From Korean to Korean-American: modernization of post-1945 Korea seen through the trajectory of physicist Benjamin W. Lee

• In Event: Asian American Scientists and US-Asian Scientific Interaction

English Abstract

In what ways could we use an immigrant scientist's cultural identity to probe decolonization and modernization? After the Japanese Occupation ended in 1945, the South Korean government sought to modernize the country through industrialization and embracing the Western education system. Faced with a nascent university system and an oppressive government, numerous Korean academics continued their graduate studies outside Korea. Many academics considered the United States a desirable destination and settled there. Whether they remained in the United States or returned to Korea, Koreans and Korean-Americans regarded these academics as intellectual elites who would lead Korea's modernization and serve as role models. I propose to study the career path of Korean-American physicist Benjamin Whiso Lee to examine the role of science in the decolonization and modernization of Korea during the latter half of the twentieth century. Lee was born in Korea in 1935 during the Japanese Occupation. Initially a chemical engineering student, he moved to the United States two years after the Korean War ended as an undergraduate student in physics and became an American citizen after the 1965 Immigration Act came into effect. He was a prominent theoretical particle physicist, whose untimely death in 1977 was met with shock in the international physics community. Lee's trajectory show that while Koreans equated modernization and development with Westernization, traditional Korean cultural values played a substantial role in how to emulate the West. It is also possible to see the preference for particular scientific disciplines and the change of this preference as industrialization progressed. Furthermore, his posthumous reverence and fame among Korean scientists and the media indicate how Korean-American scientists became role models to emulate among Koreans and Korean-Americans.

Author

• Eun-Joo Ahn, University of California Santa Barbara