Second, while many social and public programs focus on helping multicultural children, they function only to show the benevolence and superiority of Koreans and to marginalize immigrants who are portrayed as needy. Lastly, the paper stresses the importance of transnational experiences of the children so as to have opportunities to cultivate their mother's heritage instead of only emphasizing the Korean identity so that the Korean pubic could envision their country's future identity as heterogeneous than homogeneous.

Author

• Minjeong Kim, San Diego State University