The Road to Multiculturalism in South Korea

Ideas, Discourse, and Institutional Change in a Homogenous Nation-State

Timothy C. Lim, Timothy Lim

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000289961
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

This book aims to capture the complicated development of Korea from monoethnic to multicultural society, challenging the narrative of "ethnonational continuity" in Korea through a discursive institutional approach.

At a time when immigration is changing the face of South Korea and an increasingly diverse society becomes empirical fact, this doesn't necessarily mean that multiculturalism has been embraced as a normative, policy-based response to that fact. The approach here diverges from existing academic analyses, which tend to conclude that core institutions defining Korea's immigration and nationality regimes—nd which, crucially, also reflect a basic and hitherto unyielding commitment to racial and ethnic homogeneity—ill remain largely unaffected by increasing diversity. Here, this title underscores the critical importance of "discursive agency" as a necessary corrective to still dominant power and interestbased arguments. In addition, "discursive agents" are found to play a central role in communicating, promoting, and helping to instill the ideas that create a basis for change on the road to remaking Korean society.

The Road to Multiculturalism in South Korea will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, immigration and migration studies, race and ethnic studies, as well as comparative politics broadly.

1 Racist past, multicultural(ism) future?^*

* Portions of this chapter (and parts of Chapter 2) are based on my previously published article (2020), “‘It’s Not Just Talk’: Ideas, Discourse, and the Prospects for Transformational Change in a Homogenous Nation-State,” Asian Ethnicity 21(3): 348–72.

Racism in South Korea: Deep and everlasting roots?

South Korea is, according to many observers, a deeply racist society. “It’s not,” as Kanika Copeland, a Black woman who teaches at Dongguk University in Seoul, puts it, “the you-don’t-deserve-to-live racism that exists in the US,” but it is nonetheless “very racist” (Volodzko 2017). Importantly, it is not just outsiders who feel this way. Se-Woong Koo, the co-founder and publisher of Korea Exposé, took his fellow Koreans to task in an opinion column published in the New York Times (2018). His column was a response to the virulent reaction toward a small group of Yemini refugees—about 550—who had arrived on the South Korean island of Jeju and applied for asylum beginning in early 2018. Noting that more than 500,000 South Koreans signed a petition to turn away these refugees and that many had staged an anti-immigrant and “refugee-bashing” demonstration, Koo wrote,

South Korea has long been intolerant of outsiders, but the outrage triggered by this small number of Yemenis arriving on our shores shows how deep xenophobia runs here. For all of South Korea’s success as a democracy and as a thriving economy, compassion and humanitarian instincts are in short supply.

Koo also pointed out previous incidents of racial harassment, much of which has been specifically targeted against people with darker skin. More significantly, in December 2018, a large consortium of Korean NGOs (2018)¹ submitted a report (hereafter, the Alternative NGO Report) to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).² The consortium not only condemned the South Korean government for its “excessive emphasis” on racial and cultural “oneness” but also condemned it for cultivating and sustaining a system of state racism (6, 7), which suggests that racism is baked into South Korea’s institutional core.

The existence of deep-seated, pervasive, and institutionalized racism in South Korean society is hardly in serious dispute, at least among informed observers. Nor is the source of that racism: Ever since its inception as a country in 1948 (and even before), Korean leaders have consistently and often stridently emphasized a national identity based on the demarcation and valorization of the Korean “race”³ as not only distinct from all other races and ethnicities, but also as racially pure. The motivation for this effort is not difficult to discern and, from a comparative historical perspective, is utterly unremarkable. To wit, in the era of the modern state, it reflects the desire to construct a singularly dominant national identity, which is used, in part, to instill a deep, collective commitment to the state among those who share or, more accurately, are allowed to share that identity. Conversely, it is used to ascribe “otherness” as a way to legitimize discriminatory or unequal treatment of marginalized populations. As Will Kymlicka (2007) writes, “Virtually every Western democracy has pursued this ideal of national homogeneity at one point or another, as have virtually all post-communist and post-colonial states.” Significantly, though, Kymlicka singled out South Korea as one of the few countries in the world—along with Iceland, Portugal, and North Korea—that has not had to actively construct the “ideal of national homogeneity.” The reason, Kymlicka matter-of-factly asserts, is simply that Korea (South and North) is “historically mono-national.”⁴

The presumption that South Korea has always been homogeneous was, for a long time (including up to the present), widely shared and taken for granted. Beginning in the mid-2000s, however, a number of scholars have effectively and thoroughly debunked the presumption of natural or organic homogeneity in Korea (Shin 2006; N.Y. Kim 2008; and C.S. Kim 2011). Choong Soon Kim (2011) provides a particularly straightforward assessment. “The evidence from Korean […] history, and contemporary demographics,”⁵ she writes, “suggests that the conventional view of Korea as a racially and culturally homogeneous society may have no foundation at all” (xiv). In fact, Kim also noted that, for centuries, the peninsula has been filled with the descendants of immigrants from throughout Asia and other regions, including the Han Chinese, Mongolians, Manchurians, Vietnamese (or immigrants from the country now known as Vietnam), Jurchens, Khitans, Japanese, Arabs, and various other groups from South and Southeast Asia. Altogether, according to Kim, almost 12 million of South Korea’s 46 million people (based on the 2000 census)—or more than one-quarter of the total population—were and are not of “pure Korean blood.” In a very important sense, though, the historical and empirical fact of ethnic diversity, or of “impure” or “mixed blood,” on the Korean peninsula is irrelevant. What matters is what people believe and accept as the truth, which, to repeat, is the idea of racial and cultural oneness or of pure blood. And, it is pretty clear that Koreans, for the most part and at least until very recently, have believed exactly that. In a 2000 survey conducted by Gi-Wook Shin and Paul Yunsik Chang (2004), for example, fully 93 percent of South Korean respondents said they “agree” or “strongly agree” with the statement, “Our nation has a single bloodline” (123).

The near-unanimous belief in a single bloodline among South Koreans is testament to the effectiveness of the state’s unremitting efforts—over more than half a century and spanning multiple political regimes (from authoritarian to democratic; from deeply conservative to progressive)—to construct and maintain the “ideal of national homogeneity.” Crucially, the ideal of national homogeneity has had, and continues to have, concrete and powerful practical consequences in South Korea. This is most clearly seen in the country’s legal–institutional system on nationality and immigration, which, as the Alternative NGO Report put it, is unmistakably “based on principles of ‘distinction and exclusion’ and ‘selective assimilation’” (2018, 7). These principles have, for practically the entirety of South Korea’s short history, led to and been clearly reflected in a severely discriminatory regime that has systematically restricted, ignored, or subverted the civil, labor, and human rights of racial, ethnic, and other minorities living in South Korea. Conversely, it has created the basis for “special treatment” of those minority groups that ostensibly share a pure Korean bloodline, i.e., ethnic Koreans who emigrated from Korea one or more generations ago. Since the 1990s, the minority groups that have received the most attention, in media and academia, are principally labor migrants and marriage immigrants from China (including ethnic Koreans, typically referred to as Joseonjok),⁶ Central Asia (especially Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan), and a range of South and Southeast Asian countries: Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, among others. An examination of these minority groups is certainly important and constitutes a major part of this book. However, the original and longest suffering victims or targets of South Korea’s racist and discriminatory regime were multiracial persons born in South Korea, the so-called Amerasians (a term that I will generally eschew in favor of “multiracial Koreans”). This latter group is often overlooked but their experiences and treatment, for reasons that will be explained later, should and even must be a central element of any discussion of racism and discrimination in South Korea, as well as of understanding the prospects for multiculturalism. Accordingly, the Amerasian or the first multiracial Korean community will be the empirical focus of the next chapter.

Box 1.1 What is multiculturalism?

“Multiculturalism” is a term that generates a lot of heated discussion. Whole books and long, dense articles have been written about the various meanings, contradictions, and implications of the term itself (see “Further Reading” later). In more recent years, moreover, the real-world practice of “multiculturalism” (as manifested in public policies meant to address directly or indirectly ethnocultural and racial diversity within the borders of a single country) has been weighted down with a ton of political baggage as many societies, Western European ones in particular, have experienced an intense “multiculturalism backlash.” It is also important to emphasize, as Joppke and Lukes (1999a) assert, that “there is no MC [multiculturalism] tout court; there are only specific, context-dependent multicultural problématiques” (16). This frequently cited statement, most simply, means that multiculturism plays out differently in different societies, in part because “there is great diversity in the empirical conditions of different social settings” (Tiryakian 2003, 28). To get a concrete sense of this, consider the United States and South Korea. The US has a centuries-old history of visible ethnic and racial diversity and a nationality regime based on jus soli (citizenship based on place of birth). South Korea has only a decades-old recent history of visible ethnic and racial diversity and a nationality regime based on jus sanguinis (citizenship based on blood). The US also has a still powerful legacy of racism that was originally used to justify a system of slavery, while South Korea does not. The list could go on for quite some time, but the key point is this: With just a few salient differences, it is not hard to imagine that the US and South Korea would follow very different paths when it comes to the institutional treatment of ethnocultural minority groups; more to the point, we should not expect “multiculturalism” to look the same in the two countries.

It is important, though, to avoid concluding that, because there is no single, unqualified multiculturalism, that “multiculturalism” has no common elements from one society to the next. From a social science perspective, this would be quite problematic, since it would be impossible to develop an explanation for multiculturalism if it is mostly and even completely different everywhere it exists. In this view, the “road to multiculturalism” could be a road to anywhere (or nowhere).

Multiculturalism as a discourse

So, what are the common elements? Tiryakian (2003) identifies one: “At a high level of generality, MC is a normative critique of the institutional arrangements of the public sphere that are seen as injuring or depriving a cultural minority of its rights” (28). To a large extent, this is multiculturalism as a discourse, although the precise content of that discourse may vary significantly around the world and across time (both among countries and within countries). It is worth noting, too, that this element of multiculturalism presupposes the existence of a majority ethnie (or ethnocultural group) and at least one minority ethnocultural group. Today, the descriptive term “multicultural” is used to denote the empirical fact that multiple and distinct ethnocultural groups occupy a single country (“diversity”—often with a qualifying adjective such as “racial,” “ethnic,” or “cultural”—is a synonymous term).

Multiculturalism as state or public policy

These leads to second common element, which can be broadly labeled, “multiculturalism as state policy” (Tiryakian 2003). As a state policy, multiculturalism has two integrally related parts. The first is “official” recognition that minority ethnocultural groups do, in fact, exist. This may seem unimportant, but in some societies—South Korea is one particularly relevant example—the existence of ethnic, racial, or cultural minority groups was, for a long time, essentially denied. Second, as state policy, multiculturalism implies an official effort to accommodate, from a legal–institutional perspective, ethnocultural or other types of minority groups who may be permanent or temporary residents, citizens or non-citizens. These accommodations can vary widely from reducing discrimination and barriers to inclusion in the public and private spheres, to proactively protecting and promoting the interests of ethnocultural groups (e.g., affirmative action), to ensuring that the norms and values of the dominant ethnie do not serve as the national standard for all citizens.

Multiculturalism and democracy

Additionally, it important to note that, while issues related to the relationship between and among different ethnocultural groups have existed as long as such groups have existed, “multiculturalism” as a discourse and state policy is intimately connected to the development of liberal democracy. Consider, on this point, how Will Kymlicka (2010), who is widely considered a doyen in the field of multiculturalism studies, defined multiculturalism. “In my view,” he writes, “multiculturalism is first and foremost about developing new models of democratic citizenship, grounded in human rights ideals, to replace earlier uncivil and undemocratic relations of hierarchy and exclusion” (emphasis added; n.p.) Kymlicka is not alone; most scholars agree that, while the principles of multiculturalism can conflict with or even contradict principles embedded in liberal democracy, the two concepts have become largely inseparable. The reason, to put it in the simplest way, is clear: The pursuit of “minority rights” requires political institutions, such as an independent judiciary, that enables marginalized, subordinated, or oppressed groups to have their voices heard and their basic rights protected. In illiberal political systems, minority groups are typically repressed. (I provide further discussion on the importance of the democratic context later in this chapter.)

Multiculturalism as a process

Finally, it is vital to understand that multiculturalism, whether as a discourse or state policy, should not be viewed as an either–or condition. Instead, it must be seen as an ongoing process, which not only unfolds over time, but which also ofte...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Note on Korean and Japanese names
• 1 Racist past, multicultural(ism) future?
• 2 Dangerous babies: Ethnonationalist discourse, the institutionalization of a discriminatory regime, and the advent of multiculturalism
• 3 “We are human”: Immigrant labor and the discursive struggle for humanity and rights
• 4 Who gets to be “Korean”?: The Korean diaspora, Korean Chinese, and the malleability of Korean identity
• 5 Multiculturalism from the “front of the line”: Marriage migrants, multicultural families, and the challenge of incorporation
• 6 Ethnonationalism, “foreign residents,” and multiculturalism in Japan and South Korea: A comparative perspective
• 7 South Korea’s multiculturalism present and future: A conclusion
• Index