Conference on Korean Americans – Session 1

Professor Pyong Gap Min: We are going to start the first session. I would like to introduce the presider for the first session. Daniel Baek, he is a graduate student at King’s College Law School. He serves as the formal director for Korean Voters Council. And he will talk about Borders Council. Thank you.

 

Daniel Baek: Thank you Professor. Welcome back. I hope you’ve had a good break. My name is Daniel Baek, I am the program director of the Korean American Voters Council. Let me give you a one-sentence introduction of our organization. The Korean American Voters Council was established in 1996 in order to empower the Korean American community by registering, educating, and mobilizing the voters in the Korean American community.

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: whispering to Daniel You can do it later.

 

Daniel Baek: Oh no, that was the one sentence. Audience laughs

 

Daniel Baek: By the way, you know I am a CUNY kid, I am. After I was in high school, I did college at Queensborough Community College and graduated from Queen’s College in 2003, and now I go to CUNY law school. I didn’t graduate yet, but yeah, I go to CUNY law school. So I guess that makes me feel more pleased and honored to join the Asian and Asian American Research Institute and be able to preside over session one of the conference today. So without further adieu, I would like to introduce our first speaker, Professor Pyong Gap Min, a professor of sociology in Queen’s College at the graduate center. The areas of his research interests are immigration, ethnic identity, ethnic business, religion, and family/gender, with a special focus on Asian Americans. He wrote and edited many books; I don’t want to read the long list so please look at page 12 of the booklet. Professor Min.

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: I will talk about intergenerational transition in the Korean community. I have included some data in the handout. I have no time to look at tables together, but my research is partly based on data you have now. As you can see from Table 1, Korean immigration to the USA became very active after the US government changed the immigration law in 1965. In the late 1970s and early 80s, South Korea represented the third largest immigrant group to the US in the world, next to Mexico and the Philippines. You can see in the early 90s a big drop in immigration when South Korea improved their economy and achieved political stability and there was less fear of war against North Korea. Right now there are about 20,000 Korean immigrants coming every year. That is not one of the larger Asian groups right now; now China, Philippines, India, even Pakistan send more immigrants than Korea right now. As a result of the influx of Korean immigrants over the last four years, there showed a huge increase in the Korean American population, as you can see from the next table, the next figure. In 2000, Korean Americans were about 1.25 million including multiracial Koreans who chose Korean and another racial category. And we focus on people who chose the Korean category alone, about 1 million. That is the fifth largest Asian ethnic group, next to Filipino, Chinese, Indian, and Vietnamese. Now many US born or 1.5 generation Koreans, they have come of age. They finished their formal education and they participate in the labor market. So in the 2000 census, have figures of about 37,000 US born Koreans who are between 25 and 64 years old. These are the economically ethnic group ages. And we have enough data about second generation Koreans. You see from the tables, they are doing very well. My talk will focus on intergenerational deduction in ethnic attachment and solidarity from immigrant generation to second generation.

 

Korean immigrants and their adjustment—economic, social, cultural adjustment—can be characterized by high levels of ethnic attachment and solidarity. Scholars use terms like ethnicity, ethnic identity, ethnic attachment, ethnic organization interchangeably, but we have to make a distinction between ethnic attachment and ethnic solidarity. Ethnic attachment can be defined as a cultural, social, and psychological integration into the ethnic community. This is based on pride of identity. If a Korean immigrant maintaining Korean culture makes a friend with a Korean and they feel they are strongly Korean, they have strong ethnic attachment. Ethnic solidarity can be defined as use of ethnic collective action; it is based on political identity, collective identity, and political mobilization. And Korean immigrants have utilized ethnic collective action more than any other Asian or other immigrant group, and I want to tell you why that’s the case.

 

There are three major factors that have contributed to high levels of ethnic attachment and solidarity to the Korean immigrant population. One is cultural homogeneity. Korean immigrants come from a culturally homogeneous society, South Korea. South Korea is smaller than the state of Georgia, and regional differences are not that significant compared to China or India or Philippines. They have only one language, they have a huge advantage of course with their own language. Right now ethnic immigrant communities have developed accessible, ethnic media by virtue of technological advances. But in the Indian community, they have English language media; of course, they have about fifteen different languages. Even in the Chinese community there are several languages. Not all Chinese immigrants can understand one TV station; they pronounce in different ways. But Koreans have an advantage here so their ethnic media is more organized. Korean immigrants have three major religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, and Buddhism. But all three groups share Confucian cultural tradition, and therefore, they are very much Confucian in religious practices and there is harmony in traditional Korean religion. So really, not much religious conflict, unlike the Indians, even though now evangelical Christians have a separate identity, and they have some clash with Korean nationals politically and in other social issues; like American evangelicals are mobilizing them. Some little, but overall, Koreans practice ancestral worship regardless of religious affiliation. Even Protestants practice some part of ancestral worship, and as a result it gives them a huge advantage in dealing with [inaudible]. They share historical experiences associated with colonization and other struggles with foreign forces. That will ignite here.

 

Secondly, Koreans are highly associated with Korean immigrant churches. As you can see page 2, table 2, about 60% percent of Korean immigrants are Protestant, 20 % Catholic. So about 80% go to Korean churches. And according to comparative studies, Koreans Episcopalians attended church far more frequently than other Episcopalian groups: Latino, White, African-American. According to a 1997-98 study, about 80% of Koreans Presbyterians went to church every week, as compared to 28% of whites, and 34% of African Americans, and 49% Latino. They are a congregationally oriented and they spend a lot of time in church; they eat lunch there, some eat dinner there. They have a strong ethnic network through church participation. They use the church as an institution to maintain their cultural tradition; they celebrate Korean cultural holidays, they do a lot of ethnic things in the church. Again, this helped them to maintain ethnicity, cultural retention, ethnic networks.

 

Sometimes they use churches to mobilize their collective activities. When there is an election, a candidate can go to church and introduce himself. I helped some candidates move around a church; it is very effective. When there was a demonstration against the deacons in 1990, against his lukewarm effort to terminate the [inaudible] boycott, many churches then advanced to bring people and we mobilized 7,000 people in front of City Hall for a larger demonstration. The church can be useful for collective political mobilization.

 

Finally, Koreans are highly concentrated in small businesses. Really, they concentrate several lines; they are monopolizing several lines of businesses in different cities. In New York City, Koreans are highly concentrated in greengrocery, retail and wholesale Asian-imported items. Many of these wholesale stores are in and around 32^nd and Broadway intersection. Dry cleaning used to be Chinese controlled, but now mainly Koreans control dry cleaning businesses. With nail salons and greengroceries, they are very active in small business. Koreans businesses are different from Chinese or Indian businesses in New York, as elsewhere. They do business collecting different ethnic region groups. Koreans are highly concentrated in black or Latino low-income black neighborhoods, so they serve minority customers. They are highly dependent on Mexican and Latino employees. Korean retailers get merchandise from white suppliers, so they have a connection. They depend upon Jewish and other white landlords for renting commercial buildings. And then they have to deal with the city government, state government, even federal government in regulating and moderating their small businesses—there are many departments they have to deal with. So to survive in their economic activities, they have to deal with many other groups, and in doing so, they have had a lot of inter-group conflict. As you know, there has been a lot of boycotts of Korean stores in black neighborhoods; many Latino groups picketed in front of Korean stores; and Korean green grocers boycotted white suppliers several times at Hunt’s Point market. Every day, Korean organizations send a team to City Hall, Albany State Legislature, to moderate business regulations. They have done a lot. In this process, Korean business owners learned how to negotiate politically, and they learned the political skills. They are more efficient than Chinese or Indians, who may speak English a lot better; Korean immigrants speak broken English, but they know how to target, how to lobby politicians. I think we have a lot of Chinese second generation, leaders who are fluent in English. There is no comparison to Chinese leaders for immigrant Koreans. And again, the Chinese and Indian communities have a disadvantage because of their ethnic subdivisions. They have a Taiwanese Association, Hong Kong, but not National Association—it is very difficult for the Chinese community. Indians, the same thing: a lot of division. But Koreans are homogenous, so we have a Korean Grocery Association of Green Grocery. They are powerful, they have a lot of ways to deal with wholesalers or customers. Just to repeat this information, before school decentralization was abolished a few years ago, the Korean community had eight school board members, compared to seven Chinese, and two Indians. Chinese outnumber Koreans by four and a half times, Indians three and a half times, but still Koreans can mobilize people because of their homogenous background and also by doing business in an integral conflict, for survival. They learned how to do it. They support a political candidate because they think they need the power. But whether they will transmit these political skills to the second generation; it is very difficult and that’s the main focus of my talk. The second generation is not as effective as other Asian immigrant groups in retaining their culture, and maybe in mobilizing they may have a disadvantage. Earlier I indicated three factors related to this and when we discuss each factor, it’s not going to be important for the second generation.

 

First of all, you can see from the next table, most U.S. born Korean American—not most, almost all—they are in the mainstream economy. They use, not collective action, but their personal credentials, their education, their good language skills, and their acculturation for their competition and success. That table shows that in education, they are very successful, particularly there is a big difference between immigrant women and US born women. As you can see from Table 1, Table 10.3, Page 3, foreign-born Korean women, only 39% finished college, compared with 55% immigrant men. For US born, 61% of U.S. born women finished college compared to 57% US born men, so actually U.S. born women do better than men. For the immigrant population, men have much higher education, as part of a patriarchal tradition they brought from, they inherited from, Korean cultural tradition. When you see their occupational status, they are very successful, based on the 2000 census. Forty two percent of men compared to forty three percent of women have professional jobs in 2000, compared to 18% of white men and 27% of white women. You see, they do much better than the US born white population; of course, almost all Asians do better, even the Chinese do better than Koreans. In intergenerational educational mobility, occupational mobility, they do better.

 

But raising second generation Koreans who socially can achieve is not my goal here. Because of their entry into mainstream economy, they do not feel that they have to be united; that is the core course of my talk. Immigrants, for economic survival, they have to get united. I know Korean immigrants have a lot of conflict, they fight. Once there is an enemy, they are very strong; once they find one, they will kill them. The second generation feels very comfortable; they use their educational credentials for their mobility and they don’t think they are united. So I see Koreans who are active in common organizations; they are immigrant or one and half generation—not US born, very few. I know some people have what is high mobility, like [inaudible] who went to law school at Yale University, but they don’t have to be in a common organization. It is tough for people who serve in our community; they know the struggles of immigrants or other Koreans. But as a U.S. born feel too comfortable, so they do not think they have to be united. And also, they are not assembled in one neighborhood. They live in white suburban areas and their coworkers are white Americans, so it is very difficult to see the need; therefore, this occupational assimilation, this is what parents wanted. But again, because of that, they are more assimilated, and maybe they do not feel pressured to organize.

 

I spent much time already here—I want to talk about very quick today, religion and cultural homogeneity. When you see the next table, in the second generation about two third of Protestants inherited their religion. They are very religious and they are evangelical, and they are very much in the white American evangelical movement. I saw the Korean church; there was nothing Korean, no Korean language at all. They have a strong Christian identity, and the more they have a Christian identity, the less they have a Korean identity. So again, in terms of religion, it is not helpful.

 

Now cultural homogeneity again, a monolingual background is not an issue, because they are competent with English. We do not have Korean-English media, so the second generation has no access to Korean ethnic media, so they do not know what’s going on. I see the Indian community has English media, and they exchange it like Indians abroad and U.S. born send letters and immigrants respond. We do not have this. We definitely need English language in media.

 

The Confucianism that unites Koreans, the second generation cannot accept. It is hierarchical, it’s patriarchal, it emphasizes age-based authority that sharply conflicts American individualism, so the second generation cannot accept that. Therefore, our cultural mobility is not going to be very helpful to second-generation Korean identity and ethnic retention. Therefore, overall the Korean community experiences more intergenerational transition, occupationally, culturally, in religion. When you compare to other Asian groups, you will see a big difference.

 

On the last page, I will show you very briefly, only a portion of second-generation Korean American adults speaks Korean at home—as you here only 37%. Chinese is higher with 43%, and Filipinos are highly assimilated but they have 35%. This is surprising, as I thought the Korean second generation would be more successful in retaining language, but according to the census data, they are not that successful. They do not have that advantage. I should finish now.

 

Daniel Baek: Thank you Professor Min, for giving us your cultural assessment. You know a lot of second generation Korean Americans don’t speak the language, and therefore, they have a not so great relationship with their parents, and that’s very sad. With respect to the occupational assimilation, some of my friends used to say you’re in America, it doesn’t matter. But about a month ago, a member of the Korean American Lawyers Association actually came up to me and asked me to translate something into Korean. I asked him, “You can’t speak Korean, so what are you doing in the Korean American community? Why don’t you go out into mainstream society and target the bigger market?” And he said, “I thought I was American, but white lawyers and white clients do not consider me as American. So I’m not accepted there, and I’m not accepted here.” That made me think. So I just want to say, listen, if you have the opportunity to take advantage of both cultures and be bilingual, do it.

 

Okay, back to the conference: our second speaker is Professor Joong Hwan Oh, an associate professor of our sociology department, director of Graduate Social Research Program, and acting director of the Asian American Studies Program at Hunter College. Professor Oh…

 

Professor Joong Hwan Oh: As some of us already know, Professor Min is not only one of the pioneers in Korean American studies in the United States, but also he is one of the most influential sociologists in the field of immigration sociology in this country. Like Professor Min’s other works on Korean American issues, I think his today’s talk, “Overview of Koreans Americans’ Intergenerational Transition” is quite a well-timed topic because this time the Korean American community experiences a two-tier generational population structure due to growing second-generation Korean Americans. Therefore, there is no question this time we have to address emerging intergenerational issues in Korean Americans. As usual, Professor Min’s insight is keen, his theoretical argument is comprehensive, and his analysis is quite empirical and objective.

 

Anyhow, at this point, let me comment on Professor Min’s talk as well as his work, “Overview of Koreans Americans’ Intergenerational Transition,” let me talk about it first from an identity issue. In general, first-generation Korean Americans, most of whom came to America since the 1970s, seemed to have suffered less from their identity conflict than their second-generation counterparts. The reasons, according to Professor Min’s view, originate from their homogenous cultural backgrounds prior to their emigration to America, such as the use of the same Korean language and their general share of Confucian values and customs. Even in America, these first-generation Koreans remain faithful to strong Korean identity because of their co-ethnic work environment, their affiliation with Korean churches, as well as their dependence on news and information from Korean-language ethnic media. By contrast, there is an unavoidable trend that the second-generation Korean Americans, who were born in the United States, become more acculturated in the American mainstream society while neglecting the practice of Korean-oriented cultural norms, values, and customs. More participation in their general US labor market, not Korean ethnic economy sector, growing interracial marriage with other ethnic groups, their lack of fluency in Korean, and their distance to Korean church—all of these contribute to this generation’s detachment from the sense of Korean identity. Overall, I agree with most of his approaches to both generational identity issues.

 

My opinion is that the length of residence in the United States can influence the degree of first-generation Korean-American acculturation, that is, growing sense of American identity in these generations despite their daily exposure to a Korean environment at work and in their community. The question raised here is why the first-generation Korean Americans do not lose their Korean identity even under their long stay in this country. My sense to this question is that new immigrants from Korea continue to arrive, settle down in existing Korean communities, looks for jobs in Korean enclave economy sectors; more importantly, they introduce diverse news of recent Korea to long-stayed Korean Americans. I think their continuous inflow into the Korean community and interaction with each other, help maintain and even strengthen the authentic Korean identity to these first-generation Korean Americans. Even in the case of second-generation Korean Americans, I think they do not lose easily their Korean identity, despite their more easy access to American culture and environment. After growing up, I believe these second-generation Korean Americans are still accustomed to Korean values and norms as the foundation of their life directions, most of which is learned from their first-generation parents. Also, in the realistic aspect, these second-generations believe that learning Korean language and knowing Korean customs and practices are assets in the globally competitive world. Though less important, their visits to Korea, their relatives’ frequent visitation to their homes in the United States, as well as their electronic communication with Korean relatives by email and telecommunication will help retain their Korean identity.

 

Second, one of the interesting points in the section of intergenerational conflict from Professor Min’s book and talk, coupled with the first-generational business operations, is that Professor Min clarified quite well the second-generation’s balanced position between their first generation’s economic interests and deep consideration of racial justice and racial harmony with black customers and Latino employees. Obviously, it is necessary to explore why these second-generation Korean Americans sometimes support Latino workers in their labor conflicts with first-generation Korean Americans, as in their support to blacks against their own ethnic employers. As Professor Min stated in his work, it is true that these second-generations are strongly oriented toward human rights, human equity and justice without regard to the origin of race, class, and gender. To these young generations, such universal ideologies seem far more important than their parents’ economic interest. However, I think that their ambivalent attitude cannot fall apart with their experience of discrimination and racial label as a minority during the time of growing up and even in pursuing their life goals in this country. Thus, different from their first-generations in the American racial spectrum, they might conceive them as one of racial/ethnic minority groups who needed to overcome racial discrimination stereotype, and prejudice deeply embedded in most American social institutions. This is why they care about the powerless disadvantaged groups, like Latinos, Latino employees, and black customers.

 

Lastly, Professor Min made clear differing patterns of assimilation between these two Korean American generations. Summing up briefly, the first-generation Korean Americans have achieved economic assimilation equivalent to middle-class Americans. Moreover, these Koreans are quite active politically in order to protect their economic interests. On the other hand, as stated in the intergenerational identity section, second-generation Korean Americans keep improving cultural assimilation by their fluency in English, more understanding of American cultural values and behaviors. Also, they promote their social assimilation through more social contacts with non-Korean Americans, including their participation in the general labor market and more interracial marriage rate. Though Professor Min pointed out to some degree, the most important point we need to give attention here is that, ironically, the speed of cultural and social assimilations in their second generations relies upon their parents’ economic success. In the current sociological discussion on urban underclass in this country, there is a common consensus that economic hardship of some African American parents leads to the succession of intergenerational poverty to their young generations. What is worse, these second generation African Americans are turned away from mainstream American culture and, furthermore, they develop another type of acculturation, that is, called the subculture of violence and deviance. Here, we need to keep notice to this point that like other minority communities, the current Korean American community is no longer homogeneous in its members’ social classes and backgrounds. This is why acculturation toward mainstream American culture is not easy to some underprivileged second-generation Korean Americans. This issue needs more systematic study in the future. Thank you.

 

Daniel Baek: Thank you Professor Oh. We’re going to have about ten minutes for a Q & A session, so keep that in mind. Our last speaker is Professor Kelly Jeong. She is an Assistant Professor of English at John College of Criminal Justice. She got her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from UCLA. Her research and teaching interests include modern Korean literature and cinema, questions of the nation, gender, East Asian contemporary cinema and popular culture, Asian American literature, and post-colonial studies. She is currently working on a book manuscript about modern Korean literature and film. Professor Jeong…

 

Professor Kelly Jeong: Thank you. I feel very honored to be here. I think this is a very significant day for the Korean American community, especially the Korean American community of the greater New York area. As Daniel just told you, I am not a sociologist, so I don’t feel confident to address Professor Min’s article. Basically, what I got out of the article is he was articulating in a very accessible yet scholarly language, something I had known all along sort of growing up as a typical 1.5 generation in L.A. So today I thought I would just briefly kind of talk about my own perspective and my own life experience.

 

For the past ten years or so, I spent my life in college, going through the graduate program and also now teaching in a college setting. So I thought I would just talk about my experience with higher education because, with the Korean community and the Korean American community, higher education is one of the most important issues and ever present in everybody’s mind and very important for economic and social promotion.

 

Growing up in L.A. I didn’t think about racial or ethnic consciousness; I didn’t think about it because it’s just not something that a high school kid thinks about. But I had a very typical Korean American immigrant experience. My parents had a laundry/dry cleaning service and they had a video store and they had a liquor store. So I was the typical 1.5 kid who had to typically liaison for the public, being able to speak better English than my parents. I think it does something to you in the process, you sort of grow up artificially faster than everybody else. When I went to college, the experience of working after school throughout my high school years at my parents’ business taught me two things. One, that I never ever wanted to do this for a living. Anything that dealt with customers, including nickel and diming to everybody and always feeling like you’re cheating somebody or something. And two, I had to study hard, so that I can have a professional job. So I think it was beneficial for me to actually work for my parents.

 

 

When I went to UC Irvin for my BA, the campus was more than 50% Asian American in the population, which is an amazing number; I think it’s 67% now. My experience at UC Irvine was very interesting because I was in the Comparative Literature department and I knew exactly one other Korean person in the department. And everybody else who were Koreans were either political science, or economics, or mathematics, and so forth. And there was this sense of, almost shame, about speaking Korean on campus; nobody wanted to speak Korean with each other. Then for my graduate studies when I went to UCLA, even though it had a smaller number of Korean Americans, I heard Korean being spoken everywhere on campus. So I think in a matter of just a few years, four to five years, Korean Americans, especially 1.5 and second generation people, had a growing sense of who they are, and their ethnic and linguistic and cultural heritage. They didn’t feel as though they only had to speak English in a public space.

 

Another interesting difference between those few years in the late 1990s, mid to late 90s, was that at UC Irvine I was part of the student movement to create an Asian American studies program on campus. I was the only Korean American person who was participating in this movement, because Korean Americans were not interested, as far as I knew, in creating some sort of interracial, interethnic center. It was mostly led by Chinese American and Japanese American students. That I thought was very interesting because I knew so many Korean American students as an undergrad student who were very, very interested in politics, or were extremely political. But then when I went to UCLA, the situation, again, was completely different. The Asian American Studies Center, which was already formally established, was one of the largest in the nation. Perhaps because of that, Korean American students were very involved with running day-to-day operations; they were working as student volunteers, whenever there was a book opening or book signing, anytime there were students who volunteered for it and so on and so forth. So I think in terms of students’ consciousness on campus, there was a huge leap in those few years.

 

What I wanted to address other than that was basically the whole idea of Korean American community. Professor Min, Professor Oh, and Professor Kim as well have gone over the whole idea of ethnic solidarity and community, but at the same time I think it’s very important to build multiethnic, multilingual, multicultural solidarity, especially in institutions of higher education such as CUNY. My school, John Jay College, has very few Korean Americans. My sense is that they are quite invisible, but Hunter and Queens and Baruch and other colleges have, as far as I know, many many Korean students. I don’t know too much detail involved in creating this kind of multiracial, multiethnic solidarity groups, but I think it’s to their benefit to create and promote these clubs and organizations. I have a couple of suggestions. One is that—we’ve been talking about intergenerational transition, intergenerational conflict, and so on and so forth—but what I gather is that Korean American students, when they connect very powerfully to their own culture is when they feel cultural and ethnic pride. In those few years that I just talked about in the mid to late 90s, the change in the atmosphere, the social and cultural atmosphere, came from Koreans’ economic growth and also its presence was more staged as a culture of power. So I think it’s very important for college students and high school students to explore and get to know their own culture, and that goes the same for first generation, 1.5, and second generation—not just to know it, but to gaze into oneself, but I think solidarity building and unity building with other ethnic minorities and cultural minority groups within the States begins with this effort to know oneself. It also helps to propagate one’s culture—that really adds to their sense of pride.

 

I’ve had experiences as a graduate student teacher of teaching a Korean film class. The response was overwhelming, and 90% of my students were Korean Americans, and about 50% of them didn’t speak a word of Korean. I was really shocked to learn that their parents actually discouraged them from learning Korean, so that they could better adjust to the new life in the States. Some of them were born in the States so they did not have any problem adjusting, but their parents had their own traumatic memory of immigrating to the States, so they translated or protected the experience of their children. These students were the most enthusiastic population in my class because this was basically the first time they really saw a visual, cultural representation of where they come from and what kind of everyday, contemporary—not some ancient, Confucius, very vaguely Chinese experience that they had no idea of. This was very contemporary, very modern, very accessible to them. So I think more classes, more forums, more knowledge propagation, need to be creative for the 1.5 and second generations.

 

Lastly, I wanted to talk about the higher education experience, the post academic educational experience for Korean Americans. What I see over and over again is that a lot of students have really no idea how to read. This must be humanity’s bias, but I think it gives you a lot of cultural power and cultural capital to learn how to read properly and know how to interpret what they read. A lot of students who are doing very well in other disciplines, but they come into humanities disciplines, and these are people who want to go to law school, they have no idea how to interpret what they are reading. So I think it is important for people to get their basic skills before entering post-secondary or higher educational institutions, so that they can achieve, they can go out there and become lawyers, and doctors, whatever they want to become. This is something that I noticed among the Korean American student population over the years, so I just thought I would use this to talk about it. So, that’s it.

 

Daniel Baek: Thank you Professor Jeong. Before the question and answer session, I have a question to all of you. About two thousand Korean American lawyers in New York and New Jersey—two thousand—is anybody from Flushing here? Okay. You see a law firm on every block. And these lawyers, they are very educated; I know a lawyer who is a Harvard law graduate, so I know a lot of accomplished lawyers. Why do they come back to Korean American communities and suffer, and hire separate bilingual paralegals? Can somebody explain the trend and cycle, and whether the cycle will continue? It is my personal question.

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: You are asking why a Harvard graduate, a product of Harvard community, is coming back to the community. I see many 1.5 and second generations, by virtue of their personal connection and background; a small number are committed to providing services to the community as the main motivation. I know there is one person from Harvard in Koreatown in L.A.; she is very active in serving the community.

 

Daniel Baek: I know the majority, yes.

 

Professor Joong Hwan Oh: I think that Professor Kim pointed this out before. This is the part of the problem of social assimilation in the second generation. In terms of what Korea and what we call human capital, they apply it well. Their ability to make an entrance into some market is a fine, but it’s because social capital and social relations with other colleagues. The cultural differences, also there are different kinds of perceptions, of what actually the boss wants from our job. That makes a construct of isolation or exclusion, even though—this is a personal perception—but they say that we need to go into more familiar or more intimidating kind of environment even though this is our Korean American economic sectors. This is my concept of this.

 

Professor Betty Lee Sung: I have a question. Especially in the short impact on Korean immigration, you see that it’s dwindling decade by decade. Do you think that eventually it will even become less? And do you see Korean Americans go back to Korea, as some Chinese now are doing? They’re going back, because there are more opportunities in China. Are there any opportunities for highly educated Korean Americans to go back to Korea to work?

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: First of all, responding to your first question, the size of Korean immigration will not continue to decline. In fact, in the new century, their immigration increased after financial crisis in South Korea. Many people came and worked for Korean stores, then later they changed their status. Because of transnational ties, first of all, a large number students, college graduates cannot find a job in Korea. They want more success in finding jobs—college graduates. They are coming for their studies, so the number of Korean international students has increased and many of them will stay here. So I don’t think that immigration to the country is on the decline because of transnational ties and globalization. It may be that some of them stay here temporarily but later they change their status. Maybe there will be some increase, not for economic opportunity, but because of strong movement from Korea to US; many will stay here. Foreign students, temporary workers, they change their status. And we have many Korean high school students in private school here; definitely, they will find a job here. They are more likely than college students, who have finished their college in Korea. Earlier, before 1998, many went back. Korean economy was good in 1990 and 1995, but it declined. So at the time, a lot went back. But also we have an adjustment problem. People who have lived there a long time, they have some difficulty. Now you know that L.A. riot and other things pushed them but now I don’t think many will go back. They visit, transnational ties, but the vast majority will stay here permanently.

 

Daniel Baek: Do you see second generation Korean Americans going to Korea for opportunities?

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: Yes, some are going back. South Korea has a studied a kind of dual citizens policy. We cannot go, but we can find a job there without a visa, we can visit, they have enforced the law since last year. So of the second generation, some of them go back, but not many. They have to deal with cultural differences, huge and very homogenous; the second generation will have a lot of difficulty unless they retain Korean cultural tradition almost perfectly. It is very difficult to live like that.

 

Audience member: [Question inaudible]

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: We still encounter glass ceilings. They find professional jobs much more easily than immigrants, but still when they move to the top, they encounter glass ceilings. We have many Korean and Asian faculty members in good but few deans, so that indicates it is very difficult. There are far more African American deans at reputable universities, so it will take a long time. And then the other problem is not complete discrimination, but a kind of sense of rejection, like where they are coming from. They assume, whether U.S. born or foreign born, that Asian Americans came from an Asian country. So they ask the question, “Where are you from?” And when they get mad, they say, “Go back to your country.” I have been asked to go back a lot. I don’t care when they ask me to go back—I can go back. But the second generation cannot go back—no place to go back—so it hurts them a lot. So it is a certain kind of prejudice and discrimination.

 

Audience Member: [Comment inaudible]

 

Audience Member: [Question inaudible]

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: I am sorry, I have some hearing problems, so can you speak more loudly? I have a hearing aide.

 

Audience Member: [Question inaudible]

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: In the second generation, according to the 2000 data, almost all Asian Americans have a much higher educational level than native or white Americans. The main thing is their parents’ backgrounds. Simply highly educated Asian immigrants came here or they finished college here, so parents’ background we should emphasize has a number of cultural factors. According to the 2000 census, the Chinese are most successful in intergenerational mobility in education, compared to parents’ education. The Chinese do better than Koreans; the Japanese do very well. The Filipino immigrants have much higher education; the second generation do much lower than immigrants. So I think that Filipinos are highly Americanized and assimilated. But the Korean or other Asian cultural traditions they brought from the home country helped them. And I think Confucianism is an important factor—why the Chinese are doing well, why the Koreans are doing very well—for them, children’s education is their religion. So they work very hard. That has influence. I’m not saying that all is good, there are a lot of negatives, they push too much, but no matter what it will definitely have influence along with their high prospect.

 

Audience Member: [Question inaudible]

 

Professor Pyong Gap Min: In Korea, 18% are Protestant, 7% are Catholic. If you put them together, 25% are Christian. Another 25% are Buddhist, so in Korea, Buddhism is the largest religion. But according to our survey, about 50% or 55% say that they attended church, so about 40% or 45% are Catholics and 45% Protestant. So there is a selected migration, because Christians are overrepresented in large cities, and Christians are overrepresented among professional and middle class people, and Korean immigrants came from this segment of the Korean population; there is overlap. Some Korean Christians who were refugees from North Korea, they initially immigrated here to visit North Korea—that’s a minor factor. But overall, the majority, about 75% of Christians in Korea—even though in Korean 25% are Christian—came here. Many people who are not Christian in Korea, they have been incorporated into Korean Protestant church, because there are so many Korean pastors who create jobs; they started their church and then they actively recruit other members. New immigrants, for immigration orientation information, they have to go to churches, so it is a mutual benefit. So there is a great demand side and there is a supply side. Many pastors organize churches to create their own jobs. Korean Protestants are very evangelical; they try to convert other people. It is consistent with their theology. But also, they have a practical interest to increase their revenue; to survive, they need to more members.

 

Daniel Baek: We ran out of time–

 

Professor Kelly Jeong: I have a short comment about that last question. I also suspect that it has another origin. Maybe that Western missionaries started a lot of colleges and high schools and whatnot in Korea, so Western Christianity really took over Korea, whereas it didn’t in and it was actively discouraged by the government system wide in China and Japan. So a lot of these people are educated in that they’re familiar with the setting. And also for modern immigrants, they came here in the 60s and mid 60s and late 60s, through these church based scholarships. I know several people whose families came through that way. So I think it has a lot of familiarity and comfort in the Korean community as opposed to Chinese or Japanese.

 

Daniel Baek: If you have more questions, please approach the professors separately during the break. Thanks for joining us, enjoy your break, and please be back for Session Two.