Between Foreign and Family: Return Migration and Identity Construction among Korean Americans and Korean Chinese

192 Pages·2018·1.278 MB·English

by  Helene K. Lee

Between Foreign and Family
Asian American Studies Today
This series publishes scholarship on cutting-e dge themes and issues, including
broadly based histories of both long-s tanding and more recent immigrant popu-
lations; focused investigations of ethnic enclaves and understudied subgroups; and
examinations of relationships among various cultural, regional, and socioeconomic
communities. Of particular interest are subject areas in need of further critical inqui-
ry, including transnationalism, globalization, homeland polity, and other pertinent
topics.
Series Editor: Huping Ling, Truman State University
Chien- Juh Gu, The Resilient Self: Gender, Immigration, and Taiwanese Americans
Stephanie Hinnershitz, Race, Religion, and Civil Rights: Asian Students on the West
Coast, 1900– 1968
Jennifer Ann Ho, Racial Ambiguity in Asian American Culture
Helene K. Lee, Between Foreign and Family: Return Migration and Identity Construc-
tion among Korean Americans and Korean Chinese
Haiming Liu, From Canton Restaurant to Panda Express: A History of Chinese Food in
the United States
Jun Okada, Making Asian American Film and Video: History, Institutions, Movements
Kim Park Nelson, Invisible Asians: Korean American Adoptees, Asian American Expe-
riences and Racial Exceptionalism
Zelideth María Rivas and Debbie Lee-D iStefano, eds., Imagining Asia in the Americas
David S. Roh, Betsy Huang, and Greta A. Niu, eds., Techno- Orientalism: Imagining
Asia in Speculative Fiction, History, and Media
Jane H. Yamashiro, Constructing Japanese American Identity in Japan: Transnational-
ism, Diaspora, and Ancestral Homeland Migration
Between Foreign
and Family
Return Migration and Identity
Construction among Korean
Americans and Korean Chinese
Helene K. Lee
Rutgers University Press
New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden, New Jersey and London
978-0-8135-8614-4
978-0-8135-8613-7
978-0-8135-8615-1
Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.
A British Cataloging- in- Publication record for
this book is available from the British Library.
Copyright © 2018 by Helene K. Lee
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
written permission from the publisher. Please contact Rutgers University Press, 106
Somerset Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. The only exception to this prohibition is
“fair use” as defined by U.S. copyright law.
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements
of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—
Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48– 1992.
www .rutgersuniversitypress .org
Manufactured in the United States of America
For my mother, Hae Soon Lee, and my father, Hee Young Lee,
and Aurora Han Byeol Lee

Contents
Introduction 1
1.
The Premigration Condition 14
2.
Return Migrants in the South Korean
Immigration System and Labor Market 39
3.
Of “Kings” and “Lepers”: The Gendered
Logics of Koreanness in the Social
Lives of Korean Americans 67
4.
“Aren’t We All the People of Joseon?”:
Claiming Ethnic Inclusion through
History and Culture 97
5.
The Logics of Cosmopolitan Koreanness
and Global Citizenship 114
Conclusion: Finding Family among Foreigners 134
Acknowledgments 143
Appendix A: Research Methods 147
Appendix B: Characteristics of Respondents 149
Notes 155
References 167
Index 175
vii

Between Foreign and Family