Micro-cultural Groups in the US: Korean Americans

Introduction

Micro-cultural groups in the United States vary from area to area, but they all have come with their own unique history and traditions. As well, each of these groups – Hispanic Americans and African Americans as two examples – has their own cultural issues and problems. Tradition comes with a certain amount of cultural responsibility. The traditions taken to America by Korean immigrants in the earliest part of the 20th century have since resounded with Korean Americans today. Language, collectivism and the role of family and shame are traditional concepts that can be troubling to Korean American families in the United States today.

Part One: Korean-American History

Korean Americans have a richer history in the United States than could be thought. They began to migrate to the United States in the early 1900s. In fact, history notes that there were three main ‘waves’ of Korean immigrants coming to the United States. The first group immigrated to Hawaii (though it was not a state at that point in history), to work in the sugar cane fields. Between 1910 and 1945, the Japanese had control of Korea, so no one was allowed to immigrate out of the country. So, of course, in 1945, a second major wave of immigrants from Korea came to the United States (Oh). “The second wave, from 1945 to 1964, was comprised largely of students, war brides, and orphans of the Korean War (1950-1953). The third wave of immigration was the largest. Occurring between 1965 and 1980, this large influx was a result of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965” (Oh). Today, over a million Korean Americans live in the United States.

These ‘waves’ of Korean immigration came at different times and under different wartimes and such, but all three groups share strong characteristics as well. They all share “a strong foundation of Confucian thinking” (Oh). They place the highest level of value on education. It is seen as the key to success in every aspect of life and it truly determines the weight of a person’s self-worth. “The Confucian ideal stressing respect for family elders and teachers also strengthens Korean-Americans' appreciation for education… by becoming more familiar with the Korean-American culture, educators can become more effective reaching these enthusiastic students” (Oh). Korean Americans have traditionally valued the same concepts in their children, regardless of when they immigrated to the United States. Perhaps that is why they encourage their new American children to speak English. According to Oh, Over 80 percent of parents in the community are Korean-born and still speak Korean fluently, while most children speak primarily English.

According to Lili Kim’s article “Doing Korean American History in the Twenty-First Century,” … “The relative lack of scholarship in Korean American history, despite the long history of Korean immigration and the current sizable presence of Korean Americans, is, in part, due to the problem of uncovering relevant primary sources.” The history is not one that is heavily documented in the United States, and that is why there seems to be not much found on the timeline of said immigration. Oral stories and studies are sources that historians and researchers have to rely on many times because of the bare history of Korean Americans in the United States. “Historian Ji-Yeon Yuh also depended heavily on the oral history interviews that she conducted with Korean military brides for her work. In many ways, historians of Korean American history are creating historical documents as they write the histories” (Kim).

Korean Americans may not have a well-seeded piece of American but they have left their mark. There are two institutions that have penetrated the Korean American community are Korean language media (Korean dramas are very popular) and Christian churches. This micro-cultural group honors collectivism, language and familial and other relationships as some of the most important values about a person and their success.

Part Two: Topic and Issues

Although they are not the only lapses in traditional values that Korean Americans face, the topics of collectivism, language and the role of the family are all concepts that can be troubling in a modern American setting. These are traditional values honored in Korea, brought over by immigrants that aim to grow their children in a traditional way as a part of a modern setting. The United States has its own set of values and this is why traditional values brought from another culture can be troubling to those who are growing up outside of that culture. These problems also serve to perpetuate stereotypes about Korean Americans, although that was never the intent. Cultures come with traditions, and sometimes they have trouble thriving in another culture. All three of these issues cover the topic of the importance of honor within communities and relationships.

Collectivism

Collectivism is the first topic and problem for Korean Americans. In the United States, though society asks for people to be a certain way, people honor those who choose to break from the mold. Susan Sohyun Lee’s article “Civil Society and Relationship Culture: Korean Americans' Experience with their Ethnic Community and Beyond” speaks on the topic of the view of relationships within the culture. She notes that it is “the driving force in all areas of life, civil society is not a separate arena where an individual acquires skills and virtues that he cannot acquire elsewhere.” In the Korean American community, the individual is viewed within their relationships with others, in education and professional lives, and within their family. Lee also says:

“He can and most likely does acquire skills and virtue from his networks, but they are primarily relational—he learns to be a member of an association, a player of a team, an attendee of a meeting. He does not merely learn how to listen, deliberate in public, and write letters—he learns how to listen to leaders, deliberate with newcomers, and write to elders. He learns how to be in a group, how to lead, how to follow, who to deliberate with and when” (Lee).

It connects with the concepts of language and honor that are mentioned below, and it is a very important concept in Asian and Korean American life. Korean society is not particularly individualistic, and that also can be said of most Asian communities. It is important for Korean Americans to be able to connect with their communities on levels of language, education, happiness, success, and throughout.

Language

Another topic that concerns the culture of Korean Americans is, quite simply put, language. Eunjin Park’s article “Language Socialization in a Korean American Community” writes: “studies of language socialization traditionally have concentrated on how the ideologies of the society are reflected in child-caregiver interactions. Caregivers’ interactions with children differ across cultures” (Park). Language is something that connects every member of the Korean American community in the United States, regardless of where an individual may have been born. Even for first and second-generation Korean Americans, they will most likely be able to speak Korean fluently because of their parents, or at the very least recognize the language and pick up on it. The communication between parents and children in these communities is very important because the passing on of the traditions that are staples in such a community are transferred in this way. “In some cultures, for instance, caregivers use simplified child-directed speech, sometimes known as baby-talk or are-taker speech. Child-directed speech patterns have been interpreted as a child-centered way of raising children” (Park). The language assessment in these communities is relational: there are aspects of the Korean language that refer to the status of another person while both are engaged in conversation. Park’s article mentions the fact that a speaker must state the other person’s status related to their own. This means that the speaker recognizes the social statuses set out by society, even in something as simple as a chat on the street.

According to Jeon Mihyon’s "Language Ideologies And Bilingual Education: A Korean-American Perspective,” “language ideologies as ‘cultural systems of ideas about social and linguistic relationships’ inevitably include ideas about power relationships among different speech communities through which symbolic and material resources are produced, distributed, and validated.” The importance of language in the Korean American community is directly related to the importance of family, relationships, honor, and collectivism: it helps, again, to establish the most traditional ideas. Through language, these ideas are indeed made true and are expressed on a daily basis as well.

Role of Family and Shame

The third of these cultural issues is the role of family and the way that it affects shame and relationships within the family and community. A person’s successes and failures reflect directly onto their families and friends. A young man’s success as a doctor will not only make his mother very proud but will make her seem like a better mother who was able to raise such a successful child. Education is something that is also very important in relation to familial success and how a person looks in their relationships and in their communities.

According to Sujoy Das’ article “Educational Attainment: A Comparative Analysis of Asians vs. Traditional Minorities,” Asian Americans, as a macro cultural group, have obtained higher levels of education, but only when compared to other minority groups. Das writes that some Asian ethnic groups, because of this obtainment of higher education, enjoy higher levels of income and, thus, the cycle keeps on. These differences are also placed on the cultural concepts that are valued so highly in Asian American communities – i.e. Korean American communities. “Parental education plays a vital role in explaining (why) Asian parents are likely to be more educated than average White parents. Culturally, educational achievement is of prime importance to Asians. They place a high value on education for self-improvement, self-esteem, and family honor … (and) also invest in education to overcome occupational discrimination” (Sujoy). As mentioned before for the issue of collectivism, there is a high value placed on the success of a child because they are not only a part of a family, but their successes reflect like a two-way mirror between themselves and those around them. Many times, education plays a key role in the success of a person, and in Asian American communities like this, it perpetuates the value placed on self-improvement and family honor, as mentioned above. Education, especially the university level and higher, can improve one’s life and status greatly and therefore, there is more of a chance of this person bringing happiness and success to their family and community. So, the Korean American community’s need for their children to be educated is not simply a bad stereotype – it is a good way to live a life.

The avoidance of shame is also something that Korean Americans take very seriously. Sungeun Yang and Paul C. Rosenblatt’s article, ‘Shame in Korean Families,” reads: “the most common words in Korean for shame are chang-pee and bukurom words that translate into English as ‘shame.’ (Since the words are synonyms, for the sake of simplicity, in what follows we will only use the word chang-pee.).” It is a feeling of shame and embarrassment and can be fleeting or last a long time. In the case of the latter, chang-pee comes with sometimes permanent reminders of shame. One of the authors notes an example:

“Yang knows of an instance where a middle aged man who had been drinking a night left the family's Seoul apartment at dawn to go for a walk. Soon after, his wife and daughter were awakened by a call from the building security guard that their husband/father had fallen down in his drunkenness and was injured. They hurried downstairs, helped him up, and brought him back to the apartment. Long afterwards, in their shame, they continued to avoid the security guard” (Yang).

This feeling of shame comes with the ideals of collectivism as well. Korean culture dictates that people should avoid all situations that would bring them chang-pee, shame, and embarrassment. This man and his family had to live with the consequences of his mistakes for some time after the original incident because they had to avoid the security guard altogether.

The importance of maintaining this level of relationships and family life is crucial to maintaining the culture brought over by Korean immigrants. These traditions – language and collectivism as well – are a part of the community in which Korean Americans live and find comfort. Many are first and second-generation Americans, so they may not agree with following the traditions of their parents and grandparents. This is one of the reasons why these traditional concepts can be troubling for Korean Americans in the United States.

Conclusion

The three waves of Korean immigrants to the United States in the first half of the 20th century brought culture and traditions. Despite the nearly one million Korean Americans living in the United States, the oldest traditions from Korea stay strong within those communities and remain the concepts that many live by. Language, collectivism, and the strong role of the family are all still alive and affecting the lives and relationships within the Korean American community in the United States.

Works Cited

Das, Sujoy. "Educational Attainment: A Comparative Analysis of Asians vs. Traditional Minorities." Order No. 3394812 Clark University, 2010. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.

Kim, Lili M. "Doing Korean American History In The Twenty-First Century." Journal of Asian American Studies 11.2 (2008): 199,209,247. ProQuest. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Lee, Susan Sohyun. "Civil Society and Relationship Culture: Korean Americans' Experience with their Ethnic Community and Beyond." Order No. 3461547 University of Maryland, College Park, 2011. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Mihyon, Jeon. "Language Ideologies and Bilingual Education: A Korean-American Perspective." Language Awareness 16.2 (2007): 114-130. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Oh, Suzie K. "Korean Culture & Korean American Community." Korea Times: 28. Mar 31, 1999. ProQuest. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Park, Eunjin. "Language Socialization in a Korean American Community." Order No. 3247767 New York University, 2007. Ann Arbor: ProQuest. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.

Yang, Sungeun, and Paul C. Rosenblatt. "Shame in Korean Families." Journal of Comparative Family Studies 32.3 (2001): 361-75. ProQuest. Web. 3 Dec. 2013.