{"id":26816,"date":"2012-12-06T00:53:46","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T00:53:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=26816"},"modified":"2012-12-06T00:53:46","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T00:53:46","slug":"demographic-shifts-redefine-what-it-means-to-be-korean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=26816","title":{"rendered":"Demographic Shifts Redefine What It Means to Be Korean"},"content":{"rendered":"

Demographic Shifts Redefine What It Means to Be Korean<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2012-11-29<\/p>\n

Choe Sang-Hun<\/strong><\/p>\n

SEOUL, South Korea \u2014 Jasmine Lee realizes just how Korean she\u2019s become when she breaks out in the language, forgetting that her Filipino mother on the other end of the phone can\u2019t understand her. But she is reminded of the limits of assimilation when Koreans, impressed by her fluency, comment: \u201cYou sound more Korean than Koreans do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms. Lee, 35, who was born Jasmine Bacurnay in the Philippines, made history in April when she became the first naturalized citizen \u2014 and the first non-ethnic Korean \u2014 to win a seat in South Korea\u2019s National Assembly. Her election reflected one of the most significant demographic shifts in the country\u2019s modern history, a change Ms. Lee says \u201cKoreans understand with their brain, but have yet to embrace with their heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only a decade ago, school textbooks still urged South Koreans to take pride in being of \u201cone blood\u201d and ethnically homogeneous. Now, the country is facing the prospect of becoming a multiethnic society. While the foreign-born population is still small compared with countries with a tradition of immigration, it\u2019s enough to challenge how South Koreans see themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time to redefine a Korean,\u201d said Kim Yi-seon, chief researcher on multiculturalism at the government-financed Korean Women\u2019s Development Institute. \u201cTraditionally, a Korean meant someone born to Korean parents in Korea, who speaks Korean and has Korean looks and nationality. People don\u2019t think someone is a Korean just because he has a Korean citizenship.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…One of every 10 marriages in South Korea now involves a foreign spouse. Although overall numbers of schoolchildren in South Korea have been declining \u2014 to 6.7 million this year from 7.7 million in 2007 \u2014 as a result of one of the world\u2019s lowest birth rates, the number of multiethnic students has been climbing by 6,000 a year in the same period.<\/p>\n

\u201cA multicultural society is not just coming; it\u2019s already here,\u201d Ms. Lee, a member of the governing Saenuri Party, said in an interview at her office in the National Assembly…<\/p>\n

…\u201cThey bring religious and ethnic strife to our country, where we had none before,\u201d said Kim Ky-baek, publisher of the nationalist Web site Minjokcorea and a critic of the government\u2019s policy of admitting and providing social benefits to foreign-born brides and migrant workers. \u201cThey create an obstacle to national unification. North Korea adheres to pure-blood nationalism, while the South is turning into a hodgepodge of mixed blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The challenge for South Korea is whether it can \u201credefine the nation, embracing people who do not share the same blood into a broader Koreanness,\u201d said Chung Ki-seon, senior researcher at the IOM Migration Research and Training Center…<\/p>\n

…And this year, for the first time, South Korea began accepting multiethnic Korean citizens into its armed forces. Previously, the military had maintained that a different skin color would make them stand out and hurt unity…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Demographic Shifts Redefine What It Means to Be Korean The New York Times 2012-11-29 Choe Sang-Hun SEOUL, South Korea \u2014 Jasmine Lee realizes just how Korean she\u2019s become when she breaks out in the language, forgetting that her Filipino mother on the other end of the phone can\u2019t understand her. But she is reminded of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,33,8,394],"tags":[13026,13027,228,2640,229,2327],"class_list":["post-26816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia","category-census","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","tag-choe-sang-hun","tag-jasmine-lee","tag-korea","tag-new-york-times","tag-south-korea","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26816","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}