Korean Immigrants from Latin America: Fitting into Multiethnic New York

(Hardback)

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Korean Immigrants from Latin America explores the migration and resettlement experiences of Koreans from Latin America now residing in the New York metropolitan area. It uses interview data from 102 Korean secondary migrants from Latin America to explore the religious, familial, economic, and educational dimensions of their migration and resettlement processes in the U.S., particularly in New York. As Korean and Latino immigrants share increasingly close interactions with each other in various urban settings, these Korean remigrants can serve as links between Korean and Spanish speakers as well as liaisons among diverse groups of people locally and internationally. The author also focuses on relations among Latin American Koreans and other groups of Latino populations. This study shows a surprising degree of diversity within the seemingly homogenous Korean population in the U.S. and demonstrates the unacknowledged linguistic and cultural differences among them.

Reviews

In Korean Immigrants from Latin America, Jin Suk Bae executes the book's premise--to challenge the boundedness and fixity of much of the scholarship on Korean migrant communities by highlighting the multiple mobilities of Korean immigrants from Latin America residing in New York--with verve and gusto. By investigating the migratory trajectories, experiences, and identities of this otherwise understudied population, Bae deftly illustrates how the practice of migration can be simultaneously historically and economically situated yet spontaneous and unpredictable. This interdisciplinary work provides groundbreaking insights and important critiques to the growing subfield of Korean diaspora studies that will surely inspire new questions and avenues for research.

Korean Immigrants from Latin America: Fitting into Multiethnic New York is a long-overdue book on a group of Korean immigrants seldom studied or given much attention in the large body of scholarship on Korean immigration to the United States. This is the first scholarly monograph examining systematically the unique adaptation and experience of Korean remigrants to the United States. As a Korean remigrant from Paraguay to America myself, I can fully attest to the key findings of this study such as the role of social networks and language and business skills acquired in Latin America on twice migrants' successful transition to New York City. I am pleased to see that stories of remigration like my own are finally being told and given full scholarly consideration.

Author Bio

Jink Suk Bae is research professor at the Academy of Mobility Humanities at Konkuk University is Seoul, Korea.