Korean American Women: Stories of Acculturation and Changing Selves (Studies in Asian Americans : Reconceptualizing Culture, History, Politics)

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STUDIES IN ASIAN AMERICANS RECONCEPTUALIZING CULTURE, HISTORY, AND POLITICS

Edited by

Franklin Ng California State University, Fresno

A ROUTLEDGE SERIES

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STUDIES IN ASIAN AMERICANS RECONCEPTUALIZING CULTURE, HISTORY, AND POLITICS

FRANKLIN NG, General Editor DOING THE DESI THING Performing Indianness in New York City Sunita S. Mukhi

CONSUMPTION AND IDENTITY IN ASIAN AMERICAN COMING-OF-AGE NOVELS Jennifer Ann Ho

ASIAN AMERICANS AND THE MASS MEDIA A Content Analysis of Twenty United States Newspapers and a Survey of Asian American Journalists Virginia Mansfield-Richardson

CULTURAL IDENTITY IN KINDERGARTEN A Study of Asian Indian Children in New Jersey Susan Laird Mody

HOMETOWN CHINATOWN The History of Oakland’s Chinese Community L. Eve Armentrout Ma

TAIWANESE AMERICAN TRANSNATIONAL FAMILIES Women and Kin Work Maria W. L. Chee

CHINESE AMERICAN MASCULINITIES From Fu Manchu to Bruce Lee Jachinson Chan

MODELING MINORITY WOMEN Heroines in African and Asian American Fiction Reshmi J. Hebbar

PRESS IMAGES, NATIONAL IDENTITY, AND FOREIGN POLICY A Case Study of U.S.–Japan Relations from 1955–1995 Catherine A. Luther

THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH IN BOSTON’S CHINATOWN A Discourse of Language, Gender, and Identity Erika A. Muse

STRANGERS IN THE CITY The Atlanta Chinese, Their Community, and Stories of Their Lives Jianli Zhao

MOBILE HOMES Spatial and Cultural Negotiation in Asian American Literature Su-ching Huang

BETWEEN THE HOMELAND AND THE DIASPORA The Politics of Theorizing Filipino and Filipino American Identities S. Lily Mendoza

US, HAWAI‘I-BORN JAPANESE Storied Identities of Japanese American Elderly from a Sugar Plantation Community Gaku Kinoshita

HMONG AMERICAN CONCEPTS OF HEALTH, HEALING, AND CONVENTIONAL MEDICINE Dia Cha

KOREAN AMERICAN WOMEN Stories of Acculturation and Changing Selves Jenny Hyun Chung Pak

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KOREAN AMERICAN WOMEN Stories of Acculturation and Changing Selves

Jenny Hyun Chung Pak

Routledge New York & London

RT467X_Discl.fm Page 1 Wednesday, February 8, 2006 4:23 PM

Published in 2006 by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 270 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016

Published in Great Britain by Routledge Taylor & Francis Group 2 Park Square Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN

© 2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-97846-7 (Hardcover) International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97846-0 (Hardcover) Library of Congress Card Number 2006000049 No part of this book may be reprinted, reproduced, transmitted, or utilized in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying, microfilming, and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publishers. Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pak, Jenny Hyun Chung. Korean American women : stories of acculturation and changing selves / Jenny Hyun Chung Pak. p. cm. -- (Studies in Asian Americans) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-97846-7 1. Korean American women--Social conditions--Case studies. 2. Korean American women--Psychology--Case studies. 3. Korean American women--Biography. 4. Women immigrants--United States--Social conditions--Case studies. 5. Women immigrants--United States--Psychology--Case studies. 6. Women immigrants--United States--Biography. 7. Acculturation--United States--Case studies. 8. Korean Americans--Ethnic identity--Case studies. 9. Ethnicity--United States--Case studies. 10. United States--Ethnic relations--Case studies. I. Title. II. Series: Asian Americans. III. Series. E184.K6P35 2006 305.48'8957073--dc22

2006000049

Visit the Taylor & Francis Web site at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com Taylor & Francis Group is the Academic Division of Informa plc.

and the Routledge Web site at http://www.routledge-ny.com

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To my mother and To my daughters, Lauren and Morgan

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Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Chapter One Introduction

1

Chapter Two Culture and Identity

5

Chapter Three Korean American Women’s Identity

27

Chapter Four Case Study Method and Narrative Analysis

43

Chapter Five Ruth

63

Chapter Six Esther

107

Chapter Seven Hanna

151

Chapter Eight Conclusion

203

Appendix

223

vii

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Contents

References

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Index

237

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Acknowledgments

This book is the accumulated effort of many years of struggle, beginning with the pursuit of my doctoral degree. As a wife and mother of a one-yearold, I often wondered whether pursuing this study was the right path for me. However, with my mother’s encouragement, I took a giant leap of faith and juggled a family and academia. Along the way, my second daughter was born, and the road to completion seemed impossible. However, with the help and support of so many around me, I was able to forge ahead. I would like to thank Dr. Polkinghorne for his unfailing patience and guidance, without which I could not have completed this book. I also want to thank Dr. Bensimon and Dr. Messner for their thoughtful suggestions and comments, which helped improve the quality of this work. Also, I am indebted to the generosity of participants who willingly shared their stories with me. Furthermore, without the constant support, understanding, and encouragement from family and friends, it would have been impossible to complete this book. Specifically, I want to thank a group of women from Young Nak for their faithful support and prayers, which spurred me on to finish the work. I want to thank my circle of friends from school and work, including Carol and Julianne, who reminded me that I was not alone in this process and always provided encouraging feedback. I want to thank my father- and mother-in-law for making themselves available to help with childcare when I was in dire need. I want to thank my sister, Ann, for her unfaltering dedication in patiently proofreading many drafts and revisions. And, I want to thank my girls, Lauren and Morgan for all the times they wanted to play with mommy but could not and waited eagerly for “mommy’s book” to be done. And, last but not least, I would never have started nor finished the study without my faithful husband, David, who always believed in me and encouraged me to be the best I can be. ix

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Chapter One

Introduction

My mother was only eight years old when the Korean War broke out in 1950, but she was old enough to remember the fear of death and vowed never to go hungry again. She grew up as a teenager in a war torn country, eager to be part of the effort to rebuild the nation. She put herself through junior high and high school and put five of her younger siblings through college. At twenty-one, she married and the following year I was born in Seoul, the first of her five children. My mother never considered leaving her hard-earned, senior position at work an option, and she returned to work shortly after giving birth. Numerous maids were hired to take care of me without much success, and a year later I was dropped off in the outskirts of Seoul to be raised by my maternal grandparents. Hence, I grew up in a big extended family with all my aunts and uncles until I was old enough to start school. My grandparents eventually raised all my siblings until our family immigrated to the United States. What stands out about my early childhood is repeatedly hearing the story of how I was rejected at birth by my paternal grandmother because I was a girl, rather than a boy. This story of rejection was reinforced as my mother consecutively gave birth to three more girls. Until she finally produced a son, an heir, my mother was not fully recognized as a daughter-inlaw even though she had been married for more than eleven years. This old aristocratic tradition of favoring the males was not only transmitted through the story of my paternal grandmother, but it was also observed daily in my maternal grandparents’ home as men were served meals first and women and children ate later. As soon as I was old enough to enter school, I rejoined my mother in Seoul. I excelled in school for two reasons—the joy I brought to my mother and the secret pleasure I got from doing better than the boys on every subject matter. Very early on, proving myself more worthy than a son became a mission in my life. 1

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At the invitation of one of my mother’s sisters, our family first settled in Modesto, California in 1975. At the time, my siblings and I were the only Koreans at school. Not knowing a word of English, we stood out like a sore thumb and the kids treated us like aliens. At the age of ten, learning a new language did not come as easily to me as it did for my younger siblings. I spent the first half of the year, mostly in tears, feeling sorry for myself, because I hated being teased by the kids at school and I missed my old friends. One day, my mother matter-of-factly stated that no one else in the family is going back to Korea and the only way I could return would be to earn the airplane ticket myself. That being out of the question, she placed a dictionary in my hand and challenged me to rise above those kids who were mocking me by learning English as quickly as I could and excelling in school. More determined than ever, I completed the reading materials for grades one to six that first year, determined to be on equal footing when I began junior high school the following year. What began as a way of protesting the unfairness of being “a less than desired gender,” now became a means of fighting the shame of being “a less than desired skin color.” Academic achievement being my only method of redeeming my self-worth, I graduated as a valedictorian in junior high and again in high school. Although these accomplishments brought a certain sense of collective Korean pride to my family, they did not satisfy all my inner struggles. Having grown up in Modesto with little or no Korean contact outside of my family, I experienced a second culture shock when I arrived at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to begin my undergraduate studies. In spite of the large Korean American community in Southern California, I initially felt more alone. It seemed as though I was not quite “Korean” enough for the Korean community and not quite “American” enough for the mainstream. I was considered “the 1.5 generation,” having immigrated to the U.S. at a young age. Being bilingual and bicultural, I appeared to navigate my way around both circles with ease, at least on the surface. However, at a deeper level, I always felt uneasiness at being the “other” in either culture. Although I have made peace with myself to a certain degree and do not feel as lost as I once did in my college years, I continue to face the challenge of creating and redefining my identity as a Korean American woman, bringing together seemingly opposite worlds of values, attitudes, and gender role expectations at various life stages. Having worked with many young adults over the years, I found that my story was quite common. Many 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young women have shared similar experiences of growing up in the U.S., striving for academic achievement to make their hard-working Korean parents proud while trying to fit in with

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their American peers. Because of my own experiences, I could relate to their struggles with their more traditional Korean parents’ cultural values and expectations and their own personal desires and needs. Some of these stories of struggle came to me in my practice, and I saw how deep seeded the cultural conflicts were. Privately, these clients expressed their confusion and frustration in dealing with contradictory cultural values and roles in their lives. Some of them felt completely paralyzed and even depressed for several years, unable to choose between fulfilling their parents’ wishes and following their own passion. The tension of holding onto two often incompatible cultural expectations were so great that many talked about superficially choosing one and rejecting the other, knowing all along that was not the outcome they truly desired. Although these young women appeared to be bi-cultural in the sense that they knew how to “fit” in their two worlds, they did not know how to make sense of their traditional Korean cultural upbringings with their constant exposure to contemporary Western values and life styles. I knew their pain very well, but nothing in my professional training prepared me to address their problems properly. As I searched for answers, I was surprised to discover how inadequate counseling literature was in examining the nature of problems faced by individuals dealing with dual-cultural conflicts. For example, current multicultural literature assumes bicultural status or identity leads to optimal psychological health (Berry, 1980, 1990, 1997; LaFromboise et al, 1993; Phinney, 1990). My encounters with many 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American women suggested that this perspective may be an oversimplification and does not begin to describe the complexity of living in a dual cultural context. Keefe and Padilla’s (1987) interviews with individuals was the only study I came across that suggested that bi-culturality may not be the ideal some social scientists portrayed, but rather involves many difficult decisions, conflicts, and turmoil. In particular, many ethnic minority women must develop a sense of who they are, while navigating between two, often opposite cultural values and role expectations. At the very least, bi-culturality as an acculturation strategy may need to be conceptualized at two levels—behavioral and values. In fact, it has been shown that acquiring new cultural traits or behavioral acculturation appears to occur relatively quickly for most immigrants, while values acculturation takes place much more slowly and in a complex dynamic fashion (Szapocznik & Kurtines, 1980). Cultural value conflicts do not occur in a vacuum, but get played out in the everyday context, such as the person one chooses to date or marry, what career path one follows, how marital roles are negotiated, or what values or priorities take precedent in rearing the children. Over the years, I

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have seen many individuals wrestle with these issues in their relationships with their parents, spouse, or siblings as different family members internalize various aspects of cultural values differently. Current multicultural counseling literature does not adequately address the multiplicity of issues faced by individuals, who must develop their identity in the dual cultural context. Although acculturation has emerged as one of the more frequently cited within-group differences in the counseling field in the last couple of decades (Atkinson, Morten & Sue, 1983; Helms, 1989; Padilla & Lindholm, 1984; Ponterotto, Baluch, & Carielli, 1998) and various models of acculturation have been proposed (Berry, 1990; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1998; Oetting & Beauvais, 1991; Sue & Sue, 1971), they are severely limited in describing how individuals deal with the complexity of culture change. Many studies in this area have been devoted to measuring and identifying the type and degree of cultural adaptation in different ethnic groups (Cuellar, Harris, & Jasso, 1980; Olmedo, 1979; Suinn, Rickard-Figueroa, Lew, & Vigil, 1987) and how it relates to various counseling variables (Atkinson & Gim, 1989; Atkinson & Matsushita, 1991; Atkinson, Whiteley, & Gim, 1990; Tata & Leong, 1994). However, the reasons for immigration, the historical period during which the immigration occurred, educational and socioeconomic levels, ethnic community and religious involvements, family functioning, and social support, to name a few, all have an impact in the process of cultural adaptation (Berry, 1990; Keefe & Padilla, 1987; Padilla, 1980; Rosenthal, 1988). These factors make direct comparisons between ethnic groups of limited value, but many of the psychological processes underlying acculturation are assumed to be similar across various ethnic minority groups. Some social scientists (Garza & Gallegos, 1985; Lazarus, 1997; Pick, 1997), on the other hand, have argued that psychologists need to go beyond simplistic models of man and must accept the irregularities inherent in both person and situation. In fact, not only do the emergent properties of the human realm produce inconsistent patterns of response across individuals, but also promote within the same person innovative and creative responses over time to the same stimulus (Polkinghorne, 1988). Thus, individuals as “actors” who live and interpret their own reality greatly complicate the acculturation framework. An alternative way to view acculturation is to conceptualize it as a migration-induced, life-long process of individual development (Schonpflug, 1997). The aim of this study is to: (1) describe the lives of Korean American women in a dual-cultural context, and (2) increase the understanding of the culture change process.

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Chapter Two

Culture and Identity

Because the purpose of the present study is to understand Korean American women’s dual-cultural identity, this chapter begins by reviewing how the concept of culture and identity has evolved in multicultural counseling literature over the past four decades. Moreover, problems with current models of identity development and acculturation for ethnic minorities are examined in this section. In Chapter Three, a narrative approach is explored as an alternative way to capture the complexity of the culture change process for individuals who must configure many different, often conflicting aspects of their lives in a dual-cultural context. Finally, various traditional Korean cultural images and social conditions of immigrant life in the U.S. that create the “personal myth” (McAdams, 1993) are also considered in the following section.

HISTORY OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY IN MULTICULTURAL COUNSELING The 1960s Scholars have been writing about culture since the turn of the century, but the topic did not generate much attention in counseling literature prior to the 1960s (Jackson, 1995; Pedersen, 1991). Up until then, researchers compared scores of racial/ethnic groups on various behavioral and psychological measures to those of European Americans, which represented the norm (Atkinson et al., 1983). Multicultural scholars began scrutinizing these genetic and cultural deficit approaches in research and moved from studying minorities as “culturally-pathological, deficient or deprived to studying them as different from the White middle-class” (Ponterotto & Casas, 1991, p. 64). Following the civil rights movement, professional organizations 5

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such as the American Psychological Association (APA) and the American Personnel and Guidance Association (APGA, which changed its name to the American Association for Counseling and Development in 1983 and again to the American Counseling Association in 1992) began calling for guidance and counseling of persons who were “culturally different” and “culturally disadvantaged” (Atkinson et al., 1983; Jackson, 1995). Demographic changes in the U.S. further created an impetus for increasing the awareness of diverse client populations and accelerated research in cross-cultural counseling (Atkinson et al., 1983; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). The 1970s By the early 1970s, multicultural counseling became a legitimate area of interest and the terms cross-cultural and multicultural counseling began appearing in literature (Jackson, 1995; Whiteley, 1984). Due to the sociopolitical origin of the topic, the concept of “cultural” became synonymous with “minority” (Gelso, Betz, Friedlander, Helms, Hill, Patton, Super & Wampold, 1988), and cross-cultural and multicultural counseling referred to counseling ethnic minorities who were seen as culturally different from the “norm” (Das, 1995). Multicultural scholarship described how each of the diverse minority subcultures differs from the mainstream culture and how standard counseling techniques have to be adapted to deal with these differences (Atkinson et al, 1983; Pedersen, Lonner & Draguns, 1976; Sue, 1981; Sue & Sue, 1973; Vontress, 1971). Failure to provide culturally sensitive counseling was suggested as the primary reason for underutilization and premature termination of community mental health services and university counseling centers by racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. (Lopez, 1981; Sue, 1977; Sue & McKinney, 1975). The 1980s Although the multicultural movement in counseling initially focused on minority groups in the United States, it quickly expanded to embrace all kinds of human diversity including ethnic, gender, age, and even socioeconomic groups (Helms, 1994a; Trickett, Watts, & Birman, 1994). In fact, a group of multicultural scholars took the position that cross-cultural counseling/therapy is “any counseling relationship in which two or more of the participants differ with respect to cultural background, values, and lifestyle” (Sue, Bernier, Durran, Feinberg, Pedersen, Smith, & Vasquez-Nuttall, 1982, p. 47). While this broad definition implied that all counseling is basically cross-cultural in nature, it spurred a surge of publications devoted to developing culture-specific techniques for counseling various minorities

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(Jackson, 1995; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991; Sue, Arredondo, & McDavis, 1992). The emphasis on using differential techniques for different groups, however, bore little empirical support (Sue, 1988; Sue & Zane, 1987), and the “all types of differences as cultural” approach to cross-cultural or multicultural counseling generated much criticism. It has been pointed out that one of the major flaws of this approach is that by defining the various social group affiliations or “domains of difference” as “cultural” and by lumping them all together as members of oppressed “cultures,” it ignores different groups’ important sociopolitical histories (Carter & Qureshi, 1995). They explain: If all differences equal “cultural differences,” culture loses much of its distinct meaning. [For example] although it is true that White women have been oppressed, as have Blacks, men and women from Black and White cultures are socialized according to each group’s superordinate cultural framework or worldviews. Although both gender and race have been the basis of oppression, to equate the two is historically erroneous. . . . Certain differences are different in kind, and therefore should not be put in the same category (Carter & Qureshi, 1995, p. 248).

Furthermore, focus on cultural diversity and culture specific counseling has been heavily criticized for perpetuating stereotyped images of cultural differences and over simplifying a complex phenomenon into an externally focused cookbook approach (Lloyd, 1987; Patterson, 1996; Speight, Myers, Cox, & Highlen, 1991). Ponterotto (1988a) states that overemphasis on understanding cultural differences only serves to reinforce “the ethnocentrically biased view that racial and ethnic minorities are in great need of study, as if they were mysterious, or very different from those of the majority culture” (p. 138). It has also been suggested that cultural knowledge is of limited utility not only because it blurs the lines between individual and cultural attributes, but also because cultural knowledge of the “other” is not enough to transcend one’s own cultural or racial background (Carter & Qureshi, 1995). The 1990s In 1991, the APA called on academic programs to attend to racial and cultural diversity in the training of mental health professionals (1991 APA report on education sited in McGovern, Furumoto, Halpern, Kimble & McKeachie, 1991). Some scholars urged that developing cross-cultural competency is an ethical imperative in counseling (Sue et al., 1992). Meanwhile,

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Pedersen (1991) proclaimed that multiculturalism is a “fourth force” in counseling and will revolutionize the mental health field. Thus, multiculturalism became a “hot” topic in counseling and racial/ethnic minority issues received greater attention within the social science field in the 90s. In spite of this trend, however, Betancourt and Lopez (1993) observed that the study of culture remains the domain of cross-cultural psychology and is often associated with the study of ethnic minorities in the United States. While gaining more attention, increased criticism has also been directed at the quality of multicultural literature. Overall, many reviews noted that the multicultural counseling field lacks cohesion and much of its work is contradictory and inconsistent due to a lack of conceptual clarity and unifying framework (Betancourt & Lopez, 1993; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991; Qureshi, 1999; Speight et al., 1991). Some scholars suggested that conflicting findings in cross-cultural counseling research maybe due to the failure to consider heterogeneity existing within the group (Atkinson, 1983, 1985; Casas, 1984, 1985; Heath, Neimeyer, and Pedersen, 1988; Ponterotto, 1988b). Subsequently, studies that included intragroup differences as independent variables began appearing in counseling literature (Atkinson et al, 1983; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991; Reynolds & Pope, 1991). Among the more frequently cited within-group differences in multicultural counseling research, racial/ethnic identity and acculturation were related to a number of counseling process variables (Atkinson et al., 1983; Betz & Fitzgerald, 1993; Helms, 1989; Padilla & Lindholm, 1984; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). Although a marked increase in publications related to acculturation and racial/ethnic identity came about in the 90s as more studies included intragroup differences, reviews of identity development models in multicultural literature continued to indicate that current conceptualization was inadequate. Many experts expressed concerns that present models of racial/ethnic identity development were compartmentalized and onedimensional and that the complexities of multiple layers of identity such as gender, class, and age were rarely considered in terms of the functioning of the “whole” person (Choney et al., 1995; Davenport & Yurich, 1991; Reynolds & Pope, 1991; Root, 1990). Ponterotto and Casas (1991) argue that even though more universal models of minority identity development (Atkinson et al., 1983) and parallel identity research on models of acculturation for immigrant groups (Berry & Kim, 1988) have been put forth, more systematic research examining the process, variety, and effects of identity development for individuals living in a bicultural context is needed.

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CULTURE CHANGE The study of culture change has been an area of interest for sociologists and anthropologists, among others, for many years. This topic gained attention in psychology only recently as its psychosocial importance was recognized with the demographic changes in the U.S., which created a need to understand and serve diverse client populations in counseling (Atkinson et al, 1983; Sue et al., 1992; Trickett, Watts, & Birman, 1994). Generally, individuals undergoing a culture change process have been conceived as going through acculturation in the literature. More recently, however, some scholars have turned to studying ethnic identity as one of its major processes (Phinney, 1993), increasing the conceptual confusion and heated debate about the construct of culture, race, and ethnicity in the field (Betancourt & Lopez, 1993; Helms & Talleyrand, 1997; Phinney, 1996). Although these are distinct terms and are often teased apart in abstraction in academic circles, they seem to be interrelated and interact with each other in the real world, especially for ethnic minority individuals living in a dualcultural context. Thus, in the following section, the concept of culture change will be examined under two major areas: (1) models of identity development for racial/ethnic minorities, and (2) acculturation. Identity Development Erikson’s (1968) identity theory has provided the basis for most theoretical and empirical work on identity formation in the social sciences. According to Erikson, identity is a subjective sense of wholeness that is typically achieved through a period of exploration during adolescence, which leads to a commitment in various areas such as occupation, religion, political ideology, and sexual orientation. Interestingly, Helms (1994a) observes, among all the different social group memberships Erikson believes one must resolve for healthy human development, racial-group membership is curiously missing from his list. Much of the research derived from Erikson’s theory has been based on Marcia’s (1966, 1980) empirical work, which operationalized it into four ego-identity statues: identity diffusion, identity foreclosure, moratorium, and identity achieved. As the civil rights movement in the 1960s raised social consciousness about racism in this country, the concepts of oppression and group identity began to emerge in the social sciences. The formation of racial, minority, and ethnic identity have been considered similar to ego identity formation. Racial identity. Early efforts to understand racial identity development were made by Black social scientists, and, as a result, original models

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focused primarily on African Americans (Casas & Pytluk, 1995; Sue & Sue, 1990). The Cross’s (1971, 1978) psychological Nigrescence theory, which was later reformulated by Helms (1984, 1990), has been most frequently cited and researched in racial/ethnic identity literature (Myers et al., 1991; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). Based on Erickson’s (1968) identity development, the racial identity theory outlines the series of stages an individual moves through in developing racial consciousness and assesses the impact of such a process on the individual’s overall psychological development. Cross’s model (1971, 1995) is as follows: (1) Pre-Encounter—views the world from a White frame of reference (2) Encounter—experiences one of many significant personal or social events that are inconsistent with his or her frame of reference, (3) Immersion/Emersion—represents a turning point in the conversion from the old to a new frame of reference, and (4) Internalization—achieves a sense of inner security and self-confidence with his or her Blackness. Thus, rather than assuming that one’s membership simply determines cultural affiliation, the racial identity models introduced the concept of psychological variability on the basis of an individual’s identification with his/her particular racial group. A major thrust of these models is that developing a positive sense of self, as a member of a racial group, is a primary identity issue for all racial groups in the United States because race is a central aspect of American life. Helms (1994a), for example, points out that although historically, quasibiological definition of race based on visible aspects of a person (i.e., skin color, hair texture, or physiognomy) has been used, the racial classification system based on physical characteristics or genetic origins is obsolete due to centuries of racial mixing. In fact, studies of specific genetic markers have shown that there are greater variations within than between so called “racial” groups (Zuckerman, 1990). Because there is no known causal relationship between race and behavior, the biogenetic definition of race is currently rejected by most multicultural scholars (Atkinson et al., 1993; Bentancourt & Lopez, 1993; Carter, 1995; Helms, 1994a; Phinney, 1996; Ponterotto & Casas, 1991). In spite of these evidences, Helms (1994a) states, the racial category is still used to identify people in the U.S. because race is sociopolitically constructed by the dominant or powerful group. According to Carter and Qureshi (1995), the original models focused only on race because racial identity theorists strongly believed that even though Americans are members of many ethnic groups, racial identification supercedes all other experiences in the United States in that “over fairly short periods of time (usually a generation or two), ethnic group members become members of racial groups, and it is the racial category that is used to assign cultural traits” (p. 252). Thus, these authors state, proponents of

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the original racial identity models “believe that race as culture should not be seen as many ethnicities, culture in general, or diversities; it needs to be understood directly as the most significant difference—particularly because ethnicity and culture tend to be seen as more fluid and flexible than is true for race” (p. 251). Choney, Berryhill-Paapke, and Robbins (1995), however, indicate that racial identity as a construct is too general to apply to American Indian people, for example, who do not identify with a single description of “Indianness,” but more as tribal members. Because culture varies greatly from tribe to tribe, they state that applying racial identity is not only problematic, but also perpetuates the homogeneity myth about American Indians. Instead, they suggest that acculturation, as a construct, is better suited to assess individual differences in a worldview that is attributable to culture. According to these authors, acculturation is “a much broader measure of the unique social perspective of the individual” (p. 77) and can allow for as many ascribed identity groups, as there are tribal nations. Similarly, Casas & Pytluk (1995) point out that racial identity models are generally limited because they do not address the complex process of developing racial identity, but rather “focus solely on the development of identity in relationship to other groups and, in particular, the dominant majority, while giving no attention to enculturation or acculturation processes” (p. 166). Minority identity. While racial identity theorists held the view that race is the single most important determinant of an individual’s psychosocial development in the United States (Carter & Qureshi, 1995; Helms, 1994a), some multicultural scholars suggested that other minority groups share similar patterns of adjustment to racial, ethnic, and/or cultural oppression. Thus, even though the racial identity models originally pertained to African Americans, an analogous model of identity development was subsequently created for Asian Americans (Sue & Sue, 1971), Latinos (Keefe & Padilla, 1987), and Whites (Helms, 1984, 1990). Over time, new groups such as women, gays and lesbians, individuals with disabilities, and the aged organized around similar issues of oppression and group identity (Trickett et al., 1994). As psychology tried to incorporate all these diverse groups, Helms (1994a) notes, a considerable confusion was created as to which aspect of an individual’s many social groups form the core of the person’s identity. Rather than formulating separate identity models for various disenfranchised groups, Atkinson et al. (1983) proposed a generic model that is much broader in scope. They put forward the Minority Identity Development (MID) model which is basically an extension of Cross’s (1971) model to include all populations by conceptualizing the common experience of

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oppression that serves as a unifying factor among the diverse groups. This model identifies five stages oppressed individuals may encounter as they attempt to understand themselves in relation to their own culture and the dominant culture: (1) Conformity—preference for dominant cultural values over those of their own culture, (2) Dissonance—begin to experience a breakdown in their denial system and experience conflict, (3) Resistance and Immersion—completely endorse minority-held views and reject the dominant society and culture, (4) Introspection—experience discomfort with rigidly held group views and seek greater individual autonomy, and (5) Synergetic Articulation and Awareness—experience resolution of conflict and a sense of self-fulfillment with regard to cultural identity. The names of each of these stages are different from Cross’s model, but their content is similar. Elaborating on MID, Sue and Sue (1990) contend, “in the past several decades, Asian Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians have experienced sociopolitical identity transformations so that a ‘Third World consciousness’ has emerged with cultural oppression as the common unifying force” (p. 95). In this way, they seem to endorse the same view as Atkinson et al. (1983) that oppression is the common unifier for the diverse groups. In spite of this shared view, Sue and Sue prefer to call MID the Racial/Cultural Identity Development (R/CID) model to emphasize the impact of minority and race experiences on the identity of ethnic minorities in the U.S. However, they basically outline an almost identical formulation of MID with only a slight change in the wording of the last stage: (1) Conformity, (2) Dissonance, (3) Resistance and Immersion, (4) Introspection, and (5) Integrative Awareness. In contrast, Sodowsky, Kwan, and Pannu (1995) state that focusing on the racial aspect is too narrow and neglects the various social and psychological forces that constitute and maintain a person’s identification with an ethnic or cultural group. For instance, they point out that although minority identity interacts with ethnic identity, minority identity does not always include ethnic identity because “members of a minority group may not have a common history and cultural heritage (for example, women or gays/lesbians across all racial and ethnic groups in the United States) and consequently may not endorse an ethnic identity” (p. 134). Likewise, Helms (1994a) indicates that different minority groups may share some cultural similarities to the extent that the groups have experienced similar forms and amounts of oppression (i.e., the process across different racial groups), but the content of their identity development is different because of different cultural origins and sociopolitical histories in this country. In fact, she states that current multicultural scholarship’s

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“all-inclusive” approach to diversity has contributed to an imprecise specification of constructs and much confusion in the field because it assumes other aspects of diversity such as ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and age are all equivalent to race (Helms, 1994a, 1994b). Further conceptual confusion, according to Helms (1994a), is created by using the terms culture, ethnicity, and minority status interchangeably and euphemistically for race in multicultural literature. Racial identity theorists (Carter, 1995; Helms, 1994a, 1997; Johnson, 1990) firmly hold the view that race as a sociopolitical construct is distinct from culture and should not be combined with minority status or ethnicity because subsuming race under minority status or ethnicity obscures the meaning of both race and culture. Ethnic identity. Many multiculturalists (Atkinson et al., 1983; Casas & Pytluk, 1995; Phinney, 1996; Sodowsky et al., 1995; Sue & Sue, 1990), on the other hand, prefer the broad interpretation that includes race in the context of ethnicity, recognizing that visible group differences are of importance due to control of and access to resources. These scholars prefer the term ethnicity to encompass both race and culture of origin even though reviewers have indicated the problem of interchangeable use of the construct ethnicity in place of both race and of culture (Betancourt & Lopez, 1993; Helms, 1994b; Phinney, 1996). Sodowsky et al. (1995) outlines the main difference between racial identity and ethnic identity as the following: Racial identity is (a) based on a sociopolitical model of oppression, (b) based on a socially constructed definition of race, and (c) concerned with how individuals abandon the effects of disenfranchisement and develop respectful attitudes toward their racial group. On the other hand, ethnic identity (a) concerns one’s attachment to, sense of belonging to, and identification with one’s ethnic group members (e.g., Japanese, Vietnamese, Indian) and with one’s ethnic culture; (b) does not have a theoretical emphasis on oppression /racism; but (c) may include the prejudices and cultural pressures that ethnic individuals experience when their ways of life come into conflict with those of the White dominant group (p. 133).

Thus, these authors note that ethnic identity overlaps to some degree with racial identity but suggest they can be treated as an independent construct by delineating them into two dimensions: (1) the external or visible which is related to overt racial or physical features and (2) the internal or invisible which is related to the subjective sense of attachment to one’s cultural

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values, assumptions, roles, and heritage. In this way, these authors define ethnic identity along both racial and cultural lines. A proponent of using the term ethnicity to encompass race, Phinney (1996) similarly conceptualizes ethnicity as a complex multidimensional construct that can be delineated into three broad clusters: culture (the cultural values, attitudes, and practices that distinguish ethnic groups), identity (the subjective sense of identification with one’s ethnic group), and status (the experiences as members of a minority group with lower status and power). Although these three components are separated conceptually for purposes of discussion, she states that they are not independent, but rather overlap and are confounded. Helms (1997), however, argues that Phinney’s model only adds complexity to an already ambiguous construct by using the term ethnicity to mean a variety of other, not well-defined constructs. Instead, Helms recommends using the better-known term “race” rather than “minority status” and restricting “ethnicity” to refer only to cultural characteristics in order to keep it distinct and separate from “race.” For the sake of conceptual clarity, Helms’ suggestion of keeping race and culture separate makes sense. However, the conceptualization of ethnic identity needs to be clearly delineated not only with race, but also with culture. Reviewers have noted that there are no widely agreed-on definitions or measures of ethnic identity in the literature, and research findings in this area are inconsistent, contradictory, and impossible to compare across studies (Betancourt & Lopez, 1993; Phinney, 1990). Although considerable research has been done on the general concept of ethnic identity, Leong and Chou (1994) specifically point out that a lack of clear distinction between ethnic identity and acculturation is one of the major reasons why studies in this area have proceeded in many different directions with very little cohesion. Phinney’s review, for instance, found ethnic identity has been defined in numerous ways, including various facets of acculturation: a component of social identity, membership of a social group, self-identification, feelings of belonging and commitment, the sense of shared values and attitudes, attitudes toward one’s group, or the cultural characteristics of a particular group such as language, norms, values, attitudes, and behaviors. Among the various ways in which ethnic identity has been referred in the literature, they seem to cluster around two major areas: (1) ethnic group identification or membership and (2) cultural components. Phinney’s (1990) review of research on ethnic identity found that although a quarter of the studies did not utilize any theoretical framework, the remaining studies fell into the following three major approaches: (1) social identity theory, (2) identity formation, and (3) acculturation and culture conflict. Casas and

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Pytluk (1995) further simplify these three areas into two groups by considering social identity and identity development models as looking at the content of ethnic identity and acculturation the process. So even though ethnic identity and acculturation may be complexly related, they are different processes (Keefe & Padilla, 1987; Rodriguez, 1998). Keefe and Padilla state, “Although much research in the U.S. assumes a single continuum of change in which the adoption of Anglo cultural traits and ethnic identification with Anglo American is a single process, numerous studies indicate that acculturation and ethnic identification are, in fact, separate processes” (p. 42). For instance, one’s ethnic identity can remain unchanged even though she/he has acculturated completely. Thus, more recent publications define ethnic identity narrowly as a component of social identity (Tjafel, 1981 as cited by Phinney, 1990)—a part of an individual’s self-concept associated with group belongingness or membership (Bernal, Knight, Ocampo, Garza & Cota, 1993; Leong & Chou, 1994; Noels, Pon, & Clement, 1996; Phinney, 1996; Rodriguez, 1998). The ethnic identity model most widely discussed in literature is Phinney’s (1993) three-stage ethnic identity formation: (1) unexamined ethnic identity—a minimal awareness of one’s ethnicity (2) ethnic identity search/moratorium—an exploration accompanied by confusion about the meaning of one’s ethnicity, and (3) achieved ethnic identity—a clear understanding and acceptance of one’s ethnicity. Like other identity models (Atkinson et al, 1983; Helms, 1990) mentioned in previous sections, this model is adapted from Marcia’s (1980) operationalization of four ego identity statuses—diffused identity, foreclosed identity, moratorium, and achieved identity. However, Phinney’s model differs from the others in that she collapsed the diffused identity and foreclosed identity as a single stage based on her research with minority adolescence, which indicated little evidence to distinguish clearly between them. Although Phinney’s attention to ethnic identity formation for the adolescent age group is valuable, as with other identity models, her model does not reflect the complexity and dynamic nature of ethnic identity development. A study of Italian-Australian adolescents (Rosenthal & Cichello, 1986 cited in Rosenthal, 1988), for example, found that the parents’ embeddedness in the Italian community was the only significant predictor of the strength of these adolescents’ ethnic identity, while the extent to which the parents held traditional values surprisingly did not. In another study (Rosenthal & Hrynevich, 1985 cited in Rosenthal, 1988), the difference between Greek and Italian-Australian adolescents’ ethnic identity was attributed to “institutional completeness” or the extent to which the group exercised control over institutions such as school and religion. These studies not only

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highlight the role of the ethnic community, but also the dynamic nature of ethnic identity—how an individual’s sense of belonging to a culture fluctuates in intensity and importance depends on the social context. The role of group identity on self-esteem has been a key research topic on ethnic identity. Most studies in this area, however, have not found a direct relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem (Rosenthal, 1988; Phinney, 1990). Phinney suggests inconsistent and inconclusive findings are due to different conceptualizations, definitions, and measures used in these studies. Rosenthal, on the other hand, attributes these results in part to the complex dynamic being played out between self-concept and ethnicity. For example, she explains that although “it has been suggested that adolescent girls are more likely to be at risk when they come from cultures where sex roles are highly differentiated and where the male is accorded higher prestige” (p. 160), several recent studies (Burns & Homel, 1986; Grieve, Rosenthal, & Cavallo, 1988; Rosenthal & Grieve, 1988 cited in Rosenthal, 1988) found that Italian-Australian adolescent girls’ levels of self-esteem were not lower than their Anglo-Australian peers. Interestingly, even though similar levels of self-esteem and life-satisfaction were reflected: The Italian-Australian young women reported less satisfaction with their gender than did the Anglo-Australians. The Italian-Australians were more romantic and more committed to traditional views of marriage, motherhood and the role of women in society. On the other hand, they placed equally high value as the Anglo-Australians on working outside the home and were equally ambitious to succeed in their courses and careers. It may be that these young women are faced with a conflict between two co-existing but contradictory projects, resulting in dissatisfaction with their gender. On the one hand, their views on marriage and motherhood were characteristic of their traditional culture of origin, and on the other, they reported a commitment to study and career which is characteristic of the less conforming, more individualistic “Anglo” culture (p. 161).

Thus, Rosenthal indicates that the link between ethnic identity and selfesteem are a function of the groups and the aspects of self-concept being studied. From these findings, it is difficult to sustain a simple model of ethnic identity development. All the identity stage models (Atkinson et al, 1983; Helms, 1990; Phinney, 1993) discussed in this section, however, conceptualize identity formation in an all-or-none fashion and rather than capturing

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a multi-faceted process, tend to oversimplify the complex nature of developing identity for ethnic minority individuals. Developmental stage models continue to proliferate in multicultural literature, but as Myers et al. (1991) suggest, these models partition individuals into categories of identity (i.e., race, minority, and ethnicity). That is, all the identity models discussed in this section categorize individuals within one sphere without considering the interrelatedness of multiple sources of oppression (e.g., race, culture, gender, class, etc.) individuals experience in the real world. The importance of understanding an individual’s richness and the complex nature of reality is most aptly articulated by Speight et al. (1991) in the following statement: The current approach to multiculturalism has focused almost exclusively on the culturally specific sphere. Conversely, the recent transcendental movement (e.g., Fukuyama, 1990) has focused on the universality sphere. The emphasis on one sphere or another is an understandable attempt to simplify and untangle the complex blending of influences on individuals. It is the complexity, the interrelatedness of the three broadly defined spheres (Cox’s (1982)) tripartite model of worldview in which cultural specificity, individual uniqueness, and human universality interact to influence individuals), however, that is most illuminating. . . . Although the unique contribution of each of the three spheres is important, only in combination can they begin to capture the richness of individuals (p. 32).

Acculturation As a way to refine and go beyond categorizing people based on race and ethnicity, scholars have turned to the concept of acculturation to study intragroup variations (Clark and Hofsess, 1998). Unlike a single description of racial/ethnic identity, acculturation is a much broader measure, which assesses individual differences in a worldview that are attributed to culture (Choney et al., 1995). However, because acculturation is a complex fluid process, it is also one of the most difficult constructs to conceptualize and measure. According to Berry (1980), acculturation as a construct appeared in the social sciences as early as 1880. The definition of acculturation which remains generally accepted today was put forth by Redfield, Linton, and Herskovitz (1936): “Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups” (p. 149 cited in Berry, 1980). Since the

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concept originated in anthropology, acculturation has been treated most often as a collective or group-level phenomenon, which includes changes in economic, political, cultural, and social structures (Berry, 1990). The phenomenon at an individual level has also been recognized as Padilla (1980) indicates, “The individual has become important in the study of acculturation because we now fully recognize that the individual is crucial in whatever change occurs through contact between differing cultural orientations” (p. 2). While the term “psychological acculturation” (Graves, 1967 cited in Berry, 1980) has been used to refer to a change taking place at the individual level, Berry proposed that individuals undergo a process of change in at least six areas of psychological functioning—language, cognitive styles, personalities, identity, attitudes, and acculturative stress. A review of recent literature shows that some scholars view the two subprocesses of culture change (sometimes noted as ethnic change) to be: (1) acculturation—a force that propels individuals toward new roots or the acquisition of the new host society’s cultural traits and (2) ethnic identification—a force that binds individuals to their old roots or the maintenance of the original heritage’s culture (Keefe & Padilla, 1987; LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton, 1993; Laroche, Kim, Hui, 1997). This distinction between the acquisition of new cultural traits and the maintenance of old is helpful, but it leads to at least two definitional complications. First, by defining acculturation as narrowly as adopting the host society’s culture, it equates acculturation with assimilation. Assimilation is commonly characterized as the process of “Americanization” or “becoming American-like” (LaFromboise et al, 1993; Laroche et al., 1997) which is considered one of many options or strategies of acculturation (as will be discussed later under the models of acculturation section). Secondly, by conceptualizing ethnic identification as maintenance of old cultural traits, it runs into the problem of defining the term too broadly combining cultural characteristics with a component of social identity or group membership. As discussed in the previous section, for the purpose of conceptual clarity, it is better to consider ethnic identification as an aspect of social identity and keep it separate from cultural components. In this way, the concept of acculturation has been applied in a narrower sense to mean change primarily within immigrant or ethnic minority groups becoming more like the dominant majority group (Keefe & Padilla, 1987). However, Berry (1997) states that the original meaning eroded and became synonymous with assimilation as the concept of acculturation was widely used. In 1954, similar to Redfield et al.’s definition, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) defined acculturation broadly as “culture change that is initiated by the conjunction of two or more

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autonomous cultural systems” (cited in Clark & Hofsess, 1998, p. 37). In both Redfield et al. and SSRC’s definition, there is no specification of the types or the direction of change. Thus, acculturation was originally conceived in a broad sense, encompassing both dimensions of the culture change process—the acquisition of new cultural traits and maintenance of the heritage culture (Berry, 1980, 1990, 1997; Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999). To reduce the confusion regarding the different ways in which acculturation is conceptualized in literature, the present author will adopt the term acculturation to refer to culture change in the broad sense and use the term assimilation to specifically indicate the unidirectional change of acquiring host cultural traits. Although the number of studies focusing on acculturation has accelerated in recent years by the changing demographics in the United States, Negy and Woods (1992) state in their review that surprisingly only a few theories or models attempt to explain the complex process of acculturation. Earlier models tended to focus on assimilation, which view the process of culture change as linear and unidirectional, while later works shifted to acculturation, which treat culture change as a more complex process with multiple choices and outcomes. Each model is based on a different set of assumptions and focus on different outcomes for the individual, which will be discussed below beginning with the earlier to the more recent conceptualizations. Assimilation model. The earliest model of culture change was based on the concept of assimilation, which assumed an ongoing process of absorption into the culture that is perceived as dominant or more desirable (Chung, 1996; Keefe & Padilla, 1987; LaFromboise et al., 1993, Leong & Chou, 1994). Thus, assimilation tends to view the process of culture change produced by contact as linear and unidirectional and assumes the individual will lose his or her original heritage culture while acquiring new host cultural traits. This model dates back to “the melting pot” idea (Gordon, 1978 cited in Mills-Evers, 1988), which encouraged individuals to lose their old identity and become indistinguishable from the dominant culture. It suggested that an individual who has not found acceptance in the new culture would suffer from a sense of alienation, isolation, and stress (LaFromboise et al., 1993). The concept of the “marginal man” (Park, 1928 cited in Atkinson & Thompson, 1992) who is caught between two cultures has also been introduced, but this view is questioned because some individuals function well in a dual or plural cultural setting and psychological problems associated with acculturation may be the result of discrimination rather than cultural conflict. In fact, Keefe and Padilla (1987) point out that while “acculturation is the loss of traditional cultural traits and the acceptance of new cultural

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traits . . . assimilation is the social, economic, and political integration of an ethnic minority group into mainstream society” (p. 6). These authors argue that not only are the two concepts different, but that acculturation does not always lead to assimilation as indicated by their findings even though there is a considerable increase in social interaction with Anglo Americans between first- and second-generation Mexican Americans. For example, Such contact occurs primarily in the formal spheres of work, school, and public life, while more intimate social life within the home and family tends to be ethnically enclosed. . . . We found considerable evidence that ethnic group boundaries are strongly entrenched and pervasive, with Anglos and Chicanos interacting mostly with friends, neighbors, and coworkers of their own ethnic group, despite the fact that they tend to live and work in ethnically mixed places. . . . While social assimilation, in formal spheres at least, increases from the first to the second generation, it tends to level off thereafter. Economic assimilation proceeds similarly (pp. 7–8).

Likewise, they conclude that acculturation does not follow a gradual, consistent course, but goes through an initial burst of “Americanization” proceeded by a long process of settling into an ethnic community. Bipolar model. According to Phinney (1990), the bipolar model is one of the acculturative frameworks, which have guided the thinking regarding the identity of ethnic minorities in literature. Because acculturation is conceptualized along a single linear continuum with individuals moving from culture of origin to dominant culture, this model is also unidimensional. However, unlike the assimilation model which encourages the rejection of the old “inferior” culture of origin for the new “superior” American culture, this model is bidirectional in that the two cultures are thought of as equally desirable options (Chung, 1996). Because this model conceives biculturality in the middle between the two polarities, it creates an either-or dynamic and movement toward one culture comes at the expense of the other. The Suinn-Lew Asian Self-Identity Acculturation Scale (SL-ASIA; Suinn et al., 1987), the most cited measure of acculturation for the Asian American group, is based on the bipolar model. Although this scale assesses multiple domains of language, identity, friendship choice, behaviors, generation/geographic history, and attitudes, because they are combined into one overall acculturation score, it is considered unidimensional. The item-averaged total score represents three groups of acculturation: low (“Asian-identified”), medium (“bicultural”), and high (“Western-identified” or “assimilated”). One of the major limitations of this scale is that bicultural

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is equated with medium acculturation or being “half and half” and complete identity or cultural fluency with more than one culture is not possible. Leong and Chou (1994) note other problems with this measure which include: “the scale does not separate each of the Asian American groups, does not measure all possible dimensions of acculturation, and may fail to identify different types of situational behaviors (p. 159).” According to Leong and Chou (1994), SL-ASIA is based on the operationalization of Sue and Sue’s (1973) bicultural, sometimes called transcultural, model which is a tripartite typology of Chinese American personality: the traditionalist (strong internalization of Chinese values), marginal man (strong identification with Western society), and the Asian American (bicultural). Although this theory also conceptualizes two cultures on a single continuum, it is different from the bipolar model in that biculturality is not thought of as a midway point between two cultural poles but a new identity formed by a unique synthesis of two cultures, suggesting an alternative path between the end points (Chung, 1996; Oetting and Beauvais, 1991). Chung, however, questions whether an integration of disparate cultures is possible given how many of the values and behaviors are often mutually exclusive. On the other hand, some scholars (Garza & Gallegos, 1985; Keefe & Padilla, 1987) point out that in addition to containing qualities found in either of the two distinct cultural groups, hybrid characteristics atypical of either parent culture have been known to produce a new and separate identity as “Chicano,” Jewish Americans, and Polish Americans in the United States which seems to support Sue and Sue’s early concept of biculturalism. Multidimensional model. This model conceptualizes the culture change in multiple dimensions, but it is based on the same linear assumptions that each dimension is still linear (Chung, 1996; Oetting & Beauvais, 1991). Although both cultures are valued and there is less of an assumption that one culture will dominate, the individual is still placed on a continuum between two cultures. Berry’s (1980, 1990) typology of acculturation options is basically considered a multidimensional model (Sodowsky, Lai & Plake, 1991). Using dichotomous “yes” or “no” answers to assess two dimensions—“Is my cultural identity of value and to be retained?” and “Are positive relations with the larger (dominant) society to be sought?” (p. 13), he identified four varieties or strategies of acculturation: (1) assimilation—relatively exclusive involvement in the dominant society, (2) integration—high levels of involvement in both cultures (3) rejection/separation—relatively exclusive involvement in the culture of origin, and (4) deculturation/marginalization—rejection of both cultures. Thus, Berry’s conceptualization of acculturation is mainly taxonomic

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which outlines four acculturation outcomes (Schonpflug, 1997). Elaborating on this point further, Leong and Chou (1994) state that although Berry’s two-dimensional model is called an acculturation model, it deals more with cultural identity in that his model focuses more on outcomes than the acculturation process: These outcomes are cultural or ethnic identity statuses in the same sense as Marcia’s (1967) Foreclosure and Moratorium. Berry’s (1980) model provides more information about these acculturation outcomes (more appropriately, cultural identity statuses) than about the actual process of acculturation itself. The model is silent regarding issues such as why some individuals develop negative views of their own culture while others develop negative views of their host culture, and the factors that influence the divergent paths that lead to different outcomes (p. 163).

Berry’s model could also be considered a two-culture matrix because the two cultural systems are treated independently as separate axis forming a matrix (Keefe & Padilla, 1987). In this model, the “integration” strategy best fits the bicultural category (1997) which allows individual variation in acceptance of both culture of origin and new culture. Even though this conceptualization of acculturation is moving in the right direction, it still locates an individual in a particular box rather than inhabiting different boxes in relation to different traits or settings (Clark & Hofsess, 1998). In other words, this model still conceives acculturation in terms of “fixed dimensions” along which individuals move during the process of culture change (Horenczyk, 1997). However, according to Keefe and Padilla, selective acculturation best describes a common tendency among immigrants and ethnic minorities who adopt certain strategic traits, especially those likely to improve their economic status such as learning the language of the dominant culture, while retaining other traditional cultural values and patterns (e.g., child-rearing practices, family organization, native foods, and music preferences). Thus, based on selective acculturation, Keefe and Padilla developed a multidimensional model, which conceptualized culture change along the dimensions of acculturation (cultural awareness) and ethnic identification (ethnic loyalty). This model recognizes that the acquisition of new cultural traits and the relinquishing of traditional traits vary from trait to trait such that an individual can adopt new values and customs while simultaneously retaining some traditional values and customs. While measuring each aspect of culture change independently, this model also does not assume that a

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bicultural individual is highly adept in both cultures but rather selectively adopts certain new traits while maintaining other traditional traits. In their research, Keefe and Padilla found that not only were the dimensions of cultural awareness and ethnic loyalty empirically supported, but a third independent process called ethnic social orientation which deals with aspects of social assimilation also contributes to culture change. Examining these three dimensions, they found that although cultural awareness continued to decrease from generation to generation, ethnic social orientation leveled off after the second generation while ethnic loyalty decreased only nominally from first to second generation and remained constant thereafter. In other words, while an individual’s ethnic loyalty may remain at an unacculturated level, the other two factors can be at an acculturated level. Therefore, based on their findings these authors conclude: Our data . . . call for a neo-pluralism model that can accommodate concurrent states of change and continuity, integration and pluralism, in ethnicity. This model would require thinking in terms of a multitude of dimensions, with the possibility of change occurring in each dimension at a different rate and possessing the potential of moving in more than one direction (p. 191).

Orthogonal model. Finally, the orthogonal model proposed by Oetting and Beauvais (1991) is also multidimensional, but it is different from the previous models in that it treats identification with any culture independently of each other, rather than placing the two cultures on a single linear continuum. Therefore, each culture is conceptualized as occupying a separate space while intersecting other cultures at right angles to each other such that it does not limit the comparison to two cultures but allows multiple cultures to intersect. So an individual can identify high or low with any culture, independent of the level of identification with any other culture. Thus, this model conceptualizes biculturality as having a strong independent identification with both cultures and movement toward one culture does not subtract from the other. In this model, the intersection of the culture of origin and Anglo culture results in four types of cultural identifications: (1) acculturated—high on the Anglo culture but low on the culture of origin, (2) bicultural—high on both cultural dimensions (3) traditional—high on the culture of origin but low on the Anglo culture, and (4) marginal—low on both cultural dimensions. In this way, similar to Berry’s (1980, 1990) model, Oetting and Beauvais’ model focuses more on outcomes or cultural identity statuses than the actual process of acculturation. Although their orthogonal model

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adds further sophistication and complexity to the conceptualization of culture change, it does not address how an individual acculturates and what processes account for incorporating/resisting new cultural traits and retaining/losing the traditional cultural traits. More work is needed in this area, which incorporates aspects of both the person and situation so that it can lead to clearer identification of the factors influencing the individual’s choice to retain or relinquish culture and their subsequent impact on behavior (Garza & Gallegos, 1985). Like other multidimensional models (Berry, 1980, 1990; Keefe & Padilla, 1987), Oetting and Beauvais’ model is based on the multicultural or pluralistic view of society. This assumption is clearly reflected in their orthogonal model in that not only are many kinds of cultural identifications possible, but they can also exist within an individual without conflict. In fact, the authors contend that “any pattern, any combination of cultural identification, can exist and that any movement or change is possible” (p. 662). However, Chung (1996) suggests, an inherent danger of this model is that an individual may become too flexible and situational to the point that any sense of cohesive self may be lacking. Further, Noels et al.’s (1996) study found that when people are asked specifically how they feel at a particular moment, individuals are constrained to claim membership in only one or the other group, but not both simultaneously. Thus, while a multicultural person needs to be fluid and open to the myriad of stimuli she encounters in the world, she must also retain the central sense of self and may not be as pliable as Oetting and Beauvais suggest. Often implicit in the multicultural perspective is the assumption that the bicultural status or integration leads to optimal psychological health. Kagitcibasi (1997) succinctly states that “[m]ulticulturalism as a social/political ideal is based on the concept of integration” (p. 45). Not surprisingly, many studies have tried to show that bicultural identification is correlated with less stress, higher self-esteem, higher cognitive and emotional functioning, and overall psychological well-being (Berry, 1980, 1990, 1997; LaFromboise et al., 1993; Phinney, 1990). Although Berry has indicated that integration (bicultural) as an acculturation strategy leads to the most successful adaptation, Ward and Rana-Deuba (1999) found that psychological well-being is associated with the identification to the culture of origin (separation) and that sociocultural adaptation is linked to the host national identification (assimilation). Oetting and Beauvais, on the other hand, suggest that a strong cultural identification is related to the psychological adjustment, but “identification with any culture may serve as a source of personal and social strength” (p. 678).

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However, Keefe and Padilla (1987) note their interviews with individuals illustrate that biculturality is not as ideal as some social scientists have portrayed, but rather involve many difficult decisions, conflicts, and turmoil. In fact, Choney et al. (1995) suggest, “When thinking about the effects of acculturation, researchers should avoid making value judgments about the health status of any particular level of cultural response. All levels may be ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’ depending on the situational context in which they are offered” (p. 88). Moyerman and Forman’s (1992) metaanalysis of acculturation and adjustment studies indicate that acculturation measures with a wide array of psychometric properties have been applied to various adjustment contexts and that “the most notable aspect of the results is that there does not appear to be a consistent unidirectional effect of acculturation on adjustment” (p. 177). Similar conclusions have been drawn by other reviewers (Moyerman & Forman, 1992; Negy & Woods, 1992; Phinney, 1990; Sodowsky et al., 1991). Finally, one area which Oetting and Beauvais has examined extensively is the role of cultural identification on substance use (1991; Oetting, Donnermeyer, Trimble, & Beauvais, 1998). In their years of research in this area, they found that the strength of a person’s cultural identification does not predict his or her conformance to the culture’s drug-use norms. Thus, they conclude “there are no simple relationships between drug use and cultural identification and in order to relate cultural identification to behaviors such as drug use, we will have to examine specific subgroups and take local cultural content and other environmental situations into account” (Oetting & Beauvais, 1991, p. 678). Therefore, their studies on cultural identification suggest social behavior is not determined by any one component, but rather influenced by a continuous interaction among individual, family, multicultural, and socio-ecological factors. Garza and Gallegos’ (1985) comments regarding individuals and the environment provide further insight as to why inconsistent findings are common in this area of research on cultural identity and acculturation: The environment does not impact on individuals uniformly but rather scatters its effects differentially. The environment consists of a much richer texture than mere hard and fast, one-to-one relations. As such, it is inappropriate to conclude that a particular cultural environment automatically produces certain behaviors. Brunswik (1952) criticized psychologist for not only restricting themselves to simplistic models of man but also for proposing simplistic models of the environment. If Chicano or Hispanic psychology is to avoid these same pitfalls, we must accept the irregularities inherent in both person and situation and

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According to Lazarus (1997), “Individual differences greatly complicate the acculturation framework and force us to look at how macrosocial factors, such as cultural values, get incorporated into the psychological make-up of individuals growing up within that society (p. 39).” Because each ethnic group is fractured, transitory, and diverse, it is impossible to generalize the phenomenon of culture change to the entire population. The current discussion of acculturation needs to include immigrants and bicultural individuals as “actors” who live and interpret their own reality while considering the specificity that changing cultures takes on in different contexts and situations (Pick, 1997). Interestingly, Schonpflug (1997) suggests that an alternative way to view acculturation is to conceptualize it as a migration-induced, life-long process of individual development. Because culture constructs the normative frame for development, it imposes constraints on the possible ways changes may take place. For the individual living in the dual cultural context, the intragroup and intergroup relations provide the support as well as the challenge for the reconstruction of self and identity development. Studying individuals undergoing acculturation will lend insight into the psychological dynamics involved in acculturation and will reveal how people adapt and cope with their environment. Finally, it is important to note that although various racial, ethnic, and cultural identity development models have been put forth in counseling psychology literature, no model, to date, has specifically addressed concerns of ethnic minority women in general and Korean American women in particular. This is surprising given the fact that gender is one of the areas of diversity considered under multicultural counseling. Ethnic minority women face special challenges of not only needing to develop their identity in lieu of racial and cultural issues, but also having to navigate their identity in the midst of various, often contradictory, gender relations. In fact, for ethnic minority women, the cultural conflict seems to play out most clearly in the gender arena. In order to fill the gap in this area in the next chapter, the present author will examine other social science literature, namely from sociology, anthropology, and East Asian studies to provide some background understanding of issues faced specifically by Korean immigrant women and families living in the United States.

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Korean American Women’s Identity

The problem of overlooking human variability and agency is not limited to multicultural counseling literature but is much more endemic to the social sciences in general. Since Erikson (1959) popularized the concept of “life cycle” and “identity,” many social scientists have attempted to theorize about adult development in terms of predictable stages (Gould, 1980; Gutmann, 1987; Levinson, 1978). Some psychologists (Gergen, 1982; Mahoney, 1991; Polkinghorne, 1991), however, have been pointing out that these efforts to account for stability and ordered change in human lives have been largely unsuccessful because people possess a multiplicity of potentially contradictory concepts of self. This view is supported by recent discoveries in cognitive science, which suggest that we have no single, monolithic, consistent way of structuring our inner lives but have a system of different metaphoric conceptions of our internal structure (Lakoff & Johnson, 1999).

IDENTITY AND NARRATIVE In spite of the variability inherent in human beings, psychology as a discipline has adopted the natural science approach developed to measure invariant physical objects (Polkinghorne, 1991). As a result, psychology in general and the studies of self in particular have been severely limited to quantitative methods designed for mapping out “a mathematical pattern of relationship among predefined categories and analyzing the comparative instances within those categories” (p. 181). Human lives, however, are much too complex for a typological approach. Polkinghorne and Gribbons (1998) suggest that “human actions, unlike physical objects, cannot be understood simply by examining their relationship to observable variables,” but the individual’s reasons and motivations for the action must be considered (p. 115). Thus, if human science is to respect the wealth and variety of human life and understand how people interpret various occurrences in their lives, 27

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Polkinghorne (1983) suggests that an alternative paradigm intended for the study of the human realm is needed. Specifically, he proposes that the narrative is a way we can understand human actions, events, and happenings (Polkinghorne, 1988). It assumes that reality is constructed by individuals interacting with their social worlds and is interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed about their sense of the world and their experiences. The narrative form is particularly suitable in situations in which: (1) it is difficult to separate the phenomenon’s variables from their context because they are so embedded in the situation, and (2) it is important to understand the process to discover context characteristics that will shed light on an issue or object. Because the narrative account focuses on understanding social situations in their context without previously defined parameters, it is particularly appropriate for examining multiple and complex issues in cross-cultural settings. Of the two ways in which human beings understand the world—paradigmatic and narrative, the psychologist Jerome Bruner (1990) also indicates that the narrative mode is meant to explain human events. The paradigmatic mode of thought, which relies on tightly reasoned analyses, logical proof, and empirical observation to comprehend experience, is unable to make much sense of human intentions and ambiguities in spite of all its precision. The narrative mode of thought, on the other hand, naturally seeks to understand human desires, needs, and goals in terms of stories and, hence, is better suited to explain human actions and motivations. Expanding on this view, McAdams (1993) adds that human experience is storied because people tend to understand human actions as organized in time and comprehended time in terms of stories: When we comprehend our actions over time, we see what we do in terms of a story. We see obstacles confronted, and intentions realized and frustrated over time. As we move forward from yesterday to today to tomorrow, we move through tensions building to climaxes, climaxes giving way to denouements, and tensions building again as we continue to move and change. Human time is a storied affair (p. 30).

Because the experience of self is organized along the temporal dimension and human beings tend to comprehend time in terms of stories, Polkinghorne (1988) proposes that the narrative is the main way in which people form meaning and personal identity. He explains, “We achieve our personal identities and self concept through the use of the narrative configuration, and make our existence into a whole by understanding it as an expression of a single unfolding and developing story” (p. 150). In fact, he

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suggests being human is all about “meaning-generating activity” where an ongoing sequence of events are linked together through a plot to form a single, meaningful and coherent life story. Thus, he states, “the self is a concept defined as the expressive process of human existence, whose form is narrativity” (p. 151). McAdams (1993) shares a similar view that each of us comes to know who we are by creating an heroic story of the self. He states: We each seek to provide our scattered and often confusing experiences with a sense of coherence by arranging the episodes of our lives into stories. This is not the stuff of delusion or self-deception. We are not telling ourselves lies. Rather, through our personal myths, each of us discovers what is true and what is meaningful in life. In order to live well, with unity and purpose, we compose a heroic narrative of the self that illustrates essential truths about ourselves (p. 11).

He calls this special story people develop to form their identity a “personal myth” which “each of us naturally constructs to bring together the different parts of ourselves and our lives into a purposeful and convincing whole” (p. 12). This “myth,” he indicates, is a psychological structure inside the mind, which evolves slowly over time and infuses life with unity and purpose. Storytellers by nature, he believes, we are born with a “narrating mind” designed to gather material to form the story from birth. According to McAdams (1993), the personal myth develops from infancy to old age. The kinds of experiences we have in the first two years of life affect the narrative tone of our story—a set of unconscious and nonverbal “attitudes” about self and the world—which comes to shape our expectations about life and myth. In early childhood (i.e., preschool years), people begin to generate and collect the images, which become the raw material for the personal myth that will be created in the adult years. The imagery and the narrative tone from childhood, he notes, together “shape our understanding of who we are and how we fit into the adult world” (McAdams, 1993, p. 65). Next, in late childhood (i.e., elementary-school years), children begin to develop a story theme and are able to see “how human behavior—in stories and in life—is organized by internal intentions played out over time” (McAdams, 1993, p. 67). Two primary themes of human motivation, according to McAdams, are agency (i.e., strivings for power, autonomy, independence, status, and rich experiences) and communion (i.e., strivings for love, intimacy, interdependence, acceptance, and interpersonal experiences). During adolescence, we begin to think of our own life in terms of a

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story and, hence, develop an identity for the first time. A central issue during the teenage years is formulating a person’s ideology, which “provides a backdrop of belief and value upon which the plot of his or her particular life story can unfold” (McAdams, 1993, p. 67). McAdams explains, “Ideology concerns questions of goodness and truth. In order to know who I am, I must first decide what I believe to be true and good, false and evil about the world in which I live” (p. 81). From adolescence onward, McAdams (1993) indicates the formation and reformation of identity remains the central psychosocial task of the adult years. In fact, he believes adulthood is all about making life into myth. In the twenties and thirties, young adults must make provisional commitments and consolidate many roles. He suggests that creating and refining the main characters or imagoes, which pull together different social roles and other divergent aspects of the self, are challenges faced by young adults. Finally, adults in the middle years (i.e., forties and fifties) must reassess and revise their life story in ways that their identity becomes more integrative with a sense of unity and purpose. Therefore, McAdams believes that a mature life story or a “good” personal myth must contain the following six qualities: (1) coherence, (2) openness (i.e., tolerates ambiguity, flexible and resilient), (3) credibility, (4) differentiation (i.e., richer, deeper, and more complex characterization, plot, and theme), (5) reconciliation, and (6) generative integration (i.e., integrating the mythmaker into society in a generative way).

RAW MATERIAL: TRADITIONAL IMAGES OF KOREAN WOMEN According to McAdams (1993), “identity is something of collaboration between the person and the social world. The two are together responsible for the life story” (p. 95). One area where society plays a powerful role in the individual’s identity development process is the making of images. Imagery, which is gathered in early childhood and serves as the raw material for forming a personal myth in adulthood, is largely obtained through culture. McAdams explains: Like our very identities, imagery is both discovered and made. To a certain extent, children, as well as adults, make their own images. But the nature of the making is strongly dependent on the available raw materials, and the raw materials are to be discovered in and through culture. Each culture provides its members with a vast but finite catalog of images. Every person is exposed to and draws upon parts of the catalog

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in a unique way. Therefore, every member of a culture is unique in some way, at least as far as his or her personal imagery is concerned. Still, differences between cultures can be considered, for even in their uniqueness members of one culture share common imagery and may, as a group, differ in important ways from members of a different culture (p. 60).

Thus, in order to understand Korean American women’s identity, it is critical to explore the common cultural imagery these women grew up with in Korea and/or in the Korean immigrant community in the U.S. Specifically, two powerful sources of imagery—family and religion—need to be carefully scrutinized to gain a better understanding of images that have molded Korean women’s life stories. Family Imagery Because family is the primary way cultural images are transmitted in childhood, McAdams (1993) suggests that family plays a major role in exposing and shaping many of the lasting images which are most often unconsciously incorporated into a person’s myth in their adult years. As the foundation of society, family is the basic building blocks from which more elaborate social structures arise. However, according to Connell (1987), family is not the simplest, but in reality one of the most complex social institutions in that, “in no other institution are relationships so extended in time, so intensive in contact, so dense in their interweaving of economics, emotion, power and resistance” (p. 121). In contemporary Korea, the Confucian view of social and family order which upholds the family-centered system is deeply etched in people’s consciousness and lifestyle (A. R. Kim, 1996). Because the establishment and maintenance of good order in the family was regarded as the primary means of safeguarding security and stability in society, a clear hierarchy between the sexes was believed to be imperative for the proper functioning of the human order (Deuchler, 1992). Just as heaven (yang) dominates earth (yin), male superiority and precedence over female was viewed as cosmologically sanctioned. Accordingly, during the Neo-Confucian transformation of Korea in the Yi dynasty (1392–1910), “the social principle, namjon yobi, ‘Men should be respected; women should be lowered,’ which was derived from the Confucian belief in hierarchy, functioned as the leading ethical principle, while hyonmo yangch’o (wise mother-good wife) became the motto for women’s role performance” (Kim, 1996, p. 6). Thus, the view that the law of nature accorded the woman in a subordinate, dependent position to a man was commonly accepted, and she was

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expected to follow the Rule of Three Obedience or samjong chidok (obedience to father, obedience to husband, and obedience to son) throughout her lifetime. According to Kim (1996), the direct consequence of the everyday practice of these Confucian gendered precepts was that Yi women developed “self-in-the-family” consciousness or collective identities with the men in their lives and families because that was the women’s primary means of survival and fulfillment. She explains: Role-performance elevated the image of a woman’s self. However, the self was other-oriented: a woman lived for men, children, and the family; she could not separate her own identity from those of their husbands and children. One could argue that their social selves became their subjective selves, their own “I”s, that they represented the patriarchy of the Yi society (p. 16).

The Neo-Confucian movement during the Choson dynasty, therefore, thoroughly indoctrinated the ascendance of family and familial solidarity over individual rights and interests. The idea of familism, which truly became the national ethic by the middle of the seventeenth century, remains strong in spite of modern Western influences, urbanization, and industrialization in Korea even today (Kim, 1996). Religious Imagery Religion is another important source of imagery which helps people form “implicit understandings of what is good and true and what their relation to an ultimate cosmos is” regardless of a child’s or a family’s religious background (McAdams, 1993, p. 61). Max Weber (1958) has well illustrated how religion shapes an individual’s consciousness, lifestyle, and identity in Western society. Korean women’s self and identity are also intimately linked with religion. Specifically, Shamanism has played a large role in Korean women’s consciousness and self-image in spite of its status historically as the “other” religion (Kim, 1996). Under the Neo-Confucian transformation of Korea during the Yi dynasty (1392–1910), Confucianism became the official state religion and women were removed from ritual duties as the ancestor worship was performed exclusively by men (Deuchler, 1992). Shamanism, which was the indigenous religion of Korea, on the other hand, became the religion of women and “just as shamans served as village priestesses, women in general functioned as household priestesses” (Kim, 1996, p. 23). During this period, women were prohibited from going outside of their private

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quarters, and the home functioned as the main Shamanistic sanctuary. A woman’s ritualistic worship of the house gods, known as kosa, in offering food and prayers on behalf of the family was believed to be intimately tied to the success or failure of that household. Through Shamanistic rituals and observances, the average woman’s self became identified with that of divinity or the spirits which molded the image of the “common woman into a ‘woman warrior,’ one who would by any and all means avail, stake out, defend, assert, and promote the wellbeing of her family” (Kim, 1996, p. 24). This was a powerful image of a woman, but it was basically rooted in the “inner quarters”—well within the ideal of dutifully serving the family. Even though Shamanism empowered a Korean woman to function as a “warrior-like” household priestess, it was still in the service of others, namely praying for protection and blessing for her family members. In this way, self-sacrifice became the core of a woman’s virtue since the Yi dynasty and her self was always directed towards others; she could not separate her own identity from those of her husband, children, and the family. Thus, Kim (1996) states, “Confucianism commanded and Shamanism reinforced women’s views of themselves as other-oriented and selfless beings who lived vicariously” for others (p. 24).

SETTING: TRADITIONAL CONFUCIAN IDEOLOGY According to McAdams (1993), a person’s ideology, which locates the personal myth within a particular ethical, religious, and epistemological “time and place,” functions as a “setting” for identity to develop in adolescence. He explains: In order to fashion a self-defining personal myth, each of us must also come to some implicit conclusions about the meaning of the world, so that our identities may be anchored by ideological truths. Furthermore, like identity, ideology is something with which we wrestle in a social context. The social environment in which we live and mature shapes the development of our basic beliefs and values (p. 84).

For example, in the western hemisphere, Protestant work ethics have been largely credited with shaping people’s thinking and behavior (Weber, 1958). Confucian teachings, in a like manner, have profoundly influenced the development of Korean people’s consciousness and lifestyles. In contemporary Korea, the family-centered Confucian ideology has done more to obscure women’s identity and development of self-consciousness than any other system of thought (Moon, 1998; Yoon, 1986).

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The traditional Confucian practices have similarly played a significant role in shaping the identity of Korean women living in America today. Studies on Korean immigrant families in the U.S. indicate that traditional Korean beliefs deeply rooted in Confucianism continues to be the single most influential force shaping family structure, gender roles, and marital relations in spite of greater exposure to Western egalitarian values (Lim, 1997; Min, 1998; Moon, 1998). In fact, Kibria (1993) suggests that immigrants typically draw on premigration family experiences and ideologies even as they adapt to the structural context of the new “host” society. Thus, in order to understand the forces that impact Korean American women’s life stories, it would first be helpful to examine the historical background prior to the post-1965 exodus of Korean migration to America. Next, a closer look at two areas in Korean immigrant women’s lives—Korean ethnic church and work—show how deeply Confucian ideology is entrenched in their everyday activities and, in turn, has molded their identity. Modernization of Korea and Women’s “Changing” Self In 1876, Korea was forced out of isolation by opening her harbors to Japan and a number of Western countries, and the Modernization Movement (Kaehwa Undong) was born (Y. C. Kim, 1986). Soon it became apparent that the participation of women, who represented half of the entire population, was essential to the new national agenda. However, Confucianism, which had thoroughly segregated and isolated women for centuries, posed an enormous obstacle in mobilizing this untapped resource. Thus, removal of the Confucian view of women became intimately tied to modernization as well as the women’s movement in Korea (Kim, 1986). When Christianity made its way into Korea at the turn of the century, it became a part of the effort to “enlighten” and “modernize” women (Kim, 1996). American missionaries established schools, hospitals, and orphanages and introduced modern ideas to a traditional Yi society. Schools set up by missionaries, for example, improved Korean women’s status by offering a rare opportunity for girls to receive an education and produced female leaders who pioneered positions previously off-limits to women. Caught up in the historical moment, then, Christianity was instrumental in expanding women’s involvement in the public sphere and generating new possibilities for women living in the modern era. According to Cho (1986), “the Japanese colonial period (1920–1945) and the past two decades since 1961 are the epoch-making periods in the history of Korean industrialization and of women’s labor force participation” (p. 151). However, in spite of an unprecedented economic expansion and a dramatic increase in women’s participation in the labor force,

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women’s roles and status did not change significantly. Analyzing the 1980 data on employment status of women and men, Cho (1986) points out: The increase in the absolute size and the female percentage in the labor force have been mainly due to the entrance of a large group of women into non-managerial positions and low paid or unpaid “women’s” work. This includes production and clerical labor in manufacturing and service industries of the advanced corporate sector and agricultural family labor (p.168).

The selective incorporation of women into the labor market, which masks or marginalizes women’s economic contribution, is not a uniquely Korean phenomenon. Marxist feminist scholars have argued that the reduced importance accorded to women’s work under the pressures of commercialization and proto-industrialization is a central factor in the consolidation of patriarchy around the world (Connell, 1987). In Korea, modernization and Westernization appear to have tempered gender inequality somewhat, but traditional ideologies legitimating the subordination of women and the dominance of men in economic and social institutions persist in urban middle-class life. Korean Immigrant Community and Christianity In the early part of 1900, Christian missionaries were also actively involved in the first wave of Korean migration to the U.S. (Hurh & Kim, 1984). These early immigrants formed Christian churches, which became the social center of the Korean American community in the absence of other organizations that provided social functions. Generally, scholars divide the history of Korean immigration to the U.S. into three distinct phases or waves: (1) the early immigrants predominantly comprised of male laborers from rural areas of Korea to the Hawaiian islands (1903–1905) and their “picture brides” (Korean women brought to the U.S. by marriages arranged through the exchange of pictures) who followed (1910–1924); (2) the post-Korean War immigrants (1951–1964) made up of young Korean women married to American servicemen, war orphans adopted by American families, and a small number of students and professional workers; and (3) the large wave of the urban, middle-class, “family immigration,” following the passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which abolished discriminatory quotas based on racial or national origin (Hur, 1998; Hurh & Kim, 1984). Thus, even though Korean immigration history in America dates back over one hundred years, the Korean American community was almost

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negligible in terms of its population size before 1965 (Song & Moon, 1998). However, the unprecedented, liberal American immigration policy dramatically altered the composition of the Korean American community in that the “new immigrants” who came since this era make up more than two-thirds of Koreans in the United States. While the new immigration law stimulated or “pulled” a heavy influx of new arrivals, the prospect of a higher standard of living and a better educational opportunity for the children in the United States provided major incentives or “push” for the mass migration. Particularly for Korean immigrant families who came to this country in the 1970s, the economic opportunity was a huge motivator, since the standard of living in the United States was approximately ten times as high as that of South Korea during this time period (Min & Song, 1998). It is also important to note that the third wave of Koreans is very distinct from the earlier groups of immigrants in that the majority of them were college educated and held white-collar occupations prior to their emigration from largely urban areas of Korea. This allowed the first generation Koreans easy access to suburban areas, which traditionally was possible only for the American-born, the second and third generation Chinese and Japanese Americans (Hurh, 1993). In addition, many of the third-wave of Koreans immigrated to the U.S. with their family members, especially young children. This is one of the reasons why the colloquial term “1.5 generation” uniquely emerged only in the Korean immigrant community in the last decade (Hurh, 1993). Typically, the children of this third wave of Korean immigrants are divided into two generational categories: (1) the second generation Korean-Americans, which are children of Korean immigrants who were born and raised in the United States, and (2) the 1.5 generation Korean-Americans, which are children of Korean immigrants who were born in Korea and later immigrated to the United States with their parents. Delineating the timing of immigration for the 1.5 generation is not clear, falling anywhere from coming to the U.S. in the early years (pre-school ages or elementary school ages) to the early or middle adolescences (generally between ages of 11 and 16) (Kwon & Kim, 1993). While there is little consensus about its definition or the concept, the 1.5 generation is receiving increased attention in the Korean community as their bicultural identity is recognized as either a potential asset, extracting the best of two worlds (i.e., Korean and American) or a liability, facing “existential limbo” (Hurh, 1993), being marginalized and belonging anywhere. Finally, in spite of the radical reconfiguration of the Korean immigrant community since 1965, Christian churches have remained the most important social and cultural center for Koreans in America. This is evident

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in the data released from the 1985 National Bureau of Statistics, which revealed that while only 21 percent of the national population is affiliated with Christianity in Korea, 70 to 80 percent of Korean immigrants are affiliated with Korean ethnic churches in the U.S. (Hurh & Kim, 1990). However, unlike the first Christian missionaries’ attempt to enlighten individual Korean women, churches in the Korean immigrant community have tended to preserve and reinforce traditional Korean values. In fact, Kim (1996) states that women’s roles and status in the church are currently similar to those they were forced to assume under Confucianism during the Yi period. It is still very rare for women to hold any leadership positions within the church, and the only acceptable roles women are allowed to play are those of assistants to men. Thus, the Korean ethnic church as a social institution has only continued to validate the traditional image of women’s subordination to men and self-sacrifice in caring for and serving others. It is questionable, however, whether the next generation of Korean American women, raised and educated in the U.S. with exposure to American individualism and independence, will continue to submit to the traditional image of “other-oriented, selfless self” or not. Korean Immigrant Women and Work in the U.S. Juggling two very different cultures and social situations, Korean immigrant women are faced with rapid changes and many contradictions and ambiguities in their lives. For instance, one study concentrating on the Chicago area found that although most post-1965 Korean American immigrant women expressed traditional gender role orientation, “virtually all of the young and middle-aged wives were working outside home” (Kim & Kim, 1998, p. 104). This is quite unusual in that women in Korea are typically expected to leave the work force once they are married in order to fulfill their traditional role of being full-time homemakers. Interestingly, a study on pre-departure employment orientation found that a high proportion of Korean wives (80%) expressed that they would be economically active in the United States even though they were full-time housewives prior to migration (Kim & Kim, 1998). These Korean women anticipated that they must work alongside their husbands in America in order to achieve a lifestyle consistent with their pre-immigration middleclass background. The actual labor force participation show 56 percent of married Korean immigrant women in the U.S. work outside the home, as opposed to only 20 percent in South Korea (Chang & Moon, 1998). The marked increase in female labor participation among immigrants is generally due to the fact that women’s employment outside the home is indispensable for family survival. When men of color immigrate to the U.S., their

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economic contributions decline significantly; so, their wives’ earnings are crucial in making up the income discrepancies (Espiritu, 1997; HondagneuSotelo, 1994; Kibria, 1993). In order to overcome labor market barriers such as racial discrimination and underemployment, many Korean immigrants have engaged in small-businesses (Chang & Moon, 1998). Because of limited capital and skills, most Korean American businesses tend to be concentrated in highly competitive, marginally profitable, and labor-intensive operations which generate profits directly from the family’s labor and staying open long hours. A number of studies on Korean ethnic entrepreneurship found that women are crucial to starting and maintaining small family businesses because their availability and willingness to work long hours as unpaid workers are major factors in achieving economic success in America (Chang & Moon, 1998; Min, 1998). Nevertheless, according to Lim (1997), the majority of Korean smallbusiness couples interviewed regarded wives’ employment as a responsibility for the family or a “system of coexistence” to secure food, shelter, clothes, and education for their children, rather than a direct expression of marital equality. Such a view of women and work arise from the Confucian womanly virtue, hyonmo yangch’o, which prescribes that a good wife and mother, as a partner in a household economy, should work diligently alongside her husband for the welfare of the whole family. The wife’s hard work, then, is perceived as a duty to her family, rather than an expression of an individual right or accomplishment. Moreover, because of an ideology of family collectivism, Espiritu (1997) points out “most Asian American women, like other women of color, do not separate paid work and housework. Their work outside the home is an extension of their domestic responsibilities, as all family members—women, men, and children—pool their resources to ensure economic subsistence or to propel the family up the economic ladder” (p. 10). Therefore, although migration to the U.S. has resulted in the “shrinking gap” between the level of men’s and women’s relative control of societal resources, this shift did not lead to a radical transformation of women’s consciousness or restructuring of gender relations in the home (Kibria, 1993). In fact, Lim (1997) indicates, “Although they [Korean immigrant wives] try to check their husbands’ monopoly at home, they do not intend to subvert the traditional sense of marital hierarchy itself. They believe that the authority of men as family heads should remain unchallenged for the family order” (p. 40). Thus, Korean immigrant wives seem to be actively limiting their attempts to change unequal marital relations and are employing what Kandiyoti (1988) calls a “patriarchal bargain” to

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preserve the traditional family structure through their submissiveness and propriety in exchange for economic security and protection in a harsh, competitive new environment. Again, however, it is questionable whether the same strategy will be adopted by the next generation of Korean American women (i.e., 1.5 and 2nd) who have received their education in the U.S. mostly with professional aspirations and who can obtain greater social and economic opportunities than their first generation mothers before them.

MAIN CHARACTERS: CHALLENGES FOR KOREAN AMERICAN WOMEN Although Erikson (1959) was influential in introducing the concept of development throughout one’s life span, he limited the task of identity formation to late adolescence and young adulthood stage. However, McAdams (1993) believes that Erikson’s “subsequent developmental stages—‘intimacy’ and ‘generativity’—are best understood as identity concerns” and only in the last stage, “ego integrity vs. despair,” identity issues finally recede to the background (p. 95). Thus, he states, “once an individual realizes that he or she is responsible for defining the self, the issue of self-definition remains a preoccupation through most of the adult years” (pp. 95–96). Mahoney (1991) similarly suggests that personal identity is one of the core-ordering processes or basic themes, which is at the heart of every person’s lifelong effort to organize and reorganize their experiences. The formation and reformation of identity, then, is the central task of the adult years. According to McAdams (1993), during early adulthood (twenties and thirties), identity challenges us to construct a personal myth where the different aspects of our selves or the multiple social roles we assume in our daily life are consolidated and refined through the main characters or imagoes in our story. And, in middle adulthood (forties and fifties), we need to revise our life story in ways that reconcile and integrate the conflict in our identities, giving us a sense of unity and purpose. Both of these tasks, I believe, are particularly challenging for Korean American women who must bring together two different, often conflicting worlds of values and lifestyles into one body, one identity, one story. Creating Main Characters Adults in their twenties and thirties must make provisional commitments and consolidate their roles within the social realms of family and work. However, McAdams (1993) indicates that work and family life began to split as a result of the industrial revolution and urbanization in America during

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the nineteenth century. In turn, adults were forced to craft their identities to accommodate the dualism of modern life and develop two very different ways of being. For women, juggling the public world of work and the private world of family becomes especially problematic in their thirties as they start families and stereotypically adopt the caregiver role (Gutmann, 1987). For most Korean American women, the split between work in mainstream America and traditional Korean family life is even greater and fraught with many ambiguities and contradictions. No matter how complex, McAdams (1993) states that all of us ultimately seek to be one thing—a single story for a single life—because “one cannot and must not be everything to everybody at every place and time” (p. 122). He goes on to suggest that the problem of simultaneously being “the many and the one” is resolved by creating a personal myth that contains a rich but finite source of characters (i.e., many characters, one story). He calls the characters that dominate our life stories imagoes, which offers a way to integrate various social roles and different aspects of our selves: Imagoes provide a narrative mechanism for accommodating the diversity of modern life. In seeking pattern and organization for identity, the person in the early adult years psychologically pulls together social roles and other divergent aspects of the self to form integrative imagoes. Central conflicts or dynamics in one’s life may be represented and played out as conflicting and interacting imagoes, as main characters in any story interact to push forward the plot (p. 122).

Thus, life stories may have one dominant imago or many, but McAdams (1993) found that people most often have two central and conflicting imagoes in personal myth, notably an agentic character (e.g., warrior, traveler, sage, maker) and a communal character (e.g., caregiver, lover, friend, ritualist). This pattern of contrasting dual characters is evident in the legacy of two traditional images of Korean women—“warrior-like household priestess” and “other-oriented, selfless self” as discussed earlier. These images are embodied in first generation Korean immigrant women who work tirelessly and selflessly for their family both inside and outside the home in America. Because young adults fashion their imagoes on models provided by significant people in their lives (McAdams, 1993), the warrior-like, other-oriented, selfless Korean immigrant mothers are also likely to be personified, consciously or unconsciously, in their 1.5 and/or 2nd generation Korean American daughters’ lives. While Korean American women may have internalized their otheroriented, selfless warrior mothers, they also grew up in America watching a

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contrasting image portrayed in the media of an independent, assertive white professional woman who can hold her ground equally to any man. Because imagoes also personify cultural values and ideals at a given time and a given place (McAdams, 1993), the popular Western image of woman’s individuality and equality have an equal, but opposite impact on the Korean American women’s developing character. For the 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American daughters who are frustrated with the traditional idea of women’s subordination to men modeled and taught in the family and reinforced in the Korean ethnic church, the media portrayal of powerful and successful women provide a more attractive, viable model to emulate at least in their world of work. Therefore, many young Korean American women are faced with an extremely difficult task of pulling together at least two very different, conflicting social roles and aspects of themselves in the form of imagoes or main characters—their more “Americanized,” agentic, public career side and their more “Koreanized,” communal, private family side. Integrating Main Characters Juggling a multitude of different roles is so much a part of modern life that a sociologist such as Erving Goffman contended that being well-adjusted is nothing more than choosing the appropriate behavioral performance for a given situation (cited in McAdams, 1993). In multicultural literature on acculturation, biculturality, which is currently conceptualized as a bidirectional and orthogonal relationship between the individual’s culture of origin and the second culture, is considered to be the healthiest form of adjustment (LaFromboise, Coleman, Gerton, 1993). In other words, the latest view on biculturalism suggests that a well-adjusted individual can alter his or her behavior to fit a particular social context without having to choose between two cultures. Although this “alternating model” may be socially effective and an individual may appear on the surface to be well-rounded and adjusted, he or she may be too flexible to sustain a meaningful, cohesive self. Polkinghorne (1988) explains: To play a social role is not the same as configuring one’s life into a plot that is one’s personal identity. Performing a social role is a way in which a person manages and animates his or her actions, but playing a character—of which there are many over a life span—represents only one of the episodes that make up the content of a life story. . . . But these various roles . . . all take on meaning from the perspective of the single adventure that is one person, as defined by the life plot (p. 153).

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Therefore, in order to come to a unified, meaningful personal identity, an individual needs to synthesize and integrate diverse social roles in his or her life. McAdams (1993) similarly suggests that if we want our lives to be more meaningful than merely playing different roles, “we must find a way to bring the roles under the partial control of an organizing identity” (p. 126). In fact, he believes that integrating conflicting roles and imagoes in our lives is one of the important aspects of a good, mature personal myth. Thus, moving beyond juggling roles, adults in the middle years must “confront conflict and ambivalence in their identities and reconcile mythical opposites in light of an envisioned ending of their own life stories” (McAdams, 1993, p. 197). We have seen how the contrasting traditional characters of “warrior-like household priestess” and “other-oriented, selfless self” have been fused to form Korean immigrant women’s identities as other-oriented, selfless warrior mothers and wives who would do any and all things to improve the economic security of their family in America. Because post-1965 immigrants have reshaped the Korean community in the U.S., it is a relatively young ethnic group and most of its 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American women are beginning to enter their young adult years and are faced with juggling numerous social roles in the dual cultural context. Hence, it is yet unknown how most of these 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young women will reconcile and integrate the contrasting dual characters of their agentic work side with their communal family side. However, in order to construct meaning out of their seemingly contradictory bicultural existence, the next generation of Korean American women will need to create dynamic narratives that will render coherence to their personal identity if they are to succeed in their mythmaking effort.

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Chapter Four

Case Study Method and Narrative Analysis

In the previous chapters, the conceptual problems in multicultural counseling literature and oversimplification of the culture change process for individuals living in a dual-cultural context were discussed. The traditional research method, which focuses on quantifying relationships among predefined categories, severely limits the scope of understanding human complexity and multiplicity. Because the goal of this study was to seek an in-depth understanding of the complex phenomenon anchored in real-life situations, the qualitative approach was chosen. Specifically, the case study method was used to examine the lives of three 1.5 (i.e., children of Korean immigrants who were born in Korea and later immigrated to the U.S. with their parents at a young age) and 2nd generation (i.e., children of Korean immigrants who were born and raised in the U.S.) Korean American women and describe the way they each brought together their two very different worlds. In this chapter, the specific research procedures I used to conduct this study will be discussed. The first section will focus on providing the relevance for the case study method chosen for this research. The second section will include a detailed description of the participant selection and interview process. In the last section, the strategies I used for narrative analysis within each case will be discussed.

CASE STUDY METHOD Denzin and Lincoln (1994) discuss many “strategies of inquiry” that are utilized in qualitative research—ethnography, phenomenology, grounded

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theory, and case study to name a few. In a qualitative approach the method that will most appropriately and effectively answer the research question is selected (Polkinghorne, 1983). The design chosen for the present study is the case study method because it offers an in-depth way to examine the context and complexity of the phenomena under investigation. According to Merriam (1998), the case study is a particularly suitable design for situations in which: (1) it is difficult to separate the phenomenon’s variables from their context because they are so embedded in the situation, and (2) the researcher is interested in understanding the process to discover context characteristics that will shed light on an issue or object. Generally, the case study approach is useful when the researcher needs to understand a particular problem or situation in great depth and can identify cases rich in information. A case is considered rich when a great deal can be learned from a few exemplars of the phenomenon in question (Patton, 1990). In fact, in the case study method, selecting people who can provide rich information and who can illuminate the questions under study are more important than the actual number of participants. In this study, three Korean American women were carefully selected who were open to sharing their experiences and insights about living in a dual-cultural context. The case study method is differentiated from other types of qualitative research in that it focuses on intensive description and analysis of a single unit or bounded system (Merriam, 1998). It involves systematically gathering information about a particular person, social setting, event, or group to understand how the subject operates or functions (Berg, 1998). Generally, the research questions or the nature of the research problem determines how broad an area of social life is investigated. Because this study was interested in capturing the complexity of issues involved in living in a dual-cultural context, various aspects of the individuals’ background, experience, roles, and motivations were considered. More specifically, this study wanted to look at how individuals interacted with two cultures and how the culture change process occurred at various stages in their lives. The case study approach is particularly useful for examining temporal processes as it organizes a person’s experience over time into a narrative or storied form. Here, narrative specifically refers to “a discourse form in which events and happenings are configured into a temporal unity by means of a plot” (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 5). This kind of narrative approach is known as narrative analysis. It needs to be distinguished from another type of narrative inquiry, analysis of narratives, which is based on a paradigmatic mode of thought and relies on synchronic data to produce typologies or categorical answers to questions put

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by an interviewer. Narrative analysis, on the other hand, uses a narrative mode of thought and requires diachronic data, which “contain temporal information about the sequential relationship of events” and describe when and why certain events and actions took place and what the intended results of the actions were (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 12). The present study employed the narrative analysis method because it was particularly relevant and useful in revealing the uniqueness and complexity of individual cases as the culture change process unfolded temporally in a storied form. Stake (1994) distinguishes three types of case study—intrinsic, instrumental, and collective. The intrinsic case study is not concerned with discovering some general abstract construct, but is primarily interested in the case itself. In an instrumental case study, a particular case is investigated in order to gain insight into an issue or to refine a theory. A collective case study is an instrumental case study extended to several individual cases to understand an event’s influence across a number of people’s lives. The present study employed a collective or multiple case study method because the goal was to understand an in-depth issue by looking at how individuals adopt and vary in their strategy of integrating two cultures. In a multiple case study, each individual case is first treated as a distinct unit and then a cross-case analysis is carried out (Merriam, 1998; Patton, 1990; Stake, 1994). In this study, three Korean American women’s lives were first examined separately. Next, a comparison across cases was conducted to develop a better description of how the dual-cultural context was negotiated. The case study approach may employ a number of data technologies such as life histories, documents, oral histories, in-depth interviews, and participant observation (Berg, 1998). The present study utilized audio taped in-depth interviews.

PARTICIPANT SELECTION Just as the nature of the research question should determine the research approach, the purpose of the research should guide the selection of participants (Polkinghorne, 1983). Unlike quantitative research that stresses probability sampling and generalizability, a different logic under girds selecting participants in qualitative method. The primary function of the participants in qualitative inquiry is to be sources of rich information. Participants are chosen purposefully to provide “intense descriptions of the situation under investigation” and to add “enough variation in the data to develop a comprehensive structural description” (Polkinghorne, 1998, p. 119). In this way, the number of participants is not as critical as selecting individuals who can provide rich data. Although those who use “quantitative heads”

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(Ely, Anzul, Friedman, Garner, & Steinmetz, 1991) to judge the qualitative method often raise questions about the small sample size, Patton (1990) points out that it is a non-issue if the researcher is careful not to over- generalize from the “purposeful sample.” There are many different strategies for purposefully selecting information-rich cases, but I used the “maximum variation sampling” (Patton, 1990), which attempts to investigate maximum individual differences and variations in experiences while also identifying some common patterns or themes across the individual cases. In the present study, I interviewed a small number of adult female children of Korean immigrants in the United States. The selection was limited to a small group of women between the ages of 25 to 40 years old because I was specifically interested in understanding how their dual cultural upbringing shaped their views in such areas as career and relationship. I also intentionally sought participants who were beyond their college years because little has been studied with this older age group. Many reviews of researches in counseling psychology in general (Buboltz, Miller & Williams, 1999) and cross-cultural counseling in particular (Atkinson, 1985; Atkinson & Thompson, 1992; Casas, 1985) reported that typical samples contained college students due to accessibility. Finally, within these parameters, I tried to vary the participants in terms of how long they lived in America and at what age they became residents of the United States (e.g., born in America, came to the U.S. during preschool years, came to the U.S. during elementary school years). In addition to the maximum variation strategy, I used “convenience sampling” (Patton, 1990) because I needed to choose participants from a circle of people I was acquainted with simply for the pragmatic issue of gaining access. Generally, privacy and trust are important issues in in-depth interviews because they are intense processes. However, because openness and disclosure of personal experiences are very much discouraged in Korean culture, obtaining permission to interview individuals about their personal life experiences was a bigger challenge. Within the cultural context, this difficulty can be somewhat mediated by the familiarity and credibility of the researcher. Burman (1994) also points out that prior relationships can facilitate greater disclosure and reflexive comments in qualitative research. For these reasons, I decided to recruit participants from the Korean American Christian community in the Southern California area where I have been involved for more than fifteen years as a teacher and a pastor’s wife. After my proposed study was approved in May 2003, I filed an application with the Internal Review Board of University of Southern California to receive permission to begin the study. Much of the summer was spent

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waiting. After the official approval was obtained, I began actively looking for potential participants in August. Mainly, I let various acquaintances and contacts know about my study through word-of-mouth and a recruiting letter to inform them that I was looking for volunteers. Because I needed to do in-depth, personal interviews, I knew potential participants would most likely be drawn from a close circle of contacts. I felt my credibility and familiarity in the community was critical in gathering participants and obtaining permission. Knowing the Korean American community, I felt the volunteers who were familiar with me would be more open to participating and sharing their personal stories, which was essential to the success of the study. The researcher’s own personal contacts, community, and organizations is a common method of locating participants in qualitative work, but whether the researcher needs to be a member of the group being investigated to do a credible study is fraught with disagreements. Merriam (1998) indicates that there are no right answers to this issue because advantages and disadvantages exist in any combination of interviewer and respondent. However, she points out that the interviewers must maintain enough distance to enable them to explore assumptions rather than just sharing them. Traditional quantitative research attempts to obtain objectivity through distance from the setting and people being studied (Patton, 1990). However, Patton (1990) points out that distance does not guarantee objectivity, even in a quantitative method. Instead, he notes that the investigators need “to be aware of how one’s perspective affects fieldwork, to carefully document all procedures so that others can review methods for bias, and to be open in describing the limitations of the perspective presented” (p. 482). According to Polkinghorne (1998), qualitative work is always and already steeped in the researcher’s judgment and can never be judgment-free. Ely et al. (1991) share this view and make a practical point that “all we can work for is that our vision is not too skewed by our own subjectivities” (p. 53). To this end, they recommend that the qualitative investigator needs to become increasingly more self-aware of his/her “eyeglasses” or blinders and keep a detailed log of introspection throughout the research process. Being an “insider,” I was mindful of carefully observing these recommendations and being aware of my own subjectivity and bias. After several months and various contacts and acquaintances in the Korean American Christian community in the Southern California area, I gathered fifteen potential participants along with their brief identifying information such as current age, generational status, education, professional background, and marital status. All fifteen of the women were college graduates (two from Ivy League and the rest from the University of

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California system). This may seem like an unusually well educated group of women. However, because Korean middle-class immigrant parents press their children for a good education, they strongly encourage children to complete college and post-collegiate educations. Not surprisingly, Korean Americans have one of the highest postsecondary school enrollment rates, along with other Asian Americans (Hurh, 1993). Among this group of fifteen women, three who were married were older and missed the cut-off age I had set at forty. Three other potential participants resided in areas outside of Southern California and I decided to drop those names because it would have been too difficult to arrange three interviews in person. I chose not to do telephone interviews because it was not practical to do 90 minute interviews by phone and also felt a lot of rich, in-depth information and nuances would be lost if the interviews were not conducted in person. Much of my interviews were unstructured, and I had to frequently rely on my judgment and interaction with the interviewees in the moment to determine what piece of information needed to be followed up and clarified in order to gain deeper insights and richer descriptions. From the remaining ten potential volunteers, I contacted them over the telephone or in person to briefly explain the purpose and requirement of the study. As I informed and described what their participation would entail in the initial contact, I paid close attention to the potential volunteers’ openness. Because I was interested in capturing their personal stories and insights, I wanted to recruit individuals who felt comfortable talking about living in a dual cultural context. Out of the remaining group of ten, I was able to identify four women who seemed the most open, receptive, and willing to participate in three long, in-depth interviews by the middle of November 2003. Many of them expressed being busy during the holiday season and had made plans to be out of town. Rather than trying to scramble for an interview, I decided to wait and schedule the first meeting in January of 2004 in order to avoid long breaks between interviews. The names of the other potential volunteers were kept as a backup list in case any of the four interviewees dropped out or did not work out after the first meeting. Qualitative research is a flexible and emergent process, and the investigator cannot know in advance how many participants will be required (Patton, 1990). There are no rules for “sample size” in qualitative study because it depends on the purpose of the inquiry: “what you want to know, . . . what’s at stake, what will be useful, what will be credible, and what can be done with available time and resources” (Polkinghorne, 1998, p. 184). Because the purpose of this study was to seek depth

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rather than breadth, I chose a small number of people who could provide a wide range of rich, insightful descriptions. Although I had tentatively planned to interview about five individuals, I ended up interviewing four because of the amount of in-depth material I was able to gather from them. In qualitative research, the actual number of participants during the investigation can change depending on the situation—what material I was able to gather and what other information I needed. Because the qualitative inquiry is an iterative process between data gathering and analysis (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Polkinghorne, 1998), the selection of participants was adjusted throughout the investigation to test the limits of the emerging description and until a saturated description was reached.

INTERVIEW PROCESS Qualitative researchers are interested in any data that contributes to knowledge of the situation they are studying (Polkinghorne, 1998). In fact, Merriam (1998) points out that a case study does not claim any particular method for collecting the data, but the purpose of the study determines the technique the investigator uses and the data being gathered. Wolcott (1994) identifies “three major modes through which qualitative researchers gather their data: participant observation (experiencing), interviewing (enquiring), and studying materials prepared by others (examining)” (p. 10). Because the present study was interested in learning about a small group of individuals’ experiences and how they each came to attach certain meaning to their dual cultural context, audio taped in-depth interviews were used to collect the data. Merriam (1998) indicates that interviewing is the best method to use in intensive case studies focused on a few selected individuals. It is an effective technique of gathering information, especially when the researcher is interested in seeing the world from the participants’ eyes and understanding the meaning they give to what goes on in their world (Berg, 1998; Ely et al., 1991; Patton, 1990). Interview Guidelines According to Ely et al. (1991), every interview has a structure; the only difference is whether that structure is predetermined or shaped in the process. Patton (1990) describes three types of interviews—informal conversational interview, the standardized open-ended interview, and the general interview guide approach. First, in the informal conversational interview, the investigator generates questions spontaneously in the natural flow of an interaction rather than relying on any schedule of predetermined questions. Next, the standardized open-ended interview involves using the same set of carefully

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worded and arranged questions with each participant in order to minimize variation in the way questions are delivered. Finally, the general interview guide approach considers topics or subject areas to be explored in the interview, but the investigator remains free to build a conversation and probe individual perspectives and experiences as they emerge during the interview. For this study, I adopted the general interview approach to guide the interview. Based on the research questions and issues to be explored, I prepared a preliminary list of questions (Appendix). It was not intended to elicit answers to specific questions, but rather to guide the overall process of gathering stories from each of the major stages in the women’s experiences of growing up and reaching adulthood in the dual cultural context. After I conducted the first interview with a couple of the participants, I decided to incorporate some of the semi-structured narrative interview questions from Crossley’s work (2000) because I felt it would help tailor the interview and obtain the personal narratives. As mentioned earlier, this type of narrative data is diachronic rather than synchronic in nature and was directed to gather temporal information about when and why certain events and actions took place and what the intended results of the actions were. Thus, the goal of data collection in this study was to preserve the narrative richness of the participants’ experience and provide “thick” descriptions of the meaning they attach to various events or situations in their lives (Polkinghorne, 1998). Narrative data involves the participants’ report of retrospective experiences and explanations. Although the “validity” of data based on self-report and memory are often questioned in the scientific community, a qualitative investigator is not really concerned with “how faithfully the report mirrors” or duplicates the participant’s original experience (Polkinghorne, 1991, p. 189). The purpose of narrative inquiry is to provide “a dynamic framework in which the range of disconnected data elements are made to cohere in an interesting and explanatory way” (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 20). Thus, in this study, I was interested in retrospectively understanding how and why the participant responded in a certain way in the past, rather than reproducing the past event or predicting his or her future behavior. The quality of data gathered during an interview is heavily influenced by the skill of the interviewer (Polkinghorne, 1998). An in-depth interview depends on the development of trust and openness between the investigator and the respondent, as the interviewer guides the direction and level of the interaction (Patton, 1990; Ely et al., 1991). This establishment of a close relationship between the investigator and the respondent actually promotes

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authenticity and reduces the “biasing effect” in that it lessens the “participants’ need to manage the impressions they give and can permit the exploration of aspects of their experiences not available at first recall” (Polkinghorne, 1998, p. 119). In many ways, my skills as a counselor were helpful in developing and maintaining a positive interaction with the interviewees. Merriam (1998) notes that in qualitative inquiry, the investigator is the primary instrument for data collection and has an advantage over some inventory or questionnaire in that the human researcher can consider the total context and can respond to the specific situation as they arise. This also means that the interviewer must be sensitive to the flow of the interview, the respondent’s reaction to questions, and the feedback needed to maintain the flow of communication (Patton, 1990). Although I maintained control over the flow of the interview (Merriam, 1998), I was careful not to coerce any information, which can lead to collecting data that only reflects the researcher’s biases (Polkinghorne, 1998). Throughout the interview process, I tried to remain neutral to what was being shared while building a rapport and showing empathy toward the interviewees (Patton, 1990). Interview Protocol The four individuals who met the selection criteria and seemed most open to participating in the in-depth interviews were contacted to set up the first meeting beginning January of 2004. At the start of the first meeting, I went over the informed consent form that was approved by the Internal Review Board of University of Southern California. The purpose of the study and confidentiality were discussed with each participant. It was explained to them that pseudonyms will be used to protect their identity in the publication of this study. The permission to tape record interviews was also obtained, and the participants were informed they could stop being audiotaped at any point in the interviews as well as withdraw from the study at any time. After the logistics regarding time, place, and number of interviews was discussed, they were asked to briefly fill out a fact sheet to gather some important background information (e.g., when they and/or their family immigrated to the U.S.; where they lived and attended schools K-12th, college, post-college; career) that would guide the interview process. Apart from taking care of the preliminary information, the primary purpose of the first interview (noted as A) was to get acquainted and build a rapport with each of the respondents in person. I also wanted to gather some background information to establish a rough chronology of the participants’ life. When I first sat down with these women, I sensed they were somewhat uneasy or uncertain about which aspects of their life would be

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relevant to talk about (especially as the audio tape recorder was turned on, the reality seemed to set in). With each interviewee, I began by sharing a little bit about myself and how I became interested in understanding Korean American women living between two cultures. I did not know it at the time, but I later realized how important this was in terms of setting the tone for the interview. My openness with them, taking the first step to share a part of myself, and being transparent with them about my life was all significant in terms of creating “a safe space” to open up, being real, and being themselves. Although such interaction is usually shared among a very tight circle of friends, I anticipated that the first contact with me, especially as a pastor’s wife, might be more formal within the Korean context. I was also very cognizant of the fact that these women were taking a big step by willingly participating in the in-depth interviews and opening up to me. So it was very important for me to honor and reciprocate their trust by creating an unconditional, positive, safe space and keeping what they shared confidential. To this end, protecting the identity of interviewees by using pseudonyms was indispensable. A one-time interview with a participant is generally considered inadequate to produce rich, deep descriptions needed in a narrative inquiry. A minimum of three interviews is recommended, approximately 90 minutes each, depending on the flow of conversation (Polkinghorne, 1998). Although scheduling these interviews largely depended on the participants’ availability, I tried to space them at least two weeks apart to allow enough time for me to go over the tape of each meeting and transcribe the interviews. Reviewing and transcribing the tapes was an important step toward analyzing the data and getting a sense of where the interview needed to go next, in order to clarify and obtain further information. Based on what the participants talked about in the first interview, I prepared some questions and notes to clarify various issues that had come up. Thus, the second interview (noted as B) was a little bit more structured than the first meeting and focused on gathering concrete details of the participants’ experience. In addition to continuing to clarify various themes that had come up previously, I incorporated the Semi-Structured Narrative Interview Questions suggested by Crossley (2000) as discussed earlier to build the personal narratives. In the third interview (noted as C), I tried to clarify various themes that surfaced in the previous interviews and encouraged the participants to reflect on the meaning of their experience. Except for the final follow up interview with Hanna about a month after her wedding, all the other eleven interviews took place between early January and late March 2004. Beginning with the first meeting, the interviews were tape-recorded after the participants’ consent was obtained. Tape-recording interviews is

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the most common way to record interview data to ensure that everything is preserved for analysis (Merriam, 1998). In addition to increasing the accuracy of the data being gathered, Patton (1990) indicates that the use of a tape recorder allows the investigator to be more attentive to respondents. Because the participants may be uneasy about tape-recording, I tried to minimize their initial weariness by explaining the value of taping and addressing any concerns they may have regarding how the tapes and written transcriptions were kept and handled in the study. Although writing notes during the interview may be considered intrusive, some notes were taken to help pace the interview, formulate new questions as the interview moved along, and note what was said earlier that needed to be clarified. Moreover, noting key phrases, terms, or major points made by the respondent during the interview facilitated later analysis and helped to locate important statements or segments. It is also strongly recommended that the researcher write the observations and reactions immediately following the interview (Ely et al., 1991; Merriam, 1998; Polkinghorne, 1998). These reflections may contain information such as insights brought up in the interview, descriptive notes on the respondents’ verbal and nonverbal behavior, and parenthetical thoughts of the researcher. Ely et al. (1991) suggest that the investigator’s notes or what they call “logs” are “cohesive history” of the entire research process in that “logs are chronological records of what we learn and our insights about how we learn it” (p. 69). Moreover, they state, “the log is the place where each qualitative researcher faces the self as instrument through a personal dialogue about moments of victory and disheartenment, hunches, feelings, insights, assumptions, biases, and ongoing ideas about method” (Ely et al., 1991, p. 69). Thus, interview notes were critical in monitoring the process of data production as well as starting the process of analyzing the data. In this study, memos of participants’ attitudes, descriptions of the setting, general impressions, my response to the interview process, or any momentary insights or thoughts were recorded throughout the process— during and following the interviews, while reviewing tapes, as well as while transcribing the interviews. Ethical Responsibility Concerns about ethics in research revolve around issues of harm, consent, privacy, and confidentiality. As described in the interview protocol, these ethical concerns were addressed at the very beginning of the first interview while going over the informed consent form with each participant. According to Berg (1998), social scientists have a greater ethical obligation to those studied, the academic community, and the larger society because

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social scientists delve into human lives. The case study approach is often interested in intensely personal aspects of people’s lives. For this reason, the investigator must be all the more mindful that he or she is a “guest” in a person’s private world and needs to carefully observe strict code of ethics (Stake, 1994). Patton (1990) indicates that in-depth interviews can be particularly intrusive in that individuals may feel vulnerable opening up and sharing things they never intended to reveal. In fact, he suggests that the interview can have a powerful effect on the respondent’s life: A good interview lays open thoughts, feelings, knowledge, and experience not only to the interviewer but also to the interviewee. The process of being taken through a directed, reflective process affects the persons being interviewed and leaves them knowing things about themselves that they didn’t know—or least were not aware of—before the interview. Two hours or more of thoughtfully reflecting on an experience, a program, or one’s life can be change-inducing (Patton, 1990, p. 353–354).

Throughout the interview, I tried to keep my role as a researcher and a therapist separate. However, even though I focused on the purpose of the interview and gathering information, the reality was that my skills as a clinician were every bit a part of who I am and how I came across to the participants—listening to them unconditionally, non-judgmentally, and empathically. Throughout the interview, personal stories began to unfold by giving them a safe place to talk, attending to them while they were talking, listening and connecting their experiences, and being genuine with them. Although I was very cognizant about not turning the interview into a counseling session with any of the participants, some of them specifically stated that they found the whole process of talking and reflecting on their lives to be quite therapeutic in the sense that it gave them some new perspectives and understanding about themselves. In qualitative inquiry, the investigator is the primary instrument for gathering and analyzing the data. As a result, the credibility of the study depends on the credibility of the researcher (Patton, 1990). Merriam (1998) notes that the qualitative researcher as a human instrument can effectively gather and produce meaningful information especially if the investigator possesses personality characteristics such as tolerance for ambiguity and intuitiveness as well as good communication skills. On the other hand, she points out that the researcher is also limited and fallible as any other instrument to make mistakes or be influenced by biases. For this reason, Patton suggests any personal and professional information about the investigator

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that may positively or negatively influence data production, analysis, and interpretation should be included in the qualitative report in order to establish the researcher’s credibility. Professionally, I believe my clinical skills were indispensable in conducting the in-depth interviews. It was helpful not only in terms of being able to establish a rapport with the participants, but also knowing when to let the participant just talk, when to follow up on what they said, and how to probe, clarify, and connect disparate information. However, throughout the interviews, I was also very careful not to probe too deeply or coerce any sensitive materials. Instead, I focused on tracking and processing materials they shared openly. It is worth noting that a couple of interviewees became tearful during the interview while talking about some of their experiences growing up. In these instances, I responded to the situation by showing empathy and sensitivity to what they shared, but I consciously chose not to pursue the emotional material any further because the purpose of the interview was to gather information rather than do therapy. I was prepared to provide referrals if deep painful material was brought up and it was interfering with their current functioning. However, that did not seem to be the case with any of the participants. My personal background also played a role in the interview process. Most obviously, sharing the same ethnic background as the participants clearly allowed easier access to the Korean American community and recruiting the subjects. Once we sat down for the interview, familiarity with these women also helped me to build the rapport quickly and navigate the interviews with ease. As a 1.5 Korean American woman in the late thirties, I knew the topic under investigation and was able to guide the interview questions to gain more in-depth understanding from their stories. However, I also was cautious about not probing too deeply and tried to pay close attention to the cultural nuances. Although I strived to gather rich descriptions whenever possible, I tried to respect what each of the participants felt comfortable talking about openly. In sensitive areas, I chose not to probe too deeply and risk offending them or raising their guard. Inevitably, my own personal experiences and biases probably impacted the interview process. However, as Gadamer (1975) suggests, objective understanding can never be fully achieved in any investigation because as a human instrument I will necessarily always come to the situation with my own “preunderstanding” or “prejudgment.” Because I cannot escape my own subjectivity, the way I tried to approach the interviews was with openness in understanding the participants’ experiences and co-creating meaning through “fusion of horizons,” which involved a dialectical interaction between my expectations as the researcher/interpreter and the

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meanings in the text/narrative data of the participants. In fact, doing the interviews and the stories that evolved from these meetings made me realize how much the whole process was a joint venture. With their willingness to participate, we took a journey together. Though this is their story, a life that only they lived, what and how the story gets told in the moment depended largely on the dynamic quality of our interactions. Truthfully, I enjoyed sitting down with each of the women and hearing their stories. I had a deep admiration and respect for each of them for their strength, intelligence, and courage to be themselves. Because participants offered their valuable time and experiences, the issue of reciprocity was an important concern in the study. As a way to bring closure and give something back to them for generously opening up their lives, I decided to sum up important themes and insights that came from each of their life stories at the end of the final interview. I also prepared a small gift as a token of appreciation to thank each of them for their participation in the study. Transcribing Interviews The orally generated stories need to be transformed into written text before they can be analyzed. Because verbatim transcription of audio taped interviews provides the best database for analysis (Merriam, 1998), I transcribed the interviews word for word and tried to retain pauses, exclamations, and other nuances whenever possible. Even though it was a very tedious and time-consuming task, doing my own transcribing allowed me to get familiar with the data more intimately. It also provided an opportunity to reflect on what the participants shared, identify any gaps or areas that needed clarification or elaboration, and develop some guiding questions for the following interview. For these reasons, ideally it is best to transcribe the tapes between the interviews. This is what I had originally planned to do, and I wanted to schedule interviews at least a couple weeks apart in order to give myself ample time to transcribe and analyze the data before the next interview. However, once I began interviewing, I quickly discovered I could not always space out the interviews every two weeks as I had hoped because I had to accommodate the participants’ availability. For instance, one of my interviewees, Ruth, indicated upfront that she needed to complete all three of the interviews within three weeks (i.e., one week apart) because she had to work every weekend for the next several months. So I had to be flexible and work with the participants’ schedule because my first priority was to secure the interviews.

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Once I began transcribing, I discovered one week was not sufficient time to finish transcribing an over 90-minute taped interview even when I devoted more than eight hours a day to the task. The amount of time it took to transcribe greatly depended on how well the participant’s voice was caught on the tape, and that depended a lot on various factors I did not control very well in the early part of the interviews. For example, the first interview with Ruth took place at a coffee shop because I wanted to get away from the office setting to make it as casual and relaxing as possible. However, I did not anticipate the background noise and how much more challenging that would make the transcribing process. In order to catch every word or nuance exactly, I often had to go over a phrase or a sentence several times until I was satisfied with the accuracy of what was being said. In instances where I could not finish transcribing the tape before the next scheduled interview, I listened to the taped interview a couple of times to help prepare for the next meeting in order to utilize the time more effectively. The first time I listened to the tape, I took notes of the interview and jotted down any questions or clarifications I needed to make. The second time I went over the interview to make sure I did not miss any important information as well as to get a sense of the themes that were emerging from the stories. Ely et al. (1991) strongly recommend keeping analytic memos throughout the data analysis. They suggest that memos are a written record of a “conversation with oneself,” which helps move the process of analysis forward by keeping track of “what has occurred in the research process, what has been learned, the insights this provides, and the leads these suggest for future action” (p. 80). These insightful moments took place throughout the data collection and data analysis processes, but they most often occurred for me while I was listening and transcribing the tapes. So, I often typed my thoughts as they occurred just below the transcription in italics in order to keep them separate from the participants’ own words. In the present study, analytical memos were used to keep a detailed account of how the concepts emerged, how they were linked with each other, what insights came up and how they were further developed. These memos were integrated into the final analysis. For the purpose of this study, three in-depth interviews were conducted with each of the four participants, resulting in over 18 hours of taped interviews. Of the four cases, however, only three were selected for the analysis and write up because saturated description was reached. Thus, nine interviews with a total of 170 single-spaced pages of transcription were used in the final case analysis. These transcripts, along with my observations and subjective experiences of the participants, were all included in

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analyzing the narratives and writing up the three case studies for the following section.

NARRATIVE ANALYSIS Unlike quantitative research, which relies on a linear model, the qualitative approach is based on the principles of “gestalt logic” or “hermeneutic circle” which conceptualizes understanding as “a reciprocal interaction of the whole schema and its parts” (Polkinghorne, 1991, p. 179). Hence, in qualitative study, data collection and data analysis take place recursively. Like a spiraling process (Berg, 1998), the researcher may begin with an idea, gather some data which leads to analysis, refine the original idea, more relevant data gets collected, leads to further analysis, and so on. According to Wolcott (1994), this overlap between collecting and analyzing the data actually improves the quality of both aspects of the research as they continuously build upon each other. Although data collection and data analysis are presented sequentially in this chapter, the present study actually moved back and forth between gathering and analyzing the data. The present study utilized narrative analysis, which seeks to integrate diverse events, happenings, and actions of individual lives into a coherent story. This type of analysis involves narrative configuration, which requires identifying a thematic thread or plot that synthesizes various elements of collected data into a temporally organized, unified story (Polkinghorne, 1995). In the analysis, the principle of hermeneutic circle was used to move recursively from the gathered data to a developing plot until a coherent story was formed. In this process, when major events or happenings in the data conflicted with the emerging plot, the plot idea was adapted to better fit or make sense of the collected data. On the other hand, when elements did not contradict the plot but were not salient to the story development, they were not included in the final story (also known as narrative smoothing). It is important to note, however, that narrative configuration does not suggest the researcher can impose any order on the data, but must be guided by the principle that the final story must both fit the data as well as provide a meaningful explanation. Thus, the product of the analysis was not simply an objective compilation of the data elements collected, but was meaning co-created between the text (transcribed interviews) and the researcher (Gadamer, 1975). The process of analyzing qualitative data is described as “an iterative spiral” (Dey, 1993) or “a downward helix” (Polkinghorne, 1991) where the data begins at the top as disparate bits of information, but after a series of analysis eventually reaches an endpoint in which a whole comprehensive

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structure is identified. In this study, I began the analysis first by deeply reacquainting with the data (Ely et al., 1991; Polkinghorne, 1991). As suggested by Crossley (2000), for each of the participants, I read the entire interview transcripts five or six times to familiarize myself with the material. I underlined key words, phrases, or sentences as I read the transcripts and made note of any significant themes that emerged in the margins. As I read through the participants’ response a number of times, I tried to get a general overview of the data and drew up a kind of “rough map” of the picture emerging from the interviews. Secondly, based on the “life chapters” question (Crossley, 2000), I divided up each participant’s life into major phases. In this way, the narrative analysis followed the temporal order of the participant’s experiences. Each case seemed to proceed nicely with early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, and college years. Then, their career development and relationship issues in the adult years seemed to follow. Within this temporal framework, the participants’ experiences were analyzed according to major events or topics, which were guided by the research questions and the general interview questions. I also identified the principal elements of the narrative or “personal myth” according to McAdams (1993) in terms of narrative tone, imagery, and themes. By going through each individual’s responses to questions such as key events, significant people, future script, current stresses and problems, and personal ideology, I tried to identify the imagery and themes that emerged from each participant’s story. After a rough “working map” of the various images and themes was constructed, I began writing a coherent story for each individual case so that it could stand alone (Patton, 1990). The case studies followed an idiographic framework in order to weave the individual’s life and unique variations with as much detail as possible. However, it is important to note that these cases were not written in such a way that collected data was simply assembled and presented in an uninterrupted form, with the interpretive commentary in a separate section. In narrative analysis, the researcher must move from raw data (i.e., orally collected elements) to construction of a coherent story that retrospectively provides an explanatory answer to the question of how or why something happened (Polkinghorne, 1995). Thus, in this study, it was essential to present the cases in such a way that particular description (in the form of quotes from transcribed interviews) was mixed with general description (patterns discovered in the data) and interpretative commentary (higher levels of abstractions) to carry out the analysis and synthesize the meaning implicit in the story (Erickson, 1986 in Merriam, 1998).

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In this way, writing and rewriting each case study was a continual analytic process (Polkinghorne, 1998). Before I started conducting the interviews, I honestly did not know what the participants would say and how much information I would gather. I did not know whether there would be any coherence to their stories. When I went back to listen to the tapes and review the interviews, I was delighted to note some themes and began to see the development of their story lines. I became engrossed in each of their stories and could not wait to meet with them again to build on where they left off in our previous meeting. As I continued to review and analyze the material, I realized the participants’ stories flowed effortlessly in part because the narrative is an instinctive way individuals form meaning and self-understanding as they reflect on their lives (Ricoeur, 1991). The interview process provided further support that these three women’s experiences are indeed storied (McAdams, 1993) and the narrative form is particularly suitable (Polkinghorne, 1988) for understanding these individuals’ actions, motivations, and ambiguities of living in a dual cultural context.

MULTIPLE CASE STUDY In a multiple case study, there are two stages of analysis—the within-case analysis and the cross-case analysis (Huberman & Miles, 1994; Merriam, 1998). For the within-case analysis, each case was first treated as a comprehensive case in and of itself. Each case study was carefully examined to learn as much about the individual variations and the complex configuration of events and processes. The narrative analysis was employed to focus on the particular and special characteristics of each action and illuminate why each participant acted as she did. Once a comprehensive analysis of an individual case study was completed, cross-case analysis was carried out to compare and contrast the cases. However, it is important to note that based on the narrative mode of thought, the collection of storied experiences is intended to move from case to case rather than from case to generalization: Narrative cognition produces a series of anecdotal descriptions of particular incidents. Narrative reasoning does not reduce itself to rules and generalities across stories but maintains itself at the level of the specific episode. . . . [In multiple case studies], this collection of storied experiences provides a basis for understanding new action episodes by means of analogy. The collection of stories is searched to find one that is similar in some respects to the new one. The concern is not to identify the new episode as an instance of a general type but as similar to a specific

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remembered episode. The new episode is noted as similar to, not the same as, the previously selected episode. Thus, the understanding of the new action can draw upon previous understanding while being open to the specific and unique elements that make the new episode different from all that have gone before (Polkinghorne, 1995, p. 11).

Thus, in this study, three Korean American women’s lives were first examined separately. Next, a comparison across cases was conducted to develop richer descriptions of how the dual-cultural context was negotiated within and across the cases. Rather than lifting out abstract themes or relationships from the situational and temporal context, these three women’s storied experiences were examined collectively to locate similarities and differences in the meaning units to build an explanatory description. The final result of this multiple case analysis is presented in Chapter Eight. The following three chapters are the storied narratives of the analysis derived from countless hours of interchange between this researcher and the collected data—first, by repeatedly listening to the audio taped interviews and transcribing them, and second, by repeatedly reading disparate bits of information to uncover the meaning of the elements and to locate the emerging story plot. Because the purpose of the analysis was to produce storied narratives that depicted the temporal unfolding of living in a dual cultural context, I decided to organize their life stories according to the major developmental stages: early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, college years, and young adulthood which included career and relationships. The stories were also approached in chronological order because it was important not to abstract meaning units from the situational and temporal context. Results of the analysis are co-creation in the sense that the meaning grew out of fusion of horizons (Gadamer, 1975) between the researcher and the orally collected data in written form. Therefore, the case studies of these three women were necessarily written and told in such a way that interpretative statements (including patterns discovered in the data and higher levels of abstractions) were interspersed with the evidential data (in the form of quotes from interviews). Because I had finished interviewing Ruth first, her case was also first to be written up and presented in Chapter Five. Next, I decided to analyze Esther in Chapter Six because she added an interesting comparison as another oldest daughter. As I was analyzing and writing the second case study, I tried to point out any similarities and call out different actions taken in a similar situation. In this way, some emerging themes were identified as they were compared and contrasted from the previous story. Thus, another layer of analysis was infused whenever salient themes could be

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incorporated into the topic at hand. Finally, Hanna was analyzed last in Chapter Seven because she offered the most contrast to both Ruth and Esther’s case studies. Further discussion of these cases, which included reflections on the essential themes, insights, and significance of the findings, is examined in Chapter Eight.

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Ruth

Ruth was extremely busy with her work, which she explained was usual for her at that time of the year. She was working on an important project, and in a few weeks she would have to work every weekend. Despite her hectic schedule, she still wanted to do the interviews, but let me know in advance that we would need to meet for three consecutive weeks to finish all the interviews before things got crazier for her at work. For the first interview, I met Ruth at a Coco’s Restaurant. I originally thought it would be a good idea to find a neutral place to meet and talk over a cup of coffee, but it was a little noisy and later found out that it was not a very ideal location for taping (the following two interviews were conducted at a private office). Before starting the interview, I discussed the purpose of my study, interview protocols, and obtained the informed consent. I also had her fill out a fact sheet with basic information such as when she came to the U.S., age and educational background for herself and each of her family members, and where she attended K-12, undergraduate and graduate schools. Initial paper work was taken care of quickly, and we were ready to proceed with the interview. As with all my participants, Ruth wanted to be helpful and was concerned about doing the interview “right.” She was initially weary that her life may not be very interesting and may not have anything “worthwhile” for my project. To ease her mind, I explained to her that it is the ordinary, everyday experience that I was interested in capturing, rather than anything out of the ordinary. Ruth seemed relieved to hear that, but still wondered what I needed for my study. As with all my participants, it was important to set the tone for the interview by sharing openly something of myself and how I became interested in studying Korean American women’s lives. After hearing a little bit of my background, she connected with me immediately, as the oldest and the 63

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“responsible one” in the family. Ruth seemed more at ease and ready to tell me her story. So a large part of the first interview focused on building a rapport and getting acquainted. I was pleasantly surprised by how effortlessly Ruth’s life story unfolded and I was engrossed by what she had to say. Although some interesting themes surfaced during the first interview, I decided to structure the second interview a little bit more to obtain the chronology of her life events. I started the second interview by asking Ruth to think of her life as a book and divide it into chapters, based on Michele Crossley’s work (2000). I was amazed at how Ruth took my suggestion and quickly offered a “table of contents” (RB6), dividing her life broadly into six chapters. After weaving and analyzing what she shared from other interviews, I decided it would be best to keep the chronological structure she gave, except for a minor change. Instead of lumping K-12th grade into one big chapter as she initially indicated under “school” (RB2), I decided to divide it into two separate chapters because her life seemed to take a dramatic turn when she reached adolescence. Also her experiences from graduate school and the first few years of working in the field are weaved into her career and relationship chapters. As with all my interviewees, the chapter titles Ruth came up with were very poignant, and I decided to use them as descriptors for each chapter. What follows is a narrative analysis of each of the major periods in Ruth’s life: (1) early childhood (infancy through preschool), (2) late childhood (elementary school years), (3) adolescence (junior high through high school), (4) college, (5) career, and (6) relationship.

EARLY CHILDHOOD (INFANCY THROUGH PRESCHOOL): “FINDING SECURITY IN AN INSECURE WORLD” Coming into the World as a Girl Ruth’s life began like a comedy. She says her dad was “tricked into thinking he had a boy” (RA65) because a nurse came out and first told him it was a boy. Her father was “ecstatic” (RA63), but then the nurse returned to say that she made a mistake and that “It’s a girl” (RA64). Her dad “would have been extremely happy with a healthy child” (RA65), but “there was a little bit of disappointment from a cultural standpoint” (RA66). She did not elaborate on her father’s reaction, but when asked if it had any impact on her while growing up, Ruth confessed, “I would have to say that I wanted to be a boy until 6th grade” (RA78). This will be discussed more in depth in her late childhood, but it is important to note that the mix up about her gender was actually very symbolic and telling about her identity

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and struggles as a woman. As Ruth’s story unfolded, I sensed in many ways that fulfilling the traditional role of an oldest son in her family was a dominant theme in her life story. What Ruth chose to highlight in her birth narrative, however, was how her father cared and loved her very much and how she has a special “bond” with him as the oldest child. She proudly described herself as a “daddy’s little girl” (RA72; RC483), and admitted this is a well-known and accepted fact in her family (RC482). She actually has a closer relationship with her father than any of her siblings—a brother who was born only a year later and a sister three years younger than Ruth. This is evident in her sharing that she and her father “always drove to church together” and had “little discussions,” while her two younger siblings rode with her mother (RA181). Her alliance with her father was so well established that “there is a kind of sibling understanding. . . . If there is anything to do with my father, my sister or brother calls me” (RC809). Ruth’s extremely close relationship with her father seemed to play a significant role in her development as a woman, both in terms of her career and relationship. Early Years in America Ruth came to the U.S. with her parents in 1968 as a one- year-old (i.e., she is more like 1.95 or closer to 2nd generation) and settled in Southern California. Although she was too young to remember, she could articulate precisely why her parents decided to immigrate: “I think they came for the same reasons a lot of Koreans came—a better education and a better life for their family. At the time, the economic situation in Korea was very, very low. And, I guess the United States just opened the door and said we will be accepting immigrants. And, I guess this was a great opportunity” (RA6–11). For her parents, the motivating factors for migration were not unlike the reasons frequently cited by most third-wave Korean immigrants—the dream of obtaining a higher standard of living and providing a better educational opportunity for their children in the United States. Even with such lofty ambitions of a better future for the family, uprooting from a homeland and relocating to a foreign country is a daunting task all immigrants must face. Like many of the post-1965 immigrants, one of the reasons Ruth’s family was able to come to America was a family connection. Her mother’s oldest sister was married to a second generation Korean American and her husband’s side of the family “was already living here in the 1950s” (RA17–18), making it possible to invite Ruth’s family. Another critical factor in relocation was the fact that Ruth’s mother was a registered nurse, and she had been to the United States several times, “already working in American hospitals” (RA22–23) as a Red Cross nurse.

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So Ruth points out her mother “already spoke a lot of English” (RA23) and basically had to be the “bread winner” (RA42) for the family: “Like most immigrants, the women are the ones who are able to assimilate quickly and for some reason people are willing to give them a chance or opportunities quicker than men” (RA38–42). Although her mother’s employment was crucial for the family’s survival, Ruth indicates it was very hard on her father because “a Korean man has a lot of pride and wants to take care of his family” (RA37–38). However, her father was not proficient in English and his theological education from Korea was not recognized by any American Protestant denomination at the time. Under these challenging circumstances, her father decided to continue his graduate study in divinity in the United States while trying to look for work: Here is somebody who speaks no English and coming here in his thirties and attending school, learning, and trying to get a job anywhere and not given any opportunities . . . even trying to get something like a janitor position or anything in the church. Just to be in the church . . . because he wanted to be a pastor at the time . . . for somebody who excelled in school, had scholarships, and was such a hard worker, to come here and not be able to get even a janitor job was I’m sure very hard (RA47–54).

So, in the 1970s, it was extremely difficult for Ruth’s father to find any church willing to give him an opportunity to serve, train, and be ordained as a pastor. What Ruth remembered most about those early years in America was that “there was a lot of insecurity in the family” (RA33), and she could intuitively “tell there was a lot of strife” (RA35): I was extremely insecure in terms of my family life. I don’t think I consciously knew that’s what it was, but looking back it was very unstable. You know, coming to a new country, not speaking the language, parents probably having a little bit of friction because the wife is working, not the husband, especially in the Korean family. The husband is in school and frustrated and wanting to work and be the man of the home, but not being able to get a job and do what he came to do (RB26–32).

Whether she “subconsciously blocked it out of [her] mind” (RB66), Ruth indicates she does not “have any memories of being in the house” (RB63–64) as a very young child, except for stories her father tells her.

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However, she said “when he tells it to me, it doesn’t sound like it was very good” (RB65). Her father took care of her while her mother worked, and he told her that she “cried a lot” (RA34) and would not let him out of her sight, even as she fell asleep. Interestingly, “when he tells me stories like this, to me it’s like, ‘Oh, I couldn’t even sleep and I was so insecure and I needed to feel safe’” (RB71–72). So even though Ruth was too young to remember many details, one of the things that stood out from her early childhood story was feelings of instability and insecurity. Finding Security In the midst of her “insecure world” (RB79), however, Ruth mentioned “finding security” (RB79) remarkably among children she played with in the apartment complex when she was three to five years old: The fondest memory I have, the only memory I actually have, is the children in the apartment complex. We all played together. Debbie was one of my best friends in preschool to kindergarten and her mom was also the babysitter. I had so much fun playing with those kids in the apartment complex. And, I have to say that that was where I spent most of my time because my parents were both probably busy working. I strongly had that memory. But, I found out later, my mom told me, that Debbie’s mom was a little bit overweight, kind of mean, and unhappy with her life. She [Ruth’s mom] didn’t like the way she [Debbie’s mom] treated my brother. But, all I remember was that there was this nice lady. And, if I think about it, she probably didn’t take care of us because I pretty much did everything I wanted. I don’t remember her being there much. I just remember it was a gated area and all the kids playing together and me and Debbie just playing and having a really good time. I don’t know what my brother’s memories are, but for me it was just uh . . . that was my little escape of finding enjoyment (RB38–52).

Even though what Ruth remembered about her babysitter, Debbie’s mom, maybe somewhat different from her mother’s experience with her, what was significant about this memory was that Ruth had an outlet, an “escape,” from her family’s stress of adjusting to the new life in America. Ironically, Debbie’s mom’s limited supervision may have been a blessing since it allowed the children to play freely. This aspect of her childhood experience shows Ruth’s strength and resiliency in her ability to find an escape, enjoyment, and security through creative play with her peers outside of her family, even in the midst of chaos, instability, and stress.

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Narrative Tone and Imagery from Early Childhood Already from infancy to early childhood, we can see Ruth’s personal myth taking shape. Even though Ruth was only one when she came to the U.S., she is clearly affected by the harsh conditions her parents faced, starting a new life in a foreign country. Ruth was not old enough to verbalize what was going on around her at the time; however, looking back, her story reveals she had already developed a set of unconscious “attitudes” about self and the world in those early years, the narrative tone of her story. As a bright and intuitive young child, Ruth picked up on her parents’ marital tensions and translated them into her own feelings of insecurity. And, as much as her insecurities were directly or indirectly tied to uncertain conditions her parents endured as new immigrants, they later fueled her drive or “ambition” to succeed in the world. However, one bright spot in Ruth’s early childhood memory was an “escape” or “security,” playing with children in the apartment complex. Her ability to play and find pleasure in the midst of insecurities and strife creates a powerful image, which again influences her life choices as an adult.

LATE CHILDHOOD (ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YEARS): “THE KNOW IT ALL” Being in the “In-Crowd” Although Ruth’s family’s early years in America was filled with many struggles and obstacles, her father was eventually ordained as a Presbyterian minister and started his own church in Southern California when Ruth was about nine years old. Around that time, her family moved to a house in a suburb of Southern California. Also at that time, Ruth reached a peak in her level of confidence and social acceptance by her all White peers in school. She transferred the social skills she gained from playing with the children in her apartment complex to the school setting and became part of the popular crowd in elementary school. I remember Vicki (oh my God, I even remember her name!) was my best friend. She was the most popular girl in the school. And I remember we played “The Farmer in the Dell, The Farmer in the Dell” [singing part of the lyric]. “The farmer picks a wife,” and she would always get picked as the wife. “The wife picks the nurse,” and she always picked me as the nurse. And, uh, I was the only Asian kid in the school and she was my best friend. And, I thought I was just all that. I think that was the beginning of my rise to popularity. I was always very

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69 popular in school. The “cool” kids wanted to be my friend, called me and invited me to the birthday party and stuff like that. I was definitely smart but not necessarily reflected in terms of the grades. I was voted class president. I flirted, you know, guys chased us to the bathroom, cooties, the whole shebang. But we were the girls who were chased, you know (RB103–114).

By the time Ruth was in the middle of her elementary school years, she transitioned from being an insecure child to having “a lot of . . . confidence and self-esteem” (RB322). Developmentally, many children become more aware of their peer group and the issue of popularity around 3rd or 4th grade. However, for someone like Ruth, who grew up with very traditional Korean immigrant parents, popularity took on another layer of meaning. It signified a certain level of assimilation with the American peers. In Ruth’s case, because she attended school in the suburbs in the early 1970s and was “the only Asian kid in the school” (RB107–108), popularity meant being fully accepted by her Caucasian peers as “one of them,” rather than “the other” as a foreigner. Ruth was so well assimilated with her White friends that this distinction was brought to her attention when a huge influx of Asians immigrated to Southern California a decade later. She mentioned a specific incident where her friends were making fun of some recent Chinese immigrants, but turned to her and said, “Oh, not you! (They suddenly realized I am Asian.) You are not one of them” (RA275). Ruth remembered thinking to herself, “‘Yeah, I am not one of them,’ but still feeling uncomfortable and not knowing why” (RA276–277). In this way Ruth’s rise to popularity indicated a critical part of her assimilation process. She was careful to explain that to be in the “in crowd” (RB296) kids had to be “smart and active in all the cool things” (RB324–325), but one of the important criteria was having the right kinds of clothes, the most outward sign of one’s identity. Like most youngsters, Ruth struggled with her parents about clothes. She also revealed a deeper level of value conflict between her traditional Korean parents’ idea of what she “needs” (i.e., basic necessity) versus her Americanized notion of what she “wants” (i.e., expression of individuality): When I was in elementary school, I knew what was in and when my parents bought clothes, I said I want those pants. And then when I got older, I said I want those pants. But they couldn’t afford it. I wanted to work in high school so I could make my own money and afford those things. So maybe unconsciously those things were important to me, too. (My parents) always said, “We’ll provide whatever you need.”

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Korean American Women What about what I want? [italics added] So, for birthdays and stuff like that when I would get some money, I would definitely go shopping for clothes. You definitely need clothes to fit in (RB328–338).

“Like a Boy” According to Ruth, one of the things that helped her be in the “in-crowd” was that she was “excellent in P.E.” (RB114) and “always got awards for first place” (RB114). She was “extremely active because . . . she always wanted to be like a boy” (RB115–116). Because I thought that boys got to do everything. They had so much more freedom than women. I was so upset that because I was a girl I felt much more restricted. . . . And, I consciously said I can do just about anything you can do better. I always wore pants to church. I think my dad was extremely upset with me almost to the point where we didn’t go to church one day because I refused to wear a dress. I always wore pants. I climbed trees. I played touched football. I did as many pull ups as anybody else. I was probably one of the most physically active in terms of P.E. I was always on the softball team, on track. I always got ribbons for sports. I was extremely, extremely 100% a tomboy (RA82–98).

Ruth wanted to be just as strong and tough as guys, but she said “it got to a point my parents got letters from teachers saying how bad I was” (RA98–99). In fact, she mentioned getting called to the principal’s office a couple of times because she got in trouble. One time Ruth remembered being sent to the office for fighting because “a boy kicked me and the teacher didn’t do anything. I got so mad I punched him in the stomach” (RB130–131). Ruth admitted she was “pretty feisty” (RB132), “had a sharp tongue” (RB120), and “was quick witted” (RB120). She had so much attitude that she “would talk back to the teachers in class. Roll my eyes when I thought a kid was slow and stupid” (RB97–98) and “if somebody said something to me, I shot right back” (RB120–121). In contrast, Ruth notes her younger brother was “always extremely good” (RA99–100) and remembered hating him because “he always got good grades and teachers loved him” (RB133–135). So Ruth and her brother seemed to have reversed roles where she played the wild, physically active child and he assumed the quiet, studious, angelic role. What is interesting is that even though Ruth was also selected to be in an honor’s program in elementary school, she consistently described herself as being “not

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necessarily a good student” (RB121). She admitted, “maybe unconsciously . . . I wanted to prove that I could excel and be great” (RB98–99), but it was “not necessarily reflected in terms of the grades” (RB111–112). So even though Ruth was very outgoing and popular in school, her confidence did not seem to get translated fully into academic areas during her elementary school years. Ruth said she always felt “a little lacking” (RA136) and never thought of herself as “the smart one” (RA137), comparing herself to her “perfect” brother who always got straight A’s. Because Ruth diverted her attention to social and physical activities, she probably did not test her full academic potential. Sadly, her view of herself as being “a little lacking” seemed to have stay with her for a very long time. Until she discovered her true passion toward the end of her college year, Ruth convinced herself she was “unambitious” (RB257; RB344) and “didn’t care” (RB263; RB342) what she did with her life. Knowing More than the Parents Even though she projected an image of being overly confident with a lot of attitude on the outside, deep inside Ruth still seemed to feel somewhat insecure and inadequate as a girl. In fact, she says what stands out most about her elementary school years is that she was “extremely bratty . . . a little snobby . . . a smart-aleck . . . ‘know-it-all’ kind of kid” (RB95–97). Ruth confessed that was the time when she started thinking she knew more than her parents and felt some “discomfort” (RB161) about knowing more than them. Here Ruth points out that she was never embarrassed of her parents, but in another discussion she candidly shared a specific incident that made her realize she was “talking down” to her father: There was an incident where we all went to see a movie, a drive-in theater. We were all in the car, my dad’s big van, and we were all in the back seat. And, my mom wasn’t there. Three kids, we were coming out and we were all talking, talking, talking, 55 miles an hour. We were making a lot of noise. But, I think I was speaking to my father about the movie, and I remember he stopped the car suddenly, pulled over to the side of the road, turned around and looked at three of us. We can see he was really upset. He said, “Never, ever think your father is dumb. I understood every word you just said. I understand perfectly. Never, ever talk to me like that again.” And I don’t think I realized it. But, I think even in my 6th grade or early junior high school, I think I was talking down to my father because he had a strong accent, which I didn’t really think about. And, here I am now being raised in the United States, thinking that I know more than my parents and I know it all

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Because children acculturate faster than their parents, a cultural gap typically exists between parents and children, in addition to the generational gap, in immigrant families. Ruth’s family was no exception. In her middle childhood, she became aware of knowing more than her father about certain things such as American popular culture. This realization produced “discomfort” or felt strange to her because Ruth looked up to her father so much. She pointed out, “I know for a fact that his English is better than mine. He actually dissects the word . . . the Latin word, Greek . . . coming from . . . you know. He completely knows” (RA225–226). Because he is such an influential person in her life, it is particularly difficult for Ruth to admit that at some point in her childhood, she became a little embarrassed of her less acculturated father. So Ruth quickly diverted the conversation to many of her 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American friends who, in addition to embarrassment, also felt resentment about having to handle many adult responsibilities (e.g., any official school matters or legal business matters) at a young age. Korean Pride As Ruth acculturated rapidly into American culture through her peers at school, she was also getting enculturation about Korean traditions and culture at home through her parents. Ruth said she specifically remembered having conversations with her father in elementary school because he wanted to “make sure I was extremely proud of who I was, that I am a Korean American” (RA251–252). She explains: He sat me down. We would have a lot of long discussions. . . . I remember he sat me down with a map one time and he said, “Here is Korea and this is where we came from. You are different, but that’s good. And you have to be proud of it.” He did such a good job that I was still young enough to be, I don’t want to say the word, brainwashed but like accepting without a question that, I think till the end of junior high school I thought I was better than White people. It’s kind of weird. I thought, you know, those poor people they are not Korean. It was kind of a reversal. So I had a lot of pride, a lot of Korean pride in myself (RA256–265).

Additionally, being around other Koreans at the church also seemed to have helped Ruth to embrace the Korean aspect of her identity. Exposure

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to a large group of Koreans on a regular basis played an important role in her ethnic identity development especially because there was no other opportunity for Ruth to interact with other Koreans or Asians at school. She stated, “I think a big part of that too was that I was in a Korean church. I was constantly surrounded by other Koreans. So it wasn’t like I was the only Korean even though all my friends were all White” (RA265–267). So while Ruth was going through a rapid acculturation process (i.e., acquiring English language and American cultural values) at school with her all White peers, her participation in the Korean church maintained her enculturation process (i.e., retaining Korean language and cultural values) and ethnic pride. Story Themes from Late Childhood Like most third-wave, middle-class immigrants who are highly conscious of social status and mobility, Ruth’s parents purchased a house in a White neighborhood in order to provide a better education for their children. Clearly, Ruth was aware that doing well in school was important to her parents, but for her, popularity (i.e., full assimilation) and being as good as boys physically took on greater significance than getting good grades like her brother. It is interesting that in her late childhood, Ruth is also aware of the fact that boys enjoy more freedom and consciously chooses to be extremely physically active to be like a boy. Ironically, what would typically be construed as being “wild” or improper by traditional Korean standards is precisely what allowed Ruth to “fit” in with her White peers and helped her become popular in school. And, her popularity was not only important in terms of developing a sense of self-confidence in her late childhood, it also signaled her full assimilation with her White peers. However, even though she was the only ethnic minority in the group throughout her childhood, Ruth did not report any bad memory of racial or ethnic discrimination growing up. She explained this may be partly due to her personality of “not letting things get to me” (RA364) or “being oblivious” (RA361), but she did not appear to be denying it or going through what is called “conformity” according to the MID model (Atkinson et al., 1983). Even though Ruth assimilated rapidly with her White peers at the behavioral or functional level, she also seemed grounded at her core in terms of her Korean ethnic background through her close connection with family and church. Also, her acculturation process does not easily fit with other models commonly discussed in literature. Because Ruth is involved with both cultures, integration from Berry’s multidimensional model (1980, 1990)

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appears to best describe her experience at this stage in her life, at least on the surface. However, upon closer examination, we see that Ruth’s two worlds are kept very separate, with no interaction at all. She may have learned to “assimilate” or exist well in both worlds, but the two never really come together for her in any meaningful way. In fact, Ruth indicated during the interview that her parents hardly ever came to her school or interacted with her friends, and everything in her life (i.e., school, home, church) was always kept very separate. Therefore, the process Ruth was going through as a child does not seem to easily fall into any specific model or category of racial, minority, or ethnic identity development. Instead, it suggests a selective acculturation (Keefe & Padilla, 1987) process was taking place—acculturating (acquiring new cultural traits) while simultaneously retaining ethnic identification or loyalty, as evidenced by her strong Korean pride instilled by her father.

ADOLESCENCE (JUNIOR HIGH THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL): “UNMEMORABLE” Because I Was a Girl When Ruth was in junior high, she was reportedly still very popular and outgoing, getting invited to sleepovers and parties. However, her father felt she was “becoming too conscious of clothing, boys, makeup” (RB168–169) in her puberty and “suddenly became very strict” (RA140). She was extremely upset at first and remembers having a long discussion with her father about why she could not do things her brother could do: For example, he was able to go places with his friends. He was able to do activities outside of school. He was in a group that did choir shows in competitions with other schools. He would take time after school to go out and do that. They would have parties as a group and he could go to that and come back late at night. Sometimes so late that he would have to sneak back at night while my parents were asleep. One time he got caught and he got in trouble. But, you know, he was okay because he was a boy. Uh . . . and I was not able to do anything. All my friends tried out for a drill team. I couldn’t try out because they competed on Sunday’s. All my friends and I practiced to become cheerleaders, but I was not allowed to try out because I had to have my father’s signature, but he refused to sign it because they would have games on Sundays or it would interfere with my school work. There were school dances that my friends would go to, but I was not allowed to go (RA146–158).

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So Ruth basically felt she could not do anything because she was a “girl” (RA165). Although she was “still hanging around cheerleaders and stuff like that” (RA297) from 6th to 8th grade, Ruth indicates it became quite clear by the time she reached high school that she “was no longer going to be hanging with these people” (RA299–300). Her father would not permit her to go so often that it got to a point her friends were tired of asking and “little by little they were weaned” (RA289). Initially, Ruth says she rebelled and went through a “phase of resentment” (RB250), but then after awhile she gave up and withdrew completely: “And maybe that was my rebellion and my shut down. Because I wanted to do all those things and the minute my parents wouldn’t let me, I think I just shut down and said okay I am not going to do anything” (RB325–328). Eventually Ruth said she came around and did what her parents wanted her to do, “being the responsible person” (RB253) that she is. However, her identification as a responsible, oldest daughter was so deeply ingrained that she severely curtailed her own freedom by being too conscientious: But I got the impression that my brother was able to go out with friends and not have to ask and be more carefree. And, it might have been self-inflicting where I was self-conscious, self-aware, always thinking I need to ask for permission: I’m going to get in trouble, I better be careful, I better make sure I get home by six, you know, not wanting to be in trouble. So I always felt that I had that restriction (RA114–120).

As much as Ruth’s “sense of responsibility” (RB194) compelled her to be obedient and internalize her parents’ expectations, she seemed to have “shut down” part of her self as a way to deal with the situation. Her social and emotional development came to a halt in the process, and it critically delayed Ruth’s discovery of her own sexuality and physical attraction to boys during adolescence. Ruth went from being popular and outgoing to being “a little too shy” (RB269) and comments, “I became insecure because my father reigned me in” (RB167–168). She described herself during this time period as “a kind of blank. My body was kind of numb right before I went to the high school and I just went through the motion” (RB348–350). The abrupt transition was clearly very stressful on Ruth, but it also had a profound impact on her life as an adult. Getting the Good Grades One positive thing that came out of being “weaned” from the popular crowd was that Ruth says, “That was around the time I got good grades

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too” (RB272–273). What she lost in terms of her “cool” friends at school, she gained academically. This is a very significant experience in Ruth’s life because she realized for the first time that if she applies herself, she can also “get good grades” like her brother: And a strange thing happened my second year there at the end of 7th grade. I came home with all A’s and I had been B/C student since 4th grade. I was so ecstatic that I got straight A’s like my brother. And, when I showed my dad, I thought he would throw a celebration. “Yah, of course, you should be getting all A’s.” “What? No pat on the back? No praise?” I was surprised by his reaction. . . . Many times, you didn’t necessarily have to be smart to get good grades. You just had to do the work. I did the work. And, uh, I got the grades . . . I remember thinking to myself, “Wow, I did it!” And after that I worked hard and I pretty much maintained a much higher GPA because of that (RB174–196).

Ruth described this incident with a lot of effect and vivid detail because it seemed to stand out in her mind. Her realization, “I can do this,” is very important for her because she always felt “a little lacking” (RA136) academically. Even though Ruth excelled in sports and popularity, she viewed herself through her parents’ eyes, who probably did not value doing well in these areas as highly as “getting the good grades.” However, Ruth went through such a huge change that she says, “by high school everybody thought I was this quiet studious type” (RB206). Even though she described this “new self” as “a psychological ploy” (RB207), only an “outward appearance . . . not my personality” (RB227), it was critical for Ruth to learn that she can achieve anything if she wants to and is willing to do the work. She did not get the kind of recognition she had hoped for from her parents, and her “unambitious” (RB257) and “I don’t really care what I do with my life” (RB345–346) attitude may have been her way of quietly rebelling against her father’s tightening grip as an adolescent. Active in the Church As Ruth’s popularity declined at school, she not only increased her effort academically, but also her participation in the church. Although her father’s church grew a bit in five years, it was still relatively small and the educational department was always in need of English-speaking volunteers. So, beginning in high school when Ruth was about fourteen, she became heavily involved in teaching Sunday school and was very active in the youth group. In a way, she transferred her creative energy from school to church, and her naturally outgoing, in-charge style seemed to have found an escape:

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77 I would have to say that at church I was very popular. And I was a bully, you know what I mean, the one who leads. . . . At church, I was leading, already preaching to the elementary school students, and organizing retreats. . . . My dad is the senior pastor so I think I am hot stuff. You get away with things. I remember one time I got in trouble because I refused to close my eyes when they were praying and the teacher told my dad and my dad called me in and had a talk with me. But . . . uh, I am the pastor’s daughter. I can’t get in trouble (RB225–239).

So even though Ruth’s father clamped down on her social activities at school, her resilient, feisty personality discovered an outlet in his church. Utilizing the activities her father permitted, she found a way to exercise her power by letting her “bully” side come out through her leadership capacity in the church. However, Ruth said her “two worlds were kept very separate. Church was church; that was separate. High school was high school; separate” (RA319–320). In fact, they were so distinct from each other that she felt “it was almost like two separate kind of growing experiences” (RB234–235). At school all her friends were “all White” (RA267), while everybody at church was all Korean. Nevertheless, Ruth mentioned many of the social and leadership skills she obtained through church activities were beneficial later in her career: But, I would have to say that I think those few kids who are doing a lot of the work, I can see that . . . that they will become better people out there in the world because they know how to communicate, they know how to put things together, they know how to be in a group, they know how to follow. . . . They are not just good students, but they know how to behave in social, group situations. It was huge . . . I mean you really learn how to juggle and create . . . which has helped me later in my career (RB219–224).

Story Themes from Adolescence Up until adolescence, Ruth largely enjoyed her freedom, socializing with her White peers at school and being very active. Even though she acculturated at a much faster rate than her parents and may have developed a little “attitude,” feeling like she knew more than her parents about certain things, it did not seem to create any major conflict up to this point. However, with the onset of puberty, the difference between the two cultures, in terms of what is considered acceptable social activities for a teenage girl,

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seems to really stand out. Coming from a traditional Korean culture and conservative religious background, Ruth’s father clashed with modern American culture in its liberal sexual position. Because Ruth’s father was raised under a strict “taboo” against premarital sex, he may have perceived her interests in boys, dances, and parties as a real threat to the kind of values and lifestyle he wanted to instill in his children. What he did not realize in his desire to protect and discourage Ruth from early sexual interests was that by cutting off any peer interactions or activities outside of school, he also effectively shut down her social emotional development.

COLLEGE: “SELF-AWARENESS AND SELF-IDENTITY” Parents’ Continued Hold Because one of the reasons Ruth’s parents immigrated to the U.S. was to provide a good education for the children, there was never any doubt Ruth would go to college. Like most Korean immigrant parents, Ruth’s parents transmitted the Confucian emphasis on learning as the best way to attain the wisdom and virtue needed for social advancement in the United States. Thus, as an eighteen year old, Ruth dutifully began college as a pre-med student, trying to fulfill her parents’ dream. For the first two years, Ruth attended a university close to home before transferring to another university in the Southern California area. Although she left home for the first time and lived in the dorm, Ruth’s parents continued to have a lot of influence on her. For example, Ruth remembered one night being out until 10 o’clock and “just freaking out to go back” to her dorm room just in case her parents called (RB430). She comments “Isn’t that crazy? That’s how much hold they had on me” (RB431). Ruth also mentioned how her father used to drive two hours to pick her up at school every weekend so she could attend his church and continue teaching Sunday school all through college. Ruth does not know whether her father did this on purpose to protect her on the weekend or because her parents missed her. Regardless, she says she does not have any regret or resentment about that because “That’s the way it was” (RB456). However, she stated, “I really wish that I had not gone home . . . I had a lot of missed opportunities because I was locked up every week” (RB433–437). Her choice of the word “lock” here is interesting because it is a vivid description of how she was physically and emotionally “restricted” (RB428) by her father. As a dutiful oldest daughter, Ruth “just did what [her] parents said” (RC498), rather than fighting for what she wanted, such as exploring other churches nearby her school or taking trips with her friends during college.

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Opening My Eyes Even though Ruth’s parents tried to be “protective, they just closed my eyes to what was going on around me” (RC589–590). Her “eyes were opened” (RC588) inevitably her freshman year when she went through a lot of transformation. In many respects, Ruth felt that college was like high school for her because she was able to explore everything around her. And because of that, Ruth feels she was “a late bloomer” (RC600) and her academic work suffered. While she was busy exploring about herself, all her friends who “had done things like explored drugs and alcohol and everything like that in high school” (RC592) had a better sense of who they are and were much more focused in college. Ruth mentioned she “regretted that for a long time” (RC601–602) and at one point even blamed her parents for being too close to her. She now, however, believes it was a good thing because Ruth does not think she would have been able to handle the peer pressure when she was younger if she was exposed to all those temptations in high school. Being a Christian in a Secular World According to Ruth, freshman year was “a turning point” (RC557) in her life because everything she ever believed in was questioned. For example, for the first time in her life, people around her asked tough questions about her beliefs and challenged her faith. Ruth said she had no answers because she never questioned it. As a minister’s daughter and “not being controversial” (RC562), she states she had “a simple faith, unquestioned faith” (RB546). She “just accepted it like a faith of a child” (RB526). However, she feels struggling with a lot of soul searching questions in college was good for her because, “I grew and realized who I was, what I believed in, what my values were, how strong I was or how weak I was in what area, what I wanted out of life” (RC583–585). In this way, Ruth believes her identity as “a Christian in a secular world” (RB499) was strengthened. Because she was challenged left and right, Ruth “became confident in herself as a Christian” (RB521) and her faith was reaffirmed (RB551). Finding My “Roots” After Ruth graduated from high school, she remembers her father asking her to choose either a family vacation in Hawaii or a trip to Korea by herself as a graduation present. Ruth decisively chose the latter because her interest in learning more about her heritage and ethnic background was heightened around this time period. So for the very first time in her life, she

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visited Korea, which became a catalyst for wanting to learn the language and connect with other Koreans in college. In fact, Ruth came back from Korea “with a real fervor and desire to know [her] identity as Korean” (RB361–362), and she “really wanted to find [her] roots” and “be more Korean” (RB376). Thus, one of the areas Ruth grew and learned about herself during those college years was her identity as a Korean American. This awakened interest in her heritage was coupled with a sudden exposure to many Koreans in college who were more like her and “looked” and “acted” like her (RA386). Because of a shared upbringing, Ruth felt she could talk to other Korean Americans and reach an “immediate understanding” (RA389). I had no Korean friends until then. I had a couple close ones from church but all my friends were not Koreans. And, when I started hanging out with other Koreans, there was a very natural click. They were very easy to talk to. Maybe it’s because of the way we were brought up, a complete understanding, cultural understanding whether we agree with it or not. A love of Kimchi [pickled cabbage and radish] . . . I mean it was just automatic. Even now my closest friends are Koreans because, you know, we went through a lot of similar things. Granted my Korean friends are not the “Korean” Koreans who could speak Korean. My Korean friends are like me. They were raised in a white community, a Christian upbringing. It was easy to fall into friendship (RB462–471).

So in college, Ruth met other Koreans who were at a similar level of acculturation for the first time and experienced an instant connection with them. This exposure occurred at a critical time in her development when she was “open” to everything around her, had a heightened awareness of her ethnicity, and was searching to know who she is. Back to Being Popular Ruth also became actively involved in Korean clubs on campus such as the Korean Student Associations and Korean Bible Studies. She was the only woman to ever become president of the Korean club during her undergraduate years and proudly states, “I was extremely active. I was on the track team. I won an award. And I got the trophy for the club. I was just involved, extremely involved” (RB384–386). As Ruth described the various activities she was involved with in college, she realized how she “went all the way back to popular” and “became very social” (RB358–359) again.

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It is important to note how Ruth’s “old” active, outgoing self resurfaces as she separates from her parents and undergoes a transformation in college. Her level of activity seems to be closely connected to both culture and gender. Her inactive, quiet, passive retreat during her adolescence seems to conjure up a more traditional Korean image of a woman, socially sanctioned to occupy the “inner room” of the house, to keep away from the world and preserve her purity. In contrast, Ruth’s active, popular, outgoing persona seems to represent her more Americanized, masculine part of herself, which portrays freedom, optimism, and “I can do this” (RB196) attitude from her childhood. “Unknowing Condition” Also seen from her childhood, a part of Ruth’s active, outgoing self was her playfulness with boys. This aspect of her personality was suppressed in high school because, as Ruth so aptly put it, “my father had worked his butt off to keep them away” (RB542). However, when she got to college, boys who flirted and had crushes on her flattered Ruth, and she, in turn, became “extremely flirty” (RB390). In fact, she says she went out with five guys her freshman year and experienced an attraction toward them (RC610–611). However, she states, “I made an unknowing condition that I would date only Koreans” (RB391–392). When asked how this “unknowing condition” came about, she explained it was because her parents talked about it all the time: Because my father and my mother (it’s true my father is the verbal one and that’s why I keep mentioning my father), constantly said you got to marry a Korean . . . Christian, on and on and on. And I went yea, yea, yea. But then when it became my choice, I was the one who said I want to marry a Korean. I think it’s because in college I was going through an identity transition, I was attracted to Asian men (RB398–402).

Like so many Korean American young people, Ruth’s parents’ attitudes and beliefs formed the basic foundation for her values. So, by the time she reached college, she had internalized her parents’ wish for her to marry a Korean and adopted a position as rigidly as her father. Looking back, she mentioned there were two men in her life she could have married, but she ended up rejecting both of them because “they weren’t Korean” (RB393). One of them was a Jewish guy she met in her freshman year, but it will be discussed further in the last chapter along with other relationships in her life. What is important to note here, however, is that Ruth went away to college knowing that her parents would prefer her to marry a Korean man and she was convinced this is also what she wanted for herself.

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Being a Woman in a Man’s World In spite of a painful breakup, Ruth “realized a little bit of power in college with that” (RB428). In fact, she indicated one of the areas where her “selfidentity” developed was “being a woman in a man’s world” (RB500–501): College is where I blossomed as a woman and where I acknowledge I am so glad I am not a boy because I really enjoyed the power I have as a woman. I really enjoy putting my makeup on, dressing up. I really enjoy all the things about being a woman. I like pampering myself, doing my nails, anything feminine. I started embracing everything feminine. I embraced the fact that I can carry a child one day. You know everything about being a woman I embraced. I realized that when I was younger and wanted to be a male all the time, that’s a lie [whispers] (RB555–561).

So Ruth made a remarkable transition from wanting to be a boy as a child to embracing and celebrating her womanhood as a young adult. Ruth made an important discovery that she has “power” as a woman, which she explains has worked to her advantage later in her career: I am talking about sexual power. And when I say “sexual,” I don’t mean sex. I know for a fact that very intelligent, powerful men are willing to sit for hours with me and help me because I am a woman. I don’t think they would do that with another man. I am saying that I have learned a lot of my skills from amazing, powerful people who were willing to teach me because I am a woman. I am social, I am friendly, and I am able to use my femininity to get what I want. I didn’t take advantage of it, but I didn’t turn it away if it came my way. And, because I am a woman, I am not threatening to other men. So I was able to quickly move up the ranks. . . . I realized that being an attractive woman in a man’s world, because it was predominantly male, I was able to move ahead quickly (RB598–609).

Another reason Ruth is glad to be a woman is that she believes “it’s easier being a woman” (RB561). While men are more rigidly bound by social expectation or demand to be a provider, Ruth feels she has more of a choice as a woman: “If I choose to, I could do it. But if I don’t want to, I don’t have to. If all of a sudden I get married and have a child and I wanted to stay home, it will be okay. I am not pressured. I can do whatever I want, rather than what I have to do” (RB566–568).

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Finding My Passion Right before Ruth started college she remembers a conversation with her father where she told him, “I’m kind of not ambitious [italics added] dad. I really don’t care. I don’t want a lot out of life. I just want to be comfortable [italics added]” (RC157–158). So her father had a long talk with her about how much money she would need to make per month to live the kind of life she would be content with. In this critical conversation, there was tension between Ruth’s more Americanized self that wanted to just be “comfortable” making ends meet and her father’s life long “ambition” for Ruth to find an occupation that would help her reach a “comfortable” level, a career that will offer both social prestige and economic security in America. Thus, what is considered to be “comfortable” holds a very different meaning for these two generations. What is interesting is that Ruth eventually came around and identified with her father’s ambition and decided to be pre-med “to satisfy” her parents (RA530). However, what she discovered in college was that the “hard” sciences “didn’t come easy” (RC563–564) for her, but what she enjoyed and did really well are things like medieval literature and art classes. So, she seriously questioned, “what I was trying to do with my life, where I was going, who I was” (RC566), and finally decided to change her major “to satisfy” (RA532) herself. This was a very courageous, major step in Ruth’s life because this is the first time she ever really stood up to her parents and fought for what she wanted. Ruth described how she geared up to talk to her parents: I did a lot of research in the library. I wrote everything down. And I came before my parents and said, “I’m changing my major.” They were in shock. And they asked me every question I knew they would ask me. Since I had researched it in the library, I listened to every question and then I handed them a piece of paper with all the details: how long I have to be in school, this is what I have to do to get an internship, this is what I have to do to graduate, what my salary is going to be, which is the maximum I could make, examples of companies that hire these kinds of people, this is what they do. And I think my parents were in shock when they saw the paper and that it was not a pleading thing, but that she thought about it and this is what she wants to do. And there was an acceptance there. And, uh, a bit of crying, “She is going to be a poor artist” (RA532–542).

Even though Ruth was able to persuade her parents to allow her to go with what she liked rather than what was expected, she found out four or five years later from her mother that her father literally broke down and

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cried quietly for a whole week after she made this announcement. Her father is now very proud of her, but at the time he seemed to really grieve the loss of his dream for her. As difficult as it must have been for Ruth to go against her parents’ wish, I think this is a real turning point in her life where she risks her parents’ disappointment and rejection and stands up for what really matters to her. In turn, Ruth notably separates their wishes from hers and individuates from her family expectations. Interestingly, as Ruth worked through this process, she discovered her passion and ambition in life: I didn’t care about the A’s, but I got the A’s because I was in lab until 1 or 2 o’clock in the morning. We became friends with a few graduate students and after everybody left the lab and it was locked up, we went into the bathroom and waited and knocked on the door and they would let us in. Everybody went out to party and have fun. I was in the lab working my butt off because I loved it. I loved what I was doing. I found my calling. I found what I wanted to do in life. I remember explaining to my parents I didn’t care if I couldn’t make a penny as long as I did this because it wasn’t like work to me. I am so lucky that I found that. I am really lucky that it pays the bill. I wasn’t expecting it to be lucrative and I didn’t care as long as I could do it. That’s how passionate I was about my job. So I realized that I was ambitious. I never thought I was until then. I always thought I don’t care; I am satisfied with life. But then I realized that was not true any more. Now I was ambitious. I know what I want, what I want to do (RB503–515).

During this critical stage in her life, Ruth indicated a female computer art design professor in college played a significant role in shaping her passion. She was one of the first women in the industry to do the kind of innovative things Ruth wanted to do in combining artistic and technical areas. Ruth described the teacher as “a vision of what I wanted” (RC701), “a living example of what is possible” (RC713). It is interesting that at a time when Ruth was going through the separation-individuation process with her parents and letting go of the familiar, this female professor embodies the possibility of what Ruth could become. Incidentally, Ruth mentions this professor was one of the significant figures in her life who “inspired” (RC687) and “transformed” (RC688) her to strive and really push herself. Identity Issues from College Years Because Ruth was socially restricted throughout high school, she could not really explore issues such as her identity, beliefs, interests, and relationships until college. Like many Korean American young adults, Ruth

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shared a heightened desire to learn more about her ethnic “roots” and connect with other Korean Americans who were like herself. However, Ruth’s experience does not seem to fit into any of the ethnic identity stages described by Phinney (1993). Although Ruth primarily interacted with White peers until college, she never went through what would be considered the “unexamined ethnic identity” stage in that she always had consistent contact with the Korean community and maintained her ethnic pride. And, even though exploration of her Korean American identity may have increased during her college years, Ruth did not exclusively identify with Koreans, but maintained her contact with non-Koreans as well. Moreover, the heightened exploration of her ethnic identity was not followed by any confusion or a “moratorium,” or even clearer acceptance of her ethnicity because she already seemed to have achieved that prior to college. Therefore, Ruth found a greater opportunity in college to connect with other 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young adults and formed life-long friendships, but her ethnic identity as a Korean did not seem to change. What changed significantly during college, however, was the development of Ruth’s faith, womanhood, and vocational interest. She grew considerably in each of these areas as she separated and individuated from her parents and found meaning for herself. However, she was the most critical in her career selection. Most Korean immigrant parents tend to encourage their children to go into the “hard” sciences. They sincerely believe as a minority, their children will have a better chance of succeeding in a professional or technical field that does not demand highly sophisticated verbal and relational skills. Ruth, however, found her interest and talent was elsewhere and felt torn between wanting to please her parents and being true to who she is. Forced to make a decision, she ended up following her heart and stood up to her parents about her career path. On the other hand, when Ruth was confronted with another tough choice, a growing friendship with a non-Korean young man, she automatically went with what she believed her parents would want, rather than her own individual feeling. Thus, even though Ruth was able to think more independently in her career choice, she seemed to hold a more traditional view when it came to the relationship.

CAREER: “CONFIDENT & SECURE” Back to Social Isolation Toward the end of college, Ruth seemed independent, at least in terms of selecting her vocation. To continue in this career path, she applied to a

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graduate program in New York to get her masters in fine art (MFA) in computer animation. Initially, her parents may not have been too thrilled about her change in major or going to a school so far away, but Ruth’s parents, like most Korean immigrant parents, were generally supportive of the idea of furthering her education and training. As Ruth immersed herself in this new endeavor, she learned she is “extremely ambitious” (RA518) and still “really competitive” (RC161). Although Ruth considered herself “unambitious” (RB257) during her socially restricted high school years, her competitiveness actually goes back to her late childhood when she wanted to be just as good as the boys. And, even though she let go of her father’s dream of her becoming a doctor, she still had the “ambition” of achieving a high social and professional status in mainstream America. Interestingly, as Ruth became in touch with her ambitious side, she adopted a more typical first generation immigrant strategy of being singlemindedly focused on attaining the American dream. Her ambition was also: The beginning and the end of my life because I pretty much stayed in the [computer animation] lab until one or two o’clock in the morning, or even four in the morning almost every day. I was just working, working, working because I decided to focus on that goal, that career. Bypassing everything else—bypassing social life, bypassing dating (RC 693–697).

So, for the next four years, Ruth thought about nothing but sharpening her skills as a digital artist for movie special effects. She was so disconnected from everything around her that she looked like a recent arrival, even a little “F.O.B.ish” [i.e., Fresh Off the Boat] (RB489). Until about the age of twenty-six, she says she didn’t wear a lot of make up and “looked very young, very natural, very innocent” (RB487), remembering her work badge photo. Ruth says, in fact, everybody in her graduate program thought she looked like someone who spoke Korean fluently and was shocked to find out that she couldn’t speak the language. By focusing solely on making her mark in the world, she had voluntarily imposed or “locked” herself in her work. “I Did It!” As soon as Ruth realized what her focus was going to be for her life, she says “it kind of all boils down to that I chose career. . . . And each time my goal was I want to work in the movie industry and I want to see my name go up in the theater” (RC10–12). So she forced herself to “really strive and learn and learn and learn” (RC163). And then she vividly remembered the

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very moment she “sat in a movie theater and watched [her] name scroll up” (RC7–8) on her first major job working on a movie. This was the culmination of all that I had worked for and I was sitting in the dark theater among my peers watching a movie that I felt very proud of too, not just some stupid flasher movie or anything, it was Apollo 13 actually. And I sit in the theater with a fantastic movie, I see the scroll going up, I see all the credits, I see my company’s name and all the names go up and the whole audience is screaming and clapping, and I had a thought, “I did it!” It was just that moment. I think any moment where you achieve your goals you feel this feeling of contentment and success (RC12–19).

In this way, the career she had consciously chosen over everything else in her life had finally paid off. And, all the sacrifices she made were not in vain, but helped her reach her goal. It brought her such sense of accomplishment and pride, especially as a minority and a woman in a profession dominated by White males. However, her success did not come without a price. It also robbed her of many experiences she values and wanted to have being raised in America. Drive Behind a Desire to Succeed Even after reaching her initial goal, Ruth stated she “kept working hard . . . constantly growing, constantly moving up the ladder in terms of salary, promotions, confidence, talent and technique” (RC56–58). Ruth continued to strive because of her desire to learn and her own “pride’s sake” (RC63) to be the best in her particular field. However, deep down, she confessed the reason she kept pushing herself so much was because she was “extremely insecure” (RC179): Everybody is always going to be better. You don’t know how good you are. Somebody else is there wanting to take your place. You are constantly with, you know, a bunch of other people who are amazingly smart. Some people are smarter just from brain power of smartness and other people just because of education they got. For all the different reasons, you’re constantly feeling like you got to keep going (RC164–169).

So Ruth recognized that some of her drives stemmed from her own insecurities. Similar to her childhood feeling of her grades never being good enough compared to her “perfect” brother, she did not feel completely secure in her successes. And, just as her insecurities as a toddler were

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rooted in her family’s struggle to survive as recent immigrants, she still seems haunted by that experience. Even after Ruth had been in the work force earning a good income, she admitted to hoarding her money and living “on a student budget mode” (RC89) all her life. After having established a place for herself in her profession for more than a decade, Ruth only recently started to relax a little in her late thirties and felt “confident that I can get the job done and that I am worth what I am worth and I am good at what I do” (RC170–171). Even though it took her a long time, her ability to break into the mainstream and achieve her success seemed to be instrumental in conquering her inner demons especially as a minority woman. In fact, for Ruth, her career appeared to be a major source of her self-esteem at this point in her life: Well, I get a lot of pride out of my work. I know that I’m good at it. I know that people respect me. I know that I’m highly valued as an employee. All of those things give me confidence and feel good about my self. Whether that was conscious or unconscious on my end, I feel a deep sense of contentment and satisfaction (RA501–506).

Achieving Economic Security One crucial aspect of Ruth’s success in her career was achieving economic security for herself and her family. Referring back to her talk with her father just before starting college, Ruth was very mindful about choosing a career that would support her lifestyle and “comfort level” (RA530). Many of the insecurities Ruth felt as a child were a by-product of economic insecurities her parents experienced as recent immigrants in the U.S. So reaching a level of financial success that would allow her to not only take care of herself, but also give her the means to take care of her family if necessary, is definitely peace of mind that Ruth takes a lot of pride in: Oh, yeah, and being able to take care of my family, my parents especially. Parents will worry about their children until the day they die. But I think now my parents at least feel that if they go that we are going to be able to survive on our own and be taken care of. And if anything happens to anybody, I can take care of them. And I have. In some ways I almost wanted to become a man so badly I took on that role. To the point where my brother doesn’t feel pressure, which is a good thing because he can pretty much do what he wants to do and enjoy his life (RA552–558).

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Here, again, we see Ruth’s childhood theme of wanting to be a boy, taking on the form of her fulfilling the traditional role of an oldest son in her family and financially taking “a lot of stress off of their [her parents’] shoulders” (RC516–517). Ruth explains she shares the responsibility of taking care of her parents with her brother who “does certain things” like taking “care of the legal paper work . . . certain things emotionally also and anything technical, but I probably take care of more of the financial and the emotional” (RA566–568). Interestingly, she pointed out that this pattern is not uncommon among her Korean American female friends: “I find that of all of my friends because we are all successful and some of us are the oldest, we all take care of our parents, not the son in the family” (RA562–564). In her first interview, Ruth alluded that one of the reasons her mother was the breadwinner in her family was because ethnic minority women are allowed more opportunities to structurally assimilate “quicker than men” (RA40) in this country. And, as it was for her first generation Korean parents, she found this phenomenon to also be true for other 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young women. This may be in part due to what she mentioned earlier about being less threatening to White male supervisors as a woman. However, others (Hurh, 1993; Kim, 1993) have also pointed out that Asian Americans in general and ethnic minority men in particular continue to experience structural marginality or limited racial and social acceptance by the dominant group regardless of how many generations they have been in the United States. The social climate, which permits faster structural assimilation for minority women, in turn, tends to encourage a higher rate of “out-marriages” (i.e., marrying outside of one’s own race) to the dominant group by these women (Yu, 1993). In another discussion, Ruth mentioned the burden of taking care of her parents and siblings “is a little stressful, but it’s something that I’ve done all my life. It’s just part of my life. It’s not like I feel mad or blamed. Or, it’s not like I feel like, ‘Oh, it’s bad or a burden.’ It’s just a natural part of my life” (RC517–519). Ruth believed this is largely because “I’m the oldest child. I think it’s been ingrained in us to take care of our family” (RC507). It’s just the way I was raised because I used to baby-sit them since they were babies. The oldest child was always the most responsible, always having to take care of them. It’s part of my vocabulary, part of my life. I’m always taking care of my friends, taking care of people. Being kind of a Type A personality, being a little bit in control, making sure everything is okay. The younger one has free reign because of that, able to do their own thing. The older one always goes, “If something goes wrong

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Korean American Women with the little one, I’m the one who is going to get blamed.” So just watching my brother and sister and making sure they are okay, you know what I mean. I think it’s just sort of subconscious (RC533–540).

As the oldest, Ruth has definitely been indoctrinated with the strongest dose of being “other-oriented,” especially feeling responsible for her parents and siblings. But, she also light heartedly described how her parents conditioned the Korean traditional family value of caring for the elderly parents on all three of the children in their everyday activities: I think my mom and dad probably snuck in my room and said, “You will take care of your parents when they are old. You will go to church. You will wear a skirt tomorrow.” I think he planted the subliminal message even when we were asleep. He just pounded the message in our head everyday the same thing over and over. But because he did it so much like everyday, I think we all just woke up and like, “Yes, I’ll wear a skirt to church today.” It’s funny, but it’s kind of scary (RC663–669).

So when Ruth’s father retired last year, Ruth and her two siblings automatically assumed the responsibility of taking care of their parents and prepared for the major transition: I think we had a discussion a year and a half ago about our father having to retire and what we are going to do and how things are going to change. We actually sat around a table and three of us had a long discussion and came to our parents and told them this is what we are thinking and these are our plans. And after that my parents don’t think about anything and we just do it” (RA568–573).

The emphasis on interdependence especially among family members is clearly the strongest Korean value Ruth has been raised with all her life. She pointed out that during college she noticed how she and her other Asian American friends shared the similar pressure of needing to be successful in the real world because of their feelings of family obligations while her Caucasian friends seemed to come from the other end of the spectrum on this view: We would have like huge conversations late at night and they [Caucasians] are the ones who actually felt that what their parents did for them was what they do. There was no sense of appreciation. I got the impression from them that there was no thought of taking care of their parents later. I mean we were all young but that was already on my

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91 mind and that was on a lot of Asians, especially a lot of Asian male mind. You know, I need to do well. I need to take care of my parents who worked hard for me . . . and some of them [Caucasians] I do know for a fact just travel the world, like they don’t owe anybody anything, kind of like a nomadic type of life, make money to travel and have a Zen kind of lifestyle with no repercussions or keeping in touch with their family what so ever. Living their life, that’s it (RC1043–1053).

Thus, even though Ruth socialized with White peers most of her life and she can hardly speak any Korean, she clearly seemed to identify more closely with the traditional Korean cultural value of being family-centered and interdependent rather than being self-centered and individualistic in terms of succeeding in her career. Wake Up Call After four years of intense work without any break, Ruth’s body began to break down when she was only twenty-six years old. She gave up a lot of things to work so hard, but she realized she also sacrificed her health by “running [her] body into the ground” (RB659). Ruth explained, “I realized that I can cut it off and just keep going without thinking about my health and then I just crash big time later on” (RC1076–1078). She also knows she is “a little bit” (RC831) like her mom in terms of being extremely private and keeping things to herself. Ruth saw that her mother’s silent suffering “made her grow old faster” (RC806). Likewise, it has “caused a lot of my sickness” (RC873) because Ruth tends to hold things in and the stress affects her physically (e.g., stomach problems). So Ruth learned, “I can’t do this forever. My body is weak. If I quit, what is the rest? How can I take care of myself? What can I do? If I continue working this way, I lose my health. Without my health there is nothing, then what?” (RC83–85) Through this experience, Ruth came to the conclusion that the most important value in living is “100% health” (RC1075). In the process of realizing that she cannot take her body for granted, Ruth also began evaluating what she was doing and what her life was about: And I think that’s why after my how many movies I did and seeing my name going up again you know, “Yeah, okay, I’m done. So what? What was that all about? It’s just a movie people forget about it until the next one comes out.” It became kind of jaded. But it was kind of strange that I worked all my life for this amazing moment of just achieving my goal and being at the top of the top and four years later feeling like,

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Korean American Women “Well, for what?” . . . What kind of impact am I making? What am I doing? Is this what I really want to do? You know what can I leave here with?” (RC66–81).

So after reaching her goal of being one of the best in her technical field and achieving economic security for her family, Ruth confronted existential questions of the purpose and meaning of her life. Having fulfilled her family obligation, she had to face herself. And, the question she raised as a child, “What about what I want, not what I need” (RB 334–335) rings strangely true. Here, the “want” seems to represent the modern American notion of individual desire or being “self-oriented,” which Ruth says felt “selfish, wanting to think only about me” (RC916–917). On the other hand, the “need” seems to represent the traditional Korean cultural value of interdependence or being “other-oriented”—as a child, her parents felt obligated to provide for her basic necessities, and now Ruth feels obligated to provide for them. Clearly, as a young adult, the challenge for Ruth is how to balance and satisfy the two sides. Missed Opportunities In this context, it was interesting to see Ruth characterize her work as “a love/hate relationship. I love what I do, but it drains me” (RB641). “Work” seemed like an interesting metaphor for Ruth. Like school when she was growing up, Ruth socialized with mostly all White colleagues at work. Yet, her most intense internalization of traditional Korean family values got played out through work (i.e., fulfilling family obligation, bringing sense of pride). Ruth’s career had been her “number one priority” (RB642), but she also missed out on a lot of opportunities, such as relationships, getting married and having children, traveling, and living life just because of it. Being in a field where everyone is so competitive and driven, Ruth said it has not been easy for her to learn to relax, appreciate, and enjoy what she has. In fact, it took her a long time to come to the realization that “there’s more to life than just choosing my career goals” (RC155–156). In the context of this discussion, Ruth interestingly mentioned her conversation with her father about not being ambitious and only wanting to be comfortable in life. Although Ruth sacrificed her health and social life in order to succeed in her career, she realized her work alone was not enough to satisfy her or bring self-fulfillment. So, Ruth shared how she recently made a bold decision not to strive for the next level in her career:

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93 Because I worked my butt off and I got to a point where if I wanted to I could probably be in one of those positions where I could get one of those golden statues, supervising projects for visual effect. Eight years ago I was moving in that direction and a lot of my friends are in it. I think I could have done it. I think I would have stressed out bald. I have management skill, I like people, I like working on a team. But, I came to a point I just said no. Leave me alone. I just want to go to my desk, sit there, and do my work, my art, go home and deal with my life. I came to that decision and I don’t regret it one bit. Other people now who are supervisors they are constantly stressed and have no life. I did that for four years burning the midnight oil. But I don’t want to do that anymore. I am very confident that I am good at what I do. But I want to enjoy my life now (RB582–592).

Thus, in her struggle to create time and space for self, Ruth is stepping into an area she has neglected for a long time—play. Ruth’s Career and Changing Self By choosing to say “no” and not taking the next step in her career, Ruth took a courageous step forward in her personal growth. Since childhood, Ruth has repeatedly struggled with her two selves: her active, competitive, ambitious self, representing her more masculine side; and her passive, unambitious, introverted self, representing her more traditional feminine persona. Ruth’s active self also portrayed a more Americanized, social, popular image; while her passive, nonsocial self looked and felt less acculturated, so much so that even she referred to herself as “F.O.B.ish.” In this way, her continual struggle with the two sides of herself points to Ruth’s core identity issue of dealing with both gender and cultural values. Up to this point, the two sides seemed like oil and water and did not mix. Ruth switched from one extreme to the other, not able to find a happy middle ground. However, Ruth seems to be going through a new stage in her development. She states her new goal is “appreciating and relaxing and enjoying each moment as it comes” (RC142), and her plan is to work hard but also play hard too. This indicates a significant shift toward integrating both aspects of who she is. Play has always been an important part of who Ruth is and provided her with strength and resilience in coping with various stresses in her life since her childhood. However, just as her father abruptly ended her popularity during adolescence in an attempt to gain control over her rapid acculturation and

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blossoming womanhood, Ruth also chose to end her social life after a period of exploration during college in order to succeed in her career. For an extended period of time, it was all work and no play for her, but Ruth indicated a definite change in her perspective: “There are some people who work to live and others who live to work. I definitely have lived to work a long time. But now I am tired. I want to simplify my life. Take a break. Not just work all the time, but enjoy life more” (RB568–571). In fact, Ruth stated her new outlook in life was to be good to herself and “start doing things in my life that I enjoy” (RC909), such as making the time for travel, museums, and concerts. In order to relax and enjoy these things, Ruth took some important steps by saying no to working long hours or weekends, saying no to her father, and saying no to the church so she would not be “locked” into teaching Sunday school every weekend and miss an opportunity to travel. Because Ruth took care of everybody for so long, she feels “a little selfish” (RC911) and “guilty for having me time” (RC916). However, she seems to be well on her way in emotionally separating from her parents, especially with her father in terms of not caving into his demands. She states, “Even to this day, I think my parents, especially my dad, guilts me a little bit, but I don’t let him any more. I’m like, ‘Too bad’” (RC918–919). She is better able to stand up to her father now because: I know in saying that it’s just fluff. I think he is sincere about a lot of things he talks about, but a lot of time I think he talks about things to gear me into doing what he wanted. I think I know him more and I can tell. I can tell when it’s him being sincere and I can tell when it’s him wanting me to do what he wants . . . He knows what buttons to push. He knows what to say. I’m not going to let him do that. I mean I will not let him do that . . . I am a little selfish to some extent in that sense. I am not selfish when it comes to big picture; but little things like that I get into my mind, that’s it. I don’t care (RC923–930).

So, in her main story as an adult, we can hear Ruth developing a stronger voice and trying to say no to work, church, and even her father at times. It is important to note a couple of changes in Ruth’s life following her father’s retirement from the church. First, she finally said no to the church and stopped teaching Sunday school so she could have more flexibility with her time outside of work. Secondly, she exercised more choice with her father in terms of distinguishing between his sincere requests versus his attempts to get his own way. With these changes in her life, she seems better able to

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balance between taking care of her own need to play and relax with caring about others.

RELATIONSHIP: “LATE BLOOMER” The “Thin Tiny Chapter” As Ruth was asked to think of her life as a book and divide it into chapters, she described the last chapter in the following way: A really thin, tiny chapter in between all of them was probably relationship, which actually, you know, because that’s the one that I struggled the most, I think I learned a lot about myself based on the relationships I had. So, I think that’s probably another thin section that’s kind of throughout, but I would place it there (RB11–15).

Although Ruth indicated relationships as a “thin, tiny chapter,” she actually talked about this aspect of her life most extensively throughout the interview. As Ruth candidly stated, she struggled with relationships most in her life, and it is an area of her life where she feels like “a little bit of failure” (RC302). She thought this was partly because her career and her family completely “satisfied” her, and she was “emotionally taken care of” (RC550) so that she did not have to look for a sense of security in a man. This may have been the case, but relationships have been most challenging for Ruth because it is where her two worlds clashed the most in her life. Because of the restriction in high school, Ruth only began to date in college and started testing her ideas about guys ever since then. Thus, it would be important to examine her relationships since college and how her view on “what she wants in a man” evolved over the years. In College One of the reasons Ruth believes she has not found a companion to share her life is because of the “strictness” (RA511) of her family. She feels if she had met somebody in college and began their careers together, then the guy would probably not be as intimidated by her present success. In college, however, Ruth only dated a little bit, and did not have any real boyfriends. Ruth met a Jewish guy in the dorm her freshman year and they became good friends. Even though she did not consider him a real boyfriend, it was one of the relationships that really opened her eyes about herself and dating a non-Korean guy. She described the relationship as:

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Korean American Women It was the first time a guy really, really went all out for me. I was never really treated so well. He was Jewish. He was very smart. He was good looking. Girls thought he was the bomb. And he really liked me. I was so cold. I never realized how cold I could be. We dated for awhile and became really good friends. We never touched or held hands or anything like that. And, I remember one time he asked me, “Do you mind if I kiss you?” And I went like, “In public?” That’s how naïve I was with relationships. I was such a late bloomer . . . but when I realized that it got to a point where I thought, “No, I am not going to be with this guy because he’s not Korean.” . . . He fell apart completely. He tried to call me. I didn’t return his call. He came to my room screaming drunk. I refused to open the door. I had to call the security guard. That was it (RB407–418).

Looking back, Ruth expressed a lot of regrets in the way she handled the situation. She felt badly about cutting off the relationship so abruptly and hurting him, but she did not regret ending the relationship because she says, “I prefer to marry a Korean man even now” (RB402–403). In Graduate School Then in graduate school, Ruth met somebody who wanted to marry her. She describes how she handled the situation in the following way: We started first as just great friends. He had a British accent, good looking, and everybody was swooning over him. I remember we used to just go out and then he proposed. I said I couldn’t do it. I called him on my phone from the airport because I was about to go home on a break and just cried. And then I went home and I was sick the whole entire time I was at home. And my mom knew. She didn’t say a word but years later she told me she knew what was wrong by the way I was so sick the whole time (RB737–743).

Even though Ruth had feelings for this individual, she simply rejected him, like the previous guy, without mentioning the relationship to anyone in her family. Ruth explained the main reason she rejected the idea of marrying this British guy was because “He was not Korean and even though he was raised as a Christian, he was not a practicing Christian and his belief was not really strong” (RB756–757). So, Ruth turned down the proposal and kept the painful situation to herself. Ruth chose to suffer alone as she learned from two significant women in her life, her paternal grandmother and mother. Ruth identified

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with these two strong women of faith who were extremely stoic, holding in everything, especially negative things, to themselves. Thus, as painful as it was for Ruth to reject this boyfriend, it was easier for her to suffer than fight it out with her parents. Ruth explained: And when I think back, I am a non-controversial person . . . I won’t shy away from it and completely turn away from any kind of responsibilities. When conflicts arise, I get physically ill. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep . . . And I think because of that I probably wanted to choose things that were not controversial, that I knew would be easy. Of course it would be easier if I picked a Korean Christian guy (RC373–386).

However, looking back at the relationship now, she says, “I still really, really care about this guy a lot. I think if I had grown earlier and acknowledged who I was a little earlier, then I wouldn’t have hid from the relationship. I don’t have any regrets. But I think I would have tried to work that one out” (RB749–752). Failed Relationships Although Ruth stated she does not have any regrets, in the last interview she referred to these two relationships, one in college and one in graduate school, as the lowest point in her life because they were something “I failed at” (RC303). As much as these relationships meant to her, Ruth suggested the reason she did not make them work was because deep down she was afraid to take “the next step” (RC288). When asked what her fears were, Ruth explained: I think a big part of the fear was my family. What are my parents going to think? Will this person fit into my life? Is this person willing to fit into my life? I realize now that was completely on my side. Talking to my parents now it is pretty clear that it was all psychological on my part [italics added]. They had absolutely nothing like that in mind. . . . And then another big fear was . . . am I just settling or is this really the person God wants me to be with? And I think I was settling. Even now . . . I look back at those relationships and I don’t regret that I ended it. . . . I think to this day I made the right decision. I think I would have been just settling (RC311–327).

It is puzzling that Ruth suggested her fear about whether these non-Korean men would really “fit” into her life was all in her head. When probed further about where this fear came from, she answered:

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Korean American Women It was the way I was raised. My parents made it extremely clear to me at a very young age and put it in my brain that I would marry a Korean man. And they stuck it in my brain that it would be of a certain type of a doctor, a lawyer, and engineer. And they also made it very clear to me that this person would be Christian. . . . My dad was not a beataround-the-bush kind of a guy and when the subject came up my dad told us what he expected from us. And then we turned eighteen and that was it. I don’t think we heard from that again. And I think it was just psychologically ingrained [italics added] in me without realizing it (RC351–359).

Ruth had clearly internalized her parents’ expectations so much over the years, she automatically assumed these non-Korean men would not be acceptable and rejected them without introducing them. Even though Ruth seemed to have had a lot of feelings for these two men in her life, her decision to end both relationships makes a lot of sense in the context of her “other-oriented,” collectivist mindset, rather than “self-oriented,” individualist one. In a later discussion, Ruth described the one value system that sets her apart from the majority of people around her is that she does not make decisions purely for herself alone, but thinks about what is good for “everybody who is involved with me and how it would affect them” (RC1002–1003). Interestingly, Ruth mentioned talking to her mother about relationships in college, thinking she might be more sympathetic and be on her side. However, Ruth was “shocked” to find out that her mother not only “thinks the same thing” (RC362), but that “she is just like him! She is not more forward thinking or independent” (RC370–371). So Ruth was surprised to learn that her mother, though usually a silent partner, reinforced what her father had been saying all her life. Other Lessons from Dating After graduate school, Ruth found a job in the Southern California area and moved back to the West Coast. Although she said it would have been easier to listen to her parents and live at home, she got a place of her own, closer to work. Being in the work force, Ruth explained that dating had always been “casual and prideful . . . I was concentrating on my work, my career. I really didn’t care about dating as much. If somebody asked me out, then I went out and had a good time and that was it” (RB730–733). Being mostly preoccupied with work, it was not until she was about thirty-four years old that she seriously dated a Korean guy. After going out with him for about six months, however, Ruth ended the relationship because she did

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not feel he treated her well. Specifically, Ruth recalled meeting his family and saw how his mother did everything for him, and she knew right away he would expect the same in a wife. Because Ruth had been a caretaker most of her life, she says she did not want to be in a situation where she had to take care the guy as well. Ruth states she is “kind of old fashioned,” wanting to “be taken care of by somebody else” (RC526). Even though the relationship with a Korean guy did not work out for her, Ruth seemed to have gained many insights about who she is through the experience. One of the things Ruth realized was that “he wasn’t the one good for me after all” (RB808). Ironically, he met the list of qualifications she wanted in a man, but “he wasn’t it” (RB807). Everything seemed to fit in her head about what should work, but not in her heart in terms of what she was really looking for in a life-long partner. One of these realizations happened while she was having a conversation with her Korean boyfriend about the role of a man and a woman and came to an understanding that she would have to be “very Korean”: Because he wouldn’t cook, I would have to cook all the time, which is okay because in some ways I am a good cook. And, after we broke up, a revelation occurred to me. I was willing to do all those things and I would have, but I wanted him to say, you don’t have to. I wanted a man who would be willing. That’s the revelation that happened to me! I wanted that choice [italics added] (RB774–778).

Emotionally, having this “choice” seemed to mean everything to her and she walked away from this relationship giving up the idea she could marry a Korean guy. When asked what having that choice means to her, Ruth elaborated on the complexity of growing up in a dual culture. Even though she was raised in America, she was “conditioned very young” to respect the Korean culture. But, she explained, “The Korean culture is very 1940s. When Koreans immigrated from that time period, they maintained it. Korea has developed and changed since then. If you go to Korea today, they look at you kind of weird sometimes” (RB783–788). Because Ruth grew up observing those traditional Korean cultural practices at home and church, she knew her Korean boyfriend was expecting it. However, she points out, “The American part of me, the really independent part of me, wants to have the choice [italics added]—that I choose to do that, not I’m being force to do that. I think that dawned on me with that guy” (RB789–792). Thus, being brought up in a traditional Korean culture, Ruth knows what is expected of her and knows that her interdependent or “other-oriented” self can fulfill those expectations. However,

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being socialized in American culture through school and work, her independent, “self-oriented” part psychologically cannot seem to maintain a sense of integrity at the core of who she is, without feeling like she has a choice in performing these traditional Korean cultural acts. And after this Korean boyfriend, Ruth dated a non-Korean, nonChristian guy for awhile without telling her parents, but her mother found out. While talking to her mother about men and marriage, Ruth says they both came to the revelation “He just needs to be Christian” (RB796). Ruth also realized, “I didn’t have to have a person who was so devout. The whole equally yoked thing wasn’t as important. And all I wanted was somebody who had a desire to love God. And, uh, the whole Korean thing wasn’t as important as a man of faith and a man who loved God” (RB802–803). So after surviving a couple of painful, “failed” relationships and dating a few more men, Ruth seemed to have grown and finally discovered what was truly important to her: “And, this is my big regret that I didn’t date more in college. Because if you date more when you are younger, you come to that realization earlier about what you really want. So now when I date guys, I inquire about that one thing—their faith which I realize is most important to me” (RB808–812). Not as Important, But Would Be Nice Just as Ruth evolved and figured out what was most important to her, Ruth’s parents also softened with time. She candidly pointed out, “I think part of it is, ‘Oh my goodness look how old she is. Let’s give up. Give her what she wants’” (RC394–395). At the same time, Ruth came to a realization that the bottom-line is “my parents want me to be happy” (RC417). Knowing what her parents always wanted for her seems to have opened her up to a lot of possibilities, including entertaining the idea of marrying a non-Korean or choosing not to marry at all. However, Ruth indicated a more realistic “cultural” (RC396) aspect. Ruth shared an interesting exchange with her father: You can marry who you want, and it’s not realistic that every relationship will be fantastic. But I am going to tell you the truth that probably I am not going to be close to your husband if he is not Korean based on cultural things. You know, it’s just going to be different. If he is Korean, the connection is going to be quicker. It’s easier (RC397–400).

Ruth felt what her father tried to share with her was a “sincere” acknowledgement (RC402) of how things would be because of cultural differences. In fact, Ruth admitted, “And even to this day I do know that even though

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they say it is okay, they still have their hopes for a [Korean son-in-law]. I can just see it in their eyes” (RC371–372). In a way, Ruth realistically acknowledged her parents’ level of acculturation and the degree of comfort they will feel with a non-Korean, English-speaking son-in-law. Among her Korean American friends, Ruth says about half of them married Koreans or Chinese and the other half Caucasians, and she sees “a definite difference in the lifestyle” between the two groups (RA435). The former group has: The life I thought I wanted or think I want . . . strong instillation of identity in their children—ethnic identity and their heritage. That is a big fear of mine if I marry a non-Korean. Strong Christian values and a lot of cultural things that are still Korean they celebrate and embrace. And, uh, Chinese even though they predominantly speak English and it is two cultures, Asian cultures are pretty similar so it’s not too different . . . their children-rearing and their basic cultural foundation is about the same. The only difference is the language (RA440–454).

However, Ruth noticed that friends who married Korean men tended to be closer to their family, just as her father alluded. Ruth related this to her own experience of remaining closest to the Korean female friends she met in college “because of the automatic bond of being raised in similar type households” (RA463–464). Finally, with her friends who married Caucasians, Ruth observed: English is spoken in the house; lack of Korean food if husband is adamantly against Kimchi [pickled Korean radish or cabbage]. Very, very conscious and huge effort made for their children in terms of their identity and to expose them to the Korean culture. And, yet they do not take their children to a Korean church because they fear some type of ostracizing (RA468–472).

One of Ruth’s worries about marrying non-Korean is related to her concerns about the children’s bi-racial identity and how they will fit in the Korean community. However, she has also noticed some of her friends’ non-Korean husbands attending Korean churches, taking Korean classes and trying to learn the language and culture. Ruth was very moved by these men’s efforts, but she recalls: “I don’t think I ever dated a non-Korean man who was willing to do that for me. I always assimilated [italics added] to him. I think that’s again part of my non-controversial [italics added], you know, whatever is easier, kind of situation” (RC406–409). So these are all

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the things Ruth observed about her 1.5 or 2nd generation Korean American girlfriends. Ultimately, she realized it may “not be as important” to marry a Korean man, but at the same time “it would be nice” (RC409–410) if she did. The Cost of Being a Highly Successful Korean American Woman In the very first interview, Ruth suggested that one of the costs of being a highly successful woman has been difficulty finding a Korean man who is secure enough to handle it: Most of my Korean friends I would have to say are more like me . . . all highly motivated women. Actually all of my friends are doctors, lawyers, or highly professional women. I would say 75% of them are married and the other 25% are like my self—highly career oriented, at the top of the field. . . . When a woman, especially Korean woman, is in that kind of position, men are generally intimidated by that. Korean men I have dated have actually verbalized that to me (RA395–413).

Toward the end of our last interview, Ruth remarked, “[Korean] men almost look at you like another creature [italics added]. They don’t even consider you a Korean woman” (RC1200–1201) or “somebody who they would ever even think about approaching on a relationship level” (RC1240–1241). For example, a Korean male in her company was talking to someone higher up who asked if he knew Ruth, and he said, “Oh, yeah, that Ruth, she is a wild one [italics added]. She is a wild girl” (RC1204). Ruth was shocked to find this out because they did not really know each other. The only thing Ruth could infer from this was that because the majority of people she interacts with are Caucasian and “probably because I’m outgoing, I’m talkative, I’m confident, I speak my mind at a meeting” (RC1218–1219), he labeled her as being “wild.” In contrast, Ruth noticed, “when I look at all of their wives [Korean men in her industry], they are very typical, very quiet, submissive, stay-at-home Korean women. That’s probably a generalization on my part, but when I look at that, I think, that’s what they want to marry” (RC1241–1244). As an almost second generation (or more accurately 1.95 because Ruth came to the U.S. when she was only one year old) Korean American woman, Ruth stated: I think I had most struggles with the role of man and woman. I have had so many experiences with men who are Korean and my age who were the most narrow-minded, most egotistical. And I call them “ah-juh-see-dul”

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103 [a common Korean term for middle-aged men] you know because they are like my age. I was kind of shocked by their thinking. That’s why I think all the boyfriends at the moment have been Americans. They are more forward in their thinking. They are more open-minded. . . . I think that was the biggest thing about being a Korean American woman that I am very proud of my heritage, very proud of being Korean, very attracted to Korean men, wanting to marry a Korean man, and yet Korean men were not able to handle somebody like me. Not being able to handle a woman who is confident, who has a career, who knew what she wanted out of life. And they all married women who are stay-at-home or more into their hair or their purses or matching their shoes. . . . The American men would want to edify me; the Korean men constantly put me down (RC1159–1176).

Reflecting on the relative newness of the Korean culture in America as well as her own situation, Ruth came to the conclusion that there is a major “drawback” to growing up in America yet being raised in a traditional Korean immigrant household. That little bit of clash of wanting to be a Korean woman and yet struggling with what the Korean culture said a Korean woman should be. Wanting to take all the wonderful things about being a Korean woman and making that blossom and be wonderful. And yet knowing there was an expectation of all these things that I am so not good at; and yet understanding the culture, knowing about it, accepting it, and not being judgmental about it, knowing that I can do it. I think I had this conversation with you where I just wanted the choice that I can do it. But not giving that choice, but demanded that out of me, that made me mad. I still wanted the choice (RC1177–1186).

And, in her final comment, Ruth stated, “I feel like I wasted a lot of time looking for a Korean man who is going to accept me, when there were so many non-Korean men who are willing to accept” (RC1286–1288). Late Bloomer In the last interview, as Ruth looked back on all the things she learned about herself, she stated, “But fortunately, like I said, I’m a late bloomer [italics added]. You know, I definitely was a late bloomer when it came to things like knowing what I wanted out of life, relationships . . .” (RC420–422). One of the things she realized is that relationships are hard work: “I thought it was going to fall in my lap one day. I’m realizing that

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it’s hard work. It’s a lot of work to date somebody. You have to actually look at it like a career or anything else put a lot of energy into” (RC189–194). Rather than staying home and relaxing, Ruth realized she needed to put herself out there in environmenst that are good for her. She used to be completely engulfed in her career, using all her free time to do anything that was related to work. She is now trying to broaden her singleminded focus. However, Ruth emphasized her new goal is not finding a husband, but meeting a lot of different, interesting people outside of her entertainment industry. Ruth indicated, “like most women . . . I want to get married now and have a family” (RC188–189). And, in an ideal situation, Ruth surprisingly said, she would quit work to stay home and take care of her children: “Oh, yeah! Totally! If we can afford it and be comfortable, I would quit, yeah, because it’s a freelance type of position. If I wanted to, I could just work three months and stop. I would always know that I could go back if I wanted to, but I could leave it too” (RC249–260). In many ways, Ruth upholds some “old fashioned” traditional family values and cherishes the kind of relationship her parents have as an ideal image of marriage: I have an amazing, amazing role model with my parents and I want that. And I’m not going to settle for anything else. . . . [What they have is] this fantastic, intimate, trust, commitment to each other. That no matter what they went through or what they will go through, there is that underlying foundation of love and caring for one another (RC968–969).

Realistically, however, she realizes it will not be easy to find a man who is at least her equal or secure enough to handle who she is. So even though she wants to share her life with somebody if she found the right person, Ruth says she is “actually quite happy and content” (RA508) with herself and her life as it is now. She has thought about what makes her happy and came to the conclusion that “Yeah, love will make me happy. But if I can’t find it, there are things that also make me happy and they are just as satisfying for me” (RC418–420). So Ruth is currently working on balancing work and play. Her outlook for the future is to start doing things she enjoys and nurture other areas of interest such as her love of art, music, and travel. Her short- and long-term goal is to invest her money wisely so she can retire early. However, Ruth reveals, “I’m trying to think of life as just me and no one but me, no one else, no future with anybody else. If that happens, fantastic, but I want to look at my life with just me and what will it take to live

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comfortably [italics added]” (RC899–903). So, following up on her response, when I asked if she is ambivalent about working on a relationship, she admits: Unless I’m really interested, I am too ambivalent to put in the work . . . It is because I came to a point in my life where I decided that if I’m going to be single I’m okay. Who knows whether I really am, but at this moment in my life I can honestly say that. And I’ve asked myself that before, but I’m okay with being single for the rest of my life. I would much rather be single and happy, than be married and miserable. It’s kind of sad that I put those two together like that (RC961–967).

Ruth’s Relationship and Changing Self As with her career, Ruth seems to have made some important self-discoveries in the area of relationships. She aptly described herself as a late bloomer when it came to relationships. Her father’s social restrictions in high school may have contributed to the delay. In many ways, Ruth had to continue working through her separation-individuation issues with her parents all the way through her mid-thirties because of her dual cultural issues and her close family ties. With regard to her career, it was difficult for Ruth to balance the two cultural aspects of herself—work (i.e., Korean immigrant ambition and fulfilling family obligations) and play (i.e., finding self-fulfillment and personal meaning). In the same way, Ruth’s bicultural existence made it more challenging for her to find a balance between work and relationships. The qualities that allowed Ruth to succeed in her career and achieve structural assimilation in America are the very qualities most Korean American men find her threatening and undesirable. Even still, I believe she did not easily give up the idea of marrying a Korean man because of her extremely close relationship with her father. Out of love for him, she really wanted to find someone who could “fit” with him as well. Not until Ruth reached her mid-thirties, did she realize that she could not find a man to satisfy both of them—her father and herself. A Korean American Christian guy that her father could be proud of may not necessarily be acculturated enough to fully embrace her more independent, self-sufficient, confident, expressive self that needs to have her “choices” respected. Ultimately, having that choice means everything to Ruth because the core of her bicultural existence has been her ability to selectively acculturate (Keefe & Padilla, 1987) or walk the tight rope (Kibria, 1993) between her two worlds. When she was much younger, Ruth was able to artfully

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maneuver between the two because they were kept completely separate and she only had to decipher the behavioral codes to function properly in each of them. As she became older, however, her worlds began to clash—first with her career choice and then with relationships. With career, but more so with relationships, Ruth began to ask some hard questions about who she really is and what is truly important to her. In other words, she could no longer just functionally switch between her two worlds, but was forced to identify her own values and make some choices. At the age of thirtyseven, Ruth is finally beginning to sort and integrate the best and the worst her two cultures have to offer and truly create her own main characters in her life story.

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Chapter Six

Esther

As with my other interviewees, I briefly talked to Esther about my study. I shared with her my interest in 1.5 or 2nd generation Korean American women’s stories and what it was like to grow up in the U.S. in a dual cultural context. I asked her to let me know if she or any of her friends are interested in participating in the study. A couple of weeks later, Esther approached me and generously offered to participate. A convenient time and place was set up for the first interview within a few weeks. In the first meeting, I went over the interview process and obtained her consent. She then took a few minutes to fill out the fact sheet, which was then used to gather and clarify more background information about Esther and her family. It was a good way to build a rapport and get to know her better before jumping into the interview. Esther seemed somewhat reserved at first and shared a similar concern as other interviewees about wanting to be helpful but not being sure if anything she said would be valuable. Again, I reassured Esther that what she had to share about her own life experiences was what interested me, and I would be guiding her with questions throughout the interview. With that, I briefly shared my background information to introduce myself and how I got interested in my topic. Having set the tone, we began the interview. As with the others, I approached the first interview in a more openended way and focused on getting to know Esther and her background information. About an hour into the interview, she became a little tearful when I reflected on an important theme from her childhood. I stopped the interview and checked how she was doing. Esther quickly regained her composure, and indicated she was fine. However, because we were close to an hour into the interview, I felt it would be a good place to end the first meeting and scheduled the second interview within couple of weeks. 107

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The following week, Esther had to cancel the meeting because some things came up at work. She could not give an exact date when she would be available for the next interview. I did not want to press her, so I left it open for her to reschedule at her convenience. Eventually, Esther contacted me and the second interview took place about a month later. The second interview went smoothly, but Esther could only meet for an hour due to another engagement. To make up the time, the final meeting ran a little longer. As before, I prepared for the last interview by going over the previous interview tapes and analyzing the themes in Esther’s life. To gain more insight, I decided to revisit important areas of her life with more structured questions (e.g., looking at her life as a book and dividing it into chapters, identifying her turning point, peak experience, significant people in her life, etc.). Unlike the previous case study, when Esther was asked to think of her life as a book and divide it into chapters, she named only four: (1) early childhood (infancy through preschool), (2) late childhood (K through 7th grade), (3) adolescence (8th through 12th grade), and (4) college years. Even though some important themes came up regarding career and relationship since college, Esther did not specifically site them as chapters in her life. This maybe due to the fact that she has just turned thirty and maybe going through a transition in terms of her outlook on career and relationship. In many ways, Esther still appears to be formulating her ideas in these two areas and they may not yet feel like separate chapters to her. However, some important developments are taking place in these areas, and they merit separate discussion. Therefore, two more chapters, career and relationship, are added. Titles Esther came up with for the first four chapters are noted under each section, but the last two chapters are given titles that seem to best depict the subject.

EARLY CHILDHOOD (INFANCY THROUGH PRESCHOOL): “THE HIPPIE DAYS” First Four Years in Germany Esther’s story is a bit unusual in that her life begins in Germany. Since the mid-1960s, her father attended a university in Germany where he met Esther’s mother who was working on her nursing degree at the time. They were married and while he went on to earn his doctoral degree in chemical engineering, her mother worked as a nurse to support him through school until Esther was born in 1974. Because she was so young, Esther indicated, “I don’t remember anything at all. I look at the pictures in my parents’

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photo albums and nothing is familiar. I don’t even know what the apartment looks like or anything. I don’t have any recollection” (EC6–8). Even though Esther spent her first four years there, she interacted primarily with her parents and their circle of Korean friends who were also studying in Germany at the time. She has photos of these mostly single Korean adults sort of adopting her as their own, taking pictures with her, playing with her, and spoiling her with “millions and millions of dolls and stuffed animals” (EC35–36). However, what is noticeably absent from these photos is her playing with other children. Esther did not attend preschool, and she learned to only speak Korean while living in Germany. What Esther does know about those early years is that her parents were “big hippies” (EC48). She states, My dad was like this beautiful man with really long hair and like this debonair kind of man about campus. And he always told us about these like great times and hanging out at parties with all of his friends. And he had these big hippie kinds of glasses. And if you see the early pictures of our parents there, like my mom was really skinny wearing her mini-skirts with little boots and stuff. I have their records now, but my parents actually had a huge collection of Stevie Wonder, Beatles and all that stuff. And they actually used to, they told me all the time, put me to bed to “Strawberry Fields Forever” which is my favorite famous Beatles’ song now [laughs] (EB48–58).

As Esther described these times, she seemed to relax and enjoy talking about these aspects of her parents’ lives as a young couple. Although Esther was too young to remember those years, she recognized their influence on her life now compared to her two younger siblings: “I am actually the only one who has anything like this because my two younger sisters are very conservative I guess. But me I like to go camping out in the desert and I go to things like weekend long music shows and travel around. That’s kind of hippie-like. So I think I probably got a lot of that from my parents” (EC65–69). In stark contrast to these positive, fun early images, Esther also described how much her father struggled in Germany as a poor foreign student: You know my dad he was so poor when he was in [Germany] that he would stuff his shoes and his jackets with cardboard [because he was so cold] and then work . . . and he would go to school. He would teach because he had his Ph.D. at 26. And then he would go to the newspaper factory where he would do backbreaking work loading the newspapers and stuff (EC668–672).

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However, her father worked really hard and did well enough to move the family to Canada where he did some assistant teaching in one of the universities. When Esther was four, her second sister was born while they were in Canada. The following year, Esther’s family migrated to the United States and her youngest sister, six years her junior, was born. How Her Family Came to America As with other third-wave Korean immigrants, Esther’ family came to the United States in 1978 because they were invited by a family member who was already residing here. Esther’s maternal grandmother’s older brother had settled in America first and started a very successful plastic business in Southern California. He brought Esther’s grandmother next and she, in turn, helped to bring the rest of her family to America. This was no small feat for her grandmother because she had been a widow since Esther’s mother was only about four or five years old. [My grandmother] had a very hard life . . . Her husband came from a really rich family and went to a college in Tokyo. They dated throughout while he was in college and then he came back and I think they got married. But he was an alcoholic and womanizer. She once told me that she brought her four kids to like the brothel he was at and knocked on the door and was like, “You have to come home. Look what you are doing.” And then he died and so she raised her four kids on her own (EC618–625).

However, Esther proudly pointed out that her grandmother never remarried, survived the Japanese Occupation of Korea, and fled North Korea with her children during the Korean War. Esther further added why she looks up to her grandmother so much: She came to the United States and worked in sweatshops as a seamstress. She is wonderful. She sewed my mom’s wedding dress. She sewed all of us kids’ dresses, jackets, and sweaters. I mean she can make anything. And she is the one that actually brought over all of her kids and relatives to start their life in America. She had this little old apartment with little dogs and she went to the sweatshop and she sewed for, you know, 10–12 hours per day and came home and saved money and brought everyone over and started everyone. She is like this superwoman [italics added]. She did that without a husband. She did that with all four kids and never really complained or anything. Yeah, she is definitely one of my heroes (EC632–642).

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Clearly, Esther’s maternal grandmother was a transmitter of the traditional Korean woman’s image of “warrior-like household priestess.” And, as one of the significant people in Esther’s life, her grandmother helped shape and mold the kind of woman Esther aspires to be. In fact, Esther notes, “I guess there is no one else’s respect that I work hard for other than my grandma and my parents” (EC699–700). Narrative Tone and Imagery from Early Childhood Although she was too young to remember, Esther’s story shows how she internalized the situations from her childhood. Her father’s struggles as a graduate student in Germany laid the foundation for at least a couple of important themes. Though her parents may have been very poor, they were wrapped in the fun, carefree, liberal intellectual atmosphere of the 70s in a Western European university setting. Even though Esther was very young, she somehow absorbed her parents’ lifestyle and reflects those influences in her own life (e.g., her preferences in music, nature, camping, travel). This early exposure had a significant impact on not only Esther’s personal taste, but more importantly her attitudes, values, and outlook on life. Esther sees her two younger sisters as being “conservative” (EC66) and very different from her, which became clearer as her story unfolded. Another strong theme that seemed to connect the three most significant people in Esther’s life—father, mother, and maternal grandmother—is their collective stories of overcoming many hardships to make it to where they are today. Their stories of determination and hard work shaped Esther’s personal myth.

LATE CHILDHOOD (K THROUGH 7TH GRADE): “THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACK” Early Years in America Esther was five years old when her family immigrated to the United States and settled in Southern California. She attended school as a kindergartener her first year, but does not remember having any difficulty adjusting to the new environment: I don’t remember if I had a hard time, you know, like not being able to speak English that well because I always had friends. I think maybe what helped out was our neighbor who lived across the street from us. They had four kids, very American, “Apple Pie” kind of. And they actually made me this little book and that’s how I learned my A, B, and C’s. They took me and my sisters in . . . We were over at their house all

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Korean American Women the time. I remember it was very, very American, but I don’t remember ever feeling like I was some foreigner or anything. They taught me how to ride my first bike. We played in the trees on the front yard all the time. So I guess the transition was very easy. . . . I think they helped us being in America and being a foreigner . . . because they didn’t really make us feel like we were Korean people. We were just their neighbors and they would scream outside of our house to come outside and play. And they were just really, really great (EC79–94).

Esther’s early experiences in America helped to set a positive tone for her as a foreigner in a new country. Whereas she was limited to a small circle of Korean adults in Germany, her world opened up rather quickly in the U.S. as a young child. Her first encounter with the White neighbors, which lasted approximately seven years, taught her that being “very open, very social, very friendly” (EC800) was “the American way” (EA186). Undoubtedly, this family greatly influenced Esther’s view of the world. She says for her “being open-minded and just respecting [others] as human beings with feelings and thoughts” (EC786–787) is the most important value in life. When asked what accounts for her belief, she pointed out: I think maybe it started with my neighbors across the street. I mean they could have been like, “Oh, they don’t speak English and they have funny smells come from their kitchen so they are kind of weird.” But they looked past that and . . . treated my sisters and me like we were their sisters. I think maybe it started off at an early age. I think it just like knocked all of our family’s socks off because they were so warm and so embracing and things like that (EC791–798).

So, while Esther was growing up, she did not feel like “some foreigner” or had any problems fitting in at school as a minority. She stated, “I never really had any conflict. I mean I never ever was sorry that I was Korean. Ever! No one ever made me feel like, you know, I was less than they are or anything like that” (EC1254–1255). However, she suggests this may, in part, be due to the fact that her family was living near the East side of L.A. for the first seven years in the United States: “There were like maybe Philippines and I think it’s all races you know. It was great. I think we were sort of like in a lower kind of elementary school when we were growing up because we didn’t have a lot of money. So we were exposed to all kinds of races” (EC113–116). Thus, in a more multiethnic environment at school, Esther quickly and effortlessly adjusted to her new life in America as a young child:

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My mom said it was just like I went to school and then I came back and I just started to speak English. So she was kind of sad about that. But, you know, you go, you come back, and you just adapt. So I don’t think it was anything very difficult K through 6th. I had, you know, my first boyfriend. His name was Steven something. He was a white guy, blond hair and blue eyes, you know [laughs]. I think we dated for a day and then I broke up with him and things like that . . . in 4th grade . . . So it was, you know, very normal (EC99–109).

Being Very Academic Although the children seemed to assimilate quickly at school, most Korean immigrant parents faced many hardships assimilating in the racially stratified United States. Esther’s father found his education and qualification did not necessarily open many doors and it was not easy to get ahead. Like most thirdwave Korean immigrants, he eventually started his own business with little or no capital. Out of his home, he tried to find a way to market his innovative chemical/plastic products to various industries in Korea. Esther described her parents’ struggles in those early years in America in the following way: They just worked really hard. You know my dad’s business started off on a cheap coffee table with a little telex machine. . . . And my mom took us to piano lessons and things like that when we didn’t have a lot of money. . . . I guess . . . they wanted us to have everything they didn’t have. So they worked really hard for that (EC673–678).

Because Esther was very young, she never heard about their financial problems. Looking back, she realized they were under a lot of pressure and things were not easy for them. However, even though it may have been tight financially, Esther recalls her parents putting the children’s education first and making every effort to provide other enriching experiences. As much as her parents made sacrifices for their children, the children were in turn expected to do their best and excel in school. For at least the first seven years in the United States, Esther says she and her sisters pretty much did everything as expected: “When we were younger, I think we were just more introverted or very quiet and we read a lot. I mean we read so much that our verbal SAT scores were off the chart” (EA54–56). In this way, being academic became a big part of Esther’s identity: “I think actually it was like K-6th . . . I wore big glasses and stuff like that and I just got this presidential award in the 6th grade. Definitely considered a nerd” (EC261–263). But, with each accomplishment, her parents, like most Korean immigrants,

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raised their hope that Esther would strive for the ultimate symbol of educational achievement in America: “Completely academic to the point where I won all these awards and things like that. And my parents were like I am going to go to Harvard” (EA76–78). Being the Oldest Another constant stream of messages Esther received from her parents throughout her life was that she must be responsible and take care of her younger siblings. This was such a prominent theme in her life that it was the very first thing Esther shared in the interview: I was told, by my father that I had to take care of my sisters. I am the oldest and I was supposed to watch out for them and make sure they are okay. Since I am the first, it will be my responsibility for the rest of my life. So at a very young age, I would always help out. I tried to live up to that. But at the same time, you don’t want to think about those kinds of things and you want to be independent and think just for yourself too. So you don’t really see that when you are young. You just listen to your parents (EA6–12).

Esther seems to hint that tension later rose between having to take care of others (i.e., other-oriented) and wanting to be independent (i.e., self-oriented). However, when Esther was young, she was pretty well conditioned to be responsible and tried to live up to her parents’ expectations. When asked if she knew what was expected of her, Esther frankly says: I really didn’t know what that meant to tell you the truth. If I am suppose to watch out for them, how? Is that to teach them lessons? Or just help them pick up their clothes. I mean I don’t really know. So I think when we were younger I just tried to make sure they didn’t get hurt. Something physical I guess. But now I can see that it’s about teaching them what you learned being the first-born (EA26–32).

So although Esther took her role as the oldest seriously, what it entailed is still somewhat ambiguous to her. What is definitely clear from the interview is that being responsible for her younger sisters was something Esther was trained to do since they were born and it has defined her for the better part of her life: “Okay now you have a younger sister and now you are the older sister. . . .” They even told me when I was younger that “when we die, you are

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going to have to take care of them [italics added].” That’s the only thing, the one constant theme I heard my whole life. It’s something that I’m supposed to do. Another thing my dad always says is, “If you are going to do something, then do it right [italics added]. Do it hundred percent; like buy the best and just do it right. So I think that coupled with the responsibility I have just kind of makes me the person that I am today (EB408–416).

And, indeed, these two themes seemed to have dominated her life. The other family motto was also very well ingrained in her that it has stayed with her. She describes how her father indoctrinated her with this family value: “Maybe it’s my dad always telling us and especially me, “You guys are the best and if you are going to do something then do it right.” I hear that even when I take out the trash. It’s anything that you do that’s the first thing he said. . . . I mean you just did the best you could and you know you gave it your all” (EC1056–1061). And, from all my conversations with her, it became pretty evident that these two themes—(1) taking care of her younger siblings, and (2) doing it right or doing her best—indeed has dominated her whole life. The Other Side of the Track After Esther completed elementary school, she went to a junior high school in the same school district on the east side of the city when she was about twelve years old. However, once she got there, she was surprised to find that the school had a totally different ethnic make up. In contrast to the more multiethnic environment she was accustomed to, she says her seventh grade was “all Mexicans” (EC122). She did not think anything of it at the time and made Hispanic friends while she was there; but she remembered, “there was one girl who had to drop out of the school because she was pregnant. She was twelve or thirteen. And I just thought, “Wow, that’s kind of crazy, but then at that age I didn’t really think there was anything wrong with it. She just had to leave school” (EC154–157). Around this time Esther’s father had a break and his business took off. Her family was doing better financially, and they were able to move to a better neighborhood the following year. As with Ruth’s family, this easy access to a suburban area by first generation Koreans is actually a post-1965 phenomenon, owing largely to the high pre-immigration socio-economic status of recent Asian immigrants. Traditionally, such access was only possible for the American-born children and grandchildren of Chinese and Japanese immigrants (Hurh, 1993). And, as with most immigrant families, Esther

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described how this move was a turning point for her family: “The mood got lighter because there wasn’t so much pressure on my parents for money because they were able to afford things. Then we moved to [the west side of the city] into a big house with a pool and my parents were just less strapped for finances” (EC273–276). The move from the east to the west side of the city also brought a big change for Esther. She went from an all-Hispanic junior high school to a different junior high for eighth grade, where the student population was predominantly White with some Asians. She indicated it was, “like night and day” (EC126). Interestingly, Esther did not seem to have any awareness of the invisible border dividing the two sides of town while she attended school on the east side for the first seven years: “I just thought I’m here, I have friends, and I have a home. I don’t know I guess it was the same thing as the girl who was pregnant. I didn’t really know anything whether it was good or bad. I just did my thing you know” (EC174–177). However, once she got to the other side, it was made clear by the way other kids talked about which side of the train track you were from: “Oh, what junior high did you go to? Oh, that’s on the other side of the train track. That’s bad” (EC178–179). So this big move marked the beginning of many more changes to come as Esther entered her adolescence. Story Themes from Late Childhood Thus, some important themes began developing in Esther’s childhood and we can sense a tension rising between them. For instance, her first significant, on-going interaction with the White neighbors left an indelible mark on Esther’s formative mind that being “very open, very social, and very friendly” (EC800) is “the American way” (EA186). Meanwhile, she tried her best to honor her family’s traditional Korean way of fulfilling the generational obligation. She tried to live up to the reason her grandmother and parents worked so hard to give her a future. Similar to Ruth’s story, Esther was also instilled from a very early age that the oldest is responsible for the younger siblings. Although this is a traditional childrearing practice brought over from Korea, it pragmatically serves another purpose for Korean parents who feel very ill prepared to handle the rapid acculturation of their children. The oldest child, who has been the most indoctrinated with the interdependent family value, is most readily recruited to be the cultural broker bridging the gap between the parents and the younger siblings. Ironically, the strong, independent spirit Esther inherited from the significant people in her life—grandmother, mother, and father—coupled with her parents’ “hippie” legacy,

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stirred up something else inside her as she embarked on her identity search during her adolescence.

ADOLESCENCE (8TH THROUGH 12TH GRADE): “FUN YEARS” Being Smart Is Not Enough Adolescence is typically when one begins to develop a self-identity for the first time (Erikson, 1968; McAdams, 1993). In Esther’s case, her effort to make sense of who she is seemed to have taken place just as she turned thirteen and her family moved into the White middle-class neighborhood. Though her move was only a few miles away, this transition appeared to be no less dramatic for Esther than when her family first immigrated to the United States. Along with her new developmental stage, the sudden change in her environment seemed to magnify the difference between her two worlds. As a result, the contrast between Korean and American cultural values and norms heightened and clashed during Esther’s adolescent years. Compared to her early years in the United States, Esther considered her junior high and high school years in the suburbs as the “fun years” (EC300). She described certain advantages to being more affluent and being able to do more enriching activities with her new circle of friends: It was a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends and we did a lot of things. We traveled a lot. We had our moms take us to music concerts and stuff like that. I guess it was just . . . maybe K through 6th you know was a lot of work and a lot of practice and things like that, but junior high and high school like 8th grade through 12th I think was a lot more fun (EC296–300).

In the new school system, Esther socialized with mostly White peers and a few Asians, all from the middle class background. Hanging around with this group of kids, Esther started to wonder whether the Korean parents’ way of only focusing on academics was enough. In fact, she stated, But just growing up in an American school, I realized . . . America expects people that just aren’t smart but well rounded people, have fun, be social, and not be afraid to have fun, and not be afraid to take risks or, I don’t know, just do things out of the ordinary to kind of push . . . Not push buttons but, I don’t know, ask questions and you know, to be

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Korean American Women really loud. Like that’s okay. I think going through the American school systems really solidified that (EA79–84).

Being a Cheerleader As Esther began questioning her upbringing and was acculturating rapidly, one of the major ways she tested her parents’ limit was by becoming a cheerleader her sophomore year in high school. Many highly acculturated 1.5 or 2nd generation Korean American teenage girls seem to indicate interest in becoming a cheerleader not only because it means being popular with their peers, but more importantly it is a sign of social assimilation. However, many first generation Korean parents have a lot of reservations about their child’s participation in such activity just as Esther described her parents’ fear: I don’t even think they knew what it was. They just knew like there was a lot of after school practices and games on Saturdays that would take time away from homework or piano lessons or choir practice. And I think that they didn’t want me to try out for it, but I just did it anyway because I knew this is what I wanted to do (EC194–198).

Unlike Ruth, who was “not controversial” and did not want to fight her parents about what she wanted to do, Esther disregarded her parents’ objections and independently chose to do cheerleading anyway. So there is quite a bit of individual difference in the way the situation was handled. Esther definitely showed a more typical American teenager attitude, even in the way she would ordinarily respond to her mother after a game or a practice. “My mom immediately said when I got home like, ‘Do your homework in your room and practice your piano all by myself.’ And I thought, ‘Get over it or something,’ you know” (EC222–224). Similar to Ruth, Esther describes having a very close relationship with her father, but appears to have had greater leverage negotiating and problem solving with him: My dad and I talk about a lot of stuff, a lot of big decisions. He has some questions. I have some questions. We kind of hash it out and, we come to some great solutions. And sometimes it’s me saying, “I think maybe you should do this” and he does it and, “Okay, that was a good idea.” And you know I come and I ask “Oh, now what dad. And I think that was really good.” And I think it was just years of being able to do that you know (EC500–506).

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And, because Esther was allowed to have a bit more power and freedom with her father, she illustrated how she was able to rationally argue and make her case with him: Parents only want what’s best for their children . . . if you are a good kid, they really don’t have anything to say. They do their homework, they do all this, and you know whatever. So what can the parents say? Nothing really. . . . I will be like staying out until 12 when I’m supposed to come home like 11 and they weren’t happy with that, but what can they really say. You weren’t out doing something bad or something. You were out at a football game or something. It takes years of getting to know each other and maybe I brought up my share and my parents are able to relax a little bit because they know they don’t have to work so hard this year (EC506–521).

Thus, while Esther was acculturating, her parents also seemed to have adjusted their parenting to a more modern Western style as time progressed. In fact, Esther shared what her parents said years later: We didn’t want you to be a cheerleader and we didn’t want you to go on those field trips in high school, but now that we look back we are happy that we let you do it because it helped you to be social and be confident and stuff like that. So we are happy that you still went ahead and did it even though at that time we didn’t want you to (EA181–185).

As a result, Esther believes, “the American way is to be your own person and even though it might not appeal to all the culturally accepted ways of your own culture. . . . I think [it] is better for you as a person after all is said and done. It’s the better way” (EA192–194). Being the Best American So throughout high school, Esther strived to fit into her new social group and tried to piece together what she thinks it meant to be an American. What is interesting is that she took on this new task with an old familiar attitude transmitted by her parents: ”If you are going to do it, do it right.” And that’s like always with me. Always! And that’s what followed me through everything. I am going to be the best American . . . Because you can only be the best when you learn everything about the thing you want to be the best at, right? So I

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Korean American Women think that’s what made me stronger and stronger and I was able to be the best American that I could . . . I don’t think there is anything I couldn’t do if I really wanted to work hard at it (EA397–405).

When asked how she achieved her goal of becoming the “best American,” Esther explained: I know about current events. I know about the history of America too. I know about the future of America. I am independent and I am smart. I can be an entrepreneur if I wanted to; that’s the American way. I can be a Bill Gates. I can surf and I can play baseball and I can ski. All the American stuff you know like I can do that too because I am an American. I thought I succeeded because in high school my friends and I would sit around talking and they would be like, “Oh, we don’t even see you as a Korean or Asian. We just see you as Esther.” And I was like, “My God, I did it. I am totally an American” (EA361–368).

In this way, Esther approached the task of fitting into her White middle-class surrounding by combining American optimism with her parents’ do-your-best motto. Like Ruth, Esther was so successful at completely assimilating that her White peers did not see her as being any different from them. In fact, Esther later comments, “I never really had any conflicts. I mean I was never ever sorry that I was Korean. Ever! No one ever made me feel like, you know, I was less than they are or anything like that” (EC1254–1255). Thus, at the peak of her confidence, Esther stated, “I was the best American when I was in high school—I was popular, I had so many friends, I was a cheerleader, I was in all of the academics and things like that. So I was the best” (EA392–394). Proud of Being Korean Although Esther worked very hard to be the “best American” she could be throughout high school, she did not give any indication of ever being ashamed of her Korean background at any point in her life. In this way, her experience does not neatly fit into any of the minority or ethnic identity developmental stages described in the literature (Atkinson et al., 1983; Phinney, 1996) where one’s ethnic identity is unexamined or rejected or one does the complete reversal until reaching some kind of integrated ethnic identity. Esther, like all my other interviewees, clearly articulated maintaining her Korean pride even when she was striving to learn “the American way.” In fact, Esther indicated she explored the American culture fully because she already knew and was comfortable with her Korean identity:

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Since I am not embarrassed about anything about myself, it makes me more able to explore other cultures and be more American because I don’t have to be ashamed about the fact that I’m not Korean [i.e., Korean-speaking first generation like her parents]. But I’m not American. So what am I? But I knew I was Korean [i.e., Korean American]. So I think it was like a lot easier for me (EB520–526).

Similar to Esther, all of my other 1.5 or 2nd generation Korean American interviewees expressed being fully aware and proud of their ethnicity throughout their childhood and adult years as they acculturated and adjusted to American culture. There is no research to show whether this is true of most children of post-1965 Korean immigrants. However, my conversation with Esther brought up a couple of interesting points on the subject. As with my other interviewees, Esther has a very close relationship with her family, which, as a primary source of her identity, seemed to provide a secure sense of who she is at the core: I think that was my escape from the foundation that I had—I knew that I was solid, and my tradition and who I was. Like I knew that I was something solidly something else and I knew that so much about me that I was able to go and find out about other things about the American way and things like that, but still be grounded by what I grew up with. I think that was really important (EA208–218).

In fact, Esther suggested that because of her family, she had such a solid knowledge of who she was that she considered being different an asset, rather than a liability: I think I was lucky to be strong and secure from a young age because I had support from my parents. So no one questioned anything about me. You know it was just me . . . it wasn’t, “Oh, the Korean girl over there.” You know, there was no question. I mean everything I did and what I was about was good in school. So yeah I never had any kind of hostility and in fact I always thought a lot of times that “I’m so glad I am different you know because I just got a lot more attention than just being plain old White person (EB535–543).

One unique aspect of Esther’s background that helped her identify with Korean culture and “truly like being Korean” (EB507) is her frequent visits to Korea since she was about thirteen years old. She remembered her first visit to Korea in junior high on a special summer program hosted by a

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major university in South Korea, specifically developed to help children of Korean immigrant parents enrich their knowledge of Korean history, culture, and language. Esther shares how excited she was to be there: “And even from like my first time to Korea, like wow! I love the super smells of Korea and you know like going to the cemeteries and things like that. And I was so proud” (EB507–509). Basically, Esther states her visit to Korea “was very reaffirming. So I think that made it okay to be Korean and different” (EB518–519). On the other hand, she contrasted this with some other people she knew: Where they don’t know who they are or where they come from or why they think they should have this kind of opinions . . . they don’t understand anything and I think it’s because they didn’t understand who they truly were. You know it’s like a launching pad. They didn’t have that pad to leap from you know. And I have known some Korean people where they didn’t even know anything about being Korean. They don’t want to speak Korean and they were embarrassed if their parents spoke Korean in the public and they didn’t like having Kimchi [pickled cabbage or radish] in their refrigerator and things like that. And then, I think, even like they wanted to assimilate so much into like White culture that I think even the White people they were like. . . .”Well, how come you don’t even like who you are. You know, like who you really are” (EB495–506).

Thus, Esther’s experience from K-12th grade encompassed both dimensions of the culture change process—the acquisition of new cultural traits and maintenance of the heritage culture as acculturation was originally conceived in a broad sense (Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999). Images of Korean Women Since her first visit to Korea in junior high, Esther had opportunities to visit Korea throughout her adolescence. With the success of her father’s business, he made frequent business trips to Korea and occasionally the family joined him. As a teenage girl, one of the things she noticed about Korea in the ’80s was how “completely male dominated” (EA91–92) it was. When asked what gave her those impressions, she explains: I think it was . . . going to restaurants around there. Waitresses were just very slow to serve us, but we would see the waitresses jump around to serve men faster. Or shopping or just any kind of interaction, it was always the males who were served first and kind of like the girls would

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take a back seat. Or we have to, I guess, be more humble and not be too out spoken and things like that. So it wasn’t a big deal because I was a lot younger and I didn’t realize that, but I do remember interactions like that (EA108–114).

In addition to these public situations, Esther points out how her interactions with her relatives in Korea reinforced the message that women/girls should be subservient, humble, docile, and quiet: I think it was because I visited Korea so much when I was younger and I think there were all these relatives who said you should be ladylike, humble and quiet. Especially my dad’s two older sisters were very Christian, very conservative, and they always tried to tell me and my sisters to like be quiet and go over there and eat over there and things like that or you know serve him first. But I think there were certain situations where it would just be like all the time and you come to America and it’s not like that at all. So I don’t know, we were just kind of confused by living two different lives (EA121–128).

Thus, while her visit to Korea was positive in terms of building her ethnic identity and pride, her experience was confusing in terms of gender roles because she was getting contradictory messages from the two cultures: Well, Korean is the woman I saw or what I probably would have become if I grew up in Korea and that is humble, docile, subservient, serving her husband, working for her kids, and things like that, not really having a voice. That’s the Korean woman. And I saw a lot of that because I’ve been to Korea so much and I really love Korea. I really appreciate all of the traditions definitely and the culture. But then since I grew up in America and I saw going to school in America that having a voice and being loud and having your own mind and being independent and not having to serve the same traditions and always listening to your parents, I guess, is a good thing too (EA170–177).

When Esther was about seventeen, in her senior year in high school, her father moved back to Korea for a period of time due to his business. Her two younger sisters followed the parents and attended junior high and high school in Korea. Because Esther was so close to finishing high school, she remained in America and lived with her maternal grandmother who was like a “second mother” (EC1184) to her. While Esther attended college in the U.S., her parents continued to reside in Korea for the next five years

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until both of her sisters attended universities in the States. Because her family was in Korea mostly during Esther’s college years, she felt it was a “low point” (EC824) in her life because it was hard being on her own. Story Themes from Adolescence Just as Esther was entering her adolescence and starting to go through internal transformations, her world also changed externally as her family moved from the lower to the middle-class part of the town. With the big transition, many questions began brewing about what it means to be American. In her new school setting, she immediately faced the need to fit into her new social group of predominantly White peers from the middle class background. She approached the task of trying to be “the best American” she could be based on her family’s motto of working hard and doing it right. She went beyond excelling in academics and got involved in many extra curricular activities, including cheerleading. Thus, Esther successfully assimilated into her new environment. However, unlike what has been suggested in the literature, Esther strived to fit in the dominant group without necessarily sacrificing her ethnic pride. What allowed Esther to explore American culture freely, without losing her Korean identity, was her strong, positive identification with her family. Visits to Korea also boosted Esther’s ethnic identification, but they added some confusion in terms of gender roles because her experience in Korea was so different from what she encountered in America.

COLLEGE YEARS: “COMPLETE EXPLORATIONS” The Son Figure Similar to Ruth, Esther always had a special relationship with her father as the oldest of three girls in the family. And, like Ruth, Esther indicated, “when you are the oldest, then you are kind of the son figure [italics added] and you do what your parents want you to do” (EC878–880). When asked what she thought was expected of her, Esther pointed out it was the typical traditional Korean thing of getting a good job and being able to take care of her parents when they got older. She also added, “I think it was always just go to college and then go get more education because education will always help you no matter what. And just make sure that you are comfortable and have enough that you will be able to take care of your sisters if they ever need help” (EA157–160). Just like Ruth, Esther was conditioned to take on the traditional role of the eldest son and be responsible for her parents and younger siblings. And, again, the notion of being “comfortable” enough or

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having enough financial security to take care of the entire family was mentioned. As “a son figure,” Esther often engaged in long discussions with her father, especially when important issues came up. However, her father seemed to have adopted a less direct and authoritarian parenting style than Ruth’s dad. Esther stated her father “never tries to make a lecture out of anything but is super encouraging” (EC694–695). In fact, she described him as though he treated her like an equal, usually tossing ideas back and forth and discussing a good workable solution. Naturally, when Esther turned eighteen and it was time for her to go to college, her father was influential in helping her choose a college and a major: I do believe because my dad is closely associated with [a private university’s] Asian Pacific Heritage Museum and he is a patron of anything to do with museums and Asian heritage itself, he really wanted me to go to [this private university] and he really heard a lot of good things about the accounting school. So he really wanted me to go toward that track and become a CPA or something. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do . . . so I talked to my dad about it and he said, “Go ahead and find what you want to do.” So I found public policy, which is a mixture of nonprofit institutions and business. I don’t know, like it is more people oriented. Deal more with like local grass roots organizations and a lot of public service ideas. I guess I liked it being more people oriented than numbers oriented (EC308–319).

Like most first generation Korean parents, Esther’s father initially steered his daughter toward a career that is typically considered to be a safe and promising profession for minorities. Although Esther initially took his suggestions to heart, she quickly learned she is more interested in people than numbers. Trying to reach a good compromise between her father’s preference toward business and her interest in working with people, Esther eventually settled on Public Policy and Management. As a part of the requirement, she did some volunteer work with inner city children during college, and found real enjoyment and meaning contributing to the community. Whether it was somehow unconsciously influenced by her parents’ “hippie days,” Esther felt her college major was a good fit for her and seemed genuinely drawn to some sort of public service oriented work. Being the Best Korean Although Esther’s exploration of her dual cultural identity began in her adolescence, it continued in her college years. She was never ashamed of

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being Korean and always had a secure knowledge of her ethnic identity since she had continuous contact with her heritage culture. However, she went through yet another transformation as her social environment changed in college. Similar to Ruth, with a greater exposure to the Korean American population at the university, Esther began questioning her level of understanding and commitment to the Korean culture. She described some of her initial thoughts during that time period: Then I went to college and I met all these Korean people and I went, “Wait. How come they don’t see me as Korean? Maybe I am not being more Korean to show that I am proud to be Korean too.” I don’t know. I was just taking all these classes you know like. . . . I took a Japanese class or an Asian art class or something like that and I thought, “Wow, there are American people in all these classes about Asia. How come these people are interested in it and I am not interested in the history of Asia? And I am the one who didn’t know about Korean kings or anything like that.” And that’s how it turned around and I kind of wanted to show people that I am Korean and I am proud of being Korean (EA361–376).

While opportunities to learn and nurture her heritage culture opened up to Esther, the type of social interaction that was readily available to her with the dominant group seemed to shrink during college. Esther explained: In college I think it’s so much bigger and there are so many more interests that you tend to feel safer in your own group. But when I was in college there were so many more Asian people and all the White people at [this university] were pretty much in the Greek system you know like the sororities and stuff like that. And I tried that out, but I didn’t really like it. I mean it wasn’t up to my liking. So . . . I joined the Korean Students’ Association and that’s like where I found a lot of my friends with the same kind of interests. And “Oh, we happened to be Korean too” you know so that was kind of like an added plus (EB577–585).

With a growing desire to deepen her connection with her cultural background, Esther seemed to have gone through a phase of wanting to be accepted by the Korean group on campus. Esther applied her family’s motto of “If you are going to do it, do it right” (EA 398) to this situation as well and redirected her energy from being “the best American” to being “the best Korean,” at least for the first couple of years in college:

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I think because I was at [this university in Southern California] and there were so many Korean people there and like so many cool Korean people. They looked like me, we dressed the same, and we ate the same. There was such a big amount of Korean people that it was another thing to be the best Korean there was. Maybe that’s what it was. I was the best American when I was in high school—I was popular, I had so many friends, I was a cheerleader, I was in all of the academics and things like that. So I was the best. And when I was with my Korean friends, then it was another thing to really excel at and to be the popular (EA389–396).

Thus, Esther seemed to have taken a completely different turn when she entered college and worked really hard at being the best Korean. Like my other interviewees, Esther indicated how easy it was to connect with many Korean American peers who were at a similar level of acculturation, background, interests, and age group. However, Esther’s experience seemed unique in that she described going through a more intense identification process with the Korean ethnic group compared to the other interviewees: But the bonding part has already been done just because you are the same. So there is really no bonding to be done. Actually when I was in high school, I went to an all white high school. So when I went to college, there were so many more Korean people there it was so weird for me. And going to Korean restaurants with twenty-five other Korean people was really weird for me. Or, going to a club or something and everyone was Korean that was weird for me. I mean I just thought if I were in Korea, it wouldn’t be. You go to that country and everybody is Korean. But here in America I mean you go to a place where everyone is Korean in America. I mean that’s kind of weird. I did that for couple of years. I mean I just hung around my Korean friends; we would go to Korean clubs and Korean karaoke and eat all this Korean food. I mean I really had a chance to make all these great Korean friends. And then I don’t know. I don’t hang around Korean people any more. So, I was wondering what happened during those two years. Maybe I just got sick of it or maybe I just found that it wasn’t where I wanted to be. Maybe I didn’t find the right type of friends I wanted to. Maybe that’s why I don’t hang out in those places any more. But it just gave me a good understanding of who I am today (EA311–325).

Esther’s exclusive involvement in her culture of origin seems to indicate some type of immersion stage in her ethnic identity development (Atkinson

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et al., 1983; Phinney, 1993; Berry, 1980). However, as discussed earlier, Esther’s prior experience in childhood and adolescence does not seem to fit into any of the previously described identity models because she went through a more dual cultural process, acquiring new cultural traits while maintaining the heritage culture (Ward & Rana-Deuba, 1999). Being the Best Person I Can Be After going from one extreme to the other, Esther says she began re-evaluating what she was doing: So I think it got to be too much. You know, “I am Korean and I am better than American.” So then where do you go from there? But wait, “I do live in America. How am I going to succeed thinking the Korean way, because I am in America and I am learning the American way and I am trying to get a job in an American company. I don’t want to like work in a Korean company in K Town [i.e., Korea Town]. That’s not what I want to do.” So you are like trying on different hats and switching your thinking. So you kind of do a lot of flip-flopping all throughout life until you reach a happy medium of some sort (EA377–384).

In the latter half of her college years, Esther seemed to have gained a greater awareness of her self and what was important to her. She began broadening her world and exploring other groups of interest: So later on I actually joined a very nerdy business fraternity . . . It was all about business and business organizations and things like that and I met some of my best friends that I still have now. It was nerdy but it was filled with very smart people. You know Asian, Indian, Black, and White and just had everybody from every culture and I just love that so much. So that was definitely more to my taste and that was the latter years of my college. So I kind of went through the White, the Asian and everything. And, I came to this place and it was just great (EB594–601).

Like my other interviewees, Esther indicated experiencing a certain level of comfort and ease in being able to connect with other Korean Americans because of a common cultural understanding: With some experiences, if I explained it to a Korean person, then I know there is some kind of understanding that I don’t have to explain half of my action because they would already understand. . . . They

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already knew. Oh, I know why you felt this or I know why you acted this way. Whereas with other cultures, they are going to be wondering why. . . . With Korean people, I don’t have to explain or have to say it in an exact way (EA297–306).

As much as Esther is proud of her Korean heritage and wants to be involved in the Korean community, she sadly mentioned experiencing the most difficulty fitting in with other Koreans “because they had certain ideas about how a Korean should be” (EC1281). Like Ruth, Esther felt she was perceived as being too Americanized or not Korean enough to be fully welcomed at a community service center. Because of a relatively short immigration history, the first-generation Korean Americans predominantly hold the leadership positions in the Korean community, and they typically follow traditional organizational practices. Esther shared her frustration in trying to volunteer her service in one of these agencies: My sister she used to work at Korean American Coalitions and because I love to volunteer I would always volunteer there. And, uh, some people would kind of look at me like I was too White. So even in my own community that I wanted to help out . . . we were given tasks like putting things into envelops or driving the elderly around . . . It was kind of hard to break the mold that we were just as Korean as them which I’m sure is another long topic. So for years I never had any conflict with White people, but only with my own (EC1268–1277).

In response to the situation, Esther expressed her outrage at having to demonstrate her loyalty to other Koreans: But, yeah, it was only with my own . . . like you had to almost be obvious about your commitment to the Korean community. But why do you? We’re Korean. I’m already committed. You know I don’t have to go out and stand in front of supermarkets and you know give out these flyers and be very vigilant about coming to every single event and doing this and really putting my all. And it’s like, “I’m here because you know I have the time. And if I have the time then I want to at least show you know some of my commitment. But, you already should know me being Korean I’m already 100% committed. I don’t have to sit here and tell you, you know. And so maybe my friend and I, we got more resistant hanging out in that kind of atmosphere. So we just never went back which is a very sad thing you know (EC1291–1301).

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Esther’s complaints are not uncommon among 1.5 or 2nd generation Korean American young people who may not be fluent or unable to speak Korean and may clash with less acculturated, fluent native speakers. Apart from this frustrating experience, Esther generally found “other cultures to be more open” (EA271). In fact, she said “it’s sometimes harder to bond with other Korean people” (EA268) because “you are taught not to show weakness and you are always supposed to be strong” (EA255). In addition, because of all the traditional cultural expectations, she found more freedom among other groups: I think it’s because you don’t want to be subject to the traditions you are not following or the culture you are not following. So, you know, you just don’t want to deal with that nonsense because you do live in America and you are not bound by those same traditions. Like, you know, you have to show that you are from this kind of family or something like that, whereas with other people or cultures that doesn’t really matter (EA283–288).

Having gone from mostly all White to all Korean groups, Esther came to a place where she felt a diverse group of friends met her needs the best. In fact, she has made a conscious effort to have friends from “all these different types of culture” (EA242–243): I have my [college] friends. I have some high school friends. I have my work friends. And then I have friends I used to work with that I still keep in touch. And then I have my Yeon Sae [Korean university where she did the summer cultural enrichment program] friends from a long time ago that I still keep in touch with. I don’t know if a lot of people have such a diverse group of friends, but I know my second sister only has one group of friends, from the Korean International School. . . . And my youngest sister only has Korean friends too. So they look at me and they say my friends are all different. . . . There is no one way I think. I am comfortable when I am not comfortable (EA334–343).

It is interesting to note, however, that among all my interviewees only Esther, who may be the least connected to the Korean community, feels most at home with a multi-ethnic or diverse group. Ruth, for example, has always maintained a high level of involvement in both cultures—the dominant group primarily through school or work and the Korean group primarily through an ethnic church. Although Esther also shares a similar religious upbringing, she does not seem to identify with Christianity and,

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hence, seems to experience less emotional pull toward a Korean church. She explains her spiritual views in the following way: I think I had the background of Christianity to kind of give me like this solid foundation for me to grow from. I think I got to be too cerebral and I’m so open minded about a lot of stuff that religion isn’t the only force that I have but maybe also a mixture of religions. I really do respect a lot of other religions and also maybe philosophical ways of looking at things. I don’t know. I’m sure maybe my background just out of habit or my most knowledge is you know maybe God, but I don’t really put my 100% into Him (EC723–730).

Overall, Esther’s resolution to her dual cultural identity seems to be neither Korean nor American, but being open and flexible with everybody. Although her efforts to value, respect, and meet each individual wherever he/she is at is noble, Esther may be too pliable and may have difficulty experiencing a sense of belonging in any particular place. Esther gives a glimpse of the way she likes to relate to others: You know everyone is different so you can’t approach everybody with the same blanket of thoughts, feelings, and actions. I just don’t think it works that way . . . You have to break apart the people and kind of work at the individual level . . . It’s me taking in everything that I know of and what I think is right and what I think is socially acceptable and also acceptable to me as a person . . . But really the force or whatever that drives me to be the person that I am now is something that I think is actually a good one because I only get very good feedback and results . . . You know in every single way, it’s not a force because I’m a Christian or God is my force or Buddha is my force or anything like that. I think it’s a combination of everything . . . I can’t think of it any other way (EC736–760).

In this way, Esther seemed to have come full circle, going back to her first experience of America with her neighbor as a young child. Having internalized being respectful and open-minded as the most important value in her life, Esther is striving to achieve being the best person she can be: I think I am really at a point where I am like the best person I could be [italics added]. It’s not that I’m Korean, I’m not American, but then I am just Esther and I am really good at it. I am just happy being who I am and then I just have all these different friends and they look to me

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Korean American Women for advice or help and things like that. Whereas, you know, I don’t think I could have been this way if I didn’t understand where I came from (EA409–413).

Identity Issues from College Years Although college is naturally when most young adults separate and individuate from their families, it was more dramatic for Esther because her family moved back to Korea. Interestingly, she, more than any of my other interviews, actively focused on her dual cultural identity issue throughout college. However, one theme that dominated Esther’s story throughout her exploration is her parents’ teaching to do the best in whatever she does. Literally, she seemed to have taken her family motto to heart in everything, including defining her identity. When predominantly White students in high school surrounded her, she strived to be the best American she could be. Then, when she was suddenly exposed to a large Korean American population in college, she was initially preoccupied with being the best Korean. Finally, she came to a realization that neither extreme is right for her and that being the best person she could be with everyone is what defines her best. Esther described her younger sisters, who spent most of their adolescent years in Korea, as being more conservative than her, keeping to their group of Korean friends and having hardly any difficulty with their identity issues. However, Esther explained all her struggles with dual culture have been well worth the trouble because she feels it has made her a better, stronger person in the long run: I look at my friends now and a lot of them struggle with issues stemming from their families and their background, confusion about being non-American. But those are things I already kind of dealt with. And so I am happy to be able to help them too. I think it takes a long time and it’s a lot of stuff to struggle through, but when it’s all said and done and you’ve gone through it all and lived, I think it’s a good thing. I don’t think my sisters ever had to go through anything really hard or struggled like that (EA417–423).

CAREER The Turning Point During college, much of Esther’s energy was focused on exploring the world and her dual cultural identity. In terms of her career, however, she

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did not fully explore what she truly wanted to do with her life. To partly appease her father, she looked into some business programs and graduated with a B.A. in Public Policy and Management. However, Esther had other hopes that did not materialize: Oh, yeah, because everything was you know my dad—go to accounting school, go to business. You know to make him happy, I did half business. You know, half something. But whereas maybe I wanted to do instead of public policy, which is a mixture of business and government nonprofit institution. . . . I wanted to maybe go to Peace Corp after college. These are all of the things I wanted to do, but I never did. And then, you know, I look at all my friends who are accountants and I guess they just had to do it. Uh! I’d hate to be them (EC465–471).

Unlike many of her friends, Esther did not go into accounting, which she detested so much. Instead, she followed the market trend in the mid 1990s and went into the computer industry right out of college. In her early twenties, Esther initially started in technical support, but she quickly worked herself up to a program developer. Things were going well for her, but Esther said it was not until she was out of college and turned twentyfive that she had a turning point. She explains that things suddenly came into focus and she knew “how it’s supposed to be” (EC838): I’m like I’m working hard and I’m doing great. And then like twentyfive [italics added], I’m going why? Wait a minute. I’m working hard for my parents? You know. And then I realized, “No. It’s because my dad and my mom worked hard and they picked something like nursing or chemical engineering and they became really great at it.” So you know now is my time to instead of working hard to just work hard, but now work for something that I’m really interested in and I really want to become really good at. That’s probably like the ultimately thing that, you know, any hardworking Korean wants to become is. . . . I don’t know . . . maybe some kind of revolutionary [italics added] or something like that you know (EC862–869).

So even though Esther had a good job and was “comfortable” financially, she was not completely satisfied. Just as her parents did the best they could with whatever they had and made something of themselves, now Esther felt it was her time to do something worthwhile and meaningful with her life. Because her father has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering and her mother a nursing degree, Esther always felt her parents were “very academic”

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(EA156) and stressed the importance of higher education. In fact, Esther says her younger sisters “went on and did a lot more academically” (EA43). Her youngest sister is currently in medical school, and her second sister who just graduated with a masters degree in International Relations will be starting her job at the Department of Defense in Washington D.C. However, one of the reasons her younger siblings were able to focus more on their academics was because Esther often put her own needs aside in order to watch over them. In fact, Esther says as the oldest, she was “like the stronger figure and a little more of a disciplinarian” (EC891–892) who handled everything. For example, when her second sister went to college, Esther went to the orientation with her. And when her youngest sister started school in Chicago, Esther “went and stayed with her for a month to make sure everything was okay because she is the baby” (EC895–896). And, like most Korean immigrant families, Esther was often a “gobetween,” mediating between her first generation parents and younger sisters: “[My father could not] be tough on his little girls, you know, so he would always be like, ‘[Esther], you have to watch out for them and you have to make sure they are okay. . . . ‘ And I was like, ‘Okay, do this and do this and this.’ And they were just like, ‘Fine’” (EC909–913). As the oldest, Esther not only felt she needed to look out for her sisters financially, but even their physical well being. She was conditioned to take care of her siblings for so long that Esther automatically stepped up to any situation and protected them: Whenever we would go out and it looked like there may be some kind of trouble. . . . I would tell them to get behind me to protect them physically like a brother. So I might be a little bit tougher and my sisters are quieter . . . whereas I’m like, “Okay, go over here and we are going to do this.” And they listen because I’m the oldest (EC903–908).

Until recently, Esther was more concerned about everyone in her family, including her aging grandmother’s happiness, than herself. She described how most of her family members seem to be doing well, and she does not need to worry about them as much as before: I know maybe I kind of feel like a parent too like, “Okay now” [blows out a deep breath]. Because you know I just visited my youngest sister when I was in Boston for my work and I stayed with them. And they just bought a new living room set and things like that. And her husband takes care of everything, and I don’t have to worry. He even takes care of me when I’m there like, “Can I get you this?” or whatever. He

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makes things very easy. So I just feel like I could go, “Okay. I don’t have to worry about what’s happening in Boston. That’s fine.” And my other sister always has been kind of little bit like me, but maybe a little more. . . . I don’t know. She is very conservative in a way but also like she takes some independence from me I think. She gets things done, and she gets enrolled in the masters program. And she does this so I mean I . . . she’s going to be fine and I don’t worry about her too much. You know just looking at that and like my parents are fine. They golf everyday. And my grandma, she is a little unhappy and now I try to focus on my grandma. . . . But, yeah, I definitely now see that I have time and to just really. . . . And I think that I kind of lost or missed the, you know, cuddling of the cub because now I have a puppy. So you know fussing over the puppy and things like that. Uh, I don’t know. So I do feel time for me and it’s great (EC934–949).

For the first time, Esther is focusing on herself, instead of someone else in the family: “‘So what are you going to do? What do you really want to do?’ So it’s these big decisions that I’m going to have to think about and make. It’s scary and at the same time very exhilarating and carefree and great. So, I don’t know. A lot of possibilities . . . I’m still kind of thinking about where I want to go” (EC427–433). In fact, Esther’s parents recently reminded her again, “You are supposed to get your masters in business when you are thirty” (EC352–353). Esther is not necessarily opposed to the idea of going to graduate school, but she says, “I might get a master, but it might not be in business. It is something I’m just taking my time and really thinking through” (EC353–354). One of the reasons she has always been somewhat tentative about the business track is that she has another competing interest: “I think I would like to go back to school for a masters in Public Health” (EC321–323). My Dream What has always been in Esther’s heart is doing something related to public service. She “always loved anything to do with volunteering” (EC328), and really enjoyed her experience working with a group of Black inner city children as a part of her undergraduate program: Part of the curriculum for the Public Policy program [during my undergraduate years] was that you had to volunteer for a semester at any kind of organization. At our school we had this great partnership with schools off campus called JEP, Joint Educational Project. And this is where you can become any kind of after school counselor in any

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Korean American Women capacity like arts and craft or sports. . . . I actually chose to be the arts and craft counselor with the inner city schools. I completely fell in love with these kids . . . They were just great. They just wanted someone to talk to. . . . One week I couldn’t come and they were all waiting for me like the week after, “Where were you Miss Kim? We were all worried for you. . . .” Going back to like how you don’t realize how much you affect other people, and I think that’s kind of something that I want to maybe go towards (EC328–314).

Expanding on her interests in doing volunteer service at a larger scale, Esther shares her vision of doing public good even at the international level: Now that I know I might be someone that people will respond to, I am going to move forward with being really active and doing some really good. . . . May be I want to join the Peace Corp or . . . if I do public health, then I can go to different countries and help set up different health programs. . . . But now that I have done the technology and I have done the business, I might stay and work for it a little bit longer. I might want to get a master in business (EC341–350).

However, as Esther talks about her dream of what she wants to do, her ambivalence creeps in. Clearly, she is torn between following her heart/passion versus fulfilling her “son figure” duty and going into something that would be more logical and lucrative. The Father’s Dream As seen in Ruth’s case, a daughter’s relationship with her father seems to play a significant role in her career development, especially as a woman trying to establish her place in a man’s world. The importance of the father’s close relationship with his daughter in terms of building confidence, developing strength, and nurturing a business sense is even more evident in Esther’s situation. She described how her father’s effort to treat her like an eldest son in the family helped her in her work: So he talks business to me all the time. I think that’s why I nonchalantly progressed into the business side because I think I was naturally good at it. I had lots of great guidance from my dad in terms of running a business. So now all of my ideas that I put forth in my work I’ve actually heard. They were actually echoes [italics added] from my dad (EB428–432).

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Like Ruth, Esther is also in a technical, male-dominated field, and her father’s mentoring has been instrumental in developing Esther’s mental toughness and competitive spirit: When I got into it I didn’t know that it was all male dominated. But as soon as I got into it, it was very, very frustrating and everything. But also at the same time because there are no women, I also had an edge because . . . people like to hear a woman’s voice versus a man’s. And, also I had no trouble getting help from all of my male peers if I needed it. . . . It turned out to be very, very good just because it only made me work ten times harder [italics added] in order to get ahead of my male counterparts. . . . Anything to do with male domination does not intimidate me at all because of my dad [italics added]. Because he taught me I guess the son-daughter thing. . . . I can pretty much do anything in the business world that a man can. There is a lot for me to learn definitely, but I have a heads up on some other people in my company (EC983–998).

Esther also had strong, independent female role models in her life, namely her maternal grandmother and mother, who have passed down the kind of drive and persistence that allowed her to work ten times harder to succeed in a man’s world. However, Esther’s ability to not be intimidated by male domination comes most directly from her father. Esther definitely has the potential to learn and succeed, but her close relationship with her father appears to nurture and bring out the fierce competitor in her. I think I always have been healthily competitive. Maybe it’s my dad always telling us and especially me, “You guys are the best and if you are going to do something then do it right.” I hear that even when I take out a trash you know. It’s anything that you do that’s the first thing he said. And you know that you tried your hardest and you can’t look back and say that you failed or anything liked that. I mean you just did the best you could and you know you gave it your all (EC1056–1061).

Although Esther’s father probably nurtured these qualities in all of his daughters, Esther, as the oldest, seemed to have gotten the strongest dosage. She is the most direct beneficiary of her father’s generous guidance, but it also burdens her with his ambition and also makes it more challenging to follow her own dream. Whether her father is consciously aware or not, he has some desire to live vicariously through his child. The temptation is even

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greater when a child is particularly bright, full of potential and wants so much to please the parent (Miller, 1979). However, apart from this common parent-child psychological drama, the realities typically faced by immigrant families add yet another layer to this dynamic. The lack of structural assimilation is often experienced by minority men, including American-born, highly educated Asian males (Hurh, 1993). However, it most deeply affects the group of older immigrant men because of added difficulties of language and cultural barriers. Thus, even someone like Esther’s father who is considered a success story in his own right—achieving a high level of education and establishing a very successful, influential business relationship with Korean industries and government—still has ambitions for his child to succeed in the dominant society. And, the oldest daughters, even more so than the sons, often make the best candidate for the job for a couple of reasons. Internally, because of the gender disparity practiced within the Korean ethnic community, girls, especially the oldest, tend to exhibit stronger motivation to compete and outperform the boys. Externally, the structural realities in America encourage the minority females to assimilate at a faster rate than males (Hurh, 1993; Lee, 1993). Similar to Ruth, Esther described how she has a better chance to succeed as a woman in the mainstream work force, if she is willing to work harder than her minority male counterpart: I think in the business world, they kind of look at you like you’re either a female or a male. It doesn’t even matter if you are Black or White or Asian or whatever. You are just a woman and you do womanly things in business. So you know, women that go ahead and move forward in business they are looked at as like butch men or something like that. They take on more manly qualities. But that’s not true, like we are seeing now with all these top women in the top companies. I think it’s still a White man’s world [italics added] when it comes to top business or medical industry or technology sector. You know anything where it’s White collar, its definitely still very White male dominated. So if you are Asian or Black, it’s still kind of hard to get inside or get to the top. Women, you just have to work ten times faster, ten times harder I think no matter what race you are [italics added] (EC1237–1247).

The Korean Dream With her father’s support and encouragement and her insatiable desire to succeed, Esther moved up very quickly at her current job. She has only

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worked for the company for two years, but has already “been promoted two or three times” (EC1018). Recently, she became a marketing/project manager, but she expressed a lot of frustration at not being able to climb the corporate ladder faster: I won’t be a complete force in anything that I do until I’m about thirtyfive [italics added]. So I’m just kind of learning and putting things into my arsenal and my resume. And until then . . . watch out! Because a lot of people I work with are older and I’m very flustered, “Why can’t I get to that level?” But, I’m still in my twenties so . . . I have to be more patient and realize that as long as I keep moving forward and I keep working hard, then I will have the corner office. I will have the VP position. Or, maybe I’ll be starting up public health programs in Zimbabwe or something (EC1006–1014).

Esther dreams of being at the very top and reads “a lot of magazines like Fortune and Time, and also People” (EC1087–1088). She is especially interested in female CEOs who balance career and family. Her attitude has always been “there isn’t anything I couldn’t become if I really wanted to work hard” (EA404–405). And, the goal she set for herself is “in any sector . . . really, truly make a difference” (EC1026) and “be in the Korean newspaper so my grandma can cut it out” (EC1031). Having her name in the paper is a sign of making it to the top in America and making her family proud. She has given herself another five years, when she is thirty-five, to reach this goal. Until then, she seems to have put aside all other aspects of her life, including marriage and children: I mean I know it’s going to happen and there is nothing more that I want than to have kids. But I don’t know. I just think that there is a lot more to be done and one person can’t change the world. And I’m not thinking about changing the world. I just want to be successful in my goals I set for myself and that’s all that really matters, you know. And maybe it will come in a year or two and then I’ll be able to focus on my family and things. But right now thirty-five is my ideal age where I’m just going to go for it until I hit it (EC1045–1051).

Fulfilling the Korean immigrant’s dream and her father’s dream of reaching the top of corporate America seems to be the main focus at this stage in her life. As Esther has been taught, she wants to “do it right” (EB414) and do her best. However, this teaching is intimately connected to the other “constant theme” (EB412) in her life as the oldest. Just like Ruth,

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Esther feels no matter what she chooses to do, she must be successful enough to provide economic security for her family. Thus, Esther states: I want my sisters to know, like I said before, that if they need money I could give it to them . . . if they need anything or if any of my cousins need anything. . . . So I think the main thing is that I want to be selfsufficiently wealthy in my own right [italics added] so I don’t ever have to be upset at my husband because he can’t lend the money. . . . That would actually make me feel very, very unhappy and I don’t want to feel that way especially with my sisters (EC1139–1147).

Interestingly, Esther not only feels the need to make enough money to take care of her immediate family members, but she extends this to include her cousins if necessary. This traditional Korean practice, however, is deeply rooted in her family. Her maternal grandmother has been the matriarch for the extended family. She brought over not only her own children, but also other relatives from Korea and helped them settle down in America in the 70s on her hard-earned, seamstress’s salary. Perhaps because Esther lived with her grandmother for five years while her family was in Korea and is extremely close to her, Esther has somehow elected herself to take her grandmother’s place for her generation. Indeed, Esther takes her other-oriented responsibility to the family so seriously that she mentioned at one point she even considered marrying a “perfect Korean guy,” a wealthy successful doctor, as an option. However, Esther adds, if “I want to marry for love, then I’ll marry whomever I want” (EC1148), but she says she would need to definitely make her “own money and be well enough” (EC1149) that she could still lend out the money without worrying about taking care of her own children and her husband’s feelings. Esther’s expectations for herself as the center of her entire family seem similar to the popular Western image of the “Godfather.” However, Esther has taken this role so seriously that it seems to preoccupy her thoughts and dictates her future plans: I think it is just pride. You know something that keeps me motivated for my future. And also I think it’s such a crucial age when you are so young and ideas are so fresh and you still have energy to put in lots of hours at work. . . . You know, I need to still make a good foundation for when I’m fifty or when I retire. And I also want to make sure that I have a lot of money in the bank in case my parents aren’t around and my sisters will be the only ones there. So, if they need $50,000 or whatever, then they can come to me and I can just give it to them. Now I am

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going to work hard. And even if I have little kids . . . I will still be able to work hard because I need to do it now so I don’t have to worry about anything when I am older (EB385–394).

Career and Esther’s Changing Self Esther has always been preoccupied with being the best. She worked hard to be “the best student” in elementary school, “the best American” in high school, and “the best Korean” in college. After college, she worked diligently to break into the male dominated, technical industry that was completely different from her undergraduate major. A few years into it, Esther had a turning point at age twenty-five. What she realized is that it is not enough for her to just have a good paying job, but that she has to make something out of her life like the generations before her. However, her close family ties made it very difficult for her to find her own path. Ever since Esther was young, her father took her under his wing like the eldest son and coached her to succeed in the business world. She has benefited greatly from his guidance and has steadily climbed the ladder in her company. However, Esther is very impatient to get to the top and live up to her father and grandmother’s legacy. She has given herself only five more years to fulfill her family’s immigrant dream. As much as she wants to make these significant people in her life proud of her, she also has her own dreams. Esther is very conflicted about which direction to take: a profit-oriented, executive of corporate America or a non-profit, service-oriented public health worker in a third world country. As Esther is about to turn thirty this year, she faces increasing pressure to decide which of these two sides she will choose for her life story: You know, you only get one shot and I got all the best resources that anyone can have. So if I can’t even be proud of myself in six years, then maybe I’m not saying that . . . I mean life will take you through different paths of course and I might end up pregnant tomorrow or something and be happy with my five kids or I might be a CEO of some company. You never know. But, at least, you’ll look back and you’ll go, “I had all of the chances and resources . . . and I used those and I went after it” (EC1067–1072).

One thing is certain. Whatever road Esther chooses to take in the next half of her life, she will do her best to live up to her family’s legacy of hard work, determination, and sacrifice.

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RELATIONSHIP Not My Number One Priority Similar to Ruth, Esther’s career chapter is better developed than her relationship chapter. It seems like her energy is so focused on meeting her targeted goals for her career that relationships and marriage is not something she has given a lot of thought. Although she was polite in answering my questions, she seemed kind of bored and even a little impatient talking about relationship issues. While she focused all her energy on building her career, Esther seemed to think that somehow she would just meet the right person at the right time. In fact, at one point in our discussion, she explicitly stated, “I’m sure I’ll be able to find a husband that will understand you know with me trying to do everything that I want to do. We’ll both work at it together. But really, finding a husband is not my number one priority even though for my mother it is” (EC370–373). As Esther is about to turn thirty, her mother’s main focus now appears to be finding a potential mate for Esther before she is considered too old. On the contrary, Esther seemed to feel marriage would only hinder her from reaching her personal goal and is optimistic that she will have no trouble finding the right person when she is ready to consider marriage: I don’t have to work hard to find a good boyfriend or whatever. And I’m sure there are lots of great guys out there right now and I’m good friends with them too. But, I don’t know, I have no desire to do that right now. And I think it’s because finally I’ve just come back to a point where I can really concentrate on me and if I get married I’m going to have to concentrate on him or something else (EC438–443).

As Esther mentioned in the previous chapter, her pressing need at the moment is to reach the top of a company before she turns thirty-five. And, then, maybe she will have room to consider a relationship. Like Ruth when she was younger, Esther put her relationships on hold until she reaches a certain level in her career where she may feel successful or satisfied. However, the lesson from Ruth’s story is that relationships don’t happen automatically and a woman’s career achievements may intimidate rather than attract men. Looking at her upbringing, it makes sense that Esther made her career her first priority. As an eldest “son figure,” she has mentally prepared herself

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to think very much like a man. She has convinced herself that it will not be too late to consider a relationship when she has fulfilled her career ambition at thirty-five. Esther was not only mentored by her father to succeed in the business world like a son, but also by her mother who has been supporting this effort. While Esther’s mother played a traditional housewife role, she guided Esther away from what are typically considered female tasks. My mom was such a great housewife . . . she cooks, she cleans, and she does everything. You know, a typical Korean mom. She would be the one to say, “Okay, you don’t have to cook or clean. You just have to go study.” You know first study and then practice piano. I mean even when we were in high school. So when I was in college, I didn’t know how to cook. I didn’t really know how to clean the house. I didn’t know how to do laundry (EA132–137).

Confusing Gender Role Expectations In this way, Esther pointed out how “confusing” (EA137) it was growing up between two different cultures. While she visited Korea as a teenager, she was taught to wait to be served or serve others first. However, Esther says when she came back home to the U.S., she did not have to do any of the housework because she was supposed to study single-mindedly. Thus, Esther was not only raised to think like a male in her academics and career, she was also discouraged from doing any of the chores typically considered female work. On the other hand, her mother was the perfect model of a traditional housewife. When asked how she made sense of her mother’s role, Esther explained: She was just very strong in every single aspect. She didn’t go buy things. She made her own. She didn’t know how to drive, but she went and learned so she could take us to all our piano lessons and things like that. I think in everyway that she was supposed to be traditional, she still did it in a very strong and independent way. So I think I could kind of see myself being like that too. So I wouldn’t fully look down on Korean women and I don’t want to be traditional, serving my husband food and things like that. It was actually like, “Yeah, when I get older, I want to be able to serve my husband and take care of my children because those are still very honorable things.” So I think that’s how I still look at it now. You know you can still hold true to certain traditions that might not be looked as favorably now especially with how

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Korean American Women the woman’s lib and stuff like that are now. But it is still okay to fall back on those old conservative roles because you can still be strong in those actions. So I think I look at my mom with a lot of respect and awe because she just did everything so rationally and . . . she never apologized for anything you know. So I mean I think that’s very honorable to me (EB25–40).

Esther looked up to her mother for her strength and sacrifice in taking care of the family. She even went so far as to suggest that she would not mind playing the traditional wife role when the time came. And, yet, later in the same interview, Esther revealed quite a different picture in terms of what she would like in a mate: I just want someone . . . like I don’t care if it’s a black guy or Korean guy, as long as we get along and he can cook [italics added]. That’s all I need because I can’t cook anything. I don’t know, maybe someone that came from the same background and same level of education or maybe more because I don’t think I can really respect my husband unless I’m truly in awe of him . . . I don’t know maybe I’m too Americanized (EB126–132).

In fact, she added, “Yeah, I can see from my boyfriend history they are all like what I’m describing now. They are all Americanized. They grew up in America. They are all different races, but very smart, very funny, very nice, and they always for some reason could cook very well. So I kind of have a pattern I guess” (EB137–140). Thus, while Esther seemed to want a nontraditional guy who can cook regardless of his race, she also has traditional Korean expectations that he be as educated and financially established as her, if not more. Because she looks up to her father’s accomplishments, Esther seemed to look for a man who has similar capabilities. In fact, even though at one point Esther suggested that she would not mind if the guy wants to stay at home and raise the children so she can be the career woman, she later admits, “That just looks weak to me. Like he would also have to be the breadwinner and help me solidify the future for everyone” (EB418–419), which includes taking care of her parents and sisters. In Esther’s opinion, most Korean American guys are traditional and “don’t feel like a man” (EB329) unless they are the primary breadwinner, but tolerate their wives working only because it is an economic necessity: They would want their wives to stay home . . . and take care of the house and take care of the children. But, you know, a lot of people they

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just can’t afford it. So they have their wives keep the job. So I think just out of the necessity they have the wives go out and do it, but otherwise I think they would want to have them home (EB297–301).

In her parents’ case, her mother quit work and stayed home to raise the children as soon as it was economically feasible. Since her father’s business venture became successful and all the children were grown, her mother now plays golf everyday “with like twenty-five other Korean women” at the country club (EB289–290). Esther described a cousin in Korea who has a similar middle-class housewife lifestyle: My cousin on my mom’s side is married to a rich doctor and has two little kids . . . She doesn’t work. She just shops all day and takes care of the kids and that’s it . . . But I think she is also very bored by it too. She used to be a professional violin or cello player. I mean just amazing musician, but she just tossed that up when the kids were born. I’m not sure whether she was told to give that up . . . but I know she just abruptly stopped. I mean having two kids I guess is a handful. So I can see why she doesn’t have time for anything else (EB274–283).

Esther’s youngest sister married right out of college a little over a year ago before going to medical school. She is maybe independent in terms of continuing with her education and career, but Esther thinks her sister is actually very conservative and traditional compared to some of her friends’ marriages. Some of my friends they are married but refuse to take their husbands’ last names. And a lot of my friends that are married, their wives never cook and their husbands cook every night. And there’s the other extreme where, like my youngest sister, she took her husband’s last name and she always answers the phone. He never picks up the phone at home. And she makes lunch for him to take to work. . . . Even though she is a very independent American women, she married a very Korean man. But she likes it. She likes to be in that kind of role. So that works great for her (EB89–96).

In terms of her own life, Esther anticipates making some adjustments once she is married, especially when she has children. However, she cannot imagine being a fulltime traditional housewife or giving up her career completely: Well, I think I would still keep my career but I would work from. . . . My products are web based so I can just click onto any computer and

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Korean American Women work on it from home. So I would definitely work towards having that set up. Maybe for a year or two I would take a break or something like that from work and start again but I can imagine all of the hard work and knowledge, you know, that I have worked for to kind of go to waste because now I have kids. I don’t think anything would really change because I think that would just be a waste . . . I mean not that being a simple housewife is not, I mean that’s hard work too definitely. I need to be stimulated or otherwise I wouldn’t feel like a complete person. If I was doing laundry all day or something you know. I just don’t think that would be good for me mentally and my kids. So I would definitely need to keep a career focus still (EB360–373).

Overall, Esther wants to be a contemporary career woman holding her own ground economically and balancing a family; however, she maintains a traditional view that the man should be a good provider. Images of Korean and Non-Korean Guys For the first couple of years in college, Esther was mostly involved with Korean groups. However, she did not date any Korean guys because she says she could not “really relate” (EC528) to them: Most Korean guys, they smoke a lot of cigarettes and they drink a lot and they were into their cars and you know that kind of stuff. And I’m like, “Why don’t we go hiking?” It was very different. I mean we all just hung out, but in terms of boyfriend or girlfriend I don’t think anyone was really interested in each other that early on. . . . And then a couple of years into it, that’s when I start dating, you know, other guys like Chinese. I guess from what I saw the first couple of years, it didn’t really interest me to go out with Korean guys. I had lots of Korean friends but I didn’t want to date them (EC533–541).

In fact, Esther feels there are generally two stereotypical Korean guys. She calls the first group “typical Korean men” (EB170), which “are like jealous and possessive and like verging alcoholic” (EB174). And, she says, “The other spectrum of stereotypical Korean men is Christian, accountant, like good kind of guy” (EB178–179), which she describes the following way: They are just like, you know, very humble and quiet. They went to good schools. They have good jobs. They come to church every Sunday. You know, they kind of like the opposite. I don’t know how that

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pertains to other cultures because I never heard of like . . . my friends talk that way about Japanese guys or Chinese guys that way. It’s always Korean guys (EB189–193).

Understandably, Esther wants to avoid the first group of Korean men who reminds of her maternal grandfather. On the other hand, the other group of Korean Christian men may be decent, but she finds them stifling with “a very strict way of living” (EB213). Esther explains many Korean American young women may be “looking for stability, a good home, and a husband . . . [but] we are also kind of more outgoing and more curious about things you know, and we are very independent. So maybe the church guy doesn’t really attract us” (EB199–202). For example, Esther mentions there is a little difference in things like type of music: “they even call it secular music and we call it rock-n-roll, and maybe even want to go see a concert but they don’t really do things like that” (EB217–219). Esther supposes, “There might be some in the middle . . . a really good mix, but . . . they are just hard to find” (EB221–222). Unlike Ruth, Esther has never been predominantly interested in dating Korean and/or Christian guys. In fact, growing up, she felt she was treated like “just another girl” (EC1248) and any guys (e.g., White, Black, and Korean) could ask for her phone number. In contrast, she knows this is not the case with Korean men because “if they are dating a White girl they are looked at kind of weird. Korean men should only date Korean women or Asian women. You know, society kind of actually puts you into those places” (EC1251–1253). As a woman, however, Esther never experienced any problems with interracial dating. When asked how her parents responded to it, Esther stated: I think they were okay with the fact because . . . I mean they knew that they were going to be good caliber guys and they didn’t think it was going to be anything permanent. So they were just kind of, “Oh, okay. She is kind of doing her thing and having boyfriends and stuff like that.” But . . . they really want me to marry a Korean and a Christian (EB145–149).

Although she is close to her parents and is aware of their preference for a mate, Esther does not seem to be bound by it as in Ruth’s case. When she was about twenty-six, she had a Korean boyfriend for awhile; however, she says they were both too young at the time to be serious about marriage and he went away to medical school. To please her parents, Esther went on a few arranged dates with other Korean men, but they

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pretty much confirmed her general feelings about the two types of Korean guys. Having gone on these unsuccessful dates with Koreans, Esther states her parents became more open to the idea of her marrying a non-Korean: I mean my parents told me maybe you might be better suited with a White guy because you are so Americanized. Even Korean Americans that grew up in America, . . . they might be tied down to the same Korean traditions and there might be some kind of disharmony because he’s expecting you to be like this and maybe you are not like that and you might not be happy you know. So they are like if you marry White, that’s great too. They want the marriage to be easy as possible (EB153–159).

Esther feels White guys are “cool” (EB236), but there are two types as well. She calls the first group “the ‘yellow fever’ kinds of guys where they are only attracted to Asian women because they think of Asian women as exotic or trophy women. Those kinds of guys you definitely stay away from. And then there are the others, you know, just regular guys” (EB237–240). And, in her experience, these “regular” Caucasian men: Tend to want their wife to have a career and they help out. . . . They are more encouraging and more supportive of having hobbies, things outside of the house, having a life of their own too. . . . But Asian people I think tend to just sit together and form their own nucleus after awhile, and wife doesn’t have like her own set of friends and it’s about family and it’s about cooking and it’s about taking care of the home (EB244–256).

Thus, Esther seems to particularly appreciate the valuing of a woman’s independence and individuality by Caucasian men in terms of supporting her career ambition, but also with other areas of her life including friends, interests, and hobbies. In this way, Esther feels a non-Korean, non-traditional guy may be a better fit for her as a potential mate. Relationship and Esther’s Changing Self In the previous chapter, Esther showed how close she is with her family and has a deep sense of obligation to take care of her parents and siblings and fulfill the traditional role of an eldest “son like figure.” In contrast, when it comes to relationships outside of her family, Esther seems to prefer a mate who would most value and support her independence and individuality. In this way, even within the area of relationships, Esther seems to hold two

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completely different sets of cultural values—one, interdependent Korean traditional value with respect to her own family and second, independent and individualistic Western value outside of her family. Unlike Ruth, Esther never felt she had to marry a Korean and/or Christian guy, even though she knows that would be her parents’ preference. Although Esther did not feel she had as much freedom with regards to selecting her career and securing an economic future, she seems to be much more independent at least in thinking about choosing a potential mate. Because she is younger, Esther has not made relationships her priority and, hence, has not dealt with these issues more directly with her parents, as Ruth has had to do. In many ways, Esther has not yet reached a place in her life where she is forced to choose between or integrate these two opposite cultural values in her relationships. Thus far, she seems to have avoided the clash between her two worlds by keeping them relatively separate.

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Chapter Seven

Hanna

As with my other interviewees, I briefly mentioned to Hanna my research topic, and she showed an immediate interest. She not only generously volunteered herself as a potential participant, but also offered to ask some of her friends who would fit the criteria. I kept them in mind as possible candidates for at least a couple of months. Out of a list of approximately fifteen potential volunteers, I thought Hanna would be an interesting candidate because she could provide a unique perspective as a young woman engaged to be married within a few months. However, the factor that set her apart from the others was also a challenge in terms of scheduling the interviews. Hanna was extremely busy trying to finish her last year of law school while planning her wedding, scheduled to take place the week after her graduation. Her fiancé was equally busy completing his last year of medical school and trying to take his medical board exam before the wedding. Knowing what kind of stress Hanna was under, I reconsidered including her as one of the participants because I knew the interview process would be time consuming. I frankly shared my concerns with her, but Hanna did not want to back out. Because she was committed to doing the interview, I decided to work with her schedule. The first interview was set during her winter break and the second her spring break. Hanna suggested scheduling the third interview just before her wedding, but I felt that would be too much for her. So, under the circumstance, I felt it would be better to combine the second and the third interview into one long meeting. We left an option open to possibly meet afterwards if more information was needed. However, I was not sure at the time of the second interview if that would be feasible for her because she would be preparing to take her board exam after returning from her honeymoon. Toward the

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end of the summer, a brief interview was conducted to follow up after she got married. Given the kind of stress Hanna was under, I wanted to accommodate her in whatever way I could to make the process a little less cumbersome. So, I first suggested meeting at a coffee shop near her school or apartment. However, each time she insisted on coming to my home instead. Although she said it was no trouble for her because she was on a break, I strongly believe she offered to make it more convenient for me. Based on traditional Korean etiquette, I sensed Hanna was trying to show her thoughtfulness and respect to me as her elder. So, I decided to accept her offer graciously and conducted all the interviews in the privacy of my home. As her story unfolded, it became quite clear how she has internalized proper conduct according to traditional Korean customs as a young woman even though she is second generation (i.e., born in the U.S.). Similar to my other interviewees, I asked Hanna to think of her life as a book and divide it into chapters. She outlined her life in the following way: (1) early childhood (infancy through preschool), (2) late childhood (K through 5th grade), (3) adolescence (6th through 12th grade), and (4) college years. Even though many important themes came up regarding career and relationships since her college years in the first two interviews, she did not initially delineate them as separate chapters in her life. When I went back and analyzed her story, however, they seemed to closely follow the chronology of her law school years and afterwards. Thus, I decided to add two more chapters to address themes that developed during her law school and important issues she is anticipating after her wedding. During the follow-up meeting, we briefly discussed these chapters, and she provided the titles for each of them, which are noted respectively.

EARLY CHILDHOOD (INFANCY THROUGH PRESCHOOL): “PRETTY HAPPY GIRL” Hanna’s Humble Beginning Like Ruth’s father, Hanna’s father grew up in an impoverished, rural part of Korea. He had the misfortune of catching tuberculosis in high school, but his family was too poor to get proper medical attention for him. Against all odds, Hanna’s father survived the illness even though it delayed his hopes for higher education. Through hard work and sheer determination, he was able to get into a prestigious university in Seoul. In his last year of college, he met Hanna’s mother. Following their graduation (mother with a B.A. in English and father in economics), they were married and

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soon came to the U.S. in 1974 in order for her father to pursue his doctoral degree in economics at a university in the Midwest. Hanna’s father was twenty-nine and her mother was twenty-three years old when they first arrived in America. Being so far away from home, adjusting to the new life was extremely difficult, especially for her mother. As a spouse of an international student with limited English, she was not able to work or do much else. Hanna says her mother’s life revolved around making three square meals for her father everyday. A couple years later, Hanna’s older brother was born, but life continued to be an upward battle. Originally, Hanna’s father worked on his doctoral study in economics because he wanted to return to Korea to teach. However, he later changed his direction and switched to a MBA program. After completing his business study there, Hanna’s father decided to pursue a law degree and moved the family to Southern California. While he was still in the law school, Hanna was born in 1979 near “Korea Town” in Los Angeles (a regional Korean immigrant enclave in a major metropolitan area, which is typically a reception area for most new immigrants). Hanna does not “remember that much from when I was very young” (HA6), but she indicated that out of the three children in her family, “I was least planned” (HA11). She then gave a glimpse of what the living condition was like during her early years when her father was still working on his degree: I was born while my dad was in [law school] and I think my mom’s pregnancy with me was a surprise. And so they had to move into a real cheap apartment. And my dad said that whenever they turned on the switch, there were roaches everywhere. But then soon after that, my dad and his two brothers had some sort of a small business venture that was successful, and my dad helped them out with it. And so he was able to get a little bit of money and moved us out of that apartment. And, uh, I just remember living in that apartment for the first three years of my life until we moved . . . into a small house [in a suburb in Southern California] (HA11–18).

Like the other interviewees, Hanna’s family also endured many economic hardships while establishing themselves in this country. Although the worst of it probably took place even before Hanna could talk, she somehow knew how extremely challenging the early years in the United States were like for her family. These early images and stories of her family’s struggles and her own beginning formed powerful raw material which later shaped Hanna’s own life choices.

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As seen before, Hanna’s parents were part of the third-wave of Korean immigrants who made up a select group of highly educated people. Although her family struggled while her father worked on his degrees, her family was able to move from the inner city to the White suburb well within a decade. In 1980, when Hanna was one, her father earned his JD and eventually opened up his own practice with a partner. At the time, he was one of the first five Korean American attorneys in the Southern California area. Along the way, Hanna said her father also got his CPA license and became active in the Korean community. She mentioned her family’s move to the middle-class neighborhood was possible because her father had a break, helping his two brothers who were already living in Los Angeles at the time. But, more importantly, Hanna believed her father got these so called “lucky” breaks in his life precisely because he worked so hard to obtain all his professional degrees and licenses (e.g., MBA, CPA, JD). In many ways, her father’s success story sets the stage for the next generation to continue climbing the social and economic ladder in America. The Earliest Memory Although Hanna does not remember that much about her birth or early childhood, she notes the first seven or eight years of her life was “pretty much a blur” (HB22). However, she knew of one specific incident that must have happened before she was “at a speaking stage . . . maybe younger than two” (HA27–28). The following story about Hanna seemed critical not only because it goes all the way back to her preverbal stage, but more importantly because this one was not forgotten: My grandmother says that when I was a baby, I liked having everything to myself [italics added]. So one time she was peeling an apple, and she just snipped off a little piece at the end and popped it into her mouth. And she says that I freaked out. She ruined the whole thing. I was really disappointed that I didn’t get it all. I think that’s the first story, and I can’t really think of anything else (HA18–23).

Even though Hanna casually relayed a brief story of an innocent exchange she had with her grandmother as a toddler, this seems to be an important memory that held a lot of meaning. Before any defense mechanism was in place, Hanna naturally responded to what she perceived to be intrusive acts by her grandmother on her developing sense of an independent self. This story was probably retold numerous times in her family as somewhat amusing, but it stands out precisely because Hanna’s assertion of her self seems so out of the ordinary for traditional Korean adults’ sensibility,

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especially for a female child. For Hanna, the story has a subtle, yet powerful effect of not only singling her out, but also admonishing her not to be a headstrong girl who wants everything her way. As Hanna got older, the story was retold and stuck with her. Eventually, it got translated and became an inoculation against being “selfish” (HA141). As we will see throughout her narrative, this seems to be one label Hanna desperately struggled to vindicate herself of all her life. Growing Up in the White Suburb As Hanna indicated earlier, her family moved to the suburbs when she was three. About a year later, her youngest sister was born. Hanna says she does not remember very much, except things like being in the Brownie troop and loving her uniform. In preschool she recalls doing fun activities like eating carbon paper as a part of an art project and reading the book “Green Eggs and Ham and having green eggs” (HA32). And then, she clearly remembers one particular day in her preschool when “my mom made me Kimbop [Korean sushi] and everyone was really intrigued by it and thought it was sushi or something really exotic [italics added]” (HA33–34). When asked whether she felt that was a good thing or not, she replied: It wasn’t something to be embarrassed about. People seemed to think it was really a neat thing. Yeah and then probably I do remember wearing a Hanbok [Korean traditional costume] and stuff like that. I loved the Hanbok. So all of the things that I knew were Korean, I think were generally pretty positive when I was younger . . . Not that I knew what exotic was back then, but kind of special and fancy [italics added] and everything (HA60–65).

So, as a little girl, Hanna associated being Korean as being different from others. Looking at the class picture from her preschool recently, Hanna noticed it was all White, except for one Hispanic child and herself. However, similar to my other interviewees who also grew up in a predominantly White residential area, Hanna did not think it was necessarily a bad thing that she was the only Korean or Asian in the school. Like Ruth and Esther, Hanna’s parents tried to help her feel that being different was “special” and something to be proud of with her classmates. In fact, as a young child, Hanna notes, “I think I just liked the attention” (HA56). A Girly Girl Both Ruth and Esther who are oldest in their family identified with the role of an eldest son and even tried to act like one of the boys growing up. In

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contrast, Hanna indicates she was “kind of a girly girl . . . [liking] pink and red and doing my hair, make up, and dresses” (HA5–6). The fact that Hanna is a second child with an older brother may have been an important factor, allowing her to be more feminine. However, her family always teased her being a “girly girl.” Hanna even recalled a specific incident where she felt left out as a little girl. This memory seemed to hold some painful feelings for Hanna because she became tearful as she described the following story: But I just remember we were in a car one day and they were picking me up from preschool and my mom asked, “What’s your favorite color?” And I said “pink” I think. And my brother was like “Well, I like blue.” And then my mom was like “I like blue too. Blue is the best, my favorite color.” And I remember thinking . . . feeling kind of like . . . they were just on the same team and I was a little bit different (HA71–76).

It is interesting that her mother explicitly chose what is traditionally considered to be a masculine color. It is not clear whether her mother was intentionally trying to be more supportive of the son or not. However, what is certain is the effect this had on Hanna. Years later, she still felt emotional talking about the situation. Although this may seem like an innocent conversation about personal choices in color, it had a strong, emotional message for Hanna. Not only was her more feminine color choice not favorably looked upon by her mother, more importantly, deep down inside, Hanna felt excluded from the dyad and less valued as a girl. Even though this exchange is very subtle, favoring the son is a common Korean practice rooted in traditional family ideology and customs. According to a survey conducted by a popular Korean newspaper: Almost three-quarters (72%) of marriages in Korea are arranged by parents, relatives, or match-makers; most Koreans still prefer sons over daughters; filial piety continues to be the cardinal virtue in family ethics; and a woman’s proper place is in the home—only 20% of married women in Korea are employed outside the home (Korea Newsreview 1991 cited in Hurh, 1998, p. 84).

Thus, even in contemporary Korean society, these traditional practices, based on an old Korean family system, still persist. And, the majority of Korean immigrants brought these traditional family values to America. However, the conditions in America were very different. Many immigrant

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wives had to work outside the home to supplement the family income and daughters grew up with American egalitarian values. Therefore, the traditional Korean family ideology derived from Confucian ethics was the biggest obstacle for a Korean American young woman in terms of making sense of who she is and what her place is in the family, Korean community, and society at large. Narrative Tone and Imagery from Early Childhood Like my other interviewees, Hanna was very mindful of her parents’ early struggles to be successful in this country. Even though only the first few years of her life was affected by her family’s economic hardship, she seemed to identify with their humble beginnings. However, her father was able to move them into the suburbs relatively quickly, and Hanna grew up in a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood starting from her preschool years. As the only Korean or Asian girl in a group of preschoolers, Hanna enjoyed being different and getting the attention from her peers. Hanna described her early childhood as being “just pretty happy girl” (HA12). However, within her family, some traditional cultural messages of what it means to be a girl appeared to be setting a certain tone for Hanna.

LATE CHILDHOOD (K THROUGH 5TH GRADE): “THE AWAKENING” Hands Off the Boys From her earliest story, Hanna was taught not to be too self-centered, independent, or selfish as a little girl. Then, she learned from a specific incident in her preschool years that her mother was not on her side. When asked whether she felt her parents were generally on her brother’s side, Hanna emphatically replied, “Yeah, I mean it’s like all the time” (HA93). However, Hanna did not think this was only because her brother was the first born, but more likely because he was a son. Similar to Ruth’s case, Hanna sensed her parents’ approach was “more hands off the boys” (HA125). For instance, she explains, “I mean even when it comes down to household chores or laziness or anything like that. I mean I never really had any issue with being lazy because I am always kind of moving around and active. But I feel like if I kind of just sat around like my brother did, she [mother] would have been bothered by it a lot more” (HA126–130). However, Hanna later mentioned she probably could have gotten away with it like her brother such as: I could be in my T-shirt all day if I wanted to. I could stay up late as he stays up late. I could just stay in front of the computer all day and stuff

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Korean American Women like that . . . [but] I never even tried [italics added] . . . I think my parents would be pretty fair and I could get away with it. But I would feel guilty; I would feel bad [italics added] (HA232–234).

What is interesting here is that Hanna felt she could have gotten away with doing the same thing as her brother if she wanted to, but she “never even tried” testing her parents because she had internalized that it would be a “bad” thing for her to do as a girl. Thus, somehow in the way they were raised as children, Hanna described a very different socialization process that took place for her as a girl compared to her brother who is only four years older. In another example, Hanna indicated that while her brother was not expected to do any chores around the house, she felt compelled to stay busy and help her mother like a good, thoughtful daughter. If she did not, she probably would have been labeled as being lazy although that would not be the case with her brother. Later, Hanna mentioned her brother did help out sometimes, but it was with things like “if we have the computer problems, my brother has to kind of fix them all, which is fine with me because I don’t like computers” (HA209–210). She then went back and stated that the division of household chores was based on interests rather than gender: “It can sound like very sexist, but it’s really more geared toward interests. And if I hated doing the dishes, I don’t think she [mother] would make me. But I don’t mind doing the dishes at all. Out of all the household chores, I would rather do dishes than laundry” (HA 210–213). However, regardless of how the chores were actually assigned among the children, what is most critical is how differently these everyday interactions accumulate and shape the next generation of Korean American males and females. This kind of conditioning is so deeply ingrained that Hanna, like Ruth, believes “a lot of it is self-imposed” (HA135) now as an adult. In a more recent example, Hanna described how she and her brother have a completely different response to the same situation because of the way they were each socialized: Like when we go out on vacations and we have dinner, I feel that if I don’t offer to help her [mother] do dishes or if I don’t offer to do the dishes . . . Because once an idea popped into my head not to ask “Mom, do you want me to do the dishes?” just feels like very selfish. But I don’t think it ever occurred to my brother to offer to do the dishes. And, he never . . . my mom has never . . . it has never occurred to her to say, “I am really tired. Could you do the dishes?” (HA139–144).

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Interestingly, Hanna points out, “it was not always like that” (HA153) for her. She said, “Because there was a huge chunk of my life where I took it for granted, and I never did the dishes. It never occurred to me to do the dishes” (HA154–155). When asked how her transformation came about, Hanna could not explain exactly, except to note that she knows it “comes more with age” (HA153). In fact, as she is about to get married very soon, Hanna says she is most aware of “the guilt thing” (HA165). This will be discussed further in the last chapter, but it is important to note how much she is affected by the traditional values she was raised with. Even though Hanna is considered 2nd generation, born and raised in the U.S., and has been exposed to egalitarian ideals through school, work, and media all her life, she is most deeply impacted and conflicted by the traditional gender role expectations she grew up seeing, hearing, and practicing everyday in her family. Girls Are Moldable What Hanna calls the “hands off the boys” approach her mother took with her brother is not uncommon among many Korean families. In the traditional family system, fathers typically maintain a more distant and formal relationship with their children, while women provide the nurturing care. For boys, this means they must develop their masculine self concepts in terms of the denial of their relationship with their mother and through the devaluation of female activities, rather than through a close, meaningful contact with their fathers (Balswick, 1981). Hanna’s family seems to fit this traditional pattern. She explains her “dad used to be a lot more of a stricter man” when they were younger. And, because of that, Hanna thinks, her mother may have been more cautious with her brother; however, even then, Hanna sees her mother still feeling like she did not do enough emotionally to nurture him: My mother feels, I think actual guilt maybe, like she messed up a little bit with him. He is doing great. He’s a doctor, smart, Christian. He gets everything. He really, you know, fits into my family’s idea of a great young son. But my mom still feels guilt somehow . . . I think it’s a feeling of guilt of not knowing how to handle his emotions better or not being as supportive or not being as encouraging or just being a little bit too hard on him when he was younger (HA106–111).

On the other hand, Hanna feels the way her mother dealt with her was completely different because she was a girl:

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Korean American Women I think my mom knows that like. . . . To [a] certain degree I think there is an expectation that women are moldable [italics added], you know. Like if they have flaws, like work with them and like squash them down [italics added] if you have to and make them better. Whereas with men, I think, it’s like you don’t want to push them too far because then they’ll just run away (HA112–116).

A sharp contrast to the sons, Hanna uses very strong words such as “moldable” or “squash” to describe how young girls are forcefully shaped into the ideal image of a woman by their mothers. This seems to support how gender or distinct personality structures in women and men are socially coded or reproduced through the process of mothering (Chodorow, 1978). This, in fact, conjures up the ancient Chinese practice of breaking and binding upper class young girls’ feet to uphold their social station in life and sustain a cultural prescription of a woman’s virtues. Or, this is not unlike modern day examples of extreme dieting or plastic surgery to live up to the impossible social standards of youth and beauty. Interestingly, Hanna commented that women tend to be more obsessed with improving themselves than men: I met more women who are concerned about molding themselves into women of character than I met men. . . . You know Korean women are also nit picky about their daughters. So they start bugging them about marriages and say things like, my mother didn’t say this but, “You’ll never get married if you don’t fix that, you know that temper, or the way you deal with things.” Whereas men, you kind of figure like there is a girl that will take them somewhere so you don’t really need to improve. And I think that’s why they often end up being more stubborn and arrogant and all those things and really closed minded (HA303–310).

Hanna not only sees the difference between men and women, but also between two cultural groups in terms of what becomes the object of obsession. In her social circle, Hanna finds while her Korean Christian female friends are overly concerned about fixing their personality or inner qualities, her non-Korean, secular friends are obsessed with altering their outer appearances. Regardless of what the main focus is, however, Hanna feels this type of early socialization is a function of “a pressure to change yourself so you could be more appealing” (HA329) as a young woman.

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Being Popular and Being Liked Hanna frankly admitted she has always been a “self critic” (HA280), and the pressure to change herself actually dates all the way back to her late childhood: I don’t know if starting in fifth or sixth grade, I just worried about all the ways in which I just wanted to change. They were anywhere from being a nicer person to physically wanting to be taller, prettier, and things like that. And they were really goals [italics added]. Those goals were very outwardly in terms like me being better liked by people, to really being closer to my family, to really wanting to be better with my family (HA281–286).

Thus, already in her elementary school years, Hanna was very conscious about improving her self-image physically as well as her personality. She stressed during the interview that these were real goals to her around ten or eleven. Like Esther who wanted to be the best American, Hanna was very serious about wanting to change and improve herself to be better liked by everybody, including her family. And, similar to other interviewees, Hanna was very conscientious about being popular in elementary school. I think that was the first time that I started noticing like social hierarchies. There are the girls that are definitely more popular and the girls that are just a little homey like plain. I don’t know how to describe it. It was just more traditional games, wear traditional clothes; whereas the girls that are more popular wear the name brands stuff and talk to the boys more (HB28–32).

In this way, Hanna explained she “transitioned from being one of the traditional girls to being one of the bratty ones” (HB39–40) in third grade. When asked how it came about, Hanna described: I remember one day I was standing outside of the classroom in third grade and we were waiting for school to start. And I never thought about who I was friends with. It was just whoever was there and just played with them. And then this one girl who was kind of, I think she was older. I think she had been held back a year or something, and she was really pretty. I think looking back on it, she had like too much of an awareness of herself as a girl almost in a bad way I think. She just

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Korean American Women kind of . . . it’s almost like, I feel like, she just adopted me. She just looked at me and said, “You know, I’m just going to sit next to you, and we’re going to become really good friends.” I just remember her just kind of being like attached suddenly. And then she was also like friends with the big circle of these needy girls, and I just became friends with them (HB45–54).

Although Hanna’s initial explanation sounded very arbitrary as far as who got handpicked to be in the popular circle, she mentioned a couple of important criteria such as being an outgoing person and being fashion conscious, similar to Ruth’s story: I think it kind of fit my outgoing personality. But at the same time the girls who had, you know, spent more money on their clothes, just seemed to have more things. . . . Even if we walked in the mall and I said, “Mom, what about this?” You know, I showed her like something from the GAP or something like that. And my mom said, “Oh my, gosh, that’s way too expensive. We are not getting that.” So I remember thinking that my clothes were a little bit different from theirs. But it didn’t really bother me. I thought I was really stylish in my own way. Looking back on it, I looked really ridiculous, but I was pretty satisfied (HB58–66).

Like Ruth, Hanna also associated being popular with becoming “bratty” and indicated this was around the time she also started to develop a certain attitude, which created some friction at home: I think for me I don’t know if it was a good thing for me in a lot of ways, because I think it kind of made me care more about being popular, having friends. I think in the end I probably just became like a more frustrated person, because my mom said that about that age I started getting like grumpy at home and things like that. So I think there is definitely like the starting delineation between like the social person at school and like . . . at home I could be whatever I want; whereas at school I had to be a certain way (HB74–80).

As discussed before, popularity seems to be related to greater identification with the American peer group and with it often comes greater conflict with Korean parents who hold more traditional values. Hanna stated that her being “frustrated” or “grumpy” was probably “wanting things my way basically” (HB84) and getting annoyed or mad when things did not go her

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way. And, similar to Ruth, Hanna described feeling embarrassed with her less acculturated mother who seemed different from her friends’ parents: I think so because I think like with their moms they seemed kind of hip. They went shopping a lot and they kind of seemed . . . like more fun. And then my mom (chuckles) would come to school with burettes in her hair like puffed out. And in a way I guess . . . I don’t know, if I’m just imagining it now but I remember . . . it just seemed like things at home were just a little bit slower, a little bit more like backward than my more modern you know friends’ parents who seemed more with it (HB91–96).

Unlike Ruth’s parents who hardly ever came to the school or interacted with peers except for a friend who lived across the street, Hanna’s mother made the effort to visit her school and invite her friends over. However, Hanna recalls a specific incident where she realized that even communicating with her friends was a challenge for her mother: I just remember one time in Girl Scouts or when my friends would come over, my mom would say something and they wouldn’t understand her. And in my head I’m like, “How could you not understand her? What she is saying is perfectly clear.” I knew she had an accent. But it was kind of like . . . I just couldn’t believe that they couldn’t understand a word she said. But they really couldn’t even when she was speaking English. Uh, and then, I don’t think I was ever embarrassed because my mom really behaves well. It’s not like she does crazy things you know. But at the same time, I think to a certain extent, I knew that whereas all my friends’ parents were friends, like she wouldn’t become friends with them (HB103–111).

Although popularity meant greater acceptance by her White peers at school, it created more tension at home. Because many of the things Hanna did to gain peer approval were antithetical to her parents’ traditional values, her family may have tried to curtail her more “Americanized,” undesirable behaviors or attitudes primarily through a method of shaming or labeling them: “I think I was known in my family as the ill-tempered one, the one that’s a little bit brattier and a little bit more like to shop and buy things and stuff like that. And I think over time as I grew up a little bit . . . probably made me did a lot of stuff to gain acceptance or what I felt like was acceptance” (HA241–245). Hanna’s more individualistic self-expressions or wanting things her way may have come across as being “selfish” or “stubborn” (HA257),

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instead of preserving the family harmony and fitting into her parents’ “expectation or the mold” (HA260). Although Hanna was just being a typical preteen in her behavior, she probably stood out in her family because she was the only one who was more concerned about being popular and fitting in socially than focusing on her studies as expected. Her older brother and younger sister were never interested in popularity and were always more introverted and studious. So, while Hanna’s rise in popularity represented an increased identification with her contemporary American peers, it also meant separation from her parents and their more traditional values. Unfortunately, the more she felt accepted in one group, the less she felt accepted in the other. For many immigrant families, a differential rate of acculturation for parents and children is a major source of conflict and misunderstanding. Hanna described how she and her parents dealt with such emotionally painful exchanges: I think it’s probably because like . . . I know that I am more defensive than I need to be a lot. And, I think with my family it was maybe a mixture of both where I was defensive, but they also have this kind of way of talking that could sound also very attacking. Discussion or disagreement doesn’t just sound like discussion but sounds like a disagreement. It feels like there’s a conflict. And whenever I start feeling a conflict and start feeling frustrated, I just kind of get exasperated and I get “Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” Maybe that could come across as stubbornness. But maybe for me . . . I think maybe it was just mix reading signals (HA262–271).

Story Themes from Late Childhood So even though Hanna achieved part of her goal of being liked by her peers, the very behavior (i.e., bratty, fashion conscious, speaking up for what she wants) she acquired to gain popularity brought disapproval from her parents. Because her other siblings better fit her parents’ traditional expectation of being obedient and studious, Hanna’s more individualistic, “Americanized” attitude probably made her stand out even more in her family. She tested her parents’ limit with wanting things her way and got labeled as being “selfish” or “stubborn.” Though much of it may have been done in jest, it was no less hurtful for Hanna. It most likely continued to reinforce the feeling she had as a little girl of being “left out.” Sadly, Hanna’s goal of being liked by her peers resulted in her feeling more misunderstood and less accepted by her family.

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ADOLESCENCE (6TH THROUGH 12TH GRADE): “RELATIVELY UNHAPPY” The New Start In sixth grade, Hanna and her siblings transferred from the public school system to a college preparatory academy. Because she felt a lot of pressure being in the popular crowd in her old elementary school, she liked the idea of going to a new school and getting a fresh start. She described the change in the following way: I basically switched school in sixth grade and I think it was more like a step back because I didn’t care who liked me. It just felt like freedom. I think when I went to this school, I realized I didn’t like being in the snooty crowd. I felt so much freedom to be silly and have fun and talk to everyone that I wanted to. Just friends with whom you wanted to rather than kind of fitting into a group, so sixth grade was really nice (HB119–124).

So, Hanna felt the change was good for her and explained that “people form these opinions of who you are really early and they stick” (HB201–202). However, she says the move gave her a sense of freedom to start anew “at an age where you’re changing a lot and you’re discovering who you are” (HB199–200). So Hanna enjoyed being in a new setting and making new friends. And, like most American teenagers, she talks about having a boyfriend and then breaking up: And I had a boyfriend at the very end of sixth grade. Actually we went to Magic Mountain, and then he asked me to be his girlfriend. And then it was summer break, and then I never saw him again. And then I found out during that summer that he had, you know, been holding hands with different girls at camp and all this stuff. And I was really mad and hurt. I mean I don’t think I really liked him or cared for him, but it was just like I felt it was just so wrong (HB126–131).

That summer before her seventh grade, Hanna started going through puberty and a lot of emotional ups and downs. As a twelve year old, she was sensitive about her body image, and she said, “My body was not developing the way other people’s bodies were” (HB125–126). And, after the break up with her first boyfriend, she went through a “hiatus” and “hated boys” for awhile (HB466):

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Korean American Women At that point I started kind of resenting men, resenting puberty . . . I mean the guys were more vocal that year too about like girls and sexuality and all those things. And I think at that time too my family was struggling more financially and I just felt . . . I think I felt just lonely that year. I think I just withdrew a lot, and you know pretty relatively unhappy I think. And then I think it was kind of at the end of the year . . . someone said that I was bitter . . . somewhere in my head I was like, “Well, you know, I don’t want to be known as bitter and I don’t want to be you know . . . someone who tried to like fix that image.” So the following year probably like a peak in my popularity. And I flirted a lot, I had like a ton of friends, I was always going out, and uh . . . it was like . . . completely night and day (HB131–145).

As Hanna indicated, she went through a really rough stage in her life where she was very moody and difficult to get along with. It unfortunately coincided with one of the most challenging periods in her father’s career where he was “crowded out by all the younger Korean American lawyers who were more bilingual” (HB735). Eventually, her father landed a great position and became the head of a professional school, jointly running a school of law and Chinese medicine. And, just as her father was able to turn things around, Hanna was also turned a corner. Popularity and the Boys Hanna went from being pretty miserable and hating boys in her seventh grade year to being very social and popular in eighth grade. She “had a lot of friends and just cared about being popular” (HA276–277) again. That year, Hanna was “boyfriend/girlfriend” with “three different guys” (HB468) although she “never went on a single date, never kissed anybody or anything” (HB467–468). In junior high school, her parents did not permit Hanna to date. Then she described how her relationships in high school progressed: And then ninth grade, there was this boy that was a year older than me who I got to know and he was basically White, he was half Jewish, half Italian. And, I really, really, really liked him. We couldn’t date because my mom wouldn’t let me, but I never told him that. So we would talk on the phone all the time. And that basically ended by the end of freshman year. And then I started dating in like eleventh grade. And I think I just kind of dated because I felt like, “Well, people my age should be dating. You know everyone else is dating, I want a boyfriend too.” So I dated this guy starting junior year. He was half Mexican and half

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Japanese. And then I dated this exchange student from Norway; totally ridiculous (laughing) . . . because he was like a foreign exchange student (HB473–486).

These relationships were not particularly serious, which is why Hanna thinks her parents were not too bothered by her dating non-Koreans in high school because they knew she was just going through a phase. However, Hanna indicated “one positive thing” about popularity was that it helped her develop social confidence and a sense that she is attractive as a young woman: I think maybe in the back of my mind like I had more confidence because I was popular at some point. You know, I’m not like heinously ugly or like super unattractive. I guess one good thing was . . . I know that my sense of knowing that I could be attractive was formed then. And the reason why I say that it’s probably a good thing is that I think you know a lot of girls who haven’t had a lot of guys like them or think they are pretty or anything like that ever, they don’t like thinking about marriage, they don’t like thinking about boyfriends and I think it’s because they never felt that . . . even if it’s empty and even if it’s totally whimsical and pointless, they never felt kind of attractive like in a big social circle and I think that that lack of confidence sometimes made them withdraw (HB269–279).

The Fall Out The following year, however, Hanna had a sudden, horrible falling out with the popular group, where she “had no friends anymore and just felt really betrayed and confused” (HA278–279): And then in ninth grade, I guess there was this kind of a falling out with my friends. I think it’s that year that I felt like a lot of betrayal. It just felt like for whatever reason all my friends were kind of turning their back on me. And you know even in retrospect I don’t think I did anything wrong or anything like that. I think it was just reaction to . . . kind of like the cruel world of popularity in high school where there is all of a sudden a lot of the older people that you are trying to kind of impress. Because even after like I stopped being friends with this group of girls I’ve been friends with, like I saw them do it to each other repeatedly throughout high school where they would kind of like try to ostracize someone for like half a year and talk badly about her and you

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Korean American Women know not invite her to things and spread rumors about her. And then if that girl just kind of stood there and took it, eventually they’d move onto someone else and that person would be fine (HB155–166).

Clearly, this was a very painful chapter in Hanna’s life, which became quite evident during the interview. She said she still has a lot of “baggage from it” (HB290) and “can’t like let it go” (HB292) even now. At this point in the conversation, Hanna became tearful and explained why she still feels a lot of anger about the whole situation: I realized that like popularity is just creating an exclusive club [italics added] and by that exclusivity that you make other people feel like less attractive than you or less worth, like your worth is less than theirs. You know it’s just like a subordination type of thing. So to me they were just really cruel and superficial and . . . I couldn’t understand them really (HB301–305).

Being One Among Many Whites Popularity seems like an unavoidable rite of passage growing up in America, as it was for Hanna and my other interviewees. However, they seemed to share a common reality—the double burden of needing to find acceptance as a woman, but also as a minority. Specifically, in Hanna’s case, when asked whether she felt her ethnicity played a role in her situation with the peer group, this is what she had to say: I remember thinking that sometimes it did because . . . Like when I entered high school, the grades below me had a lot of Asian people and the grades above me had less than mine. And if you look at the popular girls, you know, in the grades above me, there’s always one like popular Asian girl, like one popular minority among like the big group. And I felt like with these girls, the thought had entered my mind . . . I’ll never know whether it was true or not, there is like one Korean girl that came in high school and she kind of became the popular girl. And then there was one Hispanic girl that was popular. And that was it. Like the rest was all Caucasian. And I feel like in a way to be more attractive as a group to like the older guys and stuff like that they wanted to be like more . . . White. That was what was attractive. And I really sometimes wonder like was it because they didn’t like the idea of having two Asian girls among them or more than a few minorities you know among them. I remember thinking that but I’ll never know (HB309–321).

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Here Hanna explicitly stated that popularity was largely about being attractive to the guys and the ethnic composition of the group had something to do with that appeal. Having one or two minorities in the group were okay or even a little desirable, but having more than that would tip the scale and would not look right. In fact, Hanna explained, “they see race less when there’s a few, and then as the population grows it feels more threatening or just more uncomfortable or you kind of wish that they weren’t there I think” (HB326–328). This is an interesting point because both Ruth and Esther grew up in a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood and were one of the chosen Asians in the popular White group. And they both talked about assimilating so well in each of their respective groups that they did not experience any prejudice and their White peers did not even see them as Koreans or Asians. They both mentioned they were just seen as “so and so” (i.e., individuals). As wonderful as that may seem, what is clear from all of these interviewees’ collective experiences is that the type of openness by the majority group is only enjoyed while the number of minorities remains few. Ironically, just as Hanna was first arbitrarily introduced to the popular circle in the third grade, her popularity also ended abruptly in high school without any apparent reason. She discussed how totally unpredictable and stressful popularity was for her the whole time even when she was hanging out with the so called “right” crowd: I guess to a certain extent it kind of taught me . . . I think if I had never been in a popular circle, I probably would have always wondered what it would be like to be like that, to be like kind of in the center. Maybe I would have glorified it more and always sought it later. Being in it, I kind of realized that it’s totally up to the whim of everyone who is around you. There’s so much pressure. It’s actually stressful you know. I think probably in eighth grade even when I was like super, super popular, (laughs) . . . in a way I was miserable. I was always scared . . . because . . . I knew that it was just completely discretionary (HB239–248).

The Turning Point Although falling out with the popular kids in high school was devastating at first, Hanna grew a lot from the experience. As much as being liked by everybody has always been so important to her, she learned an important life lesson: I think it’s actually getting through that stage where you don’t feel well liked but you know that you have value, that’s the biggest source of

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Korean American Women strength for me. Like going into new groups, I know I don’t have to be liked. I know that everyone won’t necessarily like you, but I know that the people I care about think I’m a good person and that’s really all that matters (HB259–265).

It was also a definite turning point for Hanna. She shifted her focus from wanting to be liked by peers to being liked by her parents. She began “really appreciating my family and how supportive and constant they were” (HA276–280). Hanna described the change that took place at the end of high school: What was good about the whole process is number one I start realizing that you know friends definitely come and go and you can’t really rest your value on what your friends think and you really have to take care of and be good to the people in your family. I think before then my energy was expended being friends with people and then I had nothing left for my family. And suddenly I realized that my priorities and like my emotional resources were spent wastefully and they should have been spent on family. So I start behaving better at home, you know, really caring about my family, and by the middle of high school or so I was starting to become friends with my mom too (HB221–230).

So Hanna reached a certain level of maturity toward the end of high school and wanted to be closer to her family. Even though she consciously tried to turn things around, she initially found it was not easy to change her image and regain her family’s acceptance: I mean I remember it almost being kind of frustrating trying to breakthrough those. My family, they are very flexible and everything, but they type cast [italics added] a lot. You know, a lot of Korean people do that. So I was type cast as this character and I remember like improving for awhile but then sometimes like my temper will flare and something like that and then having to work from the bottom again in a way (HA248–252).

Getting Back on Track Similar to Ruth, there was another positive outcome from her popularity coming to an end. Hanna “finally start[ed] studying much harder” (HB335) and took her academic work more seriously in high school. Prior to that, Hanna said, “my grades were always really horrible. My report

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card was always a stressful time. I never knew what kind of grades I would get. My parents always a wanted me to do better (HB339–341). While her brother and sister “were always studying pretty hard” (HB447) and her dad did not need to have a talk with them about their grades, Hanna often got a long lecture from him about hers: You know my parents were very much happier and like congratulatory about the good grades and the bad grades they tend to kind of be like, “So what happened? You know, why didn’t you study harder?” And I’d be like, “Well, I studied a little hard.” And my dad would be like, “No, I know if you studied hard you would get an A. I know that my kids are smart enough that if you studied hard enough, you would get an A.” And I didn’t study hard . . . And then I remember somewhere between middle school and the beginning of high school my dad started saying, “Oh, I look at your grade . . . ,” and there were always one big flaw in the report card at least or two, and my dad would say, “I’m just going to be happy as long as you try your hardest. You just have to try your hardest. I won’t get mad at you as long as you try your hardest.” And in my head I was thinking, “But you think my hardest is an A. So you’d only be happy if I get an A.” And then I remember having a report card one time with all A’s and like a few A-’s and my dad was like, “Hmm, yeah, you need these to be A’s. Why did you get these A’s?” And I’m thinking, “Dad, anyone else would be happy with A-” (HB389–413).

However, Hanna explained one of her father’s reasons for pushing his children to study so hard was because he was keenly aware of what it is like to be a racial minority in this country: Basically my dad would say from very early on, “You are Korean. That means that . . . if you do just as well as everyone else, like you won’t succeed. Because you’re Korean, so they would much rather have like a White person there.” He was kind of more obvious about race. He’s not bitter about race at all. He doesn’t use race to explain his own life. He uses life, as just you know, no Black and White, just push. But for me, I remember in middle school sometimes he said, “You are Korean. That means you have to be better than everyone else if you want to succeed. You have to work harder than anyone else if you want, you know, to get any sort of benefit from it. So it’s basically like, if you want to be able to choose what you want to do, you have to study hard.” So it’s like the empowerment type of thing (HB432–441).

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In spite of her father’s impassioned talks, Hanna did not study more or get better grades because “I just didn’t have time” (HB339). But, that all changed with her decline in popularity, and Hanna gave more attention to her academic work, to her parents’ delight. At around the same time, her older brother set a precedent for his siblings by getting accepted to one of the top Ivy League universities. This seemed to solidify Hanna’s own thinking and motivation to do better in school: And then at the very beginning of high school, my brother applied to college that year. And I saw how he was definitely not in the popular group, but he went to [a prestigious private university in the East Coast]. And I felt like, “Wow, it paid off.” I really saw how he kind of held his head a little bit higher because he got into a great school. And I think what I saw with the popular kids like struggling to get into different colleges and in my head thinking like, “Well, what do you have to show for what you’ve been doing in high school if you haven’t even gotten into good college?” You know like, “Yeah, you might be popular, but you didn’t study very hard.” I know that sounds kind of snobby too, but I think at that point I was like, “Well, you know what? I’m going to study hard now.” I mean if you think about it, it’s really lucky because I was just at the very beginning of high school (HB343–353).

So, Hanna started to take her academic performance much more seriously: And I think throughout high school I didn’t get straight A’s. I’d get one A-. I was always struggling to get A-’s. B+’s were failures. That was like me failing. And A- was, “Whew!” You know A was great, but very rare. I think that’s basically how they start and then I think by end of high school the machine is running completely on its own. I was very much pressuring myself a lot to get good grades (HB413–418).

And, Hanna’s grades straightened out just in time, when they began to really count for college: So my grades at the beginning of high school were probably a tiny bit better than they were in middle school. And then sophomore year was a tough year for me because it’s finally the year where I really was trying to study hard but the grades weren’t improving that much. It was kind of like I was learning how to learn. So that year was really tough. I tried really hard. Finally my junior year and senior year I was coasting. I studied really hard but there was like a very strong pay off. And

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my grades were really, really strong throughout the end of high school and I think that’s probably why I got into the college (HB353–360).

Finally, after four years of hard work, Hanna was able to turn things around academically and follow her big brother’s footsteps to a prestigious Ivy League university on the East Coast. Story Themes from Adolescence Compared to her siblings, Hanna has always been more concerned about popularity since third grade. Although she felt a sense of freedom starting all over at a new school, she soon found herself caught up in the same quagmire of dealing with peer pressure. Her popularity hit a peak in eighth grade, but she somehow fell out of the circle completely the following year. It was one of the most painful experiences Hanna went through in her life, but she got past the unpredictable peer relationship with the constant support of her family. Her fall out with the group was also very timely in redirecting her energy to academic work in high school. Being always mindful of first her father and then her older brother’s story of how hard work and determination pays off, Hanna finally followed in their footsteps and made the drive to succeed in America her own.

COLLEGE: “THE FORMATION” Seeking Out My Own Like Ruth and Esther, Hanna “actively sought out [the] Korean community” (HB516) when she started college. Being in a setting with greater opportunity to meet other Korean Americans, Hanna also gravitated toward others who shared a similar background during college: I think I felt I belonged better there. I just felt like I could identify with them there, like they would understand me better. Even though my friends in high school were all different races, I couldn’t really open up to them. I still feel more comfortable around Korean people. So I just kind of had mostly all Korean friends in college—Korean and Chinese, but predominantly Korean (HB521–525).

So Hanna mainly socialized with Koreans through groups such as Korean American Students and a Korean church near her school. However, she interestingly added another reason why she intentionally reached out to the Korean American community during college:

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Korean American Women Before I went to college, I was thinking about the race issue. And I was thinking to myself, you know I had never dated a Korean guy. . . . So I remember I was thinking to myself, if I’m going to date, I kind of felt like it had to be a choice what circle I chose because up until then . . . even if the line blurred . . . there is some kind of line that separates the group [italics added]. And I feel like if you are in one group, you are either among all Koreans or else you are one Korean among many White people. And even before I went to college, I kind of felt like I knew I would have to make that choice. I knew I would either have to kind of be Korean or have to kind of be like the girl who was only friends with the White people (HB542–553).

Perhaps because of her startling experience in high school, Hanna seemed very cognizant of the invisible racial line that separates the two groups. When asked why she felt she had to necessarily choose one over the other, Hanna explained: Let’s just say you are friends with a lot of White people, you have a birthday party, and half the people there end up being Asian. I feel like there are White people feeling uncomfortable, maybe the Korean people feel a little uncomfortable, and then you are like . . . you feel like you are in the middle. And I also think that early on when I met the Koreans or the Asians that were in the White crowd, they had serious issues like they really looked down on their own race. They really . . . they would say things like, “Oh, Korean people are like this.” In my head I’m like, “You look like an idiot. You’re Korean. Okay! Everyone can tell you’re Korean and the more you say things like that, the worse it is.” So I didn’t want to be like that. I thought like it felt like more honest and genuine just to be as Korean as I wanted to, hang around with as many Korean people as I wanted to because I ultimately had more fun with them (HB562–574).

Similar to Esther, Hanna mentioned being aware of other Korean Americans who appeared to be uncomfortable with their Koreanness and tried too hard to “conform” to the dominant cultural values over their own (Atkinson et al., 1983). What is interesting is that both Ruth and Hanna who were actively involved in the Korean American Christian groups in college seem to identify most closely with other Korean Americans who are similarly acculturated. Esther also actively participated in Korean American groups during college, but these were not necessarily religiously based. Although she also initially felt comfort being with other Koreans who

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shared similar cultural experiences, that alone was not enough for her to continue identifying with Koreans and eventually sought other groups with more similar interests. On the other hand, for Ruth and Hanna, Christianity seems to provide that common bond above and beyond the shared ethnicity and acculturation level with other Korean Americans. Attraction to Korean American Guys And, for Hanna, this divide was felt most strongly in the area of relationships. Prior to college, she was usually the only Korean among mostly White peers. There was actually one popular Korean guy in high school, but she never considered dating him because “he was temperamental” (HB 491). So, Hanna pointed out: The only Koreans I really knew were from church. And I had crushes on guys like ongoing crushes [at] one point or another on guys in the church. And nothing ever happened with them. And I think it was partly because maybe I wasn’t attractive to them or maybe they kind of saw me as the girl who goes to the all White prep school. So maybe they thought that I didn’t like Korean guys or something like that (HB492–497).

Thus, Hanna felt a barrier even with Korean guys at the church at least until she reached college. Being in a private university setting, she was exposed to many Korean Americans. Hanna had many opportunities to meet other Koreans who came from a similar background. Even though Hanna only dated non-Korean guys throughout high school, what sets her apart from the other interviewees is that she has only been “attracted to Korean men” since college (HB574). Hanna realized that one of the most important aspects of relationships for her is an emotional closeness that is “non-judging” (HB581): If you’re with someone Korean, they might have issues, but in a way you don’t have to ever wonder do they just see me as the other or do they see me as someone who is like one of them. And I think with a White person you know there’s situations where if you like walk into all White restaurant and like you are the only Asian person there you know, I don’t know if this person I’m with feels uncomfortable that he brought the only Asian into the group, or whether he has like an Asian fetish, or whether when they see us together people are just going to think that he has an Asian fetish, or whether when people see us together they are going to think that I have issues with being Korean (HB581–590).

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Hanna further added this is because “race is always there. And I’d much rather walk into an all-White restaurant with someone else who is Korean who I know feels either threatened or as uncomfortable as I do not just walking in there with someone who is still the other [italics added]” (HB594–596). Thus, Hanna says she consciously transitioned to dating only Korean men because she felt a common bond: “I think the reason why I started to like only Korean men was there was that added component to a relationship that I wanted, which is that ability to completely identify [italics added]. It’s like you are a team now. You’re no longer a team that sometimes isn’t a team, but you’re always more of a team together” (HB613–617). In this way, for Hanna the racial issue seems to deeply affect the level of closeness she feels she can have in the relationship. This is interesting compared to Esther who felt she could sort of get away with dating non-Koreans even though she knew Korean American males faced much more severe social judgment against it. Marriage Always in My Plan Hanna is also very different from other interviewees in that she started “thinking about marriage her sophomore year in college” (HA431). Because her parents married right after college, she felt she could meet the right man while she was in college: I am a kind of funny girl. When I started college, I was thinking, “Wow, there are a lot of nice men. Well, it would be nice if like a nice boy liked me or whatever. . . . So you kind of felt like okay maybe high school is kind of ridiculous. I especially went to a tiny, tiny high school. So I didn’t expect to meet the person I want to be with there. But then you are like possibilities when you go to college. There are so many more people there that you can find somebody you can click with. That’s probably where it started. I didn’t have that I really want to meet somebody in college. It was more like starting now I could meet somebody. It could be way after I graduate, but the possibilities are really there starting now (HA436–444).

So Hanna was open to the idea or to the “possibilities” of meeting the right person during college. Although Ruth and Esther also dated in college, what stood out about their stories is how much they stressed putting their career before the relationship. Perhaps they are different from Hanna in one important aspect; they are both the oldest in the family and they each consciously strived to fulfill the role of the eldest son. In comparison, what is obviously missing in Hanna’s story is her sense of obligation or duty to establish economic security for her family. Of course, this does not

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mean Hanna does not feel her share of burden to succeed. Just as she internalized her parents’ expectations for academic achievement, Hanna’s ambition to have a successful career seems every bit as real to her as the others. Specifically, Hanna’s parents raised her “with education being a huge emphasis” (HA413) and wanted her to have a career. In fact, if anything, Hanna says her mother encouraged putting her career before relationships or marriage: Like my mom didn’t work and she regretted it. So I think for me she was very much about career. Like a good man will come maybe eventually, but get your career in place first. I think it’s generally acknowledged that career after marriage is a lot harder to do. I don’t think it happens very often if you don’t build it before hand (HA415–419).

Thus, like the other interviewees, Hanna was exposed to the idea that relationships eventually happen although you must work very diligently to establish a career. However, in spite of her parents urging Hanna to focus on her education and career, relationships have always been as important, if not more so, for her. She says this goes all the way back to when she was very young and shared the following story: I think marriage was always in my plan [italics added]. I remember my dad when I was younger saying to me like “You are going to live with your dad forever, right?” And I just remember saying, “Yeah” and I then remember thinking to myself, “Oh my, gosh, I just told a lie because I really don’t want to stay with you forever.” So next time he asked again, “You are going to live with me forever, right?” I said, “Dad, I am going to get married.” I was really young, maybe younger than eight, just really young (HA423–428).

Consistent with her early childhood theme of being a “girly girl,” Hanna started thinking about marriage when she was very young. This is another critical way Hanna seems very different from Ruth and Esther who, again both as the oldest symbolically acted like a son and always kept an extremely close relationship with their fathers. Although Hanna’s father also played an important role in her life especially in terms of shaping her educational and career ambitions, Hanna’s story shows how she was already developing an emotional separation from her father at an early age. Idealization of Parents’ Traditional Marriage So, even before Hanna was eight, she had obviously formed some ideas about relationships. However, because they were shaped through everyday

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experiences, Hanna could not readily identify how she came to hold such a strong view about marriage so early in life: “I don’t know where that came from. I always just thought being in a relationship can be really, really nice, and it’s nice to be loved and to love someone else” (HB849–850). When probed further where her positive feelings about relationship originated, Hanna described her parents’ marriage: Now luckily they’re more involved with church and have more fun, but back then I think they did the best way, which was they were each other’s best and only friend [italics added]. They weren’t lovie dovie at all. I mean in a way now I see how loving [they are] in the way they interact, but back then I didn’t see it at all. Because loving to me was like holding hands, you know touching each other’s hair, kissing and things like that. They never do that. But I see how they’re both attentive to each other and yeah I think I just grew up thinking that was a good thing (HB855–861).

Thus, as a child, Hanna’s image of love was more Western in terms of being physical and expressive. And yet, her idealization of relationships was based more on her parents’ traditional Korean notion of interdependence. Hanna indicated their social world has now broadened through participation in the church, but in their early years in the U.S. they only had each other. Their immigrant life, then, may have induced greater dependence on each other for survival, but Hanna, like Ruth, considers her parents’ relationship as the ideal. Hanna states, “I don’t think I admired any other real relationship but my parents’ growing up. Like my high school friends, even the couples like walking around, I didn’t admire it. I didn’t really envy it” (HB883–885). Instead, she felt “that my parents have done it the right way and that was the only way to do it and that’s what I wanted it too” (HB891–893). The First Korean Boyfriend When Hanna was about nineteen, at the end of her freshman year in college, she met a Korean guy who eventually became her first serious boyfriend. She described how her relationship evolved: So basically there was one guy, it all comes down to guys. There was one guy that graduated my freshman year and we stayed in touch and I felt prettier that year for some reason. I just felt like I was becoming more of a woman. I just felt more feminine and I felt like I want to get married and I wanted to be a housewife and all those things. And then

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we dated in D.C. Because I went down to D.C. and I worked there for [the] summer. And it just flopped. I mean looking back at it now he was just an immature boy and I thought he was older and more mature and all these things and he wasn’t (HB679–685).

As in junior high, Hanna’s self-esteem and validation as a woman was strongly derived from being in a relationship. She began testing her ideas about relationships and even entertained the notion that she would like to be married and be a housewife. I thought being a housewife would be nice because all you had to do was just kind of tidy up. You know what I mean. I think that’s partly where it comes from, having your own dorm room, you decorate it yourself, and you clean it yourself. You do get some sort of satisfaction of keeping your own place. I could do this and take care of a guy and make him really happy and then he can make me really happy and then that’s it. But then that didn’t last (HB898–903).

Hanna was truly convinced this was the “perfect” guy for her. However, contrary to her expectation, she soon discovered the reality was far from being perfect: He’s just a wanderer. He does not want to settle down ever you know type of thing. So I don’t know what he wanted. . . . He wanted someone to impress him, someone that he could be proud of kind of taking around. He dated like the captain of the soccer team or someone else who done things cool. And I wasn’t. I was just plainer Jane than that (HB984–988).

Being away from home, Hanna experimented with her idealization of her parents’ interdependent marriage with her first Korean boyfriend. Although it failed miserably, what she ironically learned is her need to be self-sufficient: I just kind of tested it out and it just wobbled and it fell apart. And I was like, “Wow, I do not want to be dependent on a relationship at all.” And I think that’s where I really started realizing I want to be selfsufficient [italics added]. . . . Because the thing is this is the guy who I thought was perfect for me. You know this is the guy who I thought I could be really happy with. And then I was wrong. And I think that caused a lot of dissonance because I was like how do you know

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Korean American Women whether you are right or wrong then. Would I throw away my life and depend completely on a man? No! Because you can never tell basically, was my thought. And I think probably that’s [when] added pressure started where I was like, “I need to be self-sufficient. I need to find something to do where I can support myself and not just be dependent on a man” (HB908–923).

Formation of Character and Belief Hanna gained an invaluable lesson from this failed relationship, but she shared “it was devastating in its own way” (HB688–689): I didn’t think it bothered me right away. It wasn’t like the moment we called it off I was crying in bed. It was more like, “Oh, great! Big deal! I’ll move on.” But then, coming back to school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. I didn’t feel like my grades were good enough to get into a great grad school. I just felt like I had no direction [italics added], no hope. Everyone else was like accomplishing all these great things, and I just had nothing. And so I think I got basically pretty depressed. I remember I was crying a lot and . . . just feeling depressed, just feeling like an unlikable person, like feeling rejection I think at a deeper level than I had before (HB688–696).

So after the relationship ended, Hanna felt really lost and struggled with all her old insecurities. She explains what helped her get through that rough year: My roommate was involved with a Christian group, like CCC [Campus Crusade for Christ] basically and her boyfriend was a member of a Christian a cappella group. So they were pretty strong Christians. And just being near them was nice. I don’t know why like what exactly. I think going to his concerts was such a release of emotion and things like that. And I started to really pray to God. Because I believed in God before, but I start turning to him and praying like He would bring me out of this dark, hopeless abyss [tearful]. And just praying like . . . “Can you just help me get through whatever this is? Can you just help me stop feel as hopeless as I do?” And by the end of junior year I think He answered my prayers. I started feeling hope. I started feeling direction. . . . Yeah, things just started coming together and in a way it kind of felt like God . . . wouldn’t just show me my whole future all at once, but He just started throwing down the stones like the next step. He

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would just throw down the stone and like, “Okay, here’s a job I’m going to give you over the summer.” And it’s like one step. And then, “Okay try going to law school. . . .” It was like two steps in front of me, but that was better than nothing. And then so I start taking those steps and then slowly like the future started to kind of expand (HB697–716).

Thus, for Hanna, her faith played a key role in turning her life around. In fact, during her junior year in college, Hanna shared that, “my faith as a Christian grew a lot more and there was like a purging of a lot of my insecurities and fears” (HB659–660). This is a significant change in her life because she was in “what used to be this kind of a fog—confusion, anger, insecurities, direction. I was kind of in a cloud I kind of knew in high school. But then in college I started kind of forming thoughts—kind of thinking about who I am, what kind of personality traits I have, what strengths I have, instead of just focusing on my weaknesses” (HB655–659). So even though what happened in high school contributed a lot to her on-going insecurities and struggles, Hanna’s sense of self started coming together toward the end of college as her relationship with God grew stronger. Hanna believes her Christian faith played a huge part in her development as a woman by providing her an experience of genuine acceptance: I think faith has number one given me like best friends I ever had as far as other Christians. I don’t know people who are more caring and more compliant in a sense that they all have their flaws but they’re all working on them. It has given me the sense of importance of having grace too, just being kind to other people. Not just kind, but like your innermost core has to accept them and I guess care for them as another human being. It just fills me with a sense of value (HB756–761).

In many ways, acceptance has always been a central issue in Hanna’s life, whether by family, peers, or men. Hanna thinks this is because: Partly I was born somewhat insecure. Knowing my grandmother now, I think I got it from her somehow. Maybe it’s genetic or something. I think it just came down to I liked being liked. I hate being disliked. And I think early on I thought I could control whether I was liked or disliked by either becoming prettier or becoming nicer or becoming less temperamental or studying harder. Whatever it took I felt like it was under my control whether I was accepted or not (HB820–825).

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Thus, Hanna held herself responsible for others’ approval most of her life. Everything she did to improve herself (i.e., physical appearance, personality, academic achievement) was largely motivated by her desire to be liked by others. However, her painful failed experiences, first in high school and then in college, helped her realize: “Number one I can’t deal with that kind of pressure and number two it doesn’t matter what you do sometimes. Often times it doesn’t matter what you do. Although it’s a good thing to try to become a better person, you have to do that without wanting that outcome of being just liked you know” (HB826–829). And, through relationships with other Christians where she felt “cherished” as herself, Hanna shares “I finally realized like my value as a person. I finally started . . . feeling like people liked me for the right reason, for valuing me as a person” (HB669–671). In this way, her junior year in college was a turning point for Hanna where she transitioned from depending on other’s approval for her happiness to finding it more from within herself. By her senior year, Hanna stated: It was just like coming together. I think that was when I really became truly happy. I think before then, if you looked at me, I’d be a happy person because I was always smiling, always laughing, and making jokes. But I think at the end of college was the first time where I really felt like joy about a lot of different things. . . . It was just like inner joy. It’s hard to explain. Things just seemed brighter like I felt like I had a future, a lot of things to look forward to and that I was well on my way. Like I’ve been doing a good job up till now and it was a matter of carrying it through (HB661–674).

Identity Issues from College Years It is interesting that Hanna traced her insecurities as a young woman all the way back to her grandmother. Although Hanna cannot specify what that was exactly, she sensed it was somehow connected to the way she was socialized from her birth to care what others thought of her. Based on her childhood stories, Hanna’s sensitivity to her family’s approval or disapproval was the primary way she was taught to conform to different genderappropriate expectations. And, her earliest memory of interacting with her grandmother revealed how Hanna was told, even before she could speak, not to be “selfish” and think only for herself. As it is generally known, traditional gender ideas and practices are most strongly reinforced by the older women in the family, such as grandmothers (Lim, 1997), and this may have been especially the case in Hanna’s

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life. Both Esther and Ruth identified their grandmothers as one of the most influential people in their lives, but their symbolic role as a son-like figure and closer identification with their fathers may have buffered them psychologically from feeling devalued as girls. Because Hanna had an older brother who ended up with greater esteem, privileges, and status as a son. Meanwhile, she grew up internalizing the traditional gender practices at home and felt less valued as a daughter. However, her already vulnerable self-esteem was further taxed in school growing up as a racial minority. It was not until Hanna reached college that she felt she had a choice to continue being one among many Whites or socialize with all Koreans. She chose the latter; but, more specifically, found acceptance in the Korean American Christian group during college. This experience gave her what she was looking for all her life—being valued as a person. With this validation of who she is, Hanna seems to feel a sense of freedom and confidence to move on with the next stage in her life.

LAW SCHOOL: “THE REFINING PERIOD” Following Father’s Footsteps Although there were differences in the way Hanna and her brother were raised, one area this was clearly not the case was her parents’ high expectation for educational and career achievements for all their children: There is no distinction . . . as far as education, which is nice. I heard a family that sends their boys to private education and their daughters to public education. I hate that. I rather have the irony as far as be a good person, but also be a super career woman. I rather have that than like . . . don’t worry about your education or don’t worry about your career. It will be fine. Someone will take care of you (HA512–516).

Thus, Hanna felt she was expected to succeed as much as her brother. When asked what her parents’ expectation was, Hanna, similar to the other interviewees, said, “Probably comfort. I think the Korean parents want their kids to live comfortably [italics added]” (HA459). Although she did not know what that meant exactly, Hanna’s definition of economic security notably did not include taking care of her parents or siblings as in Ruth and Esther’s cases but her own future family: “probably being able to provide for our kids. It’s a family unit so having a home, having a car for the guys, being able to pay for the education or the comfortable life” (HA463–465).

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An interesting twist to Hanna’s story is that while her older brother chose to go to medical school, it was Hanna who followed her father’s footsteps and majored in economics in college. However, one of the reasons she felt no direction her junior year was because Hanna did not necessarily like the option that lay ahead for her: “As an economics major, all my friends were going into investment banking and consulting, and I hated that lifestyle. It seemed really pointless to me . . . although it seems like I’m going to be doing the same type of work now (laughs). But it seemed really pointless to me then” (HB720–723). Similar to Esther, Hanna’s father had a dream for her to climb the corporate ladder and be on the “cutting edge” (HB1162) of the business world. However, Hanna did not feel it was a good fit for her “because you work crazy hours and in the end what do you have to show for it? After three years of working your butt off, you have to find another job. Like there is no security in that for me” (HB727–729). Having determined that the investment banking route was not for her, Hanna felt really lost and did not know what her next step should be when she graduated. After a yearlong struggle during her junior year, what she ultimately chose to do was to follow her father’s footstep yet again and decided to go straight to law school. Looking at her father’s life, Hanna saw how all his education and professional degrees paid off for him: I mean I’ve seen it in my dad’s own life. Once he no longer filled a niche where as before he was like the . . . Korean American lawyer. He kind of got crowded out by all the younger Korean American lawyers who were more bilingual. And if he didn’t have his JD or which one of his degrees he had, he wouldn’t have been able to make that jump and provide for his family . . . He had to try to figure out what the heck he was going to do now because he was kind of outdated. And then suddenly you know he finds two great occupations. And I really attribute it of course to God and also to his resilience and all those things, but one big thing was his JD degree (HB731–741).

So, her father’s career was influential in Hanna’s own decision to further her education and get a law degree: And as a woman, as a Korean woman, you know, what degree can you get that makes you marketable? What degree can you get that gives you some sort of job security? I think it is JD. Anything else is expendable. It’s valuable because it’s so hard to do. In a way . . . that takes care of the next three years. I’ll go to law school and that kind of knowing like another big step. Like I said, another stone being thrown I knew it was

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nice. I think that’s why I gravitated towards it. I knew I wouldn’t regret the decision basically (HB745–751).

Hanna’s father was “very supportive of the idea” (HB731) and felt a JD would be “super useful” (HB732) even if she does not want to practice law. Out of many law schools she considered across the country, Hanna decided to attend a law school in Southern California and be closer to her family. In the fall of 2001, Hanna began law school and the next chapter in her life. Pressure to Change and Get Married After returning to Southern California, Hanna lived in an apartment near campus with a roommate. However, she resumed attending her home church in Los Angeles and participated in a home fellowship for Englishspeaking 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean Americans near her school. Connecting with other Korean American young adults, Hanna found emotional support, but also heard about the pressure many women felt to meet the right man and get married by a certain age. Hanna says they often took comfort knowing the situation was worse in Korea: I think all of us Korean American girls feel like at least it’s better than in Korea. Because we always hear about in Korea (first of all they add a year to your life) when you are twenty-seven, you are old! That’s the panic time. You better find someone really, really quickly. The American culture has made it so it’s flexible. At least our parents probably won’t set us up with anybody. So there’s less pressure I think (HB448–454).

Although they expressed a little more leeway living in America, what Hanna found was that “mostly [her] Korean friends [felt] . . . really, really strong” (HA331) “pressure for marriage and a pressure to change” themselves so they could be appealing (HA329–330). Her non-Korean female friends seemed to share some of the same concerns, but their focus was based on more external attributes: The thing is that the two cultures are very different. To me, the nonKorean culture is very secular and it is very appearance based. So the girls I know are not depressed about their character, their temper, being negative, or anything like that. They are always thinking about their looks. Their main concern is I am fat, I need to work out, or my hair color needs to be changed. And I feel like their mothers leave them alone a bit more (HA319–323).

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On the other hand, Hanna felt the pressure most of her Korean friends experienced was much more intense and even attacked them at the core of who they are: It’s like a tearing apart of the woman. Just being like, “Can’t you do something about it? Can’t you date anybody, get married, or something? You are just getting older. Your time’s running out.” One of my friends from church, she is twenty-nine, and I guess her dad said something [like], “You are just like the trash. Even though we put you out, like no body will take you.” I mean she is dating. I think the guy is going to propose to her. But, I’m thinking, how can you say that? Do you realize how much you are tearing apart a person when you say something like that? But obviously he didn’t realize that (HA332–339).

In general, Hanna sees Korean parents as having “this kind of entitlement to say more of what they want you to do” and a lot of her friends’ “life is determined according to what their parents want” (HA377–379). One growing trend Hanna observed among her Korean American friends, however, is that: They feel more pressure, but more and more they are not getting married. I notice that too. There is a huge contingency of younger thirty’s women who are independent, have professional jobs, they are not married, and they hate being bugged about marriage. But, I think they also want to get married, too. So I think it’s kind of that annoying situation where all of a sudden you want to get married, but parents are telling you to, as if you don’t, as if it’s under your control. So I hear a lot of frustration because of that (HA343–348).

Even among this group of women who protest the pressure put on them to get married, Hanna pointed out that they basically want the same thing: I think every one really wants what a marriage could be, which is a very loving relationship, a really close friend, a feeling of acceptance, you know. I don’t see why most women wouldn’t want that kind of loving relationship. But that’s the thing. It gets very confusing when I hear these girls talking about it because first it always starts off with, “My mom wants me to get married.” They always complain about how much pressure they get and how much criticisms they get. But then, they also say a lot of things that really indicate to me that they are

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looking and they would love to get married but just can’t find the right person (HA352–359).

On the other hand, Hanna described how many of her non-Korean friends she knows, either from school or work, talk about marriage in a different way: I think you hear more about non-Korean marriages among your friends [with] . . . a lot more divorce. And I would say that if I hadn’t had this kind of like constant plug into the Korean community, it would have been very much of: you really don’t need to get married early, like figure some stuff out, get a job, date around a lot just for fun, really don’t date seriously because there is no point, and eventually things will work out, you’ll find somebody you’ll want to marry (HA397–402).

The Second Korean Boyfriend On her visit home during her senior year in college, Hanna began dating one of the old Korean friends she knew from the church. She continued this relationship her first year of law school, which she described in the following way: My second, I think he was actually my first serious boyfriend. I think he actually liked the fact that I was independent. He liked the fact that I was intelligent. He was proud of the fact that I went to a law school. But in the end, he wanted me to submit a lot. He didn’t like it when I questioned his decisions. He didn’t like it when I questioned how he spent his time or his priorities. He wanted me to ultimately submit. And that meant going to his church that he chose. Uh . . . just basically doing what he wanted (HB993–998).

When asked what that experience was like for her, Hanna stated, “It was horrible. It kind of felt like you were on a ship, there was a captain, and the captain you just didn’t trust very much. I think not just because you felt like he’d do something bad, but you just questioned his ability to judge situations well” (HB1002–1004). And, when she began questioning his judgment, Hanna says, “At first he was kind of like trying to reassure me and things like that. Eventually he got very frustrated. I mean it’s kind of like he finally pulled out the stick. Finally pulled out the ‘I’m the man; the bible says you should listen to the man’ type of thing” (HB1008–1010). So, when things were not going well and they were fighting, Hanna indicated,

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“I would think to myself, ‘Thank goodness I’m in law school and I’m doing something with my life because if I have to rely and put my destiny in this man’s hand, I’d go crazy.’ You know, it would be super stressful and then realizing that a relationship isn’t enough” (HB958–961). After about a year and a half, Hanna decided to end the relationship. Looking back, she points out it basically reinforced the lesson she had learned from the first Korean boyfriend: “Actually what has driven me at least early in college—not so much now, now I enjoy what I do and I like working—is that, I am going to be self-sufficient. I do not want to be dependent on a man that could be anything” (HA520–523). Apart from these relationships, Hanna added that another reason she felt very strongly about having her own career and being self-sufficient was “a very early realization of what a divorce was” (HA527–528), for example, from observing a neighbor’s divorce when she was growing up. As a woman, she explained what it meant to always consider the possibility of divorce: And also for me I think I grew up with so many divorces. It’s not that my parents are, but with divorces and men having affairs on their wives that I don’t want to totally depend on a guy. I need to be making a living on my own and somehow if I end up picking a wrong guy and have to get a divorce or something I want to be able to . . . be fine (HA517–523).

The Right Korean Guy About six months after her last relationship ended, Hanna met someone very special (he will be referred by a fictitious name Joshua) during her second year of law school. He had also been attending the same Korean American church as Hanna for awhile. However, because the size of her church is fairly large, they did not actually have an opportunity to get to know each other until they ran into each other at one of the home fellowship meetings. They instantly hit it off and began seriously dating each other. Hanna describes the relationship in the following way: I think when we first met, we were at the point where we were both open to becoming serious. But I think he kind of knew earlier that he really liked me . . . in like a permanent fashion. But I think for me, I wasn’t sure what he thought; I wasn’t sure what I thought. But all I knew was that I was very comfortable around him and that he brought a very stabilizing force I think into my life. He was very calm and sweet and consistent. So in that case I think we knew (HC5–10).

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After they dated about seven or eight months and steadily became more serious, they arranged for both of their parents to meet informally: And then our parents met the summer before. And my parents were like, “Okay, we’ll meet because you guys are kind of getting serious.” And, his parents were like, “She is going to be our new daughter-inlaw.” So, the first time they met, it was a little awkward. Because . . . his parents were like, “We love your daughter. We are very happy that they are together.” So they were pretty much accepting me into their family. And, my parents, it just kind of struck them from nowhere. But they adjusted it in about a week or two (HC10–16).

When asked about her parents’ reaction, Hanna explained: I think it’s just because I wasn’t sure either. He was saying things like, “I want to get married soon.” And, in my head, I didn’t want to presume anything so . . . does it mean in a year, two years, three years, after his residency, or soon because it wasn’t anything more definite. And so since I didn’t know, I didn’t let my parents think it was anything at all either. That was probably it. But once I kind of told them that “Yes, I think I really like him.” Then . . . they liked him right from the start. They got used to the idea very quickly (HC20–25).

Although Joshua was serious about Hanna early in their relationship, she appeared to have been much more cautious until he made his intensions very clear with her and her family. When Hanna went to Atlanta to visit his parents, they were delighted to meet her and were very welcoming from the beginning. Hanna had also brought Joshua to her parents’ home and introduced him but her parents did not seem to take the relationship as seriously. Thus, even though Hanna and Joshua were very proper in making their commitment to each other and their families, it is interesting that Hanna’s parents still seemed to be surprised when the parents met for the first time. There were a series of signs leading up to this important meeting, but Hanna’s parents did not appear to have been prepared to accept the idea that their daughter would want to marry so young. Even though Hanna’s mother married right out of college around twenty-two or three, she may have hoped for a very different life for her daughter. In fact, her parents were probably counting on Hanna to finish law school and establish her career before entertaining the idea of marriage. In the first interview, Hanna pointed out, “I think they expected me to work really hard for a few years and get some good training. And then

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. . . my mom especially has never thought that not working is a good idea. That was from a very early stage” (HA469–471). In this sense, Hanna’s parents may have thought talking about marriage at twenty-four may have been too young for their daughter. And, yet, Hanna mentioned in the previous section how most of her Korean American female friends felt tremendous pressure from their parents to marry before they turned twenty-seven. Unfortunately, many Korean parents seem to have this unrealistic expectation that their daughters should succeed in their career equally as any male, but also somehow magically find the perfect Korean man to marry, not too soon or too late. Although Hanna’s parents may have thought marriage was too soon, she indicated they came around quickly once they had a chance to let it sink in that she was very serious about this relationship. Because Hanna and Joshua were pretty well matched in terms of their background (e.g., ethnicity, religion, acculturation level, education), the parents probably had little objection as long as the wedding took place after they both complete their studies. One potential problem could have been the fact that Hanna’s older brother was not married yet, and her parents may have preferred the marriage to follow the birth order. However, this is one area Korean parents’ seem to display a lot of flexibility. In both Ruth and Esther’s cases, their younger siblings were permitted to marry before the firstborn. A few months after the informal meeting with the parents, Joshua officially proposed to Hanna one year into their courtship. Several months later, they held a formal engagement ceremony with a close circle of families and friends. Hanna and her fiancé were married in June of this year; right after each of their graduations took place. Themes from Post-College Years Although Hanna strongly believed marriage was always in her future, she was surprisingly tentative about getting married when she finally met the “right” Korean guy. Hanna’s concerns about marriage seem connected to her parents, who have always stressed establishing her career first. As a young woman, however, she was constantly exposed to social pressures to be attractive and “catch a man” by a certain age. All her female friends felt this stress across the board, but more acutely by her Korean American friends. During law school, Hanna had “to give up all the little girly silly stuff, like magazines, nail polish, looks. Because you have to give it up for awhile. There’s no time for it” (HC133–135). However, while she was giving up her dependence on these external paraphernalia, Hanna felt she was actually gaining more inner confidence through what she was able to accomplish in

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school. In this way, Hanna thinks law school was the “refining period” (HC133) in her life: I think in a way everyone kind of at some point feels like they have to blend with the rest of the world . . . Maybe they thought they were funny or creative. But by the time they go to college, they meet a ton of people who are even funnier and much more creative and much more groovy and hardworking or whatever. And I think before I went to law school I felt very much like, “Yeah, I kind of get a sense that I have some qualities that are good and stand out,” but I didn’t really know. And, I think looks can be one of them. I mean that’s how girls start to compete at a very young age is looks—clothes, looks, belongings, even pencils and pens, erasers, and stickers and stuff like that. They are all part of the competition. . . . [And] I was thinking, “Well, looks is not how I am going to distinguish myself. I think that getting an education is distinctive enough.” And then you realize you really are kind of unique in other ways. And, you kind of rediscover yourself. You rediscover your strength . . . I think even being in a relationship with Joshua probably combined with law school, someone who does appreciate the unique things about you and he thinks that they are really nice and want you to stick with it. That also is very validating experience . . . And in law school you start saying, “Well, everything is in here. They’re not on the outside.” And I think I gained confidence” (HC137–159).

So, although her parents’ always emphasized higher education and career achievement, it has also been a primary means of developing her selfesteem and inner strengths as a woman. Ironically, as she let go of the externally driven means, she felt most distinct and confident internally and, in turn, became most appealing to the right man.

MARRIAGE AND CAREER: “PRETTY HAPPY WOMAN” Increased Cultural Expectation Hanna’s first interview actually took place just before her formal engagement. She was frantically trying to plan her wedding in her last year of law school. It was quite obvious Hanna was under a lot of pressure. However, now that she was engaged, Hanna talked about how she was under greater social scrutiny to observe traditional Korean customs. She described how this unfolded in her family:

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Korean American Women The guilt thing, very recently . . . part of it I think is because I am getting married very soon. And, I heard like my grandmother talk about how one of my cousins came to visit and I guess she didn’t bring anything . . . She was really disappointed that she didn’t bring any fruit or flowers or something. To me when I listen to that . . . it occurred to me . . . that [my] cousin just got married like two years ago. It’s family, but suddenly it’s a little bit more. . . . And actually my mom told me about these complaints my grandmother had . . . It was like she was totally matter of fact. . . . And in my head, I’m just like, “Wow, after a certain age, they want you to be an adult.” And adults who come to my house bring something and they help with the dishes you know when they eat together. And suddenly for me, I realized that if I am an adult, which I probably am catapulted into because I am getting married, you know the beginning of that kind of formality I guess . . . even between my mom and me (HA165–183).

As before, Hanna’s grandmother played a significant role in teaching younger women what is expected of them. To Hanna, what was particularly eye opening about her grandmother’s critical comment was it applied to her recently married female cousin. What was even more surprising to Hanna was that her mother agreed with her grandmother and relayed this story to Hanna as an example of what not to do. Hanna came to the startling realization that as a married woman she must now observe a certain level of “formality” not only with her grandmother and other relatives, but also with her own mother. However, Hanna added this kind of increased expectation would have come eventually as she reached a certain age, even if she was not married: Marriage or it’s either just age. Because I am sure if I have gotten to my late . . . twenties it starts to be like that the more independent I got. Because right now I am still depending on them for the school and everything else, but let’s say that I have my own job . . . and living out on my own. So from there it kind of begins. . . . So it is either . . . your job and self-sufficiency or else marriage. And for me it’s kind of both at the same time, but more from the marriage (HA192–198).

Father’s Dream As previously mentioned, Hanna’s decision to get married right out of law school at twenty-five came as a big surprise to her parents. Although they liked her fiancé and gave their consent, both of her parents definitely expected Hanna to continue building her career after she married. However, she frankly admitted:

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The thing is I never wanted to just like climb the corporate ladder or anything like that. It’s hard to see if my parents would be okay with that. . . . I do not think they really need grandkids from me or anything like that. I think maybe it would make my dad very happy if I just said, “You know what, I really don’t want to have any kids or maybe just one kid or something and I just want to work. I want to become a partner at a law firm.” I think he would be okay with that. But the fact is I never wanted that (HA493–499).

Ironically, of the three children in the family, Hanna has most closely followed her father’s footsteps in terms of career; but, in her opinion, this sort of came about unexpectedly. Hanna never liked the corporate environment, but somehow ended up specializing in it because it made the most sense with her economic background. Even before her graduation, Hanna signed on to start her first job at one of the top law firms in the country. However, she is also individuated enough from her father to stand firm on not wanting what her father wants for her. Her father, especially as an ethnic minority male, may have always dreamed of at least one of his American-born children to reach the top and succeed in mainstream corporate America. However, marriage and children have always been very important to Hanna, and she is not willing to sacrifice everything in order to succeed in her career as Ruth and Esther may have done thus far in their lives. Hanna plans to work very hard for awhile, but she explains why she, as a woman, has not set her career goal as high as her father envisioned for her: Because I see what it takes, it’s just . . . being a partner in a law firm, like it just has to be your life. The law practice has to be your life. And there is never a point where you can just coast at all. I feel like it’s a constant push. And you get compensated really well. You get paid . . . I know that some of the partners at my firm get paid like a million dollars a year. But . . . I just don’t admire it for some reason. I mean I do admire it I guess in some sense like, “Wow, you’ve accomplished a lot. That’s great!” But it’s not for me. I guess I want more family. I want more balance. I need to balance church (HB1167–1174).

What It Will Take In her very first job, Hanna anticipates she will be “earning like four times as much . . . in the next few years” (HB1082–1083) while her fiancé is working on his residency. However, Hanna says she is not really looking forward to work because she has ironically been assigned to the group that

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handles investment banking, the very thing she went to law school to avoid. Starting out in a big law firm, Hanna feels very little control over where the partners place her in the company. In the follow up interview, Hanna also added what she dreads most about her new position: Like having to deal with partners who treat you like crap. . . . In any other situation, I never had to put up with it. I could leave the situation immediately, tell facts, report it, or do anything. But I kind of feel like in a law firm you kind of have to take a certain amount of abuse. Like really difficult partners who just don’t care about your life whatsoever. . . . It’s just too consuming. Work is work, but when it’s just too consuming, it feels . . . I think it feels life threatening. It’s not good to feel that way (HC187–192).

Hanna has worked so hard to reach this stage in her life, but she does not seem to look forward to the first job that will begin the next chapter of her life. Although she has dealt with a lot of different pressure to perform academically most of her life, Hanna was able to manage it each time and grow from it thus far. However, she felt different this time because she is fearful of what her job will take from her life and her marriage: I feel most uncertain, but I’m sure I felt that way before. I feel like the work is going to take too much. I think . . . it’s the first time maybe I’m dreading actually . . . And now it’s work and this time I don’t know if it’s I know more or whether I’m pessimistic or whatever, but I really feel like it’s going to be really hard, like almost the point of I’m going to break or something. Maybe I’m with my husband now and I can voice it more and say like, “Okay, promise me it’s not going to destroy our marriage. If there is any time you are really unhappy, you have to tell me, okay.” And things like that. Because of that I feel I should feel confident and know that nothing can break me, but I still feel like it’s going to take more from me than I want it to (HC169–183).

Value in Women Working Her new job will begin in about a month, but Hanna is already experiencing a lot of stress just thinking about how she will balance a very demanding career and marriage. She is confident her fiancé will be understanding and take her career seriously, especially since she will be the primary breadwinner for the next few years. Hanna feels her fiancé is different from other Korean men she dated. It means a lot to Hanna that her fiancé respects her

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career, not only because it’s financially pragmatic, but more importantly for her own sense of happiness and fulfillment. Hanna feels fortunate that her fiancé “sees value in a woman working” (HB1011). She believes this has a lot to do with the fact that his mother worked. In fact, his mother had a heart to heart talk with Hanna before the wedding and encouraged her to develop her career after she gets married, for her own sense of purpose and meaning in life: My fiancé’s mom does work. She works at a frame store [She runs one of the two frame shops she and her husband own in Atlanta]. She also believes that as a housewife when you become like middle age, you start questioning like what is your life about. My fiancé’s mom sat me down and said, “You will not feel any fulfillment from just being a housewife. And you’ll feel empty. You will not know who you are” [italics added] (HB968–972).

Like the majority of Korean immigrant mothers, her fiancé’s mom helps run a small business with her husband. She shared with Hanna the value she has gained from working, a sense of fulfillment she would not have otherwise discovered. If she had stayed in Korea, she would have been a part of the statistic that makes up 80% of housewives who are not in the work force (Chang & Moon, 1998). In 1981, she came to the U.S., first living in NY then moving to Chicago, before settling down in Atlanta. Hanna’s fiancé was five and his younger brother was only one at the time, but even with very young children, the new economic reality in America pushed their mother to participate in the labor force, running a store alongside her husband. On the other hand, Hanna’s mother was a part of a small percentage of married Korean immigrant women who did not work. Unlike Ruth and Esther’s mother, Hanna’s mother did not have a professional skill, such as a nursing degree, that would immediately be marketable, even with limited English. Moreover, because her father was in the professional field, Hanna’s mother did not readily have any means of helping her husband’s work. For these reasons, Hanna’s mother always stayed at home and raised the children. As much as Hanna appreciated having her mother there to take care of her and her siblings, she has a vivid memory of what costly sacrifice that was for her mother as an individual: I even remember when I was like in the middle school, my mom got really depressed because we were getting older and she had nothing to do at home. So she started taking art classes, tennis classes, flower

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Korean American Women arranging classes. And I was just going like “Mom are you not happy?” That must have been when she was very depressed at the time because she just said, “No. No. No.” “So, mom, you have a great son and daughters and a husband. You have a perfect home” because she was always building or something like that. And she was like, “Doesn’t matter.” I remember I was just like feeling really hurt at the time. As a kid you think that, “Of course, my mom only lived to raise me and she should be happy that I’m doing great.” You know the selfless thing (HA471–480).

When Hanna’s father became the president of a law school, her mother actually began taking legal classes and eventually earned a JD the year Hanna graduated from college. It was quite an accomplishment for her mother, but it was a long and difficult journey. For more than a quarter century, Hanna’s mother gave the best years of her life to her husband and her three children so that they may succeed in the world. As Hanna suggested, her mother should be proud that each one of them has done so well, that her family is quite a collection of Korean American success stories. Yet, her mother silently struggled with emptiness for almost a decade as her children grew and left home. Although her mother has been slowly working on finding herself and enriching her own life, Hanna has witnessed what her mother’s sacrifice meant for her as a woman. So, based on her own experience, Hanna said her mother never thought not working was a good idea and has always encouraged Hanna to have a career and work “at least part time even after the kids” (HA488). And, Hanna says: And I take that to heart. I think that’s nice for me because I know that you can have a perfect house, perfect family, perfect husband, well not perfect, but pretty darn good, and really great kids, you know nobody has done anything really wrong and still feel so empty [italics added]. So for me I don’t need to test that out. I don’t need to figure out for myself and see and do what my mom did and to say, “Do I still feel fulfill in life? Was she right?” It’s more like, “You know what, I am going to assume you are right and I am going to try to work if I can, at least part time (HA480–486).

Thus, looking at her own mother’s life, Hanna knows that “being a mother isn’t enough” (HB961) and that motherhood alone will not make her happy. It is interesting that although her fiancé’s mother and her own mother led very different lives as first generation Korean immigrant women, they have virtually the same message for Hanna as a young woman—do not

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give up your career! Those words of wisdom have encouraged Hanna to continue pushing forward with her career, in spite of the unbearable stress level and the added responsibility of marriage because “both my mom and my fiancé’s mom luckily are both of the opinion” (HB967–968) that Hanna should keep her career. Traditional Expectations Fortunately, because her fiancé grew up with a working mother, Hanna feels he is very supportive of her career and “knows that they [women] are happier when they work, and he wants me to be happy” (HB1012). However, she points out, “At the same time there is a little bit of traditionalism in him” (HB1013). When asked what she thinks that is, Hanna responded that it is difficult to say because her fiancé has not really articulated it although what she senses is: Like the fact that his mom cooked. It’s the cooking thing. I think he can take care of himself in every other way and he’s a great cook. But I can sense that he feels most loved and happiest when he’s been cooked a great meal. And I just can’t do that. I just don’t like cooking. I exhaust myself way too much when I do. And I feel like at some point he might be a little disappointed that I’m not cooking for him . . . And also the other thing my fiancé definitely wants, and I don’t think it’s because he is Korean or whatever, he definitely wants kids earlier than I do. So that’s another issue. I think he just wants to be a dad. And I want to be a mom too. I love kids. But I want . . . I’m not going to have kids for at least five years (HB1018–1029).

Although her fiancé understands the importance of having a career, he still prefers for them to start a family within the first two or three years of their marriage while they are still young. Hanna, on the other hand, stated why she wants more time: Before kids I want to have a career. And, I want my life for a little bit longer. I feel like up until I have kids I’ll have some control over my life [italics added]. And after kids, at some point I’m going to have to give in a lot of ways as far as like my career, my time, my sleep, my rest, my time with my husband, my time with family, my time with friends. All those things are going to be just completely turned upside down. And I’m going to find joy in it. I know I’m going to love my kids and cherish them, but . . . I just need more time to myself [whispers] (HB1033–1039).

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When asked what was magical about the three-year or five-year mark, she explained: There’s a notion that after three years at a law firm, you’re marketable, like you can either move to another law firm or find other job. You’ve gained all the skills that make you most marketable. So at least that’s three years. And then the five-year thing is like well, I kind of want to at least enjoy being marketable for at least a few years. And the limiting factor is biological basically [italics added]. It’s not so much because I think I’d be at a place in my life in five years or that I’d have nothing left. There are other things I want to accomplish as a lawyer, but it’s because of biological clock that I want to have kids. My fiancé, part of his thing is that in medicine, your peak reproductive capability is twenty-five and it goes down after that. Thirty is like pushing it for him you know. But for me, thirty for some reason just feels like, “Well, at thirty, I need to take a break.” If we can have babies until thirty-five or be like super healthy . . . let’s say that you peaked at thirty-five, I’d be fine working for another ten years I think (HB1235–1246).

Thus, Hanna feels her biological clock is the most limiting factor she has to deal with as a woman in terms of developing her career. In this sense, she envies “the fact that men can kind of achieve as much as they want . . . and nothing really holds them back” (HB 1193–1194). However, Hanna sees the down side men have to face as well: But at the same time like if I was a guy and I was graduating from a law school now, basically I’d have to work for the rest of my life with no real break in between. I don’t know many grown men who take off a month from work or six months from work. They don’t have that you know, that necessary break when they have to have a baby. . . . I want life to be broken up a little bit more than that. Have them in different stages. And I feel like there are less distinct stages for men, but there are very distinct stages for women. But I think it’s nice. I think life is richer that way (HB1199–1209).

My Choice Hanna does not seem to resent the fact that her career path will not follow the conventional, linear progression of her male counterparts, but rather embraces the fact that she will be forced to take a break in order to have

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children. And, once kids enter her life, she feels she will definitely give up or give in more: And I know that for me . . . the type of job and career I have doesn’t have to be cutting edge, super high stress. Like I think I’d kind of want to take a step back from that too eventually . . . And I like the idea of not having to be the breadwinner for the family always. I’d rather volunteer my time at you know law clinic than necessarily make the money. And I think that’s the freedom to be able to make that kind of choice. And I know that if it came down to . . . my kids . . . would either be put with a nanny or I’d have to raise them, I’d want to raise them. And that’s my decision. . . . Maybe that means ultimately I’m making my career more expandable than his, but it’s my decision [italics added]. I want to be a good mother and I’m willing to stretch my life or twist or change things in my life to make that happen. And I think I trust that he wants to be a part of his kids’ life too (HB1098–1115).

As other interviewees have indicated, what seems to be most important for Hanna is that she is free to make a choice. She wants the choice to put her career second to her husband and children, rather than being forced into that position. And, given the choice, like the other Korean American women, Hanna says: I’m pretty a reasonable person, that I love him, that I do want to place him above me, you know in front of me at some point. . . . He’s very sensitive to whether I’m happy or not. So I never felt like it’s his way or my way. I think at some point I’m going to have to give in more to him, probably have to. But I feel like I’ll do it willingly and not because he’s forcing me to (HB1071–1088).

And, as far as choices go, Hanna wants to defer her career to her husband’s. It is interesting that Hanna rationalized the reason she sees herself in a position to give more in the marriage is because she feels her career is more flexible, less cutting edge, and less stressful relative to his. Actually, her fiancé has a choice at the end of his residency and specialty training whether to pursue a teaching career or not, but the bottom line is that Hanna wants to encourage him to go further because “I feel like to me I want to take care of him” (HB1053–1054): I know that up until now he had accomplished quite a lot, but he has always held back. You know in college, he had a full scholarship so he

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Korean American Women went to a school that I think . . . He could have gone to a better school but he took a step back . . . He has done a lot of research, he’s very well qualified, very likable, great in interviews, but he only applied to places in L.A. Maybe he would have wanted to stay in L.A. even if I never entered his life, but he compromised. You know I always see him taking a step back in his career in little ways. Not that L.A. is bad, but in the little ways for me because he knows I want to be near family . . . I would like him to be happy. If he wants to pursue academics, I want him to pursue academics. I don’t always want to be the factor that holds him back. So I’m prepared . . . as long as he gives me these five years for me to do my job . . . I think I’m willing at that point to start making some concession to his life too (HB1054–1067).

So, when asked how she sees herself balancing her career and family, Hanna says: In the end I want to work at least part-time and eventually full-time like when my kids are grown up or something. I want to be able to have dinner with my family, with my parents I mean like once a week, I want to be able to see my friends at least twice a week . . . you know as far as add a couple even with my husband like having dinner with friends and something like that. And then I want to really just be present in my family, my kids’ life (HB1179–1186).

Although Hanna and her fiancé have not discussed specifically how they will handle the childcare issue once children enter the picture, she envisions: I know he wants to spend a lot of time with his kids. . . . I think it is easier to work with somebody who wants to be a good father, and he thinks that being a good father naturally entails time . . . he phrases that to be a good father like you need to be there, you need to give them rides to practices, you need to pick them up from school sometimes. . . . But ultimately I think . . . I’m going to have to put in, like let’s say there’s a portion of putting in something, I have to put in 50% whereas he has to put in maybe 25% of his time (HB1120–1129).

Hanna believes the other 25% will be contributed by “my parents, the school, maybe the babysitters” (HB1133), but she sees herself handling the majority of the childcare responsibility once she chooses to have children. This is largely because:

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Well, I really appreciated the fact that my mom stayed at home because my other friends’ moms didn’t do that. And she was really a good parent to me. I think I got a lot out of that. And then I start thinking to myself, “Well, shouldn’t I be doing that for my kid, too?” You know stay at home and be with them all the time and stuff like that. And I think I saw the virtue of what she did, and that’s why I think maybe it’s virtuous to be just a housewife. And I don’t think I completely resolved that [italics added] (HB939–945).

Marriage, Career, and Hanna’s Changing Self As a young, second generation woman, Hanna was raised with many expectations to succeed in this country. Her parents have worked very hard to provide their children with the best resources available in order for them to take full advantage of every situation and succeed in the mainstream in spite of their racial minority status. However, in their noble ambition for their children to be “comfortable” in this country, Korean immigrant parents seem to forget their daughters’ womanhood. Although Hanna is the youngest of the three women I interviewed, she was able to articulate her concerns about balancing career and relationship the most because she was so close to being married at the time. While Ruth seemed to be at a stage in her life where she grieved the sacrifices she made to succeed in her career, Esther seems to show little or no awareness of what sacrifices she will be making in order to chase her father’s ambition for her success. More than other interviewees, Hanna received the strongest gender socialization in terms of what proper cultural etiquette or conduct is expected of a young woman like herself. However, what was not taught or talked about is how she as a woman is to resolve the conflict between the expectations for her to succeed like a male in her career while still holding onto all the traditional or cultural trappings of being a woman in the marriage and family. Perhaps the best she can do is to adjust her career ambitions or goals and hold onto her self-respect that it is her choice to give more in the relationship for her husband and children. However, Hanna frankly admits she has not been able to resolve the split, which is so embedded in all the 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American women’s story: seeing her mother’s traditional sacrifice to stay home and raise the children as virtuous and wanting to do the same for her children; at the same time, remembering her mother’s deep depression and struggle dealing with the emptiness after the children had all grown up. A couple months after Hanna’s wedding, we briefly had the follow-up interview after her board exam. During the interview, it was quite apparent

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she was still in the honeymoon stage and loving her married life, especially since her work does not start for another month. Her only major complaint was her husband had to be away every fourth night to do his on-call duty. Although she had been married only a short while, I asked what this chapter in her life was like for her so far. Hanna saw herself at the moment as being a “‘Pretty Happy Woman’ now. Whereas I was ‘Pretty Happy Girl’ before, I think I am pretty happy now . . . in terms of discovering a lot of things about being a woman and womanhood” (HC36–38). Interestingly, one of the things Hanna is enjoying the most about being married is rediscovering her mother as another woman and having a greater insight about who she is as an adult, another whole human being: And, I kind of can see my mom’s hobbies. First I just saw her water the plants, but I always thought it was a chore. But now I see she loves the plants. She loves it. We go shopping for clothes, she is tired in ten minutes; we go shopping for plants, can go all day. She likes movies, and I never knew that. She likes reading different books, and I never knew that. She is just becoming more of a whole person in my eyes, and in some ways she is acting more childish. Sometimes her temper flares a little bit quicker, and she can be kind of bratty. It’s just how I now see her as like another adult (HC54–61).

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Conclusion

In Chapter Five, Six, and Seven, the narrative analysis of three individual cases was presented. Each of the storied narratives revealed the complexity of living in a dual cultural context and how each of these women uniquely responded to their situation. After the within-case analysis was completed, these three women’s storied experiences were analyzed across the cases. When similarities and differences were examined from case to case, essential themes and insights into the studied situation emerged from the collective stories. The final analysis and synthesis of these three women’s storied narratives will be discussed below.

COLLECTIVE STORIES OF THREE KOREAN AMERICAN WOMEN Early Years In all three of the women’s stories, one common theme stands out during the early years–the hardships their families faced starting out in a foreign country. As recent immigrants, each of their fathers struggled to realize their American dreams. Ruth’s father came to the U.S. and studied to be an ordained minister, but initially could not even find a church that would give him a janitorial position. Esther’s family lived in the “lower side” while her father struggled for years to get his innovative ideas off the ground. Finally, Hanna’s family had to endure living in an inner city apartment infested with roaches while her father worked on yet another degree to make himself more marketable. These are the stories and images each of the young women came to know so well, although at the time they were probably too young to understand the magnitude of the obstacles. Hanna described her early years as 203

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being a “pretty happy girl” in spite of the intense economic struggles her family faced the first three to four years of her life. Esther similarly calls the same time period in her life the “Hippie Days” and focused more on the fun aspect of their lives in Germany, rather than the backbreaking work her father endured in the factory. Unlike these two women, however, Ruth clearly articulates that her own insecurities as a child grew out of her parents’ marital tension and difficulties adjusting to their new life in America. Ruth’s level of understanding about her own life may be partly due to the fact that she is the oldest of the three participants and seems to be at a more reflective stage. As she approaches midlife as a single woman, she appears to be looking back and reexamining her past and thinking about her future. In this sense, Ruth seems to have unique insights about her life. However, regardless of how much each of these women were actually aware of what was happening around them, what seems to be most important about their parents’ struggles in those early years is how it shaped and defined all three of their lives. Even though each family was able to move beyond their initial poor living conditions within seven to eight years, it was never forgotten. All the insecurities their families experienced in those early years seem to dominate the next generation’s mission to find “security” in America. In all three cases, these women mentioned their parents’ desire for them to live “comfortably” in this country, in spite of their minority status, as the reason behind the pressure to achieve a higher education and career. Just as their fathers overcame incredible odds with a lot of hard work and determination, each of the women inherited their family’s legacy to succeed in America. Their internalized, competitive drive to be the “best” can be seen even in their childhood stories about popularity, athletics, extracurricular activities, and academics. And, their motivation or ambition to distinguish themselves later translated into their careers. In this way, their family’s humble beginnings in America seemed to provide the critical early material that set the tone for each of the women’s own stories and their drive to succeed. Gender Socialization Another theme that seemed to deeply affect these three women’s lives is their birth order and the type of gender socialization they were exposed to growing up. Ruth and Esther, being the oldest in their family, were taught to be responsible for their younger siblings and were instilled with the traditional family value of interdependence. For them, this meant eventually being successful enough to take care of their aging parents and siblings. While Ruth and Esther clearly identified themselves as the “eldest son” figure and felt responsible to provide economic security for their entire family,

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this concept was noticeably absent in Hanna’s story because she had an older brother. Although Hanna also felt the pressure to reach a “comfortable” level financially through her career, she defined it in terms of her own life and her future family, not her parents and siblings. For these three women, their birth order in the family seems to have deeply influenced how they were socialized and what they each felt responsible for as a child and later as an adult. In Ruth and Esther’s case, the oldest daughters were conditioned to fill the role of the oldest son in the family. Being in this position, both Ruth and Esther indicated that they developed a very close, special relationship with their fathers, more so than their younger siblings. This is particularly interesting in Ruth’s case because she has a brother who is only a year younger. Regardless, she still took the place of the oldest son. Ruth contributed this to the fact that her father was the primary caretaker while her mother worked when they first came to the U.S. From that point on, she believes a special bond was formed, and she became “daddy’s little girl” (RA72). A greater sense of family obligation or duty as the oldest daughter, however, did not seem to necessarily translate into greater freedom or gender equality. In spite of Ruth’s special place in the family as the oldest, she was still more restricted as a girl compared to her brother. In fact, Ruth indicated she always wanted to be a boy growing up because she thought boys had so much more freedom. Traditionally, girls are considered to be under their parents care until she is married and can be taken care of by her husband. Therefore, Ruth’s father may have been more protective with her and dramatically curtailed her social life during her adolescent years. Similarly, Hanna indicates her parents were stricter with her than her brother. Even at home, she always felt the need to conduct herself properly, while she noticed her brother was freer to be himself. On the other hand, because Hanna had an older brother who could fulfill the family duty of being the eldest son, she may have felt freer to be a “girly girl” (HA5) and not feel responsible for taking care of the family. It is also interesting to note that Esther, who did not have a male sibling, is the only one who did not mention any gender disparity at home; however, she indicated experiencing it heavily whenever she visited Korea. In each of the cases, the three women felt greater restrictions placed on them as girls growing up and complained about traditional Korean gender practices that privileged males. Ruth felt it was unfair that her brother was allowed to exercise more social freedom and participate in after school activities, whereas she could not. Hanna felt it was unfair that her brother

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could just relax and be lazy around the house, while she always felt the need to keep herself busy and help her mother. Esther felt it was unfair that girls had to help serve others or always wait to be served last whenever she was visiting her relatives in Korea. Thus, one recurring theme in all three of the cases is the different treatment they received because they were girls. Although they were all raised in America, they each described being conditioned in varying degrees to accept traditional Korean social practices, which are deeply entrenched in Confucian gendered precepts of male superiority and female subordination as discussed in Section I. However, there was one important area in their life where all three of these women clearly felt they were held to the same standard as boys—academic achievement. Hanna articulated this most clearly when she noted that she felt “no distinction” (HA512) between her and her brother when it came to her parents’ expectation for academic or career success; and, as the oldest, Ruth and Esther felt the added burden to excel and succeed for their family’s sake. Thus, all three of these 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young women were expected to be competitive and achieve just like men in mainstream America (i.e., “warrior-like” image as described in Section I). At the same time, within the Korean cultural context (e.g., immediate family, church members, relatives), they were each expected to adhere to traditional female virtues (i.e., “other-oriented/selfless” image as described in Section I). Esther, who had frequently visited Korea during her adolescent years, may have been most consciously aware of these contradictory messages and aptly says that what was expected of her, as a young girl, was very confusing. White Middle-Class Suburbs In all three of the women’ stories, the move to a house in the suburbs with a reputable school district came as soon as their fathers got a break in their careers. As mentioned before, this is a common pattern among the thirdwave of Korean immigrants who were eager to provide the best possible education for the children. For all three of the families, this big transition occurred in the late 70s and early 80s, which meant living in a predominantly White middle-class neighborhood in the Southern California area. Although this upward mobility was a big part of realizing the American dream for the parents, it forced each of these women to deal with another reality—pressure to fit in with White middle-class values and lifestyle. All three of the women talked about becoming popular and fitting in with their White peers, but their experience seemed to vary depending on the age or developmental stage at which the move actually occurred and how their parents responded to each of their efforts to adjust. For Hanna,

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who was born in the U.S., the move to the suburbs took place when she was only three. As a little girl, she liked getting the attention as the only Korean/Asian in her preschool and felt her unique cultural background was “special and fancy,” (HA65) rather than something to be embarrassed about. When she was in the third or fourth grade, Hanna described herself as being “bratty” (HB40) as she became increasingly aware of fashion, boys, and popularity. These preoccupations soon clashed with her parents who always seemed “just a little bit slower, a little bit more backward than [her] more modern friends’ parents who seemed more with it” (HB95–96). In Ruth’s case, her family moved to a house in the suburbs when she was about nine. Her experiences were similar to Hanna’s in terms of being popular, the “know-it-all” (RB97), and a bit embarrassed of her parents who were less culturally assimilated. For both of these women, popularity seemed to have been an important part of their development, especially during the latter half of their elementary school years in terms of gaining social confidence outside of their family. Ironically, their preoccupation with the peer group was a major distraction from their studies and both expressed feeling “a little lacking” academically compared to their siblings who always got straight A’s. It was not until they were in their adolescence that their attention was diverted away from popularity and boys (Ruth due to her father’s sudden restrictions and Hanna due to unfortunate peer rejection) and they focused on their academics. Thus, what Hanna and Ruth lost in terms of social confidence with their peers appeared to have been regained through parental approval and confidence in their own ability to earn good grades like their siblings. Esther, who immigrated to the U.S. with her family at age five, did not move to the middle-class neighborhood until she reached eighth grade. Although she came to America only four years later than Ruth, several years in early childhood seem to have made a big difference in terms of how her experience unfolded. In contrast to the other two participants, Esther described herself as being “completely academic” (EA76) and compliant with everything her parents expected her to do for the first seven years in the U.S. (i.e., throughout her elementary school years). For her, popularity did not become important until her adolescent years, which also coincided with her family’s move to a more affluent area. This was when Esther decided being smart was not enough in America and chose to go against her parents’ wishes and became a cheerleader in high school. Thus, Esther went from being studious in her late childhood to being more social in her adolescence, which seems to be a complete reversal of Hanna and Ruth’s experience. Developmentally, Esther’s increased social interests in high school were more costly for her in terms of how the next

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stage in her life unfolded. Based on her “off-the-chart verbal SAT score” before high school, she made a comment in the early part of the interview that her parents had hopes of her going to Harvard. Later in the interview process when Esther discussed her college years, she did not elaborate on her choice of school, except to briefly state that it was her father’s suggestion. I sensed this may be a sensitive issue for her personally and decided not to pursue it further during the interview. For many Korean immigrant parents, the university they themselves graduated from in Korea (many attend alumni meetings in the U.S.) and the school their children attend in the U.S. is often a source of family pride or shame. Interestingly, Esther explained that her two younger siblings “went on and did a lot more academically” (EA43) as her parents expected because they were more Koreanized and conservative (although one sister was born in the U.S. and the other came at age one, they both spent their adolescent years in Korea). On the other hand, she indicated she had gotten off track because of the ups and downs she went through figuring out who she was during adolescence. Unfortunately for Esther, her efforts to fit in with peers came at a very critical period in her life when she needed to focus on her academics if she were to follow the route her parents envisioned for her. However, Esther began questioning and challenging her parents’ overemphasis on academics during her sophomore year in high school, which is when she became a cheerleader (i.e., rejection of Korean parents’ values and acceptance of American peer values). Interestingly, Esther referred to her increased social activities and being popular as trying to be the “best American” (EA392). Popularity not only meant peer acceptance, but also demonstrated her mastery of American culture. In this way, for Esther, fitting in with White peers seemed to have been not only a sign of moving toward American culture, but also moving away from her Korean parents’ values and their single-minded focus on academics. In contrast, Hanna actually moved emotionally closer toward her family during her teen years. This seems highly unusual since most adolescents in Western culture are expected to separate/individuate from their parents and go through a typical “stormy” identity crisis (Erikson, 1968; Marcia, 1980). However, it is important to note that Hanna’s experience did not fit this model. Her big realization about the importance of her family and the unreliable nature of her friends happened during her freshman year in high school. This event seemed to be one of the major turning points in her life. She stated that fortunately for her, this event took place just in time for her to focus on her academics and improve her grades when it began to really count for college. This was similarly the case for Ruth, but for a very different reason. When Ruth’s father completely restricted

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her social life, she noticed an unexpected improvement in her grades during high school. So, whether it was intended or not, her academic performance was also directly tied to the amount of peer interaction/social activities. Identity Development Thus, all three of these women shared the similar childhood background of growing up in a White middle-class neighborhood. As one of a few Koreans/Asians in the school, each of their stories included some aspects of fitting in with their peer social group and being popular. However, a remarkable theme I found across these three cases is that although these women described their experience trying to fit in with their predominantly White peers, they did not necessarily prefer the dominant culture more than their own at any stage in their development. This is an area of particular interest because one of the questions I attempted to explore throughout the interview process was how these 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American women dealt with their identity (i.e., minority/ethnic/cultural) while growing up between two cultures. Analysis of each of the participants’ storied narratives showed that none of these women, from their earliest childhood years to adulthood, had little awareness of/rejecting/being shameful of their own Korean cultural background, even when they were trying to assimilate with the dominant culture. This is a major finding in the study because these three women’s individual experiences did not fit with the very first stage of the theoretical assumption underlying various identity development models for ethnic minorities: Conformity in Minority Identity Development (Atkinson et al., 1983); Conformity in Racial/Cultural Identity Development (Sue & Sue, 1990); Unexamined Ethnic Identity in Ethnic Identity Formation (Phinney, 1993). As discussed in the literature review section, all of these stage models of identity development, based on Cross’s (1971) Black racial identity theory, begin with the notion that ethnic/racial minority individuals prefer or identify with White/dominant group over their own and view their own race/ethnic group with disdain because they have conformed to the White frame of reference. However, in the present study, even when each of the participants was asked specifically about their feelings toward Korean culture at the height of their popularity and White peer interactions, all three of them responded that they always held onto their “Korean pride.” In the interview, each of them described that they felt “special” because they were different and unique, rather than feeling ashamed. Hanna and Ruth shared that they may have felt a little embarrassed about their less acculturated Korean parents at some point in their elementary school year, but they both clearly articulated

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that they never felt sorry they were Koreans. In fact, both of them dismissed other Koreans/Asians they knew who seemed to identify completely with Whites and made fun of their own culture. Across all three cases, each of the women specifically remembered their fathers having conversations with them about Korean history/geography and trying to instill Korean pride during their childhood. So, for as much as each of these women tried to fit in with the predominantly White environment at school, their parents reinforced the heritage culture at home. Thus, a critical factor which may have prevented them from “conforming” or identifying completely with White dominant cultural values and retaining their ethnic identity/pride is their close relationship with their families in general and their fathers in particular. Furthermore, this conscious effort on the part of the parents to nurture Korean pride in their children may be a specific cohort effect of post1965 Korean immigrants who most likely benefited from the racial/ethnic pride movement that followed the Civil Rights in the 60s. For example, when Esther was in junior high school, her parents sent her to a special summer exchange program sponsored by the Korean government to educate and develop Korean culture and language for the children of Korean immigrant parents. Ruth also specifically mentioned asking her parents for a visit to Korea as her high school graduation present because she wanted to learn more about Korean history, culture, and language. The Korean Immigrant Fathers’ Ambition In all three cases, what stands out is how much influence the fathers had on these young women’s lives. Each of these fathers’ personal dreams and ambitions seemed to have a tremendous impact on their daughters’ career development. Thus, their fathers’ background, even before these young women immigrated to the U.S. or were born, already seemed to set each of their stories in motion. Interestingly, when I went back and compared the cases, I noticed that each father rose above extremely harsh conditions prior to coming to America. Because of the significant role these fathers played, some additional background information will be discussed to understand the impact on the women’s lives. Each of these fathers is about three to eight years apart in age, and was born toward the end or immediately following the Japanese Occupation of Korea, which ended in 1945. So, they grew up during a period when the country was under extreme political and economic oppression due to foreign invasion. Then, while they were still very young, the Korean War broke out in 1950 and much of their lives were deeply affected by the aftermath of the war. As young men, these fathers grew up in a war torn country where

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everybody was feverishly trying to improve their economic condition as Korea underwent major reconstruction. Based on hundreds of years of Confucianism, a major vehicle for social advancement in Korea has always been through education. Not surprisingly, all of these fathers excelled in school as a way to pull themselves out of each of their extraordinary life circumstances. Obviously, they were bright, talented men, but above all their strong ambition and determination brought them to the U.S. in their early thirties. Once they were in America, the fathers went as far as they could possibly go and should be proud of their accomplishments. However, one notable distinction is that their successes were not in mainstream America, but were limited to the Korean ethnic community. For example, Ruth’s father started and ministered a church for more than twenty-eight years, but it was with first generation Koreans; Esther’s father was a very successful entrepreneur, who made a fortune marketing his innovative products to big industries, but it was with companies in Korea; and Hanna’s father’s law practice predominantly served the Korean American community. In fact, limited structural assimilation is not only felt by first generation Korean males, but even by the 1.5 or 2nd generation young men who are more fluent in English. For instance, both Ruth and Esther mentioned in their interviews how ethnic minority males are given little or no opportunity to advance in their line of work by White male supervisors. Thus, regardless of their education and training in this country, many Korean American males feel marginalized in the structural sense, no matter how long they have been living in this country (Hurh, 1993). For these first-generation Korean fathers, who came to the U.S. in their early thirties, they probably felt their marginality in American society even more acutely. Although their graduate and professional degrees were earned outside of Korea, they were probably aware of their limitations in terms of fully assimilating not only structurally, but also culturally even in their daily interactions with their own children in terms of language and culture. So, no matter how much these fathers achieved, perhaps even beyond their hopes, they probably felt that all their dreams have not been fully realized. As a result, these Korean fathers may collectively share what is commonly known in Korean culture as han, frustrated hopes and dreams (Park, 1993). As discussed in Section I, Korea, as a small nation, has been exposed to endless social, economic, and political oppression, and it has deeply penetrated the Korean people’s collective psyche for many generations. Although some of the fathers may have been very young when the Japanese Occupation and Korean War took place, they were most definitely affected

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by these historical events since they grew up in the aftermath. As young men, they mustered up all the courage they had to leave the land they knew for the unknown, with the hope of a better future. Ironically, the han they so desperately tried to leave behind was what they faced more deeply as immigrants in this country. Han is a complicated concept born out of a long history of collective experiences of oppression. However, what is important for our discussion here is that these Korean fathers, even with the best of intentions, transferred their unfulfilled hopes and ambitions to their children. Because their children were raised and educated in this country, the fathers hoped that the next generation would be able to go to the very top and excel in mainstream American companies. In all three of the cases, we see how the fathers’ ambition for their daughters shaped these women’s lives. Understanding Fathers’ Han on the Daughters Of the three interviewees, Hanna was most strictly socialized to conduct herself according to traditional Korean customs, but she also indicated that there was “no distinction” (HA512) in her family as far as the expectation for a daughter to achieve a higher education and career like a son. So, in Hanna’s case, we see her father encouraging his daughter, who has most closely followed his footsteps, (i.e., first majoring in economics and then getting a law degree) to climb the corporate ladder and become a partner in a top American law firm. To reach this goal, she comments her father would not mind if she decided not to have any children and focus solely on her career. However, Hanna indicates she knows the sacrifices she would have to make in order to reach such a level as a woman. And, she clearly states, “But it’s not for me. I guess I want more family. I want more balance” (HB1174). Interestingly, of the three women, Hanna is most able to verbalize her desires to her father, as she did when she was younger that “marriage was always in [her] plan” (HA 423). In Ruth’s case, as the oldest in the family, she always tried to fulfill the traditional role of the “eldest son” and did precisely what her father expected. So she succinctly states, “It kind of all boils down to that I chose career” (RC10). She put all her needs aside and single-mindedly focused on one goal—to see her name scroll up with the credits of not any movie but big budget Hollywood films. When this dream finally came to fruition, Ruth’s heart swelled up with such a sense of pride, but it went far beyond herself. She brought honor to her family and was recognized by the “Korean newspaper and radio” (RC1245) as one of the first Korean Americans to break into a field dominated by White males.

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However, establishing herself as the best in her field had its price. As soon as Ruth reached the top, her body began breaking down because she had continuously pushed herself so hard, for so long. This was an important wake-up call for Ruth, which forced her to re-evaluate what it all means to her. Although Ruth has no regrets, because she did what she had to do, she sees all the missed opportunities, including marriage. Ruth was always a little “prideful” about relationships, “thinking it was going to fall in [her] lap one day” (RC190). Sadly, Ruth found it very lonely at the top because most men, especially Korean men, were intimidated by her success. Esther is also the oldest in her family and has a very special, close relationship with her father. Similar to Ruth, she considers herself the “son figure” (EC879) and mainly wants to be “self-sufficiently wealthy in [her] own right” (EC1143) so that she can take care of her younger siblings when her parents are no longer around. With her father mentoring her about the business world, Esther has been able to climb the company ladder quickly, going from a computer program developer to a marketing project manager. Nevertheless, she is very impatient about not being promoted fast enough because she has an ambitious goal of becoming a vice-president of a company with the corner office by thirty-five. And, Esther feels she cannot really think about marriage and family until she has reached her goal. So, just like Ruth, Esther states that finding a husband is not her number one priority right now, although it is her mother’s because Esther will be turning thirty soon. Although Esther seriously talked about her ambition of wanting to be a CEO of a company, she then surprisingly mentions succeeding in the business world is more her father’s dream. Esther, in fact, revealed she has always been more interested in the non-profit, public service sector since college and dreamed of developing health clinics in third-world countries. When it was pointed out that these two goals seem opposite of each other, Esther just stated that this is the reason she is taking her time thinking through whether to get her masters degree in business or public policy. In this way, Esther seemed divided between her father’s ambitions for her and her own dreams. Mothers’ Supporting Role Initially, the level of these fathers’ influence on all three of the participants’ lives was a rather surprising finding in the study. Based on my own experience and review of the literature (see Korean American Women’s Identity and the Making of the Self section), I expected the mothers to play a more prominent role in shaping the daughters. Because the collected data did not seem to “fit” initially, I employed a recursive analytic strategy, hermeneutic

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circle, to spiral through examining the data, proposing interpretation, and then re-examining the data to test and correct the evolving interpretation (Polkinghorne, 1991). This was actually a critical process in analyzing the data because the fact that the mothers’ role in these women’s life was not immediately obvious was an important piece of information in understanding the hidden meaning. What I realized was that unlike other questions centered around their fathers, school, and career, all three of these women had difficulty articulating their mothers’ influence because they had so perfectly fulfilled their traditional “selfless, other-oriented self” role in the family. In typical traditional Korean fashion, there was a clear division of labor, even in rearing the children. While each of the fathers coached these women for the outside world (the warrior), the mothers trained them on how to behave within the home (selfless). Thus, their fathers talked with them about important matters (e.g., Korean history and culture, academic performance, career choice), while the mothers automatically carried out everyday practices and quietly displayed traditional Korean female virtues (e.g., suffering silently, being strong and diligent with family/domestic matters, always putting family/others before self). While Hanna admittedly has a closer relationship with her mother than her father, the other two women had very little to say about their mothers. In both Ruth and Esther’s case, they were obviously closer to their fathers perhaps as the first-born. On the other hand, their mothers appeared to be largely silent figures. What was most surprising about the interview was that both Ruth and Esther did not bring up their mothers when asked about significant figures in their life. For example, Esther first talked about how her grandmother was her heroine because she was a “superwoman” (EC640). And then she said her parents are the only other people she strives to earn respect from. However, when asked more in depth, Esther only described her father’s accomplishments and how he is her hero. She did not explain what role her mother played in her life. When the same question was brought to Ruth’s attention, she also mentioned her grandmother and father. And, then she added her college professor and sixth grade teacher among the list of significant people in her life, without including her mother. When that was pointed out to her in the interview, Ruth explained how her mother was “a typical Korean woman” (RC742) who hid any potential negativity from the children, including when she was getting a biopsy for cancer. So, Ruth states her mother was a pillar of “absolute strength” (HC765), but because she hardly ever talked, her mother did not have very much influence on her life growing up. In fact, Ruth indicates she is only now getting to know her mother as an individual.

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Even Hanna, who had a closer relationship to her mother than her father, shared in her last interview after the wedding that she is also only now discovering her mother as a woman with her own emotions and interests. From these three women, the picture that emerges about their first generation mothers is how they played the traditional Korean woman’s role so well that they were well “hid” from their own daughters’ lives. All of the women would agree that their mothers are incredibly strong women and made selfless sacrifices to take care of the family. However, their mothers seemed to have transmitted the other-oriented tradition through everyday actions than through words, which escaped their daughters’ awareness. Especially in Ruth and Esther’s case, the mothers seemed to have taken the back seat to their husbands and played the silent, supportive role even when it came to rearing the children. The fathers were the ones who were more vocal and often talked extensively to their daughters about what was expected of them, which seems to be what the daughters remembered in the interview as adults. What is interesting in all three of the cases is that these women felt they would need to be flexible and do whatever it takes to accommodate having children. In this way, just as they observed their mothers play the supporting role in the family, they also seem to see themselves in a similar light. This was particularly evident in Hanna’s story when she shared wanting to help advance her husband’s medical teaching career even over her own career development. Hanna, who just got married, obviously gave these issues the most thought and has the most concrete plans. In her discussion, a couple of important themes came to the surface. First, Hanna who grew up with the message that “girls are moldable” used the most vivid words to describe how she is willing to “stretch . . . twist . . . or change things” (HB1114) in her life to make sure she is a good mother and be a part of her children’s lives. She was aware that her willingness to do this may make her career more expendable than her spouse’s; however, she knew for certain she would be cutting back her hours and ultimately her career in order to be home with the children. Family Collectivism and Individual Choice The notion of having the choice seems to be a very important theme for all three of the 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean American young women. In fact, Hanna broke up with her previous Korean boyfriend because she felt he was demanding her to follow choices he made for her. Similarly, Ruth shared that after ending a serious relationship with one Korean guy that she was more than willing to adopt the traditional wife role if it was left up to her and was not demanded. What she wanted most was the choice to do it.

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Thus, what seems to set the next generation of women apart from their first generation Korean mothers is not whether they will or will not do traditional women’s tasks, but that they want the freedom to make that decision. While these daughters grew up watching their mothers fulfill the traditional Korean wife’s role at home so flawlessly, they were also exposed to the dominant culture’s values—egalitarian and individualistic perspectives. These two very different cultural expectations of women will inevitably clash, especially as these women begin making their own choices regarding career, marriage, and children. The way these three young women are creatively resolving the dual-cultural value conflict seems to be that they are willing to accept the traditional wife’s role like their mothers and adopt the other-oriented self, but only if it is their choice. And, this is the amazing paradox. These 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean women feel compelled to preserve the collective, interdependent orientation their family maintained to survive in America as ethnic minorities. As we have seen in all these women’s stories, the motivation behind Korean American achievement is rooted firmly in the collectivistic than in the individualistic orientation, even in the 1.5 and 2nd generation. In fact, Ho (1996) suggests what allows collectivism to link individual achievement to family-oriented achievement is filial piety, which is the guiding principle that governs the social ethic in Asian culture—obeying and honoring one’s parents. This is seen in all three of the women’s stories, but it is most intensely felt among the oldest daughters who filled the eldest son role and internalized the family obligation to take care of the aging parents and younger siblings. However, regardless of the birth order or gender, what all three of the women share in common is the emphasis on higher education and career achievement as the bi-product of the ideological manifestation of their Korean immigrant parents’ struggle to become prosperous and realize the American dream. In this way, we have come full circle. Under the traditional Confucian view, we have seen how the first generation Korean mothers’ hard work was interpreted as a duty to her family, rather than an expression of an individual right or accomplishment. The three 1.5 /2nd generation Korean American women’s stories show a lot more individual pride in their achievements in education and career than their mothers, but ultimately what deeply motivates them, sometimes even against their own competing individual desires, is securing their family’s future and bringing honor to the family name. And, just as these younger women’s “we” consciousness allowed them to so passionately strive for collective, family achievement, we see, at least in part, their willingness to continue the other-oriented, interdependent practices they have observed in their mothers in their own

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marriage; however, it has one big caveat. The next generation of Korean American women wants to connect their “I” consciousness or choice with their other-oriented sacrifices they are willing to make for their marriage and children. Although on the surface this may seem like a minor change, I believe a big shift is actually taking place internally among the next generation of women. We see some evidence of that change with each of the women’s stories. In many ways, Ruth seems resigned to the fact that it may be too late for her in terms of an idealized marriage ever taking place, but she is making an effort to shift from her family-oriented “we” consciousness to “I” consciousness. She finally said no to her father, no to the church, and no to teaching Sunday school in order to say yes to concerts, yes to travel, and yes to meeting other people with different interests. Hanna is also standing up to her father in saying no to his ambitious career dreams for her and instead saying yes to early marriage and planning to have children in a few years as she has always dreamed. Esther, as a younger version of Ruth, seems to still be very much caught between her father’s and her own dream. However, the fact that she is still taking time and thinking through what she really wants to do, rather than already working on her MBA as her parents expected of her is a sign that she is working toward her own individuation. No doubt collective-oriented achievement motivation will probably decline among Korean Americans with each generation as greater acculturation is achieved at the values level. However, family-oriented achievement motivation among Korean Americans may not disappear as long as they have to wrestle with their minority status issue that forces collective/family orientation to survive in this country.

REFLECTIONS In many ways, my interview with these three women flowed more like a conversation, which made their stories resonate with me even more. As a firstborn child, I could definitely relate to both Ruth and Esther’s sense of duty and obligation toward their family and feeling responsible for taking care of the younger siblings. I could also identify with both Ruth and Hanna’s frustration about being treated differently than their brothers because they were girls. Moreover, even though I did not grow up in Southern California like these women, I certainly knew what it was like to be the only Korean or Asian in a school. And, like each of them, academic achievement was stressed by my family as a way to succeed in America as a minority. In spite of some of these shared experiences, I also noticed a lot of individual variations. One of the most notable differences is the type of

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acculturation experience each woman went through and the age they immigrated to the U.S. Listening to each of the women’s stories and comparing them to my own experience, I realized a few years in childhood can make a big difference in the way each of our stories unfolded. For Hanna and Ruth (i.e., individuals who were either born or came to the U.S. as an infant), any mention of learning the dominant language is noticeably absent from their stories and they discuss absorbing the mainstream culture and values from their peers (e.g., popularity, stylish clothing, boys) seamlessly and effortlessly in their childhood. Esther (i.e., came to the U.S. at age five), on the other hand, casually mentions she picked up English within a very short period of time upon entering kindergarten. Even though she may have learned the language quickly, it is interesting to note that Esther did not absorb the dominant peer culture (e.g., described herself as wearing big glasses and being very “nerdy” and “academic” all through her elementary years) as quickly or fully as the other two interviewees. In fact, it is not until Esther reached her adolescence that she completely adapted to American cultural values and practices (e.g., being the “best” American which included popularity, cheerleading, late curfew, dating) and clashed with her parents, who had more traditional values and expectations like most Korean immigrant parents (e.g., focusing only on academics, any spare time devoted to reading or music, no dating at least until college). Differing even more, because I immigrated to the U.S. at age ten, I spent most of my late childhood and adolescent years learning the language in order to do well in school and there was little or no time left for social diversions. Thus, it appears that the older you are, the longer it seems to take to be comfortable with the language and longer still to absorb mainstream cultural values and lifestyle. In this way, the age when an individual acquires the dominant language seems to be highly sensitive to the rate and degree of the acculturation process. In my literature review, I did not come across any study that specifically looked at the age of dominant language acquisition and the level of cultural value changes or adaptation among children of immigrants or ethnic minorities. However, comparing these three Korean American women’s experiences and my own, I came across an interesting observation in the study. The age at which one acquires the dominant language clearly impacts the immediate adjustment to one’s environment, but even more deeply and pervasively, it may shape one’s worldview, cultural values, and life choices. For future research, this may be an interesting area to examine further to understand not only the importance of language acquisition and fluency itself for adjustment, but also how that in turn translates into one’s conceptual cultural framework or values orientation. Moreover, based on the findings with these three women, it may be

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critical to look at the individual’s relationship with his/her family and cultural value orientation, regardless of the generational level. Limits of the Study As previously described in Section II, I chose the qualitative approach in order to gain an in-depth understanding of the complex phenomenon anchored in real-life situations. Following the case study method, I carefully chose three participants who were insightful and willing to openly discuss their lives; and thus provide “thick,” rich data for this study. However, the analysis of these case studies was not intended to provide broad generalizations about acculturation. Instead, the purpose of this study was to elaborate on the unique intricacies and complexities of the dual cultural context. Although the information collected is from a small number of individuals, my intent was to increase awareness and sensitivity in the multicultural counseling field. Coming from a similar background as these three women who participated in this study, I knew the subject matter intimately from my own experiences of living between two cultures. While my familiarity with the subject matter provided invaluable insights and accessibility to the participants, I was very much aware that my personal experiences and values could also affect the study. In qualitative research, the investigator is the primary instrument for gathering, analyzing, and producing meaningful information. As such, objective understanding can never be fully achieved because as the human instrument that collected the data, I will necessarily come to the situation with my own pre-understanding or pre-judgment. Although I cannot escape my own subjectivity, I tried to approach the study with openness in understanding others’ experiences and co-create meaning. To establish my credibility as a researcher, I have also provided any personal information that may influence data production, analysis, and interpretation throughout this study. Implications for Multicultural and Counseling Field As pointed out in Section I, current identity development models of ethnic minorities (Atkinson et al., 1983; Sue & Sue, 1990; Phinney, 1993) often cited in multicultural counseling literature are derived from Cross’s (1971) model of Black/racial identity development. However, it is important to recognize that this theory, like all knowledge generation, is rooted in a particular historical and cultural setting. So, it is important to recognize that this racial identity theory grew out of the socio/political climate in this country following the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. As such, it may have been a useful tool for understanding the developmental concerns of a

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specific group of individuals from that particular time period. As we have seen with these three cases, the model does not generalize well to other racial/minority/ethnic group living in another time period with a different set of social/political situations. This is largely due to the fact that both racial/ethnic groups as well as individuals are constantly in flux, multifaceted, and highly contextual. The emerging properties of the human realm call for a particular and local understanding (Polkinghorne, 1998). In the last four decades, many changes have occurred in this country demographically. As explained in the literature review section, even though the history of Korean immigration in the U.S. dates back over one hundred years, the actual make up of the Korean ethnic group altered dramatically after the post-1965 U.S. immigration policy. With rapid demographic changes and increased diversity, the dominant cultural discourse regarding ethnic minorities has also shifted from “the melting pot” (i.e., assimilation) in the 60s (Gordon, 1978) to “the salad bowl” (pluralistic/multicultural) metaphor in the 80s and 90s (Berry, 1980/1990). As discussed earlier, the findings from each of the women show that various acculturation issues at various points in their development do not fit well with the stages outlined in the ethnic/minority identity development models (Atkinson et al., 1983; Phinney, 1993; Sue & Sue, 1990). One of the major problems with all of these identity models derived from Cross’s racial identity theory is that it is based on the assimilation perspective. The first stage of all of these models starts with the assumption that racial/minority/ethnic individuals prefer or have already conformed to the dominant culture’s values. With each of the three participants, however, this was far from the case. All of the women fit in with the dominant culture, but they all indicated holding onto their ethnic identity and pride. In all three of the women, what is noticeably missing in their stories is the lack of interaction between their American (peers from elementary to high school/work) and Korean social groups (family/church/college friends). I believe that this separation occurs at the individual level because there is little assimilation at the structural level. In this sense, multidimensional models of acculturation (Berry, 1980, 1990; Keefe & Padilla, 1987; Oetting and Beauvais, 1991) more accurately reflect the dual cultural experiences described by these Korean American women. These models more accurately reflect the culture change process in multiple dimensions and conceive individuals acquiring new cultural traits of the dominant group while simultaneously retaining their traditional values. However, all these approaches do not sufficiently capture the complexity of dual cultural experiences and conflicts in cultural values described by these three women. Each of the 1.5 and 2nd generation Korean

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American women’s stories show that their immigrant parents have neither culturally nor structurally assimilated into the dominant society even though they have resided in this country for over 30 years. Although their children seem assimilated both culturally (e.g., only fluent in English) and to a certain degree structurally (e.g., professional careers in the mainstream), at a deeper level, they still uphold the traditional Korean cultural values transmitted by their parents. An in-depth look at these three cases reveals that the highly “acculturated” American born/raised daughters, at the core, identify more strongly with traditional Korean female virtues (warrior/selfless self; Kim, 1996), even though they insist it is their choice to do so. As pointed out earlier, one of the reasons for this finding may be due to the close relationship these women have with their parents. This was not one of the characteristics I had considered at the outset of the study, and did not intend to interview only those individuals who were close to their families. However, it may be an interesting area to examine further—to see whether this finding holds true for other 1.5/2nd generation Korean American women who may not be particularly close to their parents/family. Further still, it would be interesting for future studies to examine how the patterns or themes observed with these 1.5/2nd generation Korean Americans compare to other women from different immigrant or cultural backgrounds. Clinically, it is important to recognize the significance of the individual “choice” theme stressed in these women’s stories. Although this element may seem minor, I believe it is an indication of a critical shift taking place internally for each of these Korean American women. In a small but significant way, although these daughters appear to be taking on the same traditional, other-oriented self within the family context, they are different from their mothers psychologically because they have embraced their own individuality. The next generation of daughters may be willing to take similar actions, but different meanings are attached for them. They may be willing to perform some of the traditional, nurturing, caretaker roles in the home, but this is not a sign that they necessarily agree with gender inequality or subordination of the female sex. These women’s insistence to assert their choice is their way of exerting their power as co-equal partners in the marriage/family. Therapists working with the next generation of Korean Americans, or other ethnic minority women, would need to recognize the subtle nuances of what choice represents for these women and empower its full meaning. Therefore, it is important for the therapist working with dual-cultural clients to decode the complexity of the meanings individuals attach to their

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actions. Even a tiny internal shift as discussed above may be an early sign of an individual’s attempt to integrate or make sense of two very conflicting cultural values. As 1.5/2nd generation Korean American women reach their middle years, they may increasingly search for ways to create a more coherent life story by integrating various “main characters” (McAdams, 1993) or competing cultural images. It will be important for them to find a meaningful balance between self (individualism) and other (collectivism). On the other hand, it is also important for therapists, who are traditionally trained to view psychological issues at the individual or intrapsychic level, to recognize how larger forces (i.e., family, cultural, racial, political) operate and complicate individuals’ lives and their development. While it is important to help individuals gain greater self-understanding in psychotherapy, it is also essential to recognize various social constraints on individuals living in a dual cultural context. As much as some of these individuals may strive to integrate their two separate worlds, it may not always be possible. Historically, experiences of other Asian Americans who have been in the U.S. for more than three or four generations (Kitano & Daniels, 1987; Takaki, 1993; 1979) reveal a lack of full assimilation at the structural level in America. And, these social forces will most likely continue to encourage Korean Americans, like other racial/ethnic minorities, to adhere to the family-oriented, interdependent cultural values (Ho, 1996; Kibria, 1993) in the interest of collective success in this country.

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Appendix

General Interview Questions

Domains

Sub-domains

(Research Questions)

(Interview Questions)

1. What kinds of experiences did the interviewees have in the first two years of their life (i.e., affects the narrative tone of their story)?

1. Where were they born (Korea or U.S.)? 2. How was their birth received in their immediate and extended family? 3. Who was their primary caretaker(s)? 4. What language(s) was spoken at home?

2. What was their early childhood (preschool years) like (i.e., generates images)?

1. What was it like growing up in their family? 2. How was their relationship with parents? 3. How was their relationship with siblings? 4. How were boys and girls treated? 5. Did they attend preschool? If so, were they around mostly Korean or non-Korean children and adults? 6. What language(s) did they speak in their early childhood years?

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Appendix Domains

Sub-domains

(Research Questions)

(Interview Questions)

3. What was their late childhood (elementary-school years) like (i.e., develops a story theme)?

1. Where did they grow up (Koreatown, suburb of L.A., remote area in the U.S.)? 2. What was it like going to school? Were there many Koreans or were they the only Korean in school? 3. Did they have contact with many Koreans/non-Koreans outside of their family? 4. What language(s) did they speak fluently at this age? 5. What were they expected or not expected to do because they were girls? 6. What gender role similarities or differences did they observe at home, school, or other settings?

4. What was their adolescence like (i.e., develops an identity and ideology for the first time)?

1. What was it like going to school? 2. Did they have many Korean and/or non-Korean friends? 3. What was the parents’ expectation about dating? Peers? Self? 4. Did they have any idea what they wanted to do when they grew up? If so, what was influential in shaping this idea? 5. How was the decision reached about going to college and selecting which school? 6. Who were influential figure(s) in their life during adolescence? 7. How did they feel about being Korean American? 8. How did they feel about being a young woman? (continued)

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225 Domains

Sub-domains

(Research Questions)

(Interview Questions)

5. What were their college years like (i.e., creating and refining main characters)?

1. What was their college experience like? 2. Did they have more or less contact with Koreans during their college years? 3. How much contact did they have with their family while they were in college? 4. Did they date Koreans and/or non-Koreans in college? 5. How did they decide their major and future career path? 6. Did their gender and/or ethnicity affect their major or career decision?

6. What are their post-college years like (i.e., creating and refining main characters)?

1. Do they think they will marry Korean or non-Korean? What is their parents’ expectation? Siblings? Peers? 2. What is their expectation about marriage? Is this similar or different from what they observed growing up from their parents’ marriage? What factors influence their expectations about marriage? 3. How much do they expect their spouse to help out at home? Where does this expectation come from? 4. Are they planning to have children? If so, do they expect their children to speak Korean and/or know Korean culture? Who will be taking care of the children and what factor(s) influence this decision? Did their mothers work or stay home while raising them? (continued)

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Appendix Domains

Sub-domains

(Research Questions)

(Interview Questions)

5. How important is their career? How will it be affected by marriage? Children? 6. Do they have many Korean and/or non-Korean friends? 7. Do they speak both Korean and English fluently? If not, which language do they speak more fluently? 8. How much contact or involvement do they have outside the Korean community? Within Korean community? Where do they feel most at home? 9. Do they experience conflict(s) between Korean and American culture regarding marriage? Career? Parenthood? Friendship? If so, how do they come to terms with conflicts in these areas? 10. What aspects of Korean culture would they like to see preserved? Changed? 11. What factors impact their development as Korean American women?

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Index

A Acculturation, 4–9, 14–17, 73–74, 101, 122 behavioral, 3 culture change, 9, 18–19, 220 and ethnic identification, 18, 22 selective, 22, 74, 105 strategies, 19, 21, 24 values, 3, 217–218 Achievement, 114, 142, 182, 206, 216–217 Analysis of narratives, 44 Assimilation, 18–20, 69, 73, 220 economic, 20 sociocultural adaptation, 24 structural, 89, 105, 138, 211, 220–222 Atkinson, D. R., 11

B Beauvais, F., 23 Berry, J. W., 21–22 Biculturalism, 20–25, 105 psychological well-being, 3, 24, 41 Bipolar model, 20–21 Bruner, J., 28

C Case study method, 43–45, 54, 219 Co-creation, 55, 61; see also Fusion of horizons Collective case study, 45; see also Multiple case study Collective story, 203 Complexity, 14–17, 24–26, 43–35, 220–222 Conflict cultural, 3, 14, 25 dual-cultural values, 4–5, 69, 216

gender role, 16, 26, 159, 201 identity, 12, 39–42 parent-child, 162–164 Confucianism, 30–34; see also NeoConfucianism family collectivism, 31–33, 38–39, 91, 215–216 gender precepts, 31–32, 206 Cross-case analysis, 45, 60, 203 Cultural identification, 23–25 Culture change, 4–5, 9, 18–24, 122, 220 definition, 14 values, 26, 41, 93, 117, 220–222 Cross, W. E., 10 Crossley, M. L., 50, 52, 59, 64

D Deuchler, M., 31 Dual-cultural identity, 26, 105, 125, 131, 220

E Early years, 65, 111, 152, 203–204 Economic security, 39, 42, 88–92, 140, 183, 204 Education achievement of, 114, 182, 206, 216 emphasis on, 124, 134, 177, 191, 206 opportunity, 36, 38, 65, 78 Erikson, E. H., 9, 27, 39 Ethical responsibility, 53–56 Ethnic identification, 18, 22, 74, 124; see also Cultural identification

237

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238 identity, 13–17, 73, 85, 120, 123 identity model, 15 pride, 85, 123–124, 210, 220 Expectation cultural, 99, 130, 191–192, 197, 216–218 family, 84, 140 gender role, 143–146, 160, 182 parent, 98, 114, 164, 177, 183

F

Index Identity development, 8–9, 30, 73–74, 120, 209–210 Individual choice, 81–85, 99, 198–201, 215–217, 221 Interview guidelines, 49–51 protocol, 51–53 transcribing, 56–58

K

H

Kandiyoti, D., 38 Keefe, S. E., 3, 22 Kibria, N., 34, 38 Kim, A. R., 31, 34 Korea Christianity in, 34–35, 37 Japanese occupation, 34 modernization of, 34 labor force, 35 Yi Dynasty, 31 Korean American women agentic character, 40–42 communal character, 40–42 identity, 21 traditional image, 30–33 Korean immigrants, 65, 110, 121, 154, 206 and Christianity, 35–37 community, 35–37, 42, 211 family collectivism, 32, 38; 215–217 father’s ambition, 138, 210–212 han, 211–213 parents, 69, 85–85, 113, 201, 208–210 pride, 72–73, 120, 209–210 and small business, 38 the third wave, 36, 154 women and work, 37–39 Korean immigration history, 35 Naturalization Act of 1965, 35, 220

Hermeneutic circle, 58, 214 Hurh, W. M., 36

L

Family, expectations of, 84, 140 imagery, 31–32 immigration, 35–36 labor and, 35–39, 195 obligation, 90–92, 105, 116, 148, 205 Filial piety, 156, 216 1st generation, see First generation First generation, 36, 86, 115, 129 fathers, 210–212 mothers, 39, 215–216 parents, 89, 116, 118–125 women, 40, 196 Fusion of horizons, 55, 61; see also Co-creation

G Gadamer, H. G., 55, 58, 61 Gender and culture, 64, 81, 93 inequality, 35, 138, 221 precepts, 31–32, 206; see also Confucianism role, 37, 123–124, 143–146, 159 socialization, 182–183, 201, 204–206 Go-between, 116, 134

I Identity, 14 and culture, 5 ethnic, see Ethnic identity integration, 22–24, 30, 41–42, 73 minority, see Minority identity personal myth and, 29–30, 39, 42, 59, 68, 111 racial, see Racial identity

Labor division of, 158, 214 and woman, 34–48, 195 Language acquisition, 21, 210, 218 Life chapters, 59 Lim, I. S., 38

M Marcia, J., 9, 15 Marginal, 19–21, 23, 36, 89, 211

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Index McAdams, D. P., 29–30, 39–41, 59 “Melting pot.” See assimilation Middle class Korean, 48, 73, 145 White, 5, 35, 117, 120, 154, 169 Minority identity, 11–13 Minority Identity Development model (MID), 11 status, 13–14 Morten, G., 11 Multicultural, 24 counseling, 5–8, 219–222 Multidimensional model, 21–23 Multiple case study, 45, 60–62 cross-case analysis, 45, 60 within-case analysis, 60

N Narrative, 28–29 analysis, 44, 58–61 configuration, 58 mode of thought, 29 smoothing, 58 Narrative tone and imagery, 29, 30–33, 66, 111, 157; see also Early childhood Neo-Confucianism, 32–33; see also Confucianism

O Oetting, E. R., 23 1.5 generation, 36 Orthogonal model, 23–26

P Padilla, A. M., 3, 22 Paradigmatic mode of thought, 28 Participant selection, 45–49; see also Sample Patriarchal bargain, 38 Personal-myth, 29 ideology, 30, 33–34 main characters, 30, 39–42 Phinney, J. S., 14–15 Polkinghorne, D. E., 27–29, 41, 44, 58–60 Popularity, 68–70, 118, 161–164, 166

239 Psychological well-being, 24, 41; see also Biculturalism

R Race and culture, 11, 12–13 definition, 10 Racial/Cultural Identity Development model (R/CID), 12 Racial identity, 9–11, 13 Cross’s model, 10 Religious imagery, 32–33 Ricoeur, P., 60

S The Salad bowl, see Multiculturalism Sample, 45–49; see also Participant selection convenience, 46 maximum variation, 46 purposeful, 46 size, 48 2nd generation. See second generation Second generation, 23, 36, 102, 152, 201 Self other-oriented, 32–33, 40, 90, 114, 214–217 selfless, 33–37, 40–42, 206, 221 Shamanism, 32 Story themes, 29 adolescence, 77–78, 124, 173 career and self, 93–95, 141, 201–202 college years, 84–85, 132, 182–183 early childhood, 68, 111, 157; see also Narrative tone and imagery late childhood, 73–74, 116, 164 relationship and self, 105–106, 148–149, 190–191 Suburbs, 206–209 Sue, D., 11, 12 Sue, S., 12 Synchronic data, 44

W Warrior image, 32, 40 Within-case analysis, 60, 203

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