| Chapter 1: | Introduction |
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For instance, early Korean immigrants, especially those with higher education, were voluntary political exiles who hoped to influence Korean politics and/or form new governments after gaining independence from Japan. This involvement has not diminished completely over the years. The “Koreagate” scandal revealed how immigrant generations are still so closely tied to homeland politics. In this event, a Korean rice dealer was caught attempting to bribe U.S. congressmen on behalf of the Korean government (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996, p. 110). Therefore, for more recent immigrants from Asian countries, involvement in American politics is a fairly new trend in which native-born children of immigrants participate. Because Korean immigration occurred mostly in the 1980s and 1990s, the majority of Korean Americans are in the first generation, with growing numbers in the second generation. Although the United States-born, second-generation Korean Americans are becoming increasingly involved with domestic politics, the first generation immigrant population has maintained ties with their homeland (Portes & Rumbaut, 1996). Kim (1981) argued that Korean immigrants in New York are more involved in homeland politics than in American politics and in some ways define themselves as Korean rather than American.
With competing interests by its constituents, the notion of panethnicity is not without problems. Japanese and Chinese immigrants have the longest histories in the United States, spanning third and fourth generations, while more recent immigrants from countries like Korea very rarely extend beyond the second generation. Therefore, as Chinese and Japanese Americans are more established in terms of socioeconomic status and perhaps are more interested in United States politics because a large percentage are native born, it is no surprise that there is a bias towards Chinese and Japanese American interests.
Moreover, differences in educational levels precipitated the upward mobility of certain ethnic groups, while others did not have the same advantage. Because political power is not only dictated by the size of the group but also by social and economic capital as well as power, ethnic groups within the panethnic movement who could make the most contribution and wield the most influence tended to be those who had the most opportunities to be upwardly mobile—namely, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Korean Americans.