Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Captain Corea]

[DIsbell]

An American is an American and that's that. I'd say that attitude is something we can actually be proud of. Let's cut the bull**** going on in this topic and the "Korean team caught cheating on reality show"- we don't question the American-ness of Americans. Too Palin-esque ("real America"), too vaguely racist. This kid doesn't deserve this sort of treatment, and neither do the NYC food cart folks. Furthermore, and many of you seem to forget this, is that Korean Americans are coworkers and colleagues here and often deal with the same issues affecting Americans of other backgrounds in Korea. I'd like to think we can point out flaws in the Korean media's treatment of foreigners and certain government policies without slagging friends, co-workers, and fellow Americans in the process.

That being said, this is like a right-wing Israeli paper boasting of an American Jewish teen from a conservative family speaking against Hamas or something, yet even less notable because well... it's (lol)Dokdo. The trainwreck that is Dokdo bickering might be more analogous to an Italian paper boasting about America being swept by an Italia-wave, evidenced by the success of Jersey Shore.

Ok, that last bit isn't fair at all.

[liveinkorea316]

It's not about whether he is defined as American or Korean. It is the fact that the newspaper decided to highlight the fact that he is American. An obvious attempt to imply that other people in other countries "recognise Dokdo" as Korean territory.

I clicked on the headline PRECISELY because I was lead to believe that the person was going to be non-Korean (in every sense of the word).

Turn out the Korean Herald tricked me again.

[Captain Corea]

[itistime]

[happiness]

just a kid trying to win favor with his mom or be weird.

[T-J]

I think since Jonathan feels enough of a connection with Korea and his Korean heritage to have a Korean name (이승민), it is safe to say he considers himself to be Korean-American.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[UknowsI]

Sometimes Citizenship matters, sometimes Ethnicity matters. It's not really that hard to grasp. If somebody writes an article about how wonderful Kimchi is and how it should be the key component in all meals, I think it would matter a whole lot whether that person was Korean-American or lets say Italian-American, because there is a strong bias attached to their ethnicity. If somebody cheated in a reality show, I think their ethnicity would be quite irrelevant.

[Unposter]

I tend to agree with UKnows1 on this too. Sometimes ethnicity is important. Going back to the Irish ethnic example, I think an article about let's say an Irish-American interested in Irish culture, their ethnicity would be an intrigue in the article and a good journalist who play up the angle.

The only reason why the article didn't play up his ethnicity is because that was not what they wanted people to think about in the article.

This is not to say that he isn't an American. I don't think people are trying to say that. But, it is perfectly factual and germaine to the article to say that he is a Korean-American.

[TheUrbanMyth]

[Steelrails]

This thread should be remembered next time people complain about the terms foreigner or waygookin or how they'll "never truly be accepted here" or so on...

[Zyzyfer]

[Unposter]

Steelrails,

There is a difference between being accepted as an American and saying that the the title of the article would be better if it said Korean-American instead of American.

I think the people who are jumping on the OP saying that he is arguing that he is not American or reading far too much into it. The OP is just arguing that when he read the article he thought that the article was trying to persuade readers that Americans in general are taking an active interest in saying that Dokdo is Korean territory but the fact that it is one kid and that the kid is Korean-American makes the title misleading. I don't think there is anything wrong or prejudiced with making that argument.

On the other hand, I don't really understand why some FTs get so wrapped up in this issue. Why shouldn't Korea defend its claim on the territory? If, for example, Mexicans were arguing that California is really theirs, I don't doubt there would be some Americans would get upset at that. I know sometimes students like to play this litmus test with their teachers, so where does the teacher stand on Dokdo, becomes this annoying question you here over and over again but that is just part of the job. Suck it up and let the students hear what they want to hear. To me the hypocritical issue is more why do some teachers say it is not an important issue and then make an important issue about it?

Anyway, I think a better angle to the story would be how a Korean American kid is taking an interest in his ancestory and international politics.

[Steelrails]