The Integration Debate: Competing Futures for American Cities

Nancy Abelmann’s book, The Intimate University, reveals stories of Korean American students at the University of IllinoisUrbana/Champaign, where she has been teaching for many years. She indicates that the American public image of Korean and other Asian Americans is that of model minorities whose racial characteristics do not have a negative effect on their academic achievements and socioeconomic mobility. But she shows that Korean American students, the largest ethnic group at the university, are socially segregated, which dogs the liberal promise of the university emphasizing the ideology of multiculturalism. The author points out that at the time she started the book project, a journalist contacted her to complete an article about Korean students’ ‘‘self-segregation’’ for Time magazine. However, in her view, racism and racial stereotypes are the main sources of Korean students’ social segregation at the university. She is not afraid to point out that the university administration is not concerned about Korean students’ social segregation, which contradicts the ideal of a multicultural education. Thus the main objective of the book is to show that Korean students at the University of Illinois cannot leave the their ethnic ‘‘comfort zone’’ due to racism and racial stereotypes. In addition, Ablemann also shows exceptions to stereotypical images of Asian Americans, associated with the model minority thesis, as ‘‘hardworking and successful,’’ and seeking ‘‘instrumental striving and materialism. ’’ Through the voices of several students and some of their parents, she makes clear that both Korean students and their parents also stress the importance of a liberal education. As an anthropologist, Abelmann used ethnographic research as the major research technique for this book. She talked to the student informants about ‘‘how they managed their lives and studies in college; how they envisioned life after college; and when it mattered to them . how their families figured in their college lives’’ (p. 4). She took the intergenerational approach, analyzing stories of not only students, but also some of their parents. She took the transnational approach by looking at the parent generation’s history and educational aspirations back in Korea. Although she interviewed over fifty students for this book, each chapter focuses on each of several members of the Han extended family and a few other Korean students. By devoting four of the seven chapters to members of the Han family, including two children, their parents, their cousin and uncle, the author has made the book an intergenerational family study. While three chapters (Chapters Four through Six) respectively focus on each of the male members of the Han family, the last chapter introduces narratives of two immigrant women from the Han extended family to capture women’s concerns and gender issues. The author’s intergenerational and transnational approaches and her focus on family, class and gender bordering South Korea and the United States reflect her ongoing research interest in these topics, reflected in her previous publications. Abelmann is partly successful in dispelling stereotypes of Korean and other Asian Americans associated with the model minority image. Several studies have documented that Korean and other Asian immigrant parents emphasize their children’s achievement and success in school and push their children to choose science, law, medicine and business related to high-paying and high-status careers. These studies and journalistic stereotypes tend to give the general image that Asian immigrant parents and to a less extent Asian American students only emphasize the instrumental value of college education, failing to recognize the value of liberal studies. But this book shows that many Korean students and their parents do