Korean American Culture

America is the country of immigrants, besides the native American, Americans are made of people from all around the world. “The influence of beautiful helpful character is contagious, and may revolutionize a whole town.” said by Collier Graham. The group of Korean Americans occupy a big portion in Asian-Americans, they moved to the U.S. since 19 century. It is a important choice for Korean because they were moving to a completely country with strong government, freedom and money, especially compare to the country Korea with trauma after war. People considered the reason that Korean moved to the U.S., the way of people view them in America and how do they maintain their own culture and adapt a new culture at the same time. There are several
reasons made Koreans chose to leave their hometown. The third wave of Korean immigrant to the US started in 1965. People left Korea due to deficient job opportunities since they just ended up with independent war, the economy system was still in trouble, people were living under low-standard of life. The second reason is the political insecurity, which means Korea is under the military dictatorship, Koreans didn't have many freedom either on politics nor social life at that time. The last reason is Koreans were looking forward to having a better life in America since the population grew rapidly in Korea at that time. Some immigrants went to reconstruct their family in the U.S. and tried to get better education for themselves or for their children since the competitiveness of college is intense. The Korean that immigrated to US were called "Korean-American", it literally seems like they are both Koreans and Americans.
However, the native Korean and native American have disagreement with them. The native Korean have complex feeling of those immigrants, they thought the Korean-American has betray their country, they create a huge havoc in tradition like they owe to Korea because they don't speak Korean. In the Oriental culture, the blood-tie is important. Compare to the United States, which is who you are depends on where you born in, Koreans believe that you regard to be a Korean if your parents are Koreans. On the other hand, the native Americans was not considered those immigrants as "American". According to the speech by Woo Susie , the native Americans always ask the Asian-Americans "where do you come from", but they don't usually ask the Anglo American. It shows that the native American still regard the Asian American as foreigner since they have yellow skin and black
eyes. Since the largest amount of Korean arrived in 1965, they do not have a long period of history in the U.S, which means the compose of Korean-American are mostly the first-generation immigrants and their kids. Those kids were born in America and educated in America, which makes Korean concern that the traditional culture that they brought from Korea to the United States will be lost. Therefore, the Korean-Americans came out a couple of solutions to maintain their culture while adapt a new culture. First, family members are lived closely or even living in the same house. In Korean culture, the family life is emphasize compliant with superior or eldership, which means children listen to parents, wife listen to husband and the young listen to the old. This is the quintessence of Korean culture, which come from confucianism that deeply influence the way of Korean thinking and behaving. The kind of custom will be engrained in children’ s mind. Second, Korean are finding the balance of English skill and Korean language. English is the necessary skill to live in American society, but Korean language is the most important representation in Korean culture. In the Korean community, most of the children are learning english as second language since most of them were learning Korean at home or at Korean language school from infancy on. Even if some of the children did not accept the Korean language education officially, they have to speak Korean at home, thus their ability of listening and simple speaking were build up. The Korean immigrant are eager to keep their native language by rising many Korean language schools which mostly held by churches or rent the local public schools. All in all, these paragraphs demonstrated what caused Koreans to immigrant to America, how Koreans and Americans have different ideas on Korean-Americans and the ways that Koreans reserve their traditional culture in American Society.
The Koreans decided move to America for a standard-up life, when they head over to the U.S., people who stayed in Korea regarded them as betrayers. Meanwhile, the native Americans don’t see them as “Americans”. Although people choose to leave their hometown, the culture still remain in their mind deeply, in order to avoid the lost of Korean culture in the states, the Korean-Americans raised some ways to save their culture like language and
custom.