Be(com)ing Korean in the United States: Exploring Ethnic Identity Formation Through Cultural Practices
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Be(com)ing Korean in the United States: Exploring Ethnic Identit ...

Chapter 1:  Introduction
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By ascribing the source of socioeconomic and academic successes to an “inherent quality” that is believed to be deeply ingrained in cultural practices, upward mobility becomes a feat that can be accomplished only if one is part of that group. Hence, the concept of model minority pitted Asian Americans against all other racial groups of color (Omi & Winant, 1994). This characterization was iterated in Andrew Hacker’s (1995) dichotomous depiction of the racial structure of the United States. Hacker’s Two Nations described the United States as being split into black and white and all other racial groups are subsumed into one of these two categories. He contends that Asian Americans should be categorized under white because of their relative ease in upward mobility as compared to other minority groups.

However, the diversity of Asian Americans and the increasing bifurcation in the immigrant characteristics today beg a reassessment of the model minority image in favor of more complex analyses of the experiences of Asian Americans. The focus on assimilation ignores the multiple ways in which Asian Americans understand their identities and self-hood in terms of race and ethnicity. Phoebe Eng’s (1999) reflection on conversations with her mother encapsulated this issue:

I want her to tell me her own juicy versions of the Joy Luck Club. I hoped for some ponderous stories of reflection and color of the kind that I have come to equate with the rich and powerful legacy of Asian women in the literature I’ve read—the stories of Asian women who have killed themselves, or drowned themselves in wells, or gone crazy because of the strict rules that kept them tied to hopeless situations. Instead she laughs at me for being so “second generation.” “Forget about it, Ah Phee. Joy Luck Club was not my life, it was someone else’s. Those mothers were not me. Keep your Kleenex for yourself. I just liked to party.” (pp. 36–37)

Phoebe Eng is not alone in believing that the lives of native-born Asian Americans are indelibly tied to the culture of the ancestral home and that parents are the bearers of these past values. However, as Eng’s mother dismisses, not every immigrant’s life in the United States is fraught with angst and isolation as depicted in Joy Luck Club, nor are native-born children’s lives marked entirely by the actions of their parents.