Korean Job Discussion Forums

[ajgeddes]

A lot of them got to Canada as part of the slave trade, but it was the American slave trade. They would escape to Canada. Still, in the end, we just use the word black.

[Gwangjuboy]

[kermo]

Weird- I wonder if the hyphenation tends to apply mostly to visible minorities, who are trying to answer the unspoken question (Why aren't you white?) and assert their citizenship as an American or Canadian.


In Canada, I find people tend to pay more attention to their heritage, as part of the whole "multi-cultural" agenda of the country. I'm interested in trying to identify people by their features or complexion, so I'll sometimes say to a person (Caucasian or otherwise) "What's your ethnic background?" Often, an American will have no idea, whereas a Canadian will usually be able to rattle off their ethnic pedigree.

[JongnoGuru]

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Gwangjuboy]

[Porter_Goss]

[Porter_Goss]

[umbra_dweller]

I think there are a few different factors working behind what lable a person or group adopts.

1. If the members of the minority are accepted by the larger society? Africans have been in the US for hundreds of years, yet in much of the country black and white society is still like oil and water - touching but never mixing.

2. If they are a highly visable minority. An asian living in california might comfortable call themselves american, with a community to call home. But an asian living in mississippi, even if accepted by the community, would always stick out in any situation. The same thing goes for a white person living in korea - they might find a good community of Koreans to accept them, but in a country that is 99% one race, they would always stick out so much, it would be much harder to drop their roots.

For example:

I think first generation people in a country have every right to the country/new country marker. They really are a group living with their feet in two lands. And so are their kids, because although they were born and raised in the new country, they absorb a substantial amount of culture from their parents, and may even pay frequent visits to the old country. But in generations after that I think it has a lot to do with the experience of the minority group. Someone compared black kids to asian kids in america, citing that they may identify themselves differently.

Where I live the asian kids are a lot more integrated into mainstream society than the black kids are. I'm not going to do a sociological expose on the forces that made it this way - if I had to hazard a guess I'd say economic status - but it was easy to see that most of the black people were stuffed away in one corner of the school, and that many of the asians roamed free with the white kids. It is not surprising then that asian people would shrug off the "asian-american label", becasue they have been fully accepted as americans, whereas most of the black kids were not actually integrated with their countrymen, even though yes their families have been here hundreds of years.

As for myself, I am half black, but when I was young I was fully integrated with other races - in fact most of my friends were white or asian. And thus I feel perfectly comfortable calling myself American, or black if I need to describe part of my ancestry. I always found the idea of any part of my identity being african silly - after living in Korea for a year, I am probably far more asian than I am african. Any place in Africa would probalby be a very alien place for me, culturally. But for people who don't feel they have been accepted to mainstream society, clinging to the past is all they may have for identity.

I think this effect can also be seen in the hispanic community in the US, one that seems to remain loyal to their homelands over their new country. The hispanic community in the southwestern US is huge, and right now it is in a booming growth phase. Because of this, the hispanic community is big enough that it doesn't need to integrate into white society to be effective. People can live and die in LA without ever having to learn more than basic english (that is not a knock agaianst spainish speakers, just a fact). furthermore people are comming in and bringing contemporary culture all the time, so staying true to one's roots is not just living in the past, people who have been here generations frequently make relationships with people who just crossed the boarder. Of course in such a situation people will be slow to adopt a new identity, you can argue right and wrong all you want, but it's human nature. The same goes for Americans over here - how many non-asian people go out and make korean relationships versus how many non-asian people never leave Itaewon and other foriegner areas and never learn enough korean to do something more complex than order pizza.

But then there is another side to the story, with particular reference to the hypenation obsessed United States.

I remember once in middle school english class, we were all taking turns reading Tom Sawyer aloud. It came to this one very white girl, and there was a line that referred to "the black folks". She paused, furrowed her brow, then stuttered out in a concerned tone "african american people". The teacher then suggested to her that there was nothing offensive about the word "black". But she was adament, that that was simply ont the correct word, and that African american was much better. The three black students in class, myself one of them, proceeded to back up the teacher, commenting that we actually preferred the word "black" to African American. The girl reading looked very stressed by this turn of events, but continued to insist to even the black students defending the label that it was, in fact, offensive, and they shouldn't use it either.

The point of the above story is that I think the lables have become a lot more important to society at large than to the groups themselves. Sorta like the great debate over if it's okay to call Native Americans Indians, with many actual Native Americans not caring all that much. Well intentioned politically correct folks confuse this whole debate a lot, becasue they make arguments on behalf of groups that they don't really represent, but people begin to assume that they do actually represent the blacks and the indians and whoever else they claim is being oppressed by language.

I think when we hear such labels we react too personally to them. Different groups in the country have different relationships with the mainstream society - and when people from these different groups examine the same label "country/American" they are likely to read different meanings into the use of that label based on their personal experience, whereas someone else could use that label and have it mean something else entirely.

[skookum]

[peppermint]

[ChimpumCallao]

im going to veer from the stream of conversation but i find these third , fourth generation ...whatevers...highly annoying.

mex; 'yeah, man...im mexican...la raza...'

me; ' a si...entonces cuanto tiempo llevas aqui..'

mex; 'huh...what...i dont speak spanish, holmes...my mom's from cali'


and dont even get me started on the italians...because they eat spaghetti and cheer with 'salud' they think they have metaphysical link to the motherland...

its a number of reasons;

1. white anglo culture is the only culture and race that can be openly mocked. by separating yourself from the majority you can openly participate in making fun of them.

2. wanting to appear unique, special, and exotic

3. wanting to fit into a certain group

4. feelings of anti-americanism that can easily be justified by thinking, 'well im not really from here.'

if you were born and lived in american you are american. if youre born in american and english is your only language, besides, 'kakosi', 'hola', or 'ni-hao' you are certainly american. im first generation, and when im asked....IM AMERICAN.

and to all those that still feel that ethnic pride...hes a secret. those of us that actually are from other countries and immigrated find it laughable and pathetic. and the feeling of solidarity between natives of other countries and some american that watched too much sopranos DOES NOT EXIST.

ciao.

[Jensen]

[patchy]

[Privateer]