Korean International Students and the Making of Racialized Transnational Elites

(Hardback)

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Description

By examining privileged and highly skilled Asian migrants, such as international students who acquire legal permanent residency in the United States, this book registers and traces these transnational figures as racialized transnational elites and illuminates the intersectionality and reconfiguration of race, class, ethnicity, and nationality. Using in-depth interviews with Korean international students in New York City and Koreans in South Korea as a case study, this book argues racialized transnational elites are embedded in racial and ethnic dynamics in the United States as well as in class and nationalist conflicts with non-migrant co-ethnics in the sending country. Sung-Choon Park further argues strategic responses to the local, social dynamics shape transnational practices such as diaspora-building, transfer of knowledge, conversion of cultural capital, and cross-border communication about race, causing heterogeneous social consequences in both societies.

Reviews

Sung-Choon Parks Korean International Students and the Making of Racialized Transnational Elites presents a vivid and illuminating account of how young elites from South Korea are marginalized as foreign students in the United States through racist practices, and how they navigate profound status inconsistencies in their daily lives, online and off, in Korea and the United States. Park presents a striking account of his subjects worlds as he illustrates a great deal about the race and racism, class formation, and media and globalization in South Korea, the United States, and far beyond.

Author Bio

Sung-Choon Park is adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Social Science at New York City College of Technology.