| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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These seemingly superficial cultural practices and object-based notions of culture are the foundations upon which young people of Korean descent begin to interrogate their ethnic heritage. Furthermore, these initial forays act as gateways into more profound contextualizations of ethnic identity in history, tradition, and geopolitics.
There are three processes that work together to facilitate ethnic identity formation through cultural practices: (1) the deployment of indexical signs within the sites that aid in creating and cultivating notions of ethnicity; (2) the pedagogical processes within the sites regarding how culture is objectified and transformed into tools of teaching and learning; and (3) the multiple and diverse understand-ings of ethnic identity through active engagement, experience, and expression. In other words, initial forays into discovering ethnic heritage rely on cultural practices that can be linked with symbols and objects of representation. At the most superficial level, drawing on food, folks, and fun as tools for teaching and learning ethnic identity limits the conceptualization of ethnicity to equating objects to culture, like “ kimchi equals Korean.” However, as these signs and symbols become an integral aspect of our daily existence and quotidian practices, the meanings of objects become part of our identity. Hence, “ kimchi equals Korean” transforms from “eating kimchi is a Korean thing to do” to a more complicated idea that “ kimchi is an integral part of my dietary habits, and I am like many people of Korean descent for whom eating kimchi is an essential aspect of a meal.” This also leads to hybrid practices like eating kimchi with pizza. Therefore, while people merely try to replicate what they think are authentic practices, these cultural practices are personalized and transformed into representations of the in-between spaces occupied by transnational subjects.
This book emphasizes that the pedagogical aspects of material cultural practices are crucial processes of ethnic identity formation. Both academic and popular cultural discourses on Korean ethnic identity formation view symbolic objects as merely examples that explain larger tropes such as generational conflict, in-betweenness, biculturalism, confusion, and model minority stereotypes.