Date: November 11, 2005 Time: 12:00PM to 6:00PM<
Place: Skylight Room, CUNY Graduate Center
365 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan (Corner of 34th Street)
The Korean American Community in the Greater New York Area
Keynote Address: Dr. Jae Taik Kim
Reflecting the three-decades short history of Korean immigration in family units, the Korean American born community consists mostly of three generations of Korean Americans: 1) The Korean Adult Immigrants, 2) The Korea-Born Individuals who emigrated to this country at a young age 3) The U.S born individuals. Each generation presents generation-specific adjustments issues, concerns, and needs who need to be addressed.
Currently, the Korean American community is in the process of inter-generational transformation as the children of the 1970’s and 80’s have grown into their adulthood and began assuming leadership roles. In this era of youthful energy and activism, Korean American Academicians are in a unique position to build a bridge between the Korean American Community and the Academic Community of AAARI, so that the generational-specific issues, concerns, and needs can be more coherently and forcefully addresses at the city and state levels with the support and political clout of AAARI.
From Strong to Weak Ethnic Attachment and Solidarity: Intergenerational Transition among Korean Americans
Prof. Pyong Gap Min
Korean immigrants have maintained high levels of ethnic attachment (the cultural, social, and psychological integration to the ethic group) and ethnic attachment (use of ethnic collection actions for protection of ethnic interests), high levels than any other Asian immigrant group. Korean immigrants’ group homogeneity, their high affiliation with and frequent participation in a Korean church, and their concentration in small businesses have contributed to their strong ethnic attachment and solidarity. However, second-generation Koreans’ cultural, religious, and occupational assimilation has almost destroyed the three factors that have enhanced Korean immigrants’ ethnic attachment and solidarity. As a result, they are experiencing drastic reductions in ethnic attachment and solidarity.
To elaborate, Korean immigrants’ monolingual background and sharing of Confucian customs and values have given them huge advantages over other Asian immigrant groups for strong ethnic attachment and ethnic solidarity. But these advantages deriving from Koreans’ cultural homogeneity disappear for second-generation Koreans, who have become very much English-monolingual and adopted “American individualism” as their core value. In fact, the absence of English-language ethnic media in the Korean community gives second-generation Koreans huge disadvantages, compared to their Indian or Filipino counterparts, for ethnic attachment and ethnic solidarity. Since there is no major English media in the Korean community, it is very difficult for second-generation Koreans to understand what is going on in the Korean community here and in Korea. The existence of a single mother country and the emergence of South Korea as a major economic and political power among Asian countries are more important for second-generation Koreans’ ethnicity than the monolingual background or Confucian customs and values of Korean immigrants.
Korean Protestant and Catholic immigrants’ active participation in Korean congregations has helped them to maintain strong ethnic attachment through congregation-related ethnic networks and cultural activities. However, many second generation Koreans who went to church during their childhood have stopped going to church in their adulthood. Moreover, a significant proportion of second-generation Korean Christians (about one-third) participate in white American or pan-Asian congregations. In addition, even second-generation Korean Christians who regularly participate in Korean English ministry are not exposed to a strong ethnic environment, because both second-generation Korean Christian themselves and Korean English congregations have been far more strongly influenced by white-American evangelical organizations than by Korean immigrant churches. In both worship style and socio-cultural activities, second-generation congregations are radically different from Korean immigrant congregations. In a nutshell, second-generation Korean Christians have difficulty maintaining Korean ethnicity through religion mainly because neither Protestantism nor Catholicism is a religion indigenous to Korea. This makes a sharp contrast with Jewish Americans and Indian Hindus who have brought their indigenous religions.
Due to their language barrier and other disadvantages for employment in the general labor market, Korean immigrants are heavily concentrated in small businesses. Their heavy involvement in several lines of small businesses has strengthened their ethnic attachment. More significantly, their business-related conflicts with black customers, white suppliers, Latino employees, and government agencies have contributed to strong ethnic solidarity. Korean immigrant merchants have used ethnic collective actions, such as boycotts, demonstrations, group purchases, price bargains and political/administrative lobbies, to protect their economic interests far more often than other Asian immigrant groups. However, second-generation Koreans who are fluent in English and who have completed their education in the U.S. find jobs in the mainstream economy. This occupational assimilation is a positive element of the second-generation Koreans’ adaptation to American society. Yet, it has reduced their ethnic attachment significantly and has given them little opportunity to use ethnic collective actions. Younger-generation Koreans, not disadvantaged for employment in the general labor market, try to use their individual credentials to achieve social mobility and thus do not feel pressured to use ethnic collective actions to protect their economic interests.
Despite the unpopularity of classical assimilation theory, immigrant groups’ progressive assimilation and reduction of ethnicity over generations seem to be inevitable. All Asian groups have experienced some level of intergenerational reduction of ethnic attachment and solidarity. Yet, for the reasons discussed above, Korean Americans seem to be experiencing the highest level of intergeneration reduction of ethnic attachment and solidarity among all Asian groups. This suggests that they have had or will have more intergenerational conflicts than any other Asian group.
Korean Economy Today: Trends and Patterns of Development
Dr. Youn-Suk Kim
The East Asian economy is ripe for a shift toward regional integration in response to the rise of the Chinese economy and developing regionalism. China, Japan and Korea have been promoting a free trade agreement, while Japan and China are in competition to secure leadership within the region. The emergence of the Chinese economy on the global market has also been the one important new development in this regard. China investment has been financed by East Asian nations such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. In the last two decades, trade and investment have been undertaken among East Asian region at increasing rate. Northeast Asia has a population of 1.5 billion, four times the population of Europe, and they also share cultural and historical background.
Korea is a prime example showing that industrialization is possible and can be reasonably rapid under proper conditions. It took the U.K. 58 years to double its output per worker, the U.S. 47 years, and Japan 34 years. Korea’s Industrial policy focused on enhancing the nation’s economic competitiveness in the most expedient manner possible, and involved the channeling of public resources into specific, targeted industries that were viewed as being vital for strategic industrialization. Korea’s industrialization integrated international product cycles into production-export policy so as to realize dynamic comparative advantage by mixing endogenous inputs with imported capital goods and technology.
Korea is in the stages of a powerful new thrust of industrial restructuring in adopting high technology. Semiconductors along with computers and electronics technology already spawn a beginning wave of growth. Granted its constraints of resources and high technology, Korean industrial drive has focused on its most advantageous industries such as semiconductors and information technology as leading sectors as to realize spill over from other industries.
Korea offers the unique advantages of holding a central position in the dynamic East Asian market, being located in a region with a huge customer base and between two of the world’s biggest markets, Japan and China, with its own expanding domestic market and one of the world’s most productive and diligent work forces. With its geographically advantageous location at the heart of Northeast Asia and advanced high technology infrastructure, Korea is within reach of becoming a center for R&D and a logistical and financial hub for the region.
Democracy and Reconciliation: Korea’s Next Leap
Consul Bihn Seo
Review on political development of the Republic of Korea and its relations with DPRK.
The Globalization of Korean Culture
Dr. Joong-Hwan Oh
Cultural globalization, called Americanization in pop music, fast foods, or dress styles, tends to promote uniform and homogeneous norms, values, tastes, or behaviors to South Koreans, particularly Korean youths. Despite the strong force of cultural globalization in Korea, I view that this is only a partial story of cultural globalization in Korea. In this talk, I argue that South Korea has played a key role in creating and extending another aspect of cultural globalization by introducing Korean cultural boom in many East and South-east Asian countries, called Korean Wave (Hanryu).
