A special section in the latest issue of the journal Asian Survey, coedited by APARC and the Korea Program Director Gi-Wook Shin, suggests a new framework in both social discourse and policy that reflects the varied complexities of Korea’s increasingly diverse migrants and that charts a course forward for a nation that is staring into a demographic abyss.

South Korea (hereafter Korea) is widely regarded as among the world’s most ethnically and linguistically homogeneous countries. In 1990, Korea counted only 49,000 foreigners amongst its population. But over the last two decades, the number of migrants in the country has grown dramatically, reaching 2.3 million (or 4.5% of the population) in 2018. Just as important is the growing diversity of migrants coming to Korea. In addition to unskilled workers and marriage migrants from developing countries, they increasingly include skilled migrant workers and marriage migrants from a range of developed Western countries.

These more recent migrant groups, however, do not fit into the dominant framework of Korean multiculturalism, and often remain invisible in Korean society, facing discrimination and largely left out of social discourse and government policy. For a nation that is aging faster than any other developed country and that struggles with weak global talent competitiveness, it is crucial to better understand the growing heterogeneity and complexity of migrants beyond their dichotomized depictions as Korean versus non-Korean in ethnicity and citizenship.

This is the focus of a special section in the July/August 2019 issue of the journal Asian Survey, titled Korea’s Migrants: From Homogeneity to Diversity. Coedited by APARC and the Korea Program Director Gi-Wook Shin and former Koret Fellow in Korean Studies Rennie J. Moon (now associate professor at Yonsei University’s Underwood International College), the special section collects articles that examine issues of class and highlight the contributions of migrants from both human and social capital perspectives, with an eye to a better appreciation of the values of diversity and transnationalism. “By doing so,” write Shin and Moon, “we aim to provide a better understanding of the varied experiences, realities, and complexities of Korea’s increasingly diverse migrant groups” and to “suggest a new framework in both social discourse and policy that reflects these complexities.” The articles in the special collections were originally presented and discussed at the Korea Program’s ninth annual Koret Workshop.

Diversity within Korea’s Migrant Groups

To capture the diversity and complexity of Korea’s migrants, Shin and Moon say, scholars need to examine within-group variation. The papers in the special section do so with respect to three migrant groups—marriage migrants, return migrants, and skilled labor—by focusing on nontraditional, relatively under-researched, highly skilled populations, mostly from developed countries, within those groups:

University of Sheffield scholar Sarah A. Son studies cross-border marriages between Korean men and Anglophone women, and shows that these Western women have very different experiences and social expectations compared with Asian female marriage migrants from developing countries. Western women bring greater perceived socioeconomic equality to the relationship by virtue of their economic position, education, and cultural background, and do not fit the common description of Asian female marriage migrants as representative of hypergamy (marrying a partner of higher social status). They also do not conform to the Korean state’s vision of social integration and resist its policy provisions to a greater degree than Asian marriage migrants. In fact, multiculturalism policy has failed to engage this Western migrant group.

What does it mean to be a skilled migrant returnee in Korea? Singapore Management University Research Fellow and former APARC Visiting Scholar Jane Yeonjae Lee provides an answer to this question by looking at the varying experiences and coping strategies of Korean returnees from New Zealand. She finds that, thanks to their educational and economic status, they fare better than traditional ethnic Korean return migrants, who experience hardships due to their status as unskilled labor. However, the process of skill transfer is not easy, and most of the skilled returnees are not fully accepted as Korean, experiencing some degree of alienation and disconnection based on their “overseas Korean” identities. In addition to greater social acceptance of skilled returnees, Lee argues, Korea needs a better policy mechanism for sustaining return migration.

Lastly, Shin, Moon, and former Koret Fellow in Korean Studies Joon Nak Choi (now an adjunct assistant professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Business Management) focus on elite groups of skilled labor migrants, particularly foreign students studying in Korea and foreign professionals the country imports as skilled labor. The three authors aruge that Korea has largely failed to leverage the potential of these migrant groups, and that it must pay close attention paticularly to their human and social capital potential.

Migrants’ human capital stems from their specialized skills acquired through education, training, and work experience, which can benefit especially Korea’s small- and medium-sized firms. Their social capital is the value they can provide through their social ties that spread information and innovations and that form “transnational bridges” between Korea and their home countries. Social capital is especially advantageous for Korea’s large firms that compete in global markets.

The authors stress the need for Korea to develop a new policy framework, known as study-work framework, for cultivating social capital for skilled foreigners while in Korea. If Korea is to meet the challenges associated with its aging, depopulation, shrinking workforce, and weak position in the global war for mobile skilled talent, then it must “better appreciate the value of the cultural diversity [migrants] bring to its society and economy, as well as their human and social capital contributions.”

View the complete special section >>

Learn more about Shin’s and Moon’s related joint research project Migration, Cultural Diversity, and Tolerance >>

At the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, on April 22, 2019, Secretary Norman Mineta was interviewed on stage and Rylan Sekiguchi shared SPICE’s soon-to-be-released set of free lesson plans, “What Does It Mean to Be an American?” Special guests included Louis Cannon, senior White House correspondent for The Washington Post during the Ronald Reagan administration and biographer of President Ronald Reagan; Joanne Drake, Chief of Staff and Official Spokesperson in the Office of Ronald Reagan; Japanese Americans who were incarcerated during World War II; and teachers and students. Partnering with the Reagan Library on this special event were Facing History and Ourselves, The Mineta Legacy Project, and the Japanese American National Museum.

“Could you tell us about the flag that you wear on your lapel just above your Medal of Freedom?” This was one of the questions that was asked to Secretary Norman Mineta during a recent interview at the Reagan Library. Mineta—after a pause—replied that he wears the U.S. flag pin because some people still treat him like a foreigner, even as an American-born citizen. During the interview, Mineta touched upon different aspects of his life, including being incarcerated by his own country as a 10-year-old boy in 1942, serving in the U.S. Army, and participating at the highest levels of U.S. government. Following the interview with Mineta, Rylan Sekiguchi gave an overview of several forthcoming lessons from SPICE that will use key themes from Mineta’s life to explore the central question, “What does it mean to be an American?”

Rylan Sekiguchi gives an overview of “What Does It Mean to Be an American?”

Megan Gately, Associate Director of Education at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute, conducted the interview. Her opening question, regarding Mineta’s family, prompted Mineta to note, “I very carefully chose the family that I was born into”—a response that drew laughter from the audience. This was the most lighthearted moment of the interview. He then recounted a familiar American family narrative—that of his father, who immigrated to the United States seeking a better life. Mineta’s father emigrated from Japan in the early 20th century as a 14-year-old who boarded a ship in Yokohama, Japan, not knowing anything about the United States. He initially worked in farm labor camps in the Pacific Northwest and worked his way south to California.

Mineta continued by describing the shocking news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. During an emotional segment of the interview, Mineta shared that his father “couldn’t understand why the country of his birth was attacking the country of his heart… He came to love this country very, very much.” He described the resulting confusion and chaos in the Japanese American community, and how placards suddenly appeared on his neighborhood’s utility poles after Executive Order 9066 was issued on February 19, 1942. He recalled reading the placards that stated “All Japanese persons, both alien and non-alien, will be evacuated” but being puzzled by the term “non-alien.” His older brother had to explain to him that it meant “citizen.” Reflecting on that memory, Mineta emphatically stated, “That is why today I cherish the word ‘citizen,’ because the United States government—my own government—wasn’t willing to describe me as a citizen.”

Mineta and his family were initially incarcerated at the Santa Anita Race Track in Southern California and then in an internment camp in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. While in camp, his Boy Scout troop leader sent an invitation to troops outside of camp to invite them to join the Japanese American scouts in the camps. The initial replies were “no” because those on the outside thought that the camp was a POW camp with its barbed wire fences, guard towers, and machine guns. Eventually a Boy Scout troop from the town of Cody visited the internment camp. This is where Mineta met fellow Boy Scout Alan Simpson, who later became a U.S. Senator while Mineta was a U.S. Congressman. Simpson and Mineta have remained lifelong friends since then.

After World War II, Mineta served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. He first entered elected office in 1971 when he won the mayoral race in San Jose, California. After serving a four-year term, he successfully ran for Congress. He won re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives ten times before returning to the private sector in 1995. Later, he joined the cabinets of two presidents: first, in 2000, as Secretary of Commerce during Bill Clinton’s final six months in office; then, in 2001, as Secretary of Transportation for George W. Bush.

August 10, 1988, President Reagan shaking hands with Norman Mineta after signing the Civil Liberties Act of 1988; courtesy of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.

This reply led to a smooth transition to Sekiguchi, who shared an overview of the free online lessons that are being developed for high school and college students. The lessons, explained Sekiguchi, consist of six independent learning modules that each examines a key theme from Secretary Norman Mineta’s life and career: immigration, civil liberties and equity, civic engagement, justice and reconciliation, leadership, and U.S.–Japan relations. The lessons have been developed in consultation with Mineta and the Mineta Legacy Project team, including Dianne Fukami, Debra Nakatomi, and Amy Watanabe. Fukami and Nakatomi are the producers of the documentary film, Norman Mineta and His Legacy: An American Story, which will air on PBS on May 20, 2019. The event ended with a book signing of Andrea Warren’s biography, Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta, a Boy Imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp During World War II.

The six free lesson plans will be released in Fall 2019. For project updates, sign up at whatdoesitmeantobeanamerican.com and/or join the SPICE email list.

• Secretary Norman Mineta and SPICE’s Rylan Sekiguchi highlight National Council of History Education conference in Washington, DC

Tomorrow marks the 150th anniversary of the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad. The tracks of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. In a ceremony, Central Pacific Railroad President Leland Stanford drove the last spike, now usually referred to as the “Golden Spike,” at Promontory Summit. What has largely been left out of the narrative of the First Transcontinental Railroad is the estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Chinese laborers who worked on the Central Pacific Railroad. They were paid less than the white workers and as many as a thousand lost their lives, and they eventually made up 90 percent of the workforce that laid the 690 miles of track between Sacramento, California, and Promontory. In a recent Stanford News article, Olive H. Palmer Professor in Humanities Gordon Chang, one of the lead scholars of Stanford’s Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project, noted that “Without the Chinese migrants, the Transcontinental Railroad would not have been possible. If it weren’t for their work, Leland Stanford could have been at best a footnote in history, and Stanford University may not even exist.”

Provost Persis Drell with SPICE Director Gary Mukai and SPICE Instructional Designer Jonas Edman

At the event, SPICE Curriculum Consultant Gregory Francis and I gave an overview of the curricular component of the Project, which helps to make the Project’s findings and materials accessible to teachers and students. The four free lesson plans that SPICE developed bring all of the Project’s “bells and whistles” to high school students and help them understand this often-overlooked part of U.S. history.

The Chinese Railroad Workers Project lessons touch upon many key issues in the high school U.S. history standards, including the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, immigration to the United States, challenges faced by immigrants like the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the growth of the American West. SPICE worked closely with Chang, Fishkin, and Dr. Roland Hsu, Director of Research at the Chinese Railroad Workers in North America Project, to plan and write the free lesson plans, which are available for download from the SPICE website. Each lesson incorporates the Project’s scholarship and primary sources.

Lesson 1 focuses on the use of primary sources to understand and interpret the past. Students review resources and artifacts on the Project website, discuss whether each is a primary or secondary source, and postulate what questions the resource could help them answer. Students then read and discuss excerpts from Maxine Hong Kingston’s classic book China Men.

One of the political cartoons (Harper’s Weekly, April 1, 1882) that students examine in the lesson “Challenges to Chinese Immigration and Assimilation”

Lesson 2 focuses on racism and discrimination broadly and in the specific context of discrimination directed toward early Chinese immigrants in the United States. Students learn the history of Chinese Americans and attitudes toward them during various periods of immigration. They analyze U.S. political cartoons on Chinese immigrants from the 1870s and 1880s and read four short documents from different periods of time regarding issues of immigration, discrimination, and assimilation of Chinese Americans.

Lesson 3 uses photos to show students the physical and natural challenges to building the Transcontinental Railroad and asks them what they can infer from these photos about life building the railroad. Students then work in small groups to read oral histories of descendants of the Chinese railroad workers. They then write and perform a mock script for an interview between the Chinese railroad worker they read about and a group of reporters.

The final lesson explores the historical and cultural background of San Francisco’s Chinatown and its significance to the Chinese community in the United States over time. Students compare descriptions of Chinatown written by Chinese residents with those from non-Chinese visitors, view historical photos of Chinatown, and watch a lecture by Chang on the interdependence of Chinatown and the Chinese railroad workers. Finally, students encapsulate the legacy of the Chinese railroad workers by designing a memorial in their honor.

Did you know MIP has a joint degree program with Stanford Law? Find out why our graduate student, Julia Neusner, decided to add on the MIP program to her studies on our FSI blog. #MIPFeatureFriday