Asian Diaspora in the Era of
Globalization: Lived Experiencesamong Different Cultures
Editor Jinhye Lee

Asia-Japan Research Institute
Ritsumeikan University

AJI BOOKSAsian Diaspora in the Era of
Globalization: Lived Experiences among
Different Cultures
EditorJinhye Lee

Asia-Japan Research Institute
Ritsumeikan University
ISBN 978-4-9911356-6-8 (Online)
ISBN 978-4-9911356-7-5 (Print)

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization: LivedExperiences among Different Cultures

AJI Editorial Office
OIC Research Office,Ritsumeikan University Osaka Ibaraki Campus (OIC)
2-150 Iwakura-cho, Ibaraki,
Osaka 567-8570 JAPAN
Email: aji-eb@st.ritsumei.ac.jp
Copyright © 2021 Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University

Note:
Authors’ names in this publication are ordered according to their preference andtheir surnames are capitalized.

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

Contents
Preface
Jinhye LEE ….……………….……...……………..…..………… iv
Presenters ………………………………………………………..vi
Presentation 1. Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France: Second
Generation Asian Youth’s Mobilization
Ya-Han CHUANG …………….………………………..…………… 1
Presentation 2. Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest
Workers
Helen KIM ………………………………………………………. 19
Presentation 3. Border Struggles and the Production of Political
Subjectivity of the Indonesian Domestic Workers [as Manifested in
Their Narratives]
Tri MURNIATI …..……………….……...………..…………...….. 35
Presentation 4. Preserving the Life and Culture of the Korean Diaspora
among the Majority: Ethnic Minority Rights in Kazakhstan in the PostSoviet Era
Jinhye LEE ……………………………………….………………… 47
Concluding Remarks: Provocative Issues at a Crossroads in Asian
Diaspora Studies
Jinhye LEE………………..…..…..……………….………………. 63
Bibliography ……..……………………………...…………………. 75

iii

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

Preface
It is my great pleasure to have this volume published in the AJI
Books series and I really appreciate the Asia-Japan Institute giving me
this opportunity.
The contents are based on an international workshop held in July
2021. I am very grateful to our guest speakers, Dr. Ya-Han Chuang, Dr.
Helen Kim, and Dr. Tri Murniati, both for their participation in theworkshop and their contribution to this volume. Due to the difficulties
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to switch from convening
an onsite workshop to an online workshop. Usually, it is difficult to build
intimacy and trust through digital online communications. However, myencounters with our dear invitees turned out to be an exception to thisrule. Sharing our common goals of seeking a deeper understanding of
Asian diasporas and trying to improve their actual lives through our
research brought us closer, and I was able to develop a warm and fruitfulfriendship with them.
It is truly wonderful to have academic friendships where we canexchange our field experiences, views on our research topics andmethodological perspectives. I really hope to develop our friendshipfurther in the path of pursuing cross-border academic collaborations inyears to come.
In the process of editing the manuscripts, the contributors were
extremely helpful in making their chapters fit to the whole scheme of thevolume. I am very grateful to them.
At the end of our workshop, we had a very productive discussion
with many interesting questions and valuable answers. Rather thantranscribing this discussion verbatim, I decided to write a concluding
chapter to present the issues and topics in a way that will, I hope, makethem more accessible and constructive for our readers. Although it has
not been possible to cover all the aspects and issues related to the Asian
Diaspora in such a small volume, I believe that we have touched on someiv

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
vital issues including ethnicity, international migration, and cultural
diversity with Asian perspectives.
I owe a great deal to Professor Yasushi Kosugi, Director of AsiaJapan Research Institute at Ritsumeikan University, who acts as mysupervisor in the Institute. After I graduated with a Ph.D. from the
Graduate School of Asian and African Studies, Kyoto University, I had
the good fortune to attain a fellowship at the JSPS (Japan Society ofPromotion of Science) as a special foreign researcher, dispatched to
Ritsumeikan University. Prof. Kosugi’s guidance and support have been
so precious and indispensable for my academic life as an early career
researcher.
Dr. Ayaka Kuroda has been extremely supportive and helpful inorganizing the workshop. She also acted as co-chair with me. Dr. Ammar
Khashan also helped me with his accomplished techniques in using ICT
tools. My sincere gratitude goes to both of them.
I have no words to express my sincere thanks to Prof. Anthony
Brewer for his guidance as the special advisor to the organizing
committee and for his dedicated editorial support in making this volume.
I hope that this humble work sheds some light on the important
issues in the research we are seriously engaged with, and contributes ina small way to making the global, yet diverse, society a better place tolive in for us all.

Jinhye Leev

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

Presenters
Ya-Han Chuang
Presentation 1. Constructing Pan-Asian
Identities in France: Second Generation
Asian Youth’s Mobilization
Dr. Ya-han Chuang is a Postdoc researcher at
the French Institute for demographic studies.
She has published a book entitled “The Emergence of Asian Identities inFrance”. Her articles include: “Asiaphobie: a Blind Spot of the AntiRacist Movement in France”, "‘Security is a Right’: Legitimizing theCommunitarian Mobilisation under the French Republican Model”,“Coronavirus and ‘Stop Asian Hate’: Assuming Double Belongingness”.
She also published a book “A Model Minority? Chinese in France andAnti-Asian Racism” (Une minorité modèle? Chinois de France etracisme anti-Asiatiques. Editions La Découverte, 2021)

Helen Kim
Presentation 2. “Journeying ‘Elsewhere’:Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers”
Dr. Helen Kim is a Lecturer in the School ofMedia and Communication at the Universityof Leeds. Her research focuses on diaspora,urban migration and ‘race’ in the UK, the US
and Germany. She wrote “Making Diaspora ina Global City: South Asian Youth Cultures in London” in 2015. She iscurrently writing her second book on diasporic and postcolonial memory
and twice migration based on the oral histories of the Korean‘guestworker’ diaspora who have settled in Germany and the US.

vi

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

Tri Murniati
Presentation 3. “Border Struggles and theProduction of Political Subjectivity of theIndonesian Domestic Workers (asManifested in Their Narratives)”
Dr. Tri Murniati is a lecturer at Universitas
Jenderal Soedirman, Purwokerto, Indonesia.
She received her PhD in Comparative
Literature and Cultural Studies from the University of Arkansas. Her
research focuses on narratives written by Indonesian domestic workers(IDWs). Her dissertation, in particular, examines IDWs’ migratory
experiences such as their everyday border struggles in the host countries.
Her current research explores Indonesian migrant narratives in relation
to the issue of citizenship.

Jinhye Lee
Presentation 4. “Preserving the Life andCulture of the Korean Diaspora among the
Majority: Ethnic Minority Rights in
Kazakhstan in the Post-Soviet Era”
Dr. Lee received a PhD in Area Studies,from Kyoto University in 2019. She is aforeign postdoctoral fellow of the Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science and ispresently engaged in Korean Diaspora research at the Asia-Japan
Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University, Japan.
Dr. Lee specializes in research on the Korean Diaspora (Koryo
Saram) in Contemporary Kazakhstan. Her dissertation “Social
Transformation of the Korean Diaspora (Koryo Saram) in Contemporaryvii

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Kazakhstan” explored the acculturation of Koryo Saram in the postSoviet Union as a minority in Kazakhstan and a part of the Korean
Diaspora. Her current study analyzes the social integration andtransformation of the Koryo Saram, the Korean Diaspora in Kazakhstan
from the Perestroika period, just before the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, to today’s Kazakhstan, after its independence.

viii

Presentation 1

Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France:
Second Generation Asian Youth’s
Mobilization
Ya-han Chuang
1. Introduction
My presentation today is taken from a chapter of my book drawing
on the emergence of Asian Identities in France. The book’s title is “A
model minority? Chinese migrants and anti-Asian racism”, and it’s basedon interviews with Chinese migrants under the current tide of racism
against Asians in France, as we can see in Picture 1 from one of myinformants, one of the young activists in France.
Picture 1. “I am not a virus”

Source: Author

1Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
The question about racism against Asians and the group identity of
being Asians in France is rather new, both in the Media but also among
the activists. I will discuss how these identities have been constructedand have evolved through different waves of mobilization over the lastten years, and how this consciousness about being Asian began with asmall number of migrants of Chinese descent, but has grown to include
youths whose parents came from different parts of Asia, and still
continues to evolve and to change in France.
I would like to highlight two contexts to understand thisphenomenon in France. The first is the ambivalent category of being
Asians that has been observed all over the world since the outbreak of
the COVID-19 pandemic. Since last year, in numerous countries in theWest and worldwide, we have been observing Asian phobia, racism
against Asians, or Asian hate. These sentiments against people perceived
as Chinese, Asian or East Asian have been observed and discussed by
the Media, but they do not show how such hostility has been ignored andcomplicated. It also raises the question of being Asian because COVID19 was a phenomenon firstly discovered in mainland China. All the
recent Media attention has raised some significant questions: ‘What doesit mean to be Asian today’? Does Asia only refer to East Asians from
China, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, or is it actually the whole of Asia in
the geographic concept?
In the French context, there has been a fear about the emergence ofChina over the past 10 years. As a superpower, its hegemonic culture has
been revealed in political circles, and since the COVID-19 pandemic has
occurred, the fear behind the seeming admiration for China’s image has
been projected on all the people in France who are perceived as being
Chinese. This is the first context about such a phenomenon and its effect.
The literature on global “Asian-phobia” catalyzed by the COVID-19
pandemic (Strabucchi and Chan 2021; Li and Nicholson 2021) points out
the paradoxical consequences of China’s global rise.
The second field of literature that I want to discuss focuses on theidentity formation of second-generation immigrants. How can immigrant2Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in Francechildren use their culture as an element of their collective action?
Regarding this, I will refer to the idea of Peggy Levitt, who talks about
the transnational social field as a cultural repertoire for the second
generation immigrant (Levitt 2002), as a new tool of cultural activism tohelp them to construct their identity. Another writer on this topic is the
Canadian cultural sociologist, Michelle Lamont, who has been talking
about the emergent desire of enticed imitation in anti-racism (Lamontand Flemming, 2005).
In this initiative it seems that the cultural element, cultural repertory,
is much more important than the traditional form of militancy against
racism, and there has been a transfer of focus from the question ofredistribution to the question of recognition.
My research examines how the second-generation Asian youth inFrance constructs its cultural repertoire within the assimilationist
paradigm of the French “Republican Model” and asks how their own
Asian identity and experience of travelling in Asia affect their repertoireof action.
My case study focusses on second-generation Asian youth in France,with whom I have been conducting interviews from 2012 to the present.
I have interviewed some of the people whom I mention in mypresentation several times since 2012. In fact, we have become more orless friends and acquaintances through the evolution of the mobilization.
Others I have contacted during the past two years since the movement
against racism after COVID-19 began. Altogether there are more than
thirty-two different youths of different origins whom I have quoted inthis study, and most of their parents come from the East Asian countries
like China, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, and I will explain why later.
In addition, I conducted observation in the immigrant association’s
meetings and demonstrations. Finally, there will also be an analysis of
media coverage and social media posts to highlight a different
phenomenon and stigma.

3Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

2. Asia-Phobia: a Blind Spot in the French AntiRacist Movement
Although France has a long history of anti-racism the phenomenonof targeting Asians has been a blind spot which has been rarely discussed
until recently. There are two reasons why this has occurred. The first is
because of the republican model in France that has been a doxa in theexecution of political policy. French policy has been guided by anassimilationist paradigm so there has been a long-term negation of theexistence of any racial categories or racism.
The consequence has been that in practice among the administration,
the teachers, and even the scholars, there has been a resistance to looking
at the ethnic statistic, which means that unlike many countries, it is
impossible to record our ethnic or racial belonging on an administrative
form. In France, such statistic does not exist formally, although when
you discuss with a social worker or with a teacher, people will not
hesitate to mention the proportion of their students with immigrant
origins. Officially, this is a phenomenon that has never been recognizedby the state, but a resistance has been growing since 2010, since the riseof Islamophobia in France. Scholars and activists argue for the necessity
to have ethnic statistics in order to prove and highlight the reality of racial
discrimination, and several colleagues have conducted such survey inthis regard.
So it is a huge debate, but at the same time it is taboo to imagine orconsider France in the lens of multiculturalism. In such a context, it isalready difficult to talk about ethnic minorities. So it is even more
complicated for the Asian minorities, whose presence in France has beenless important, to highlight their self-identity. This is the second reason
why anti-Asian racism has been a phenomenon that is hardly known in
the French context, because unlike minorities from North Africa or the
African continent, who come from France’s historical colonies, thedemographic presence of the Asian minority in France is less important,4

Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
and mostly today they are especially concentrated in the in Paris and its
suburbs.
The most significant immigration began before WWII with the
influx of students and elites from France’s former colonies in Southeast
Asian and economic immigrants from mainland China. Then in 1979 an
estimated 120,000 war refugees arrived from Vietnam. Then from 1980,
there was an increasing number of economic immigrants from China and
Sri Lanka, some of whom entered as refugees and acquired legal status
immediately. Others, as economic immigrants often had to spend a longtime as illegal migrants before acquiring legal status. This illegal status
also contributed to a form of avoidance regarding the administration, thepublic space, which further explains why they tend to be rather discreet
in regard to the society and to the public administration.
Although there is a lack of accurate statistics, because of the obvious
difficulties in collecting ethnic statistics, there have been various
population studies, or studies done by local administrations, which allshow that actually Asian migrants, especially Chinese and Southeast
Asian migrants, are increasing rapidly in the Paris region in terms of
demographics, and are also increasingly visible in terms of commerce.
In some neighborhoods we also see a growing numbers of communities
coming from South Asia and India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
However, until now we do not have exact statistics on how many
immigrants or descendants from these countries are living in France. So
since they do not have the statistics and also because of their reluctanceto talk about race and racism until very recently, the phenomenon of therise of racism against Asians has hardly been discussed in France.
However, for years there have been different movements andmobilizations, and one of the activists has pointed out that while growing
up in France, Asians have been experiencing various forms of being
otherized. To illustrate this narrative a high school student of Chineseorigin told me that her classmates would often say that she was good atmath because they think all Chinese are good at math, and she would
always protest, ‘but I was born here [in France]!’. Like this example, the5Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
form of racism experienced by Asian youth, usually seems to be lessviolent compared to that experienced by the minority youth of African
descent. This also explains why this form of soft racism is often taken
less seriously. Another example is a sketch that was broadcast on TV in2016. Two of the most distinguished comedians in France made fun of
Asian people by putting on yellow face and imitating the way that they
imagined Asian or Chinese talk when they talk in French. Many people
thought this was very funny, but actually, it was just a way to depreciate
Asian people. This kind of behavior sparked a debate about where thelimit of humor is: “Can we really laugh at this kind of racialized form of
humor?”
Thus we can say that there have been different forms of racism or
racialization targeting the Asian people, but since it has been more softor indirect it is taken less seriously by the organizations of anti-racist
movements, and also by the Asian minority themselves.

3. Security is a Right: Articulating Difference andInclusion
The situation has gradually evolved, because since 2010, there havebeen different forms of mobilization in France, especially in the Paris
region, launched by the Asian Youth who went onto the streets todemonstrate and to claim the existence of criminal attacks and aggression,
targeting the Asian people. This was a catalyst for huge street
demonstrations and frequent and violent physical attacks against Asians,
and this has been recognized by many residents, especially the people
living in precarious situations, and as Asians, we might have morechance of being the target of an attack in some particular neighborhoods
in Paris.
Through these different demonstrations various slogans have also
been evolved (Table 1). The first demonstration in 2010, in the Bellevilleneighborhood, an ethnic center, was initiated to ask for more police

6Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
protection. Since 2011, the slogan was changed to ‘security is a right’
and the demonstrators also demanded, ‘Liberty, Equality and Security’.
So we see that in this slogan the second generation youths are they trying
to articulate the French slogan, the first doxa of the Republican model of
Liberty, Equality, and Solidarity, to articulate their demand for security.
Table 1. An Evolution of Slogans

Source: Author

These demonstrations have evolved and, in 2016, a new slogan‘Prejudice kills’ appeared because one Chinese man actually died from a
racial attack after spending several days in a coma in the hospital. Since
the growth of aggression, attacking the Asians has been becoming apublic problem. Young Asians actually used the slogan ‘Prejudice kills’
to highlight that any kinds of racial stereotype can become a motivation
for a violent attack, and it might have serious consequences. They
demanded security for everyone, that all people despite different ethnic
belonging and the color of their skin should be able to be protected.
7Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Then in 2017, we saw two different initiatives. First there were riots
after a Chinese man was shot by police in his apartment, and in the same
year those youngsters who had been active in the mobilization decided
to launch a committee called ‘Security for all” which was organized indifferent suburbs and neighborhoods around Paris. The idea was to betterorganize the victims to be able to file their claims when if they wereattacked. They will accompany the victim to the police station to file theirclaim because since many people don’t speak French well enough, they
do not know how to file a claim. They also offer legal assistance forpeople who need it.
If you look at this evolution, one thing that’s important to note isthat although they began in 2010 with the initiative of some associationsof first generation Chinese merchants, through the years, these initiatives
have been extended to all the people of Asian origin. Now not only
Chinese, but also other communities coming from Southeast Asian
countries, as well as an increasing number of youths of the second
generation are participating in such a demonstrations. Another important
point is that these demonstrations on the street arouse the attention Media,
and that over time the target has changed from a quest for security toequal rights.
We can also look at this from another direction and highlight theroots of aggression. So, behind the street demonstration that I mentioned,
there are also other initiatives made by the second generation youth, andthe most important actor here is the Association of Young Chinese in
France (AJCF) which was created in 2009. In 2011, they participated in
the second demonstration in Bellville, which focused on the reason forsuch criminal attacks. They chose to create a new slogan ‘Security is a
Right’, and then to articulate the question about aggression and criminal
attacks to the question about being equal an equal citizen in France. Thisis a very intelligent way to talk about their rights because they
diplomatically avoided the question of race or racism in a politicalcontext as it would have been perceived as very hostile to evoke such aquestion. Instead they used France’s own Republican rhetoric to say that8Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
the right of not being attacked, the right of not being the victim ofcriminal attacks should be equal for every citizen despite their origin.
In fact, they were very successful because they could legitimize
their mobilization and convince the public sector, with the police andCity Hall as their partners. In 2012 they succeeded in suing a French
weekly magazine that had published an article accusing Chinese
entrepreneurs of being illegal merchants who behaved like criminals, acase which they won in 2014.
Picture 2. Some Racialized Characterizations

Source: Author

This was the first court case of its kind and in Picture 2 we can see
the kinds of racists comments that these young Asians were subjected toin public spaces every day. For example, people will say that you areyellow face, and other racist insults, or that you are Jackie Chan, which

9Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
is a racialized image that Jackie Chan represents all Asian people, and‘spring roll’, which is people say a lot in the public space on the street.
They found a way to articulate the everyday racist remarks in amedia report that accused the whole community, and this was also a way
to show the people how much they underestimated these racist remarksthat Asians have to experience every day. Actually, they raise thequestion of whether expressing these remarks was a crime. So we should
consider 2012 as another milestone in their mobilization to highlight theexistence of racism in the everyday context in these cultural
manifestations.
Finally in 2016 when the mugging and murder of a Chinese man
happened in Aubervilliers in the suburbs of Paris, the youngsters decided
to use their slogan ‘Prejudice kills’ to show that although this racial
prejudice experienced by the Asians was considered funny or not serious,
the fact was that as long as this prejudice existed, it could become themotivation for violence. What is interesting is that through all thismobilization, the young generation were becoming more and morequestioning of the Republican model. Rather than showing their level ofassimilation, they were tending to highlight their multiple belongingness.
1) Double Disqualification: when the personal experiences collidewith French universalist narratives
As the following two narratives to show, there is a kind of double
disqualification when one’s personal experiences collide with French
universalist narratives:“At 18 years old, I chose to become French, which is a reallyRepublican initiative. However, later when I entered the university, I
realized that I am not so French. On the street, people do not hesitate
to assign me as ‘Chinese’. There as a mixture of frustration that pushed
me to ask, ‘Who are you indeed? Are you Chinese or French?’ Later on,
I realized that I am neither Chinese nor French. I am simply a Chineseof France (Chinois de France), and there are many children like me.”10

Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France(R.W., born in 1987 in China and arriving in Paris at the age of 7.)“The question of identity comes often from others. I never asked
myself this question before, but from the moment when the others melabeled as Chinese, I understood that even though I was born here and go
to the same university as them, people still consider me as Chinese and
not French. However, when I visit China with my family, I don’t reallyfeel like it’s a return to my origins either. In China, people do notconsider me as really Chinese; whereas in France, people do notconsider me as really French. ”(M. Z., born in 1988 in France. Law student.)
These youngsters participated in the mobilization, so through theirpersonal experience, they tend to question the validity, or the meaning of
the French Republican model, because they realize that as Chinese, orwith Chinese descent, they are never in fact considered as fully French.
There is also a mechanism of labeling them as different because of their
origin, their appearance, or the way they were brought up in an ethnic
entrepreneur’s family. By questioning such a Republican model, theyalso tend to assume a kind of double-belonging as the second narrative
says. So finally, after some experience traveling in China, they realizethat there are neither really Chinese nor really French, but that they haveto create for themselves a third category as both Chinese and French.
2) Cosmopolitan China as a source of pride“Since my childhood, I have been to China every year to see myfamily, but I didn’t find it especially interesting. In 2008, after
professional high school, I did an internship in China for 3 months, andI was extremely fascinated. This has totally changed me. It made me
always desire going abroad so as to discover new things. Later, I went to
Qinghua University (a prestigious university in Beijing) for a one month11

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalizationexchange. When I was there, I met many people. I love meeting new
people and speaking foreign languages. I love going to KTV(karaoke) and buying street food next to university. Many, manythings …. I also traveled a lot. I’ve met many Chinese people like me,
who are from Sweden, from Netherlands, from Bolivia, and fromAfrica…. and we all have a common spirit as Chinese. I mean,although we were born in different countries. We can feel that weare similar.”(A.L., Born in 1988 in Paris. )“In fact, I felt good in China. Everyone was friendly, especiallythose who work in the cinema. The fact that I am both Chinese andFrench is very easy.”(C.L., born in 1984 in China and arriving at Paris at the age of 5.
Employee of a cinema production company.)
Finally, this feeling of having double identity, of being both Chineseand French, has become the raw material of their cultural activism. So
here another activist says; “Finally, although in France we feel that weare probably perceived as inferior and different from others, theexperience of traveling to China or to Asia, finally becomes a plus by
giving us a kind of pride to have double-belonging and double heritage”.
By traveling to China and Asia and meeting other Asian youth who also
shared this rich version of being multicultural, they tend to be able togradually assume their status about having a double identity. They also
tend to have a more positive attitude regarding their background,considering it has given them some rich courage to confront everyday
situations and everyday aggression.

3) Criticizing everyday racism and norms of beauty based on eurocentric criteria
The identity of having a double belonging finally contributed to aform of cultural activism that pushed them to challenge the stigmatism,
12

Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
to criticize the cliches and stereotypes, and to assume the fact that being
Asian or Chinese can still be rich and beautiful. I’ll mention here threedifferent initiatives that have emerged since 2016. The first is a Facebook
page created by the Asian minorities in France called ‘Yellow is
Beautiful’ (Picture 3). They have been making an exposition and photo
exposition by showing portraits of different Asian youth, and the slogan‘Yellow is Beautiful’, which is clearly based on the slogan, ‘Black is
Beautiful’.
Picture 3. “Yellow is Beautiful”

Source: Author

So we see that there is a tendency to be proud of being Asian, andeven a tendency to play with the description and reverse the stigma.
‘Yellow’ used to be a very stigmatizing term, but here they try to say thatbeing Asian can be positive. The magazine ‘Koii’ shown in theillustration above, is also the first magazine created to introduce Asian
13

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
culture to the community, to all the readers in France who can beinterested in this term. So they use the word Koi, the name of a beautiful
ornamental fish in Japan, to symbolize the spirit of being Asian.
Finally, there is also an internet site, ‘Ca reste entre nous’, meaning,“This is just between you and me” where they bring young Asians
together to talk about their experiences about sexuality, looking for a job,
discrimination, SQ and so on. So the idea is just to talk openly about theexperience of being a minority as Asians in France. This mini-sitcom isvery popular on YouTube. Furthermore, it’s popularity is not only
limited to Asian audiences, and other minorities like North African or
African descendants also love this and then remark that it is actually rarein France to be able to talk about the experiences of being a minority.

4. Coronavirus and Asian-Phobia: Denouncing
Systemic Racism
Next, I would like to talk about the new the new development since2019. As we have seen so far, the French Asian youth were able toconstruct a rhetoric that could confront racism. However, when the
COVID-19 corona virus outbreak occurred in France it actually infected
all the people who were perceived as Chinese and Asian, so such ansituation caused this consciousness that already existed among the
Chinese youth to spread to other Asian Youth who had not been exposedto the Chinese environment, who didn’t necessarily have a Chinese
identity, but who had been searching for an identity as being Asian inFrance.
The first important mobilization happened in January 2021 inFrance, when we started seeing anti-Asian attacks happening in the
public space. One Asian woman who has Korean origin but who wasadopted by French couple made a post on Twitter highlighting theignorance of anti-Asian racism and its banality. In her post she claimed
that people tend to confuse being Chinese and Asian, confronting all the14Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
Asian people as being Chinese. Secondly, here in France, people are
already panicking about the spread of COVID-19, while it’s still
happening in China, although it’s so far away. Then she denounced theviolent attacks against all Asians, Asian shops and restaurants, perceived
as being Chinese and thus perceived as being responsible for the spreadof Covid in France, as pathetic behavior.
Picture 4: “ I am not a virus”

Source: Author

She posted a photo of herself (Picture 4) with a poster saying, “Je
ne suis pas un virus” or “I am not a virus” and asked everyone to do thesame. This initiative was very successful because she got more than
30,000 photos in two days. But what’s interesting here is that she is thefirst one who talked about being labeled as Asian, which means that by
doing so she also questioned the power relationships within the Asianminorities. We think of the category of an Asian minority, so what does
it really mean to be considered Asian? What is the impact of China’s
global image to the growth of Empire and anti-Asian racism? She has
raised a lot of questions that at the same time helped to bring together the
categories of agency. By talking about this she raised the power
relationship among people from different Asian countries and called for

15

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalizationa kind of joint action between those of Chinese origin who were alreadyactive in the anti-racist movement and other people who widely consider
themselves as Asians.
So COVID-19 actually pushed the movement in France in a new
direction, and also gave rise to more debate. That was in January, andthen in April, in France we began a three-month lockdown and a growing
number of people stayed at home and the Internet became the only public
space where we could share our experiences. It was also during this timethat all these young Asians who were participating in the mobilization
before started to share their experiences about being otherized, about
being attacked, about their panic, their fear, their identity problems andtheir troubles. Some of them were already activists who had experiencein the traditional activism scene, especially in the radical left party or
LGBTQIA movement. Others were just youngsters who were very
concerned with the discourse about anti-racism. Whatever their previous
experiences, the internet became a platform that allowed them toexchange their ideas, to share their theoretical resources and reflections,and to create a discourse on a larger identity about being Asian in apoliticized way which is radically critical of all the prejudices andcolonization heritage.
Picture 5. The Yellow Studio

16

Constructing Pan-Asian Identities in France
Picture 5 shows an Instagram account set called “Lestudiojaune’,or ‘The Yellow Studio”. Basically, it’s two young girls who like singing
and creating music, with Asian origin, and they try to share the music but
also their reflection about being Asian and creative. On the right isanother account that is trying to bring together all the young women fromdifferent Asian countries, and they are showing some slogans that arereally politicized because they don’t just talk about the situation about
being Asian here. They also highlight the political situation in China. The
main slogan in front of them says, “I don’t want to be exotic”. So this isalso a way to show the rich individuality among the Asian nations, but
attacks the opinion of the majority society that always tries to rank themas being Asian, where everyone looks similar so everyone is the same,
whereas actually, the contemporary Asian diaspora is extremely rich incultural diversity and heterogeneous identities among those people. I
should also mention that many of them are associated with the LGBT
struggle, which means they are already open to the intersectional
approach, and they tend to be more active in the convergence ofmobilization with other sectors such as the black and north Africanminorities.
This year (2021) since there was a shooting in Atlanta in March, in
Asian youth in France also joined the movement about ‘Stop Asian Hate’.
In the end of March, one week after the Atlanta shooting, there was alsoa trial related to several internet platforms who were encouraging racial
attacks against Chinese people. When the trial began, the Association ofYoung Chinese in France posted an online video on YouTube, with theslogan, ‘We belong here!’
So finally, after more than seven years of mobilization against
racism, this year the discourse has been transformed to focus on thequestion about belonging, about the fact of being Asian and being French
simultaneously, and trying to resist the tendency to articulate Asian with
the image of an aggressive China that can be a source of fear for the
French society.

17

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
To conclude, if we look at look at what’s happening in France, it isclear that the Asian minority, when we compare it with North Africanminority, has followed a very different path both in building their identity
and in their struggle for recognition. Although the French Republicanmodel has contributed to a long-time ignorance or negation of racism,
the cosmopolitan experiences of young second generation Asians and theimage of a globalized China have become the raw material of theircollective identity and even anti-discrimination actions (in the Frenchcase). So the way that they construct their discourse is transgressive tothe rhetoric of the French Republican model, in that they construct sucha model by attacking the form of the doxa of assimilation, and trying toassume the potential of the multicultural society that French society
really is.
Ideally, I think that the next step might be the construction of a
global Asian identity, despite all the internal debate and despite
heterogeneous identities within such a category.
Picture 6. Love our people like you love our food18

Presentation 2

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean
Guest Workers
Helen Kim
1. Introduction
In this presentation I will describe my latest research on Korean
guest workers who twice-migrated to the US, meaning that they firstmigrated to Germany and then migrated to the US. Hence the term twice
migrants is being used here to describe them. This research was drawn
from a chapter in my book on Korean guest workers, which is currently
being written and the working title to that monograph is “Journeying
Toward the Red, White and Blue: Aging Korean Guest Workers andDice-Board Belonging in the US”.
The first wave of Korean of nurse migration or guest worker
migration occurred in South Korea from 1963 to 1980 when about
10,000, Korean nurses went to then West Germany as a response toGermany’s massive labor shortage, particularly in certain industries suchas healthcare, in particular nursing, and this was through a government
led agreement. This was considered at the time the largest voluntary
migration from South Korea in the country’s migration history. This
wave of migration is sometimes referred to as padok or translated as‘dispatched’, and so these nurses were sometimes referred to as ‘padok
nurses’.
In today’s presentation, I offer up some accounts and perspectives
that explain why these women first went to Germany, and some of theways that they had to negotiate being ‘other’ while there. Then I’ll moveon to the experiences that they had when they moved to the US, and giventhat these women are now in their late 70s, and some in their early 80s,
I’ll talk later about how contemplate or navigate the possibility of return.
19

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Up to now, there’s been very little work done on guest worker
experiences overall, and on their reasons for migrating. Some work has
been done, mainly in Germany, and some work has also been done inSouth Korea, but there’s been no work done on these twice migrants,
those who moved from Germany to the US and to Canada, althoughagain, my work is focusing mainly on the US.
Based on oral history interviews with former nurses in New York
City and Seattle, this presentation will focus on why they left, and onsome of the memories that they had. What it reveals is that these women
did not go to Germany and then to the US purely for economic reasons.
These women told me some very surprising stories of themselves, andtheir memories of their time in Germany, that then complicate theexisting narratives of Korean migration to these places. It brings up very
complex entanglements, of gender of relationships, of family, as well as
the citizenship laws and migration policies in both countries.
While I only focus on Korean nurses in this presentation Koreannurse migration to Germany was just one half of the Korean guest worker
wave story, as it is with most cases, that when we’re talking about
migration, gender plays a huge role in determining how, when and where.
In the case of Germany and the Korean guest workers, there were also
about eight thousand Korean miners, who were male, who were recruited
to come and work in Germany from 1963 to about 1977, and as I pointed
out earlier about 10,000 nurses who were also recruited to work inGermany, again from 1963 to 1980. Nurses who were recruited wereautomatically assigned to different parts of Germany, and many went tolarger cities and this is why there are still long standing and significant
Korean communities in these larger cities, such as Frankfurt and Berlin.
Meanwhile, male miners were recruited to work in the industrial
region of Germany only, so very few of these miners went to other places,
particularly major cities. In some cases they migrated or moved to cities
after they had stopped working as miners, so you will find Korean men
who moved on to other cities but initially, Korean miners were recruited
to work only in the industrial region.

20

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
In my book, I include interviews with some of these miners and theirexperiences, which were altogether quite different to the nurses for somereasons that I’ll mention later. What has often been mentioned in relation
to the guest worker experiences in Korea is regarding their remittances,the money that they sent back to Korea, which actually totaled over 100
million US dollars according to some estimates.
In Germany, initial media coverage of the Korean nurses tended tofocus on their exoticness as well as their hard work. They were often
referred to as “dark haired angels”.
Now, in the US, these guest workers have just been considered aspart of the Korean diaspora who migrated directly from South Korea
after 1965. The US had basically reformed their migration laws, so thatpost 1965 they had a very large wave of Asian immigrants. However, byonly focusing only on their remittances in South Korea’s case, or on their
physical appearance in Germany’s case, or as part of the overall wave of
post 1965 Korean migration in the US case, this kind of coverage
obscures and flattens their specific experiences, and erases the moments,
the stories and memories of the joys as well as the difficulties that camewith the choices that these women and their families had to make inmigrating.
The Korean guestworker diaspora, in my opinion, is an exemplarycase that grounds conceptualizations of diaspora that work to highlightthe present. So within certain disciplines like political science, and evenanthropology, and particularly from the perspective of US and UK
scholarship, scholars tended to conceptualize diaspora in more traditionalways, and often there was a tendency to focus on classical definitions of
diaspora as forced migration and exile. Examples of this would be certain
topologies that would include the Jewish diaspora or the Armenian
diaspora and their experiences, one of the defining characteristics that isoften associated with forced migration and exile is this desire for ahomeland, for return to this home. Then we have a widening of who or
what counts as diasporic, but this association with a homeland, and thisdoubleness of loss and desire often remained in these accounts of21

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
diaspora. The double relationship or dual loyalty they have to theseplaces where they were displaced from, as well as connections to theplaces that they have made their new homes. That is what I call theclassical definition, and we might disagree with this classical definitionin the light of this category of newer definitions of Diaspora. A lot of thiswork was prevalent in the nineties, but for lack of a better word, I’ll callthem ‘newer’ here. There was a kind of intervention in diaspora studies
by many cultural studies scholars, again from an Anglo perspective, andso I want to highlight the very important work here of Stuart Hall, of Paul
Gilroy, of Jacqueline Nassey Brown, and Nadia Ellis, whose work on I’ll
talk more about later, and how important their work is to what I call thisintervention.
Their theorizations of diaspora and diaspora consciousness have notjust centered on what Nadia Ellis calls the experiences of “difficulty andloss”, but they also talk about the possibilities, the practices of identity
and culture that can emerge from these difficulties and the loss and the“necessary heterogeneity and diversity” of diaspora and diasporicbelonging, that Hall pointed out so eloquently in his essays on diaspora
identity and culture. Moreover, scholars like Jacqueline Nassey Brown
and Paul Gilroy conceptualized diaspora not just as a state of being, butthey see it as something that one does, as an active and conscious stancethat one cultivates. When Dr. Chuang was talking about the culturalrepertoire, this tends to affect ways of thinking about diaspora, and it issomething that is material. This is what Jacqueline Nassey Brown talks
about when she takes Paul Gilroy’s conceptions of words, of the raw
materials of diaspora, and calls it a set of diasporic resources that people
gather and use, and where culture and cultural practices are integral tothese practices.

2. Nurses’ Journeys to Germany: The Elsewhere
I am going to focus on the stories of three Korean women who were
nurses in Germany. They migrated from South Korea to then West22

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
Germany in the 1960s as guest workers and then eventually migrated to
the US. The interviews with these three women Young Ae who is 72,
Yong Ki, 83, and Midet also 83, took place in Flushing, Queens, during
a really typical blisteringly hot and humid New York City summer, in2018. These three women are longtime friends who had come to knoweach other once they moved to New York City from Germany.
Young Ae was the youngest out of six siblings, and by the time shecame of age her family, having struggled to live through a war, were now
in post-colonial Korea and had run out of money for university education.
Now, while university education was out of reach financially for mostfamilies nursing school or teaching school, which according to YoungAe were both less expensive, were therefore seemingly more withinreach for some families financially. Young Ae said:“Of course, because that was a very difficult era for people andespecially for young women who wanted to make something ofthemselves and get jobs. I too really wanted to get out there rather
than just be at home, and I wanted to make my own money and geta good job. Growing up at the time we didn’t have a lot of money,
we didn’t get much of an allowance, so I always wanted to make myown money independently, and that’s why I ended up going tonursing school…. I was really excited and happy for the opportunity.
I mean, at the time, it was really hard to leave Korea to go abroad,
unless you were rich. The plane fare was so much as it was, so it
would have been really hard. So I thought it was so great to be given
the opportunity to go to Germany….”

So nursing was a profession that was available to young women at
the time, and what many of these women including Young Ae said timeand again, was that they had this desire to be independent and selfsufficient. This meant not only the desire to be economically independent,
but very often this was tied to the larger issue of wanting to be free fromtheir parents and be able to make their own decisions about their lives.
The independence and the freedom to make their own choices within

23

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
their lives proved difficult for most young women in such a patriarchal
and conservative society, but despite all their individual circumstances,
all the women pointed out the dire conditions of the Korean economy at
the time, and the lack of opportunities available to young people.
What was also really notable was that these women often defied
their parents’ wishes and expectations by insisting on leaving, which
would have been considered unusual at the time. These women were
often the first members of their families to migrate, and it meant that
there was opposition not only from their parents, but also other membersof their family, including their grandparents and siblings.
Nadia Ellis says, “The urgent sensation of a pull from elsewhere…isparadigmatic of diasporic culture”. In her book, she uses it to make anargument about an imagined elsewhere, that is always just out of reach;something that is elusive and vague, but that this desire for elsewhere iswhat connects examples, according to Ellis of diasporic culture. She
mainly does this by looking at diasporic texts, but I think where it relates
here is to use it to describe that sense of a pull towards elsewhere. It
articulates emerging from the very real circumstances of war, of poverty
and lack of opportunities, but where one isn’t necessarily reduced tothese conditions. So these women dreamed of going elsewhere, goingabroad to be able to fulfill these dreams of opportunities. So in otherwords, Ellis’s conceptualization serves here as a reminder, the reason
these women left cannot just be reduced to the instrumental or thepractical, but that there were other reasons for going abroad.
Moreover, when I asked Young Ae what she knew about Germany
before leaving, she laughed, and said, “Nothing”. They knew of America,
but they knew nothing about Germany, except that it was not Western
Europe. What they did see though was this opportunity to just go
somewhere else; to leave Korea.

24

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers

3. The Model Minority Myth and Gender
Now I would like to introduce a quote from Myung Hee (83), who talks
about what it was like once they got to Germany. I asked her about her
everyday experiences of going to work as a nurse in Germany. She said:“Yes, it was very busy. We worked in the surgery. We just
had to go wherever they needed us. If we saw people runningtowards someone, we did the same. We didn’t even know German
at first. We just saw people and followed. We worked really hard
and I remember that they really liked the Korean nurses because
we worked so hard. But then we started to learn German and could
communicate better, and if we thought differently, we learned how
to communicate our different opinions. Sometimes there wereeven disagreements. So they simply liked us better when we
couldn’t speak German. That was so funny for me.”

The early days were a blur of language learning, working shifts, andacclimating to a brand new place where they had to learn how to do
things differently. All the women talked about how difficult the work
was, especially because of the sense that they were often recruited froma poor background. They felt that they needed to impress the German
head nurses with their hard work and good work ethic. Most felt that they
were there to represent Korea and Koreans and certainly couldn’t dosomething without somehow affecting the image of Koreans. The
seemingly funny comment about how they were more likeable when they
could not speak German, served as a reminder of their somewhat
subordinate position in Germany as guest workers, but it also of course
hinted at how Young He and other Korean women did not play into thestereotypes of the submissive Asian woman, and both spoke up andspoke back. When the Korean nurses worked in Germany, they alreadyunderstood that they were positioned not only as guest workers, but as
non-white non-European auslanders or foreigners. But in contrast to the
US’s system of racialized hierarchies, with which these women were25

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
very familiar, having grown up in a militarized Korea that was divided
by war, and militarized by the US, Germany did not have such a welldefined racial order.
Another participant, Mirae, recalled that she was shocked whenmore than once people asked if she was from Africa. The shock came not
only from being misidentified, but also from the Germans’ inability to
see and identify her as someone distinct from a person who was African.
This is particularly egregious because Koreans would have learned fromthose already established US racial hierarchies that African Americans,including Africans would be on the bottom of the US racial hierarchy.
This inability to distinguish between someone who is being typicallyAsian from someone who is phenotypically African would haveindicated that in Germany, anyone who was not seen as being typicallywhite, would be considered or perceived to be ‘other’ regardless of where
those people were from. Obviously, some of that has changed over time,
but this was taken from a memory that Mirae had had.
Now in Germany, the term auslander, foreigner, or similarly
someone with a migration background has become the term that is used
to group all those who are visibly and audibly different from white
Germans. The German way of measuring those minorities was to thencategorize them as good and bad migrants. Now in Germany, public andpolitical debates on multiculturalism and the politics of difference in thisperiod often got framed around debates on integration, where Germans
blamed immigrants for refusing to integrate culturally and linguisticallyinto the wider German society. These cultural markers could include
practices such as speaking German fluently without an accent, but it also
included cultural and religious beliefs such as being Muslim or Christian.
Korean guest workers were seen as being closer culturally to Germans
and therefore were seen as the deserving and good migrants who had thepotential to integrate well, in contrast other groups. Thus the Turkish,also a more significant guest workers diaspora in Germany, were oftenlabeled as bad and undeserving migrants who were irreconcilably
different, and were incapable of or refused to integrate into German

26

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
society. It seems that this was often a way of masking anti-Muslim
racism against the Turkish. In contrast, Koreans became the model
minority in Germany.
Moreover, this model minority myth that was salient in Germany
and of course salient in the US and other places, had a very genderspecific dimension to it. These nurses were admired for their willingness
to work hard and their dedication, and they were praised for doing so
without complaining or getting angry about how much work they had todo. So in other words, as long as they were grateful, quiet and willing,
they would continue to be praised. As I stated earlier, German
newspapers often refer to these Korean nurses as these ‘soft, dark haired
angels’.
However, praising Korean guest workers work was also, as I said,
highly gender specific. In comparison, after the first few years, Korean
miners were not as positively represented in mainstream German media,
and were accused of being sometimes lazy or at least less hardworking,and not as compliant. The climate towards guestworkers and particularly
miners grew increasingly hostile in Germany by the end of the 1960s,
and there were increasingly demanding calls to end guestworker
migration. Eventually, in 1973, there was a temporary ban on
guestworker migration, including mining. This ban prohibited the hiringof workers from outside the EEC region on jobs lasting for more than 90
days.
However, the German government was surprised when these verysame grateful and quiet Korean nurses went on strike over the possible
end of visa renewals in 1973. When these Korean nurses took to thestreets and protested over the potential ending of their visas, they showed
the Korean government, coworkers, friends and colleagues, that they
were not these passive angels whose labor could so easily be discarded
as the German government had possibly hoped. These women explainedthat they participated in these marches and protests to express to theGerman government that they were real people with real lives, hopes and27

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
dreams that matter, and that they would be adversely affected if theirvisas were not to be renewed.
It is interesting to note that in these demonstrations it was not justthe Korean women who came out to march, but also their coworkers,
their white German colleagues, who came out to march with them. Thisshows us shows there were certain kinds of spaces of solidarity as well,
but that I can’t elaborate on this in this presentation.

4. Migration and Marriage: Gendered‘Geographies of Power’Now let us move on to thinking about the ways in which marriage
and migration worked together to create these gender geographies ofpower. Here Mirae, who is 83, who talks about how she was able to bringher children over to the US eventually. Mirae says:“My children were under 10. One was 5 and one was 6. They
didn’t want to leave the house because they were scared. I was single
and was just trying to raise my children alone, because my husband,
didn’t want to emigrate to a foreign country to follow his wife! He
said he wanted to try and come to Germany on his own. In what way
would that happen? My son, he was only three when I left, and sowhen he saw me next, he was six, and he had grown so close to his
dad at the time, but he had become a stranger to me. When he first got
to Germany, he hated it and just kept saying that he wanted to go home
to Korea. He’d keep on packing a suitcase and trying to leave. He wasso little. How would even get on a plane by himself? So because ofthis, my husband came to Germany.” [Shakes her head]

So marriage within a transnational context reflects how migration
has impacted women positively and negatively. A lot of literature on
marriage and migration has reinforced the view that it was the men who
migrated and the women who simply followed the men. In contrast to28

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
this view, these Korean nurses were the first ones to migrate and it was
their husbands who followed them. Mirae’s husband, for example, hadstayed behind in Korea was working part time as an English translator
for the US Army. He took over childcare duties while Mirae wasoverseas. Then, as Mirae explained, after waiting three years, eventually
her husband joined her as well.
Mirae’s story points to the difficult position that these women were
facing at the time between work, migration, and family and the way that
migration and labor laws both hindered and helped families byintroducing new opportunities, as well as tensions and ruptures. These
women were navigating difficult and contradictory terrain and having towork and earn money. But at the same time, they were resented forhaving a role that empowered them, and were simultaneously expected
to take on the intensive maternal role, typical of Korean mothers andwives. Mirae’ s husband refused to migrate to Germany because he didn’t
want to be her dependent, even though it did offer an opportunity to bereunited, and a means to leave Korea, because it could also mean that hewould no longer be head of the family unit. Mirae’s apparent frustrationeven to this day, suggests that this ran deep, and was not something easily
forgotten. She felt guilty and sad for having to leave her young children
in Korea, and having her departure precipitate a sense of loss in her
children. This created an additional burden and complexity to their story
in Germany, as these memories bring with them a complex swirl of
emotions of guilt, of pride, and of sadness.
Mirae’s story itself points to the wave of gender migration and state
sponsored migration, and how becoming guests workers had reordered
and disrupted the existing patriarchal structures in the Korean family.
Again, many women recruited as nurses became the sole or main
breadwinners for their families. This is because the guest worker
program also allowed for dependents to be sponsored, and this is how
Mirae’s husband came, but it was also the case that dependents were notallowed to work in Germany, to discourage these dependents fromarriving and staying.
29

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

5. Double Migration to the USA: Becoming
Diasporic
Now we will jump to the US where these women discuss the earlyyears of their lives in the United States. When I interviewed Young Ae
about the USA she told me:
Ae: “… and we bought our first business in Rego Park, Queens.”
Helen: “What kind of shop was it?”Ae: “It was a deli where you could get sandwiches and other stuff.”
Helen: “Why Rego Park?”
Ae: “Well, there was a woman that we knew from Germany and she
wanted us to do business together, so that’s why we got the placein Rego Park. We got to know her in NYC. When you first arrive
from Germany you form these relationships, and of course you
meet lots of Koreans, but there were special relationships
between people who were in Germany and you get to know
people from there and help people from there. And I got to meet
Mrs. Kim and Roy’s mom too.”Helen: “So where did you live in NYC when you first arrived?”
Mirae: “We lived on Austin St. in forest Hills . We all settled there andlived there together. We got together all the time and knew lotsof people there. We went around to places together and even on
holidays like Thanksgiving, and we would celebrate thesetogether, and we would celebrate these events together (Whenshe said we she meant other Korean guest workers who had also
migrated to the US.). They didn’t all necessarily come together
on the same plane, but often, we would kind of follow each othermonths, sometimes, of course, years after. So we spent all of our
free time and weekends being at each other’s houses to eat
together. Those were some really fun times and we were all quite
close. These were some of the best people I’ve ever befriended.
And I felt blessed.”30

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
Diaspora belonging is often practiced, and again, this is what I mean
about this kind of exemplary case with Korean guest workers. It’s
practiced and it’s felt at the local level rooted in these strong social
networks that were forged in Germany and fostered in the US.
These have turned into informal associations and sometimes formlines that connect friendship circles from across the US and Canada, withlarger nodes in cities such as LA, New York, Chicago and Toronto,
where of course, there are substantive Korean diaspora communities.
They have organized lots of local small scale gatherings on a monthly or
biannual basis, and they reinforce a sense of a kind of Diasporic Koreanness. At the same time, they support these local connections that are
grounded in physical places and spaces. As Mirae pointed out these
special relationships that are forged go above and beyond the ethnic
affinities that others have studied.
Strikingly, all of the women told me that these friendships were theclosest and longest friendships they had had, even if of course, over time,they did grow apart, and developed friendships outside of those networks.
All these women still maintained at least one or two close friendships
with a former guest worker from Germany. So this suggests that the
specific migrant trajectory reinforced these close affinities amongst thisspecific group of Korean immigrants that were forged again through theshared experiences and outlooks shaped by their years living in Germany
and the US.
Within these small circles, they can reminisce and bond over theirshared memories. The significance here is that these affinities were again,
not just based on ethnicity. Once these women were settled in New York
City, which has a very well established Korean community, they mademany other Korean friends or acquaintances. However, their affinities
with other Korean guest workers was much stronger, as Mirae tried to
explain. It was the affinity between these women born of their suffering,and for those who had been in Germany, so many years ago, the suffering
was not easily expressed in the stories they shared with each other, but
was nonetheless present in their hearts and their actions towards each31

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
other. With each meal they shared, with every weekend spent together,with every act of solidarity, they work together to create new homes andlives in the US.

6. This is My Home! The Myth of Diasporic ReturnLet us look at their stories to highlight how these womencontemplate ideas of return at their age and at this particular stage in theirlives, where they are now all very much retired, and where their children
and grandchildren are involved, and have grown and settled in the US.
So we have Myung Heei, who says:“Oh no, I would never leave the US, this is my home. I’ve always
felt that this was my home, and I would never go back. I mean, we goback a lot. And we’re always connected to Korea…my husband, mykids and me. But Korea is not a place to live.”

And Mirae who says:“I don’t know this Korea nowadays, it’s completely changed, andI don’t recognize it anymore. Every time I go back, it’s like I’m goingto a foreign country. Of course, I know the language. And I know people
there. But that’s it.”Now Mirae was talking to me on the street as she was saying this,and to prove her point, she stopped in the middle of the street andgestured to me as she’s saying this last line throwing her hands up in
front of her face. She’s saying this as if to signal that this unrecognizedability is not about being able to see, but about not being able to see what
is in front of your face.
This feeling of bewilderment about her birthplace is something thatis shared by many of her peers and those who left Korea so very longago. But it is also said without necessarily a kind of sense of loss or
sadness. Now, in the earlier years of studying return migration, it was32

Journeying ‘Elsewhere’: Diaspora and Korean Guest Workers
often understood as something that could be final, and would end in akind of resettlement in the country of birth and origin. However, more
recent research on rich return migration has argued that there’s more ofa transnational back and forth rather than a kind of final settlement in one
place. This is also reflected in the literature on return migration thatdefines return as, ‘real, virtual, imagined, desired, forced, or denied’(King and Steele, 2011). Moreover, return can be permanent or
temporary, and isn’t necessarily determined by a set amount of time. As
Myung Hee noted, she goes back to Korea regularly, and while shechooses to live in the US, she can also maintain her transnational ties andconnections, and sustain them through repeated visits, as well as otherpoints of contact with Korea. But saying there is no recognition alsosuggests this about Diasporic longing and belonging. It’s not so muchthat it’s about a longing for return, and I think that Mirae’s statements
make this clear, but there’s a longing for a sense of belonging, andperhaps a desire for there to still be something that can connect thesepeople back to a particular place that does exist. So when looking at thesense of return, perhaps a better way of thinking about diaspora is that it
is not related so much to the sense of exile or loss, but that it is about
inhabiting and identifying with that ‘elsewhere’ that Ellis elucidates inher book. So the return is not necessarily about physically holding onto
a tangible place or geographical location, although there is that too, butmore often it is through the people, culture, and practices of diaspora
belonging that are created and sustained in the here and the now, right inthese present places that they call their homes. So the sense of elsewhereis significant and central to the creation and continuation of a diasporicimaginary one where it’s possible to feel a sense of rootedness
somewhere, and yet feel a connection and affinity elsewhere, without
necessarily feeling that there was only a sense of loss in this.
So it’s not that these women have no affinities or ties to Korea,
because they do, but that it doesn’t have to be that they feel a sense ofloss or nostalgic about returning. They don’t want to return there

33

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalizationnecessarily because and I quote, “Perhaps there is no going home again.
There is maybe a detour, but there is no return”.

34

Presentation 3

Border Struggles and the Production of
Political Subjectivity of the Indonesian
Domestic Workers (as Manifested in their
Narratives)
Tri Murniati
1. Introduction
The transitory lives of Indonesian domestic workers (IDWs) portraythe challenging nature of borders. It is true that this challenge is not only
embodied as the physical ‘international border,’ but also the metaphorical- cultural, political, and social - ’local borders’ which draw a line between
Indonesian domestic workers and their employers. This talk extensively
explores the creative writing of Indonesian domestic workers - in theform of short stories and memoirs - in relation to the challenges they facein crossing abstract borders and how these borders often situateIndonesian domestic workers in such compromised situations. It also
examines and analyzes Indonesian domestic workers’ responses andviews toward the challenges faced, as well as their strategies to solve theproblems caused by the various abstract borders. The linguistic barrier,for example, seems to be the standard border problem for all migrants. In
the case of Indonesian domestic workers, the linguistic barrier often
inhibits coherent communication between employers and employees.
This lecture portrays Indonesian domestic workers migratory
experiences, as written by themselves. All the stories discussed here were
written in Indonesian, and therefore all the English translations in thediscussion are my own. In addition, the material used in my talk today isan amalgamation of the first chapter of my dissertation and also several
published and unpublished papers.
In this introduction, I would like to talk about Indonesian domestic
workers and the emergence of their creative writing. Then in the second35

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
part I’m going to talk about migration, some thoughts on borders, andalso political subjectivity, and the last part will be the discussion andconcluding remarks.
The term ‘domestic workers narrative’, simply refers to any writing
written by Indonesian migrant workers who work as domestic workers.
So in Indonesia itself, domestic writing as a genre began in 2002, when
one of the domestic workers in Hong Kong named Denok Kanthi
Rokhmatika published her anthology of short stories in 2002. Thispublication marks the birth of the genre of Indonesian migrant workers’
literature.
Picture 1. Selection of Migrant Authors Works
Source: Author

In the aftermath of Rahmatika’s publication, there were a significant
number of works published in the category of migrants’ domestic writing,which also includes some articles of nonfiction writing in periodicals and36

Border Struggles of the Indonesian Domestic Workers
newspapers, both in the home country and the host countries, such as
Hong Kong.
In the writings, the most popular theme taken is the Indonesian
worker’s migratory experiences, their everyday lives in the host country,
and “illustrating these women’s everyday challenges and experiences,including the navigation of various socioeconomic and culturaldifferences, mothering from afar and also ill treatment by theiremployers”. Their writing for the most part underlines migrants’vulnerability as a marginalized group and the transitory lives of theseIndonesian migrant workers indeed portray the challenging nature ofborders. These challenges are not only embodied as the physical‘international border’, the concrete border, but also other lines of social,
cultural, political, and economic demarcation as stated by Mezzadra and
Nelson, and their experiences are well recorded in the narratives.
Here, I would like to explore Indonesian domestic workers’
narratives in relation to the challenges in crossing these abstract borders
to examine and also analyze their responses to the challenges as well assome of the strategies taken to solve the problems. I will also discuss how
their everyday life experiences become the avenue for the cultivation of
their political subjectivity.
I would argue that through the process of crossing abstract borders,these Indonesian domestic workers have gained a deeper understandingof the effect of borders, and also in a way it has developed their criticalthinking. In crossing these borders Indonesian domestic worker
protagonists gain or experience a renewed sense of confidence whichallows these women - as well as the readers of their narratives - to seethemselves beyond the reductive label of ‘maids’. Their gained
perspective, in my opinion, transforms their role as maids into that of‘doers’ who are capable of intellectual thinking.
So, these women, in my opinion, have the innate capacity toevaluate their position and also their environment, even in the hostcountry. In their writing, they critically evaluate their lives, and also,
when they write about their difficulties in assimilating to their new lives
37

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalizationin the host country, and also coping with the challenges of their own
situation, it exposes the harsh realities of the Indonesian migrant workers’
migratory experiences, and this is a perspective which as yet remains
unknown to the public.
In examining their border struggles, I use two books. The first one
is a memoir written by two Indonesian migrant workers, Bayu Insani and
Ida Raihan, called “TKW Menulis” (which can be loosely translated as‘Indonesian Domestic Workers Write’) published in 2011. Their memoir
talks about the journey of pre migration of these two women, and then
their migratory experiences in Hong Kong as well as the process coping
and overcoming the obstacles to assimilation.
Picture 2. “Blood Stained Letters for the President “
Source: Author

The second book is an anthology entitled “Blood Stained Letters for
the President”, published in 2010. I will take two stories from thisanthology. The first is “A Lesson Learned in the Land of Concrete” byKine Risty, and then “Ramadan in Willingness” by Juwana Aza.
38

Border Struggles of the Indonesian Domestic Workers
To contextualize the border struggles depicted in the
aforementioned titles, I would like to give an overview about thetheoretical view on migration from a border studies perspective, toprovide a background on border struggle, and how this struggle leads tothe development of border awareness, and also border thinking. Then I’mgoing to elaborate the impact the awareness has on shaping the politicalsubjectivity.

2. Migration and Border
When we talk about migration, I think it’s already clear that
migration is dynamic in nature. Migration enables people to move fromone place to another place geographically and then this can be permanentor temporary. Also, according to Moslund (2010), migration causes
especially traditional identity markers, such as nationality, origin,settlement, dwelling, roots, and bloodlines, not to solely be used to
identify human condition changes. In a way migration involves aconstant process of reinvention and also self-redefinition because, whenpeople move according to Houtum and Naerssen (2016), they not only
move physically, but also their personal and social boundaries shift, andthen this migration can pose a significant human experience, since it is aprocess of social change, and it also changes people mentality because
all of the elements involved in migration are transformed.
Sabina Hussain also argues that the migrant experience is always
related to the intermingling of divergent cultures, it always signifies
possibilities of different personalities and with this opens up possibilitiesof transformation. People carry their cultural baggage when they migrate
and then as they work on settling down in a new culture their cultural
identity is likely to change and that encourages a degree of belonging andthey also attempt to settle down either by assimilation or biculturalism.
Bhugra (2004) adds that the process of acculturation requires two
cultures to come in contact and both cultures may experience somechange.
39

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
In reality, however, one cultural group will often dominate the othergroup and in the case of Indonesian domestic workers, their employer’s
culture is the dominant culture. So, as migration allows people to crossphysical and abstract border, this brings us to the many definitions ofborders. Borders can be real, like the physical international border which
requires people to provide themselves with certain documents needed tovalidate them as a legal border crosser. However, documents alone
cannot facilitate the crossing of the abstract border because crossing thisabstract border requires something else, for example, cultural fluency,
language competence, and also any other traits that the migrants may notpossess, at least at the initial stages of their migration. In his article,
Victor Konrad explained the complexity of the definition of ‘border’
which ranges from real to imagined and also the concrete and abstract orsymbolic meanings of borders which separate people, because they
compartmentalize people within areas, regions and continents. However,when we talk about border, we can also see opportunities, as when people
migrate, when they cross a physical border as Dr. Kim explained in her
previous presentation, the people in Korea moved to Germany to getwork. So, crossing the border line provides opportunities and in the caseof Indonesia, as a poorer country, people moved to Hong Kong or
Singapore to have a better job opportunity than in their homeland.

3. Border Thinking and Political Subjectivity
In discussing borders, Mignolo and Tlostanova (2006), contend thatborders are not only geographic, but also political, subjective, andepistemic, which includes the division of people through religion,
knowledge and language. So, here we can see that differences andopposition exist naturally on both sides of the border and this indicatesthe potential of the asymmetrical relationship. In the case of domestic
employment, Momsen argued that domestic employment is an area thatreflects the asymmetrical relationship between the employer and theemployee and then the marginalization of domestic workers, particularly
40

Border Struggles of the Indonesian Domestic Workers
migrant domestic workers is tied to the historical colonial relationshipshaping the master and servant relationship.
We can say that domestic employment already situates migrant
domestic workers to face multiple abstract borders; for example, racial,economic, social and religious borders and in discussing border thinking,Mignolo and Tlostanova further state that it develops as people’s
responses toward the colonial differences. Border thinking occurs
because they become aware of the colonial differences, and thisparticular awareness helps individuals to be able to map out theirsubjective position and it will enable them to execute strategies
especially in crossing the border. So, migrants everyday border struggles
situate them to become a political subject and simultaneously, exercise
their political subjectivity. This means that everyday practices should not
be dismissed as banal, but rather considered highly significant andtherefore, as Hakli and Kallio(2018) contended, political subjectivity canbe located in the manner that people take up issues that stand out asimportant to them. They have something at stake and this brings political
moments and in applying what Hakli and Kallio have suggested toIndonesian domestic workers, in their narrative, it does provide many
examples of day to day experiences, which also involve subject
positioning. That is to say Indonesian domestic workers are not only
involved in conflict with their employers, but also in conflict with othermembers of the employers’ household.
1) Cultural Borders
As previously mentioned, when people migrate, they bring along
their cultural baggage, so exposures to the new values and new beliefs
and customs of the host country have the potential to change migrants’belief and perception. Therefore, in this discussion, I will specificallytalk about the cultural borders and the religious borders.
In Bayu Insani’s memoirs of Indonesian domestic workers’ lives she
gives her impressions of these cultural challenges, these culturaldifferences during her employment in Hong Kong. She has worked for41

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
several years and the experience of working for different employers in a
way helps her to prepare herself to adjust more easily to her new
surroundings. However, this is not to say that she can easily accept all
the cultural differences in the host country.
For example, let us take a look at Hong Kong people’s attitudes towhen people cry for a for instance. This was a hard adjustment for her as
we see in her story:“They also told me that they didn’t like to see me sad andcrying. For people in Hong Kong, crying would bring bad luck to
the house and the family. Therefore, they were against crying.
Nonetheless, crying could ease the burden of being a migrant likemyself who lived 1000 miles away from family.”(Insani and Raihan, “Indonesian Domestic Workers Write”
p.19)

People in Hong Kong believe that crying will bring you bad luckand Insani was aware of this because the employer told her, yet for her,as migrant far away from her family, crying had a different meaning.
From this story, we can see how different attitudes toward crying arepresented and this means that another cultural border needs to be crossed.
In Insani’s opinion, crying could ease the burden of being a migrant. Thisin my opinion, emphasizes a bitter fact that as domestic workers, thechallenge is not only the burden of doing physical work, which isdomestic chores in the employer’s residence, but also the psychologicalpressure of living away from one’s family. Perhaps people would saythat crying will not solve the problem, but it still eases the psychologicalburden. So, in the case of foreign migrant workers, crying can beconsidered as a great tool for releasing the emotion.
In her memoir, Insani does not mention about how she negotiatedthis cultural difference. However, in a different part of the memoir,
Raihan, the coauthor of this memoir, had a response to this culturaldifference. She said that she would go to her room and lock herself inand cry. This allowed her to take care of her need without necessarily
42

Border Struggles of the Indonesian Domestic Workers
breaking the local cultural codes. Here we can say that she could bridge
this border or she could cross this border.
2) Language Border
Another standard border in any migratory experiment is the
linguistic barrier, or the language difference. So, in her memoir Insani
admits that she has trouble adjusting to the language. However,surprisingly, she is able to overcome this problem by learning with thechildren. She said, ‘I realized that learning a language with children was
a lot better and faster than learning with adults who often got frustrated
easily. Insani explained her success in crossing the language border. So
this particular experience reveals that the language border is one of theabsolute borders that play a significant role in the in the world ofdomestic employment, because mastering the host country’s language isimperative as this kind of employment relies heavily on effective
communication between the employers and the employees and therefore
only by having sufficient language competency can IDWs perform theirwork well.
3) Religious Border
Religious borders emerge due to religious differences. As they comefrom Indonesia, the largest Muslim country, most IDWs are Muslims,
and they have moved to a country where Islam is not the main religion.
This brings challenges for example in terms of food, and it might bedifficult for them to get halal food. If they are observant Muslims, theyalso have to observe their religious rituals, such as praying five times aday, and also fasting during the month of Ramadan. Most of theemployers who are not Muslim may not accommodate the observance ofMuslim religious practices such as allowing them to do the five times
prayer or separating pork from the daily meals. Thus Muslim IDWs often
face challenges in maintaining their religious practices. Insani does nottalk about this but in the memoirs, but in the anthology, in one of thestories, “Lessons Learnt in the Land of Concrete” Risty’s story
43

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
exemplifies a protagonist who is forced to give up their religious
practices, even the principle, in the name of employment. The main
character in the story named Eny is forced to consume pork which
Muslims they are forbidden to consume. So Eny refuses and this results
in a conflict as told in this exchange.
“One day, Ma’am talked seriously to me: “Eny! I don’t like you
not eating pork”. Her voice sounded like thunder in my ears. Dear
God! She even tried to threaten me that she would send me back toIndonesia just because I refused to eat pork. I could not hold my tears
and cried in front of her. I told her that as a Muslim I was not supposed
to eat pork. She was terribly angry with me. “Oh, Indonesia is
Indonesia! But here is Hong Kong and you have to eat pork!” shesnarled shutting the door so hard. Bhlaaarrr! After refusing to eat pork,
my Ma’am started to change her attitude toward me. She often got
irritated so easily. One day, she told my agency staff about my refusal.
Of course, the easily irritated agency staff was so mad at me. The staff
babbled like a lunatic and told me that he had successfully made somany IDWs eat pork. Some agency staff even asked the employers toterminate their maids if they refuse to eat pork”(Risty, “Lessons Learnt in the Land of Concrete”, p. 112)

In this excerpt, Eny’s experience underscores another challenge ofbeing a Muslim in Hong Kong. To justify her own requirement theemployer put emphasis on Eny’s foreignness and demanded that while
in Hong Kong, she should follow the law of the land. In other words, theemployer strengthened her own position by strengthening the association
between different binaries; Indonesia versus Hong Kong, Muslim versus
non-Muslim, as well as pork versus no pork. The agency staff sided withthe employer and this emphasizes the structural power imbalance that
disadvantages IDWs, and this illustrates the tendency that the more
powerful parties do not consider IDW’s human rights when making
decisions or when fulfilling their religious practices. Moreover, this story
in particular demonstrates that IDWs are sometimes deliberately

44

Border Struggles of the Indonesian Domestic Workers
prevented from implementing a reactive solution to their problem when
they try to cross this particular border.
5) Production of Political Subjectivity
Cases where IDWs are forced to abandon their religious practices
are an example of a political moment. I would like to continue myprevious discussion about Eny, who refuses to eat pork. Eny, the main
character in this particular story experiences a political moment when her
employer tries to force her to consume pork. Her refusal to comply is
considered the emergence of Eny’s political agency, and Eny’s employer
cannot accept her refusal and tries to evoke the notion of space andbelonging to justify her demand by constructing Hong Kong as the spacein which the consumption of pork, instead of being prohibited ismandatory. Then the employer attempts to position Eny as a passive
subject, and assimilate her into the mainstream culture of Hong Kong, atthe expense of her Indonesian Muslim identity, yet Eny remains fully
aware of her agency and she chooses to conflict with her employer’s
demand that she give up her religious principles.
This shows the forming of Eny’s political subjectivity anddemonstrates her strong will in defending her belief. Because her belief
is at stake, she has something at risk. So she has to execute an act toovercome the problem. So she says:“‘Dear God, is this the devil in the form of human?’ my heartscreamed. ‘I’ve got to be tough. I must hold on to my principles
strongly. Who is afraid to go back to Indonesia? I still have myparents who would give me a warm welcome.’ I did not want tosubmit myself to the human-faced devil.”(Risty, “Lessons learnt in the Land of Concrete,” pp. 112-113)

So, by calling the employer a human-faced devil, we can see how
this protagonist rejects the employer’s framing of the conflict as one
constructed by spaces, identities and border, Hong Kong versus
45

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Indonesia, non-Muslim versus Muslim, and instead frames it as a battle
between good and evil, with Eny representing the forces of good. So Enythus resists her employer’s attempt to dominate her internally as well as
externally and establishes not only political agency, but also politicalsubjectivity and also consciousness.
So IDWs border struggles as illustrated in the narrative by all theprotagonists, have enabled these women to constantly search for spaces
where they can develop themselves and also empower themselves,despite the strong grip of the colonial relation existing within domestic
employment. Furthermore, these women, who have to cope with thedifficulties of migratory life, heighten their awareness of different
borders, and then their everyday border struggles catalyze the cultivationof their political subjectivity by making meaning of seemingly mundane
experiences. So every strategy, negotiation and creatively executed actof resistance to oppression brings IDWs a greater confidence to stand up
for themselves, as illustrated in these stories. Some of them do resign,
because they don’t want to give up what they believe in.
The confidence to stand up for themselves has the potential tosubvert, dismantle, and disempower colonial differences in the relation
between employers and employees.
IDWs’ migratory experiences as manifested in their narratives canfunction as a means to raise awareness by appreciating these women
better and see them beyond their contribution of sending a remittanceback to their country.

46

Presentation 4

Preserving the Life and Culture of the
Korean Diaspora among the Majority: Ethnic
Minority Rights in Kazakhstan in the PostSoviet Era
Jinhye Lee
1. Introduction
I have divided this presentation into six parts. Firstly, I’m going togive a brief Introduction and discuss the existing research on this topic.
Secondly, I will describe the Korean Diaspora, or Koryo Saram (KS) in
Kazakhstan. Next, I’ll move on to examine the formation of the Koryo
Saram Community in Kazakhstan, and how they have established theirrole as an ethnic minority there. Lastly, I will explain my findings.
Table 1 shows the population and distribution in recent years of
Korean Diaspora in the world. According to the statistics by the Korean
Table 1. Korean Diaspora in the World

47

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
government in 2019, there are about 7.5 million Korean diaspora whoare spread all over the world. Most of them are concentrated in China,
Japan, the USA, and the post-Soviet Region which includes the five
Central Asian countries. Europe includes the former Soviet Union, andabout 500,000 live in the area.
Table 2. Korean Diaspora in the Post-Soviet
Area

Table 2 shows the Korean diaspora population of each state in the
post-Soviet area. Russia is the state where the largest number of Korean
diaspora live, followed by Uzbekistan, and then Kazakhstan.
The Koryo Saram first lived in the former Soviet Union, and it istheir self-identification. Map 1 shows the routes of their migration.
Koryo Saram migrated to Primorsky Krai from the Joseon Peninsula in1863 during the Joseon era, and in 1937, they were forced to migrate toCentral Asia under the oppressive regime of Stalin, and then they also
migrated to other areas such as Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.
After the Soviet Union collapsed and the former Soviet Union states
gained independence, they were forced to adapt and assimilate into thenew political and social systems as minorities in a multi-ethnic society.
Currently, in Kazakhstan’s KS community has many sub-categories
including those who settled there under forced migration by Stalin, those48

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority

Map 1. Migration Routes of KS

who started living in Kazakhstan and led relatively stable lives, and KS
who immigrated from the Far East of Russia or the post-Soviet states for
economic activities after the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Table 3).
Table 3. Koryo Saram’s Sub-Identity49

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
They are recognized as different entities and each group has its own
title. In other words, they have different identities. The emergence ofdifferent titles depending on the area of residence or origin of the KS isclosely related to the history of migration they have experienced, so far.
It can be described as a concept that survives throughout the Soviet
period and as a newly formed concept after the dissolution of the Soviet
Union, both of which coexist in their community nowadays.

2. Research on KS
To date, there has been minimal research on the ethnic minorities in
Kazakhstan such as Germans, Uighurs and KS. A number of minorities
have different and complex factors depending on their relations with
their historical homeland and international situations in terms of
maintaining their respective ethnic cultures and forming their identities.
However, few attempts have been made to compare the changes ofvarious ethnic minorities from that perspective. Instead, they stopped
short of revealing the individual and specific characteristics of the ethnic
minorities. Meanwhile, most attention has been paid to the question of
the KS’s history of migrations, especially, the forced migration toCentral Asia in 1937. To fill in the missing pieces in the study of the KS,
some researchers have been trying to approach the topic from otherangles, such as through literature analysis, engaging in anthropologicaland sociological research, and area studies.
However, there are only a few studies on other aspects of their lives,
for instance, the social effects of becoming independent of theircommunity, including the ethnocentric approach to integration after thecollapse of the Soviet Union, and attempts to conduct an empirical study
on the social dynamism of the KS community.
There are only a few brief studies on topics such as the formationand maintenance of their life as a ethnic minority, and in order to gain
more access into that part of their history, more research needs to be
carried out.
50

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority
I will focus on the discourse of how the Korean diaspora of theformer Soviet Union, the KS, have been preserving their lives
surrounded by the pressures of integration into the multiethnic postSoviet states after the collapse of the Soviet Union, through a case study
analysis of the KS in contemporary Kazakhstan.

3. Who are the KS in Kazakhstan?
Picture 1. A poster of the People’s Unity Day on May 1

Source: https://www.parlam.kz/ru/blogs/unzhakova/Details/6/59037

In 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the five Central
Asian countries achieved the status of independent republics. Amongthem, independent Kazakhstan simultaneously pursuing two goals:
ethnocentrism and the integration of its multi-ethnic citizens. Namely,
the integration in Kazakhstan is largely proceeding in two directions. The
first, it is to secure a public domain led by the government based on the
Kazakhification by Kazakh people, Kazakh language, and Kazakh
history and culture.
51

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
At the same time, it presupposes this as a common value of thecitizenship of Kazakhstan. Second, based on that, it is to guarantee theautonomy of each cultural identity.
Table 4. Perception of their mother tongue of the ethnic groups in Kazakhstan.

Table 4 shows the perception of their mother tongue of the ethnic
groups in Kazakhstan. According to statistics from the Kazakhstan
government, when asked what they think is their own mother tongue is,36% of the KS said it is the language of their historical motherland. 64%of the KS said it is different from the language of their historicalhomeland. It means that they think their mother tongue is Russian.
Table 5. Russian Language Level of the Ethnic Groups in Kazakhstan.

52

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority
Table 5 indicates the Russian language level of ethnic groups in
Kazakhstan. 98% of the KS able to converse in Russian, which represents
the average figure for both urban and rural areas. Among them, 96.9% of
the KS said they could read it, and figures of the KS who lives in urban
is 0.1% higher than numbers of the KS who lives in rural area. Also,
95.5% of the KS said they could write in Russian.
Table 6. Kazakh Language Level of the Ethnic Groups in Kazakhstan.

Table 6 shows Kazakh language level of ethnic groups in
Kazakhstan. 43.4% of the KS are able to converse in Kazakh, and figuresof the KS who lives in rural is 4.8% higher than the numbers of the KS
who lives in urban. Among them, 14.1% of the KS said they could readit. Also, 10.5% of the KS said they could write in Kazakh.
Because the KS has been already Russianized during the Soviet era,
their use of the own language was low, and a higher percentage
recognized Russian as their first language. Mother tongue education wasbanned from 1937 during the Soviet era, and no public schools for KS
were established after Kazakhstan’s independence. They have been
educated in Russian, their own language remains only in spoken form,
and very few people can speak their own languages.

53

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

4. Formation of Their Community in Kazakhstan:
The Koryo Saram choose to stay in Kazakhstan
Map 2. Kazakhstan’s Neighbors

In this part we will examine how KS formed their community in
Kazakhstan, where the dissolution of the USSR and independence took
place, based on the following three factors,• Non-Kazakh’s Migration from Kazakhstan,• KS’s Migration in the Former Soviet Union,• Ethnic origin of the KS in Kazakhstan, and their major
cultural organizations.
1) Non-Kazakh’s Migration from Kazakhstan
The figures for Russians returning to Russia from 1991-1992 in theearly period of the collapse of the Soviet Union and independence ofeach country are shown in Table 7.

54

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority

Table 7. The Return of Russians to Russia

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, a large-scale migration of
Russians in Central Asia occurred. Regarding the Russian outflow after
Kazakhstan’s independence, it emphasized two factors. The first is thatthe change in Russian status in Kazakhstan created various restrictions
on life in Kazakhstan concerning the use of Russian, which was theexisting official language. Also, due to changes in Kazakhstan’s
language law, non-Kazakhs became dissatisfied with learning of the
Kazakh language and the changing of Russian-style names of streets andplaces to the Kazakh-style names.
The second is the problem that occurred during the settlement ofoverseas Kazakhs (Oralman) who returned to Kazakhstan. The north andnortheast are the main residences of Russians. When the Oralman
returned to the place and received government support during theirsettlement process, the Russians were opposed to it.
In other words, Russians were opposed to the government-led
Kazakhification, such as the language and the Oralman policy. The
55

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
integration, centered on the Kazakhization, is the main cause of theoutflow of non-Kazakh Russians after its independence.
It is also argued that economic motivation is a more important factor
in their migration. After its collapse, the former Soviet Union states
suffered from serious economic conditions in these societies, but many
people moved to Russia because they believed that life there would offer
them relatively better prospects.
Meanwhile after its independence, during the 1990s, more than
500,000 Germans in Kazakhstan returned to Germany, and the numberof Germans who returned to Germany from the former Soviet countries
was also on the rise as shown in Table 8.
Table 8. Germans who returned to Russia from the former USSR

Germans chose migration for the same reason as the Russians. In
addition, the international news of the reunification of East and West
Germany (October 3, 1990) provided a strong motivation for theirmigration along with the German government’s policy of accepting

56

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority
overseas Germans. Both Russia and Germany were establishingimmigration policies in the early days of Kazakhstan’s independence.
The most important condition for the Russians and Germans in
Kazakhstan wishing to return home after independence was that there
was a policy of accepting them in their respective homelands.
2) KS’s Migration in the Former Soviet Union
Meanwhile, the KS accounted for a smaller percentage of the total
population than the Russians and Germans in Kazakhstan in the earlydays of independence. Their rural communities collapsed due to theconsolidation of collective farms, which used to provide collective
dwellings, and the change in operating patterns to state-run farms. At thesame time, the KS community was quickly urbanized and scattered.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the historic homeland ofSouth and North Korea did not come up with policies to accept them.
The policy of accepting overseas Russians and Germans returning
to Russia and Germany, their main emigration sites and their historicalhomelands, has become a major factor in calling for their return to their
homelands. Moreover, the Russians and Germans are considered to have“chosen” their return. However, the KS did not have such an option, so
their only choice was to stay in Kazakhstan at that time.
Picture 2. Koryo Saram Kimchi in Almaty, Kazakhstan

Source: Author

57

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
After the collapse of Soviet Union, the KS moved for a better
environment and to avoid the confusion caused by the integration policyof each country. The main migration areas were Russia and South Korea.
One of the main migration sites for the KS was Russia. In Russia,
the unstable political environment caused by nationalism, civil war, andethnic conflict and the unstable economic environment caused byunemployment in each country, served as a push factor in the KS’s
migration to Russia.
These were the major factors in the migration not only of the KS but
also of other ethnic minorities from the former Soviet countries to Russia.
In addition to these external environmental factors of KS’s migration, theparticular push factors inside the KS’s community have contributed tothe outflow of its population to Russia. These factors are the urbanoriented lifestyle, the high level of educational zeal, and the successoriented characteristics of the KS.
In addition to the fact that Russian is spoken in each region of Russia,
in moving to Primorsky there was the psychological factor of nostalgia
for the historical hometown where the ancestors of the KS used to live.
In the 1990s however, there was a major lack of foundation forpolicies to accept the KS in Korea, but the introduction of the visiting
employment system in 2007 led to an increase in KS’s migration to
Korea.
The 1988 Seoul Olympics, the normalization of diplomatic relations
between the Soviet Union and Korea in 1990, and the collapse of theSoviet Union in 1991 served as a direct trigger for the KS to become
interested in South Korea and in migrating to Korea.
During the Soviet era, KS were more engaged in exchanges with
North Korea than with South Korea, and they had Soviet nationality andrecognized South Korea only to a limited extent. However, the above
series of events served as an opportunity to give a more positive
impression of their existing image of Korea and the migration to Korea
was recognized as a means of realizing the hope that they would be able

58

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority
to pursue a better life and gain new opportunities after the collapse of theSoviet Union.
Currently (2020), it is impossible to determine the exact populationof the KS living in Korea because no census has been conducted.
However, with the introduction of the “visitor employment system” in
2007, “statistics on overseas Koreans” (F-4) visa1 issued only to overseas
Koreans among foreigners from former Soviet Union countries and those
who hold the “visitor employment” (H-2) visa can be used to gauge theirsize.
The largest number of KS with F-4 visas is in the order of Russia,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. H-2 visa holders are in theorder of Uzbekistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, and an
overwhelming number of Uzbekistan nationals can be seen. Although F4 and H-2 holders are steadily increasing overall.
In the case of Uzbekistan, not only the KS but also other ethnic
groups have moved to other countries to live as migrant workers forvarious reasons, such as the political and economic instability common
in former Soviet countries, the political situation of stronger nationalism,and especially low-wage issues2.
As seen above, the KS of Kazakhstan chose to stay in Kazakhstan
in the early days of unstable independence after the collapse of the Soviet
Union. There are two factors that this can be attributed to: First, there
was a lack of foundation for the acceptance of overseas Koreans in Korea,
the historical homeland of the KS, unlike Russia and Germany, which
had policies to accommodate their overseas people. It has been
confirmed that the number of KS moving to Korea has been on the rise
since 2007 due to the introduction of the visitor employment system.
However, the majority of the KS’s population that flows into Korea arefrom Uzbekistan, compared with a relatively small migration of KS from
Kazakhstan to Korea.
I Visa issued to Koreans of foreign nationality for the “Qualification of overseas
Koreans” required to enter and stay in Korea (IOM 2015:34-5).
2 Interview with N (Dec. 12, 2016), O (Dec. 10, 2016), S (Dec. 8, 2016).

59

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Secondly, the political and economic situation in Kazakhstan has
stabilize compared to other former Soviet countries. Kazakhstan, likeother former Soviet countries, has been pushing for Kazakh-centeredintegration. However, the relatively stable political environment without
disputes and the economic situation with active foreign investment havefurther strengthened the foundation of the Kazakhstan’s KS, who choseto stay3.
They insist that their ethnic origins began from the forced migrationin 1937. They also claimed that various organizations which they have,theater, radio, television, and newspapers, and their elite leaders since
they moved from the Primorski, have formed and led their community.
3) Establishing Their Role as an Ethnic Minority in Kazakhstan
The first point I would like to mention in Part 5, is that the KS in
Kazakhstan themselves are seeking their own role in terms of their
historical homeland, especially in terms of their activities in connection
with South Korea. I would also like to mention the following threefactors that have strengthened cooperation.
First, the change in perception of the two Koreas before and after
the dissolution of the Soviet Union, secondly, the opening of the Korean
Education Center in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the support of the Korean
government, and finally, the ‘Korean wave’ and the construction of
Almaty Koreatown.
Firstly, the establishment of diplomatic relations and culturalcontacts between Kazakhstan and South Korea are being made throughthe Kazakhstan’s KS themselves, and they have served as a bridge
between the two countries 4 . As exchanges between Kazakhstan andSouth Korea increased after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Also the1988 Olympics were held in Seoul, diplomatic relations between Korea
and the Soviet Union were established in 1990, and the center of the KS’s
exchanges with their historical homeland was shifted to South Korea
3 Interview with Q (Nov. 23, 2016).
4 Interview with B (Dec. 14, 2015), C (Aug. 10, 2018).

60

Preserving the Life of the Korean Diaspora among the Majority
from the North. However, although the frequency of exchanges with
North Korea has decreased compared to the past, they have continued totake place 5 . Since its independence, the KS of Kazakhstan haveemphasized not only their role as citizens of the multi-ethnic country of
Kazakhstan but also their role in strengthening cooperation andfriendship between Kazakhstan and their historical homeland, South
Korea.
The second point I would like to mention is the opening of the
Education Centre at the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Kazakhstan
in 1991 and the Korean government’s support for the KS’s organizations
served as factors that solidified exchanges between the two countries andthe role of Kazakhstan’s KS as intermediaries. The Education Centre isengaged in educational and support programs for the spread of Korean
language and Korean culture6.
Thirdly, I would like to mention the impact of the Korean Wave,
which is spreading worldwide. The Korean Wave’s contents are also
rapidly spreading in Kazakhstan. Also, the first Korean town in theformer Soviet Union is under construction in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Plans
have been postponed because of COVID-19, but in the future they hope
it will be a place where Korean culture can be spread to Kazakhstan7.
The formation of a Koreatown is expected to be an important factor instrengthening the role and position of the Korean and Kazakhstan’s KS
along with the spread of the Korean Wave. As seen above, factors suchas a positive changes in perception of Korea, active links between KS’s
organizations and the Korean Education Center, and the influence of the
Korean Wave, have contributed to the solidification of the role of the KS
in the process of seeking roles between Kazakhstan and Korea.

5 Interview with B (Dec. 14, 2015).
6 For more information, see the homepage (www.koreacenter.kz).
7 It is scheduled to open in February 2020 in Almaty mall, Jandosava Saina, Almaty

City, Kazakhstan (see www.cistoday.com February 25, 2019) (It was postponed by the
influence of Covid-19).

61

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

5. Conclusion
This presentation has researched about how the KS incontemporary Kazakhstan have built and preserved their life and culture
after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
I have drawn the following conclusions. They had to preserve theirlife as Kazakhstan’s KS, who experienced the collapse of the Soviet
Union and Kazakhstan’s independence and chose to stay in Kazakhstan.
The methods underlying the preserving of their life are summarized in
two ways.
Firstly, the KS in Kazakhstan had formatted their community in
Kazakhstan as they chose to stay in Kazakhstan. There are basically threepatterns for the formation and preservation of the basis of ethnic minority
status after the USSR’s collapse: first, going back to their historicalhomelands, second, moving to other countries within the former Soviet
Union, and the third, staying where they were by acquiring citizenship ofthe newly formed states.
Secondly, the KS have established their role as an ethnic minority
in Kazakhstan. They have used various organizations formed in
Kazakhstan to seek and strengthen the exchange role between Korea andKazakhstan, their historical homeland. The following three factors
enhanced the role they intend to develop themselves. First, the change inperception of the two Koreas before and after the collapse of the Soviet
Union; second, the opening of the Korean Education Center in Almaty,
Kazakhstan, and the support of the Korean government; and finally, theKorean Wave and the construction of Almaty Koreatown.
To sum up more simply, the life and culture of the KS in Kazakhstan
has been formed based on their choice to stay in Kazakhstan. It has beenpreserved by their relationship with their historical homelands, theirstatus as a minority, and their ethnic foundations within Kazakhstan, and
it is also in a constant process of transforming. Thank you for listening.

62Concluding Remarks:
Provocative Issues at a Crossroads in Asian
Diaspora Studies
Jinhye Lee
We are very grateful to all our presenters for their deep insights, andtheir personal, and often moving portrayals of the daily lives, struggles
and achievements of diasporic peoples. They underline the need todeepen these studies, as they brought to us lessons on their struggle forsurvival, their fight against discrimination, and the claims for humanrights that are surfacing in the homogenized post-capitalist global
community.
We have learned not only about their struggles but also theirtriumphs in overcoming all obstacles to live a fulfilled and contented life.
We have learned that nothing comes without a struggle, but that
ultimately it is worth the effort, and that to find the light at the end of adark tunnel you must pass through it.
The individual presentations were followed by an enthusiastic Q&A
session, and due to the participants’ specialist knowledge and experiencein Diaspora studies, and the valuable opinions they expressed on a wide
range of related topics, I have decided to include a brief report on these
discussions. Some of the questions shed light on the original
presentations, some were generated out of the discussion itself, andothers elicited some practical advice for future diaspora research.
The questions sparked discussions on a wide variety of diasporarelated topics, and so for ease of reference and the benefit of our readers,I have summarized them and listed them by the principle topics.

63

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization

1. Naming of Koryo Saram
One of the first questions was with regard to the term “Koryo
Saram”. Tri Murniati asked whether the term referred to the Korean
diaspora in different countries or just to those in the post-Soviet Union.
I explained that Koryo Saram refers only to the Korea diaspora in the
post-Soviet era and it is the name by which they identify themselves. In
Koryo Saram studies there are several titles. For example, in English,
they are known simply as ‘Koreans in the post-Soviet Union’, but inJapan, in Korea, and within Koryo Saram ‘s community there are many
terms.
When I began my research, I found that the most important aspectof the name was that it was their own self-identification, because after
the division of Korea, there were many political issues and then
immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union they suffered fromharsh political conditions and had to identify themselves either by acontemporary South Korean name, a North Korean name, or a Japanesename. But they were not South Korean, or South Korean and not thecitizens of a colony, so to define their unique identity they named
themselves as the Koryo Saram.

2. Language Acquisition
Helen Kim remarked on the Koryo Saram’s ability in reading andwriting of the Russian and Kazakh languages. She was surprised that
their proficiency in Russian was almost 99% but that in Kazakh it wasmuch lower, at least in terms of writing. She was curious whether thiswas because Russian might be perceived as being more prestigious as acultural language.
I explained that the Koryo Saram had already experienced being
integrated into Russia during the Soviet period. Then immediately after
the collapse of the USSR, the Kazakhstan government introduced thepolicy of Kazak centered integration of Kazakh language, culture, and64

Provocative Issues at Crossroads in Asian Diaspora Studies
history. Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet union, Kazakh was
not the major language in Kazakhstan, while, in Uzbekistan at the time,they did actually speak Uzbek. This meant that the over-forties in the
Koryo Saram community couldn’t speak Kazakh fluently, but the young
generation had to, because the government introduced tests in Kazakh as
a qualification for employment’ so the young Koryo Saram in
Kazakhstan had to learn it. That is why Koryo Saram teenagers and thosein their twenties can already speak Kazakh.

3. Double-Belonging Identity Issues
I asked Ya-Han Chuang to clarify what she meant by double
belonging. She explained that this phenomenon is particular to France,
because French society is theoretically built on a model of assimilation
where all citizens are taught there is no difference among people.
However, in reality, as immigrants and their descendants grow up they
are exposed to the a brutally multicultural environment, and findthemselves constantly otherized at school, or by the media. Implicitly, intheir social environment, Chinese descendants grow up with the idea that
there is an authentic way of being French, but amongst their own people,
there is also an authentic way of being Chinese.
This experience of socialization sandwiched between two cultures
eventually pushes them to live with a hybrid identity. Ultimately, mostof them live through a negotiation, beginning by saying that they areneither French nor Chinese and ending up by saying, they are both
French and Chinese. In reality this does not result in a normative way of
thinking but gives them a dual identity. Of course this only brushes overthe problem, and the dilemma of, “Who am I?’ will only be resolved
when the revolutionary ideals of justice, equality, and brotherhood are
actually adopted by humanity as whole.
What Ya-Han Chuang found interesting was that they succeeded informing their own identity as a hybrid double belonging and this65

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
symbolizes a kind of inner rebellion comparative to what we might
imagine the struggle for the Republic was like.

4. Third Space for Diaspora Living in Two Worlds
When talking about the Asian diaspora in France Ya-Han Chuang
had mentioned that most of them feel neither here nor there, as if they
are living in two worlds. Tri Murniati brought up the question of a third
space. For example, Indian domestic workers in Hong Kong have aregular gathering in a place called Victoria Park. This has become a kindof third place where they can bridge between the two worlds of Indonesia
and Hong Kong. She asked Ya-Han Chuang whether the Asian diaspora
in France have created or built such a space.
She replied that she thought that third spaces, as public spaces fordiaspora to gather, have always existed for migrants, especially for those
who live in Paris, since there are at least two little China towns where
they can find very home-like clothing and sweets, and the Asian diaspora
youth have grown up in this environment.
She pointed out that what has changed is that there has been areevaluation of these spaces due to a new cultural activism. Chinese
cuisine in France, or Asian cuisine in France, is often associated withinferior quality cuisine, especially if it is Chinese. In their new culturalactivism the youth have reevaluated all this cuisine with illustrations
portraying Chinese food as high quality cuisine.
However young people who are brought up in an entrepreneur’sfamily, or children of Asian origin adopted by white French parents,
grow up in a much more isolated environment and it is already difficultand complicated for them to assume their own identity as being Asian inFrance. For them, the Internet has become their primary place to meet up
to exchange their experiences in a much more anonymous way. Thenafter this first encounter, they begin to nurture an identity, and nowadays
we are starting to see them also gathering in some diasporic spaces. YaHan Chuang gave the example that her first meeting with these young66

Provocative Issues at Crossroads in Asian Diaspora Studies
Asians was quite naturally in a well-respected Chinese restaurant, andactually for many of them, it was probably their first discovery of good
Asian cuisine in Paris as well.
I asked Tri Murniati about the function of Victoria Park as a third
space for Indonesian domestic workers to gather. I wondered if, inaddition to the function as a space for Indonesian nationals it also acted
as a space that accommodated the mixing of the two countries’ cultures
like Chinatown in Korea, or Korea Town in LA, which also have some
important commercial or economic functions. Chinatown in Korea
became the workplace of Chinese people living in Korea, thus providing
economic benefits for their lives as well, and their network is formed
based on that function. So I asked if there is any particular commercial
or economic function in Victoria Park in Hong Kong?
Tri Murniati explained that migrant workers or the Indonesian
domestic workers are not allowed to do any business outside theiremployment. However, according to the written sources, some of themdo something like opening a food stall in Victoria Park selling Indonesian
cuisine, so, this has helped the domestic workers to have a taste of home.
This has the added benefit of providing the Indonesian domestic workers
with additional income, not from their employment, but from this illegal
business.
However, it is different from, say, a Chinatown, where the Chinese
diaspora can legally make a living, while this is not the case forIndonesian domestic workers. In fact Victoria Park emerged as a space
where they can socialize with their peers, other domestic workers, but
not necessarily while freely enjoying economic activities.

5. Activists’ Strategies against Anti-Asian Racism
Helen Kim pointed out that the Anti-Asian racism that Ya-Han
Chuang described in Paris is also happening in other places, namely, theUS and the UK, and a lot of the recent claims in the US accuse activist
organizations who highlight anti-Asian racism of trying to silence or67

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
divert attention away from anti-black racism. She asked her about thepolitical landscape around making these claims in France, and whether
she felt there was a greater sense of solidarity amongst racialized groups
and political organizations across the board.
Ya-Han Chuang replied that there is a huge debate around thissubject in France. The situation in France is not as serious but it is similar
to the US in the sense that interracial hostility also exists, especiallyaggression in the form of delinquency coming from black or North
African young teenagers who are in the beginning of their careers as agangsters. When there were demonstrations there was a debate inside the
Asian and Chinese circles as to whether to highlight this aggression as
the consequence of interracial hostility or not? It is also true that someamong the first generation Chinese entrepreneurs do have racial
prejudice against Northern African or black minority teenagers. They dothis without necessarily contextualizing them in the bigger sociologicalframework as young delinquents or apprentice criminals, so this hostility
goes on, and this divergence still exists even among the Asian activists.
She explained that regarding the question about solidarity with otherracial minorities concretely, there are different ways to frame thequestion. One group claims they are the victims of racism, and they wantharsher reform, to punish teenagers who commit such a crime. In otherwords an ethno-centric way to frame the problem from the perspectiveof being criminally attacked. Meanwhile, another group tends to describesuch a problem as a consequence of the systemic racism. This view isless visible today among activists, but it’s growing under COVID-19.
Since COVID-19, activists have succeeded in changing thediscourse on racism against Asians by showing the extent to which a
common ideology remains deeply embedded in the French perception of
their society, instead of it just being about a neighborhood problem ofcriminal hostility among residents of different ethnic origin. Further, ina larger way, in terms of the convergence and solidarity, there are more
initiatives being done by other minority groups toward the Asians. For
example, when in 2017, a Chinese man was shot in his apartment,

68

Provocative Issues at Crossroads in Asian Diaspora Studies
youngsters of all minorities demonstrated loudly against the police
violence, so victims of similar violence who were of African origin andwhose movement has been going for longer actually showed theirsupport to this Chinese victim’s Asian family.
However from a solidarity perspective the case of Asian youngsters
going to the Black Lives Matter protests is much less visible and it’s not
yet becoming a consensus among the Asian activists in France.
So there has been some debate, and we can see among Asians a clear
distinction between those who want solidarity, who want to work withthe other minorities, and those who try to have a more ethnocentric way,
who paradoxically tend to finally conserve the status of the model
minority, even inside the political landscape. This situation is influenced
by external economic and political conditions but there is certainly hopefor the success of these activists efforts in to achieve solidarity. This isrelated to the conclusion to Section 3, and further highlights the pointthat differences of race, creed and color can only be resolved when therevolutionary ideals of justice, equality, and brotherhood are adopted byhumanity as whole.

6. What Next after Gaining Political Agency?
Helen Kim recalled Tri Murniati’s account of a narrative by an
Indonesian domestic worker who, in resisting the unreasonable demandsof her employer, had found a moment of political agency. She wanted tohear more about what happened after that. In this particular account the
woman had contemplated going back to Indonesia and Helen Kim
wondered whether she had come across other examples of these
moments of political agency or subjectivity, and how much power or
agency it actually give these women?
Tri Murniati replied that most of the time, these women do takelessons from their experience and in the case the protagonist in the
narrative, she was able to execute acts to solve the conflict. Taking
examples from the narratives, other protagonists began to engage in69

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
micro-activism. They wanted to help their peers, fellow Indonesian
domestic workers who were enduring similar problems. Their political
moments empowered them to be more active in terms of becoming
involved in advocacy, helping domestic workers and other workers who
have similar problems. In this way are they participating in a wider space,migrant activism.
She encountered this firsthand when doing fieldwork in Singapore,
where she met a migrant worker who was also actively participating in
advocacy. She had a help desk and she spent her Sundays, which is theoff day for the migrant workers in Singapore, helping other domestic
workers who had problems.
She concluded that after they have experienced a political momentof this kind, and they have their political agency they not only empowerthemselves by having the confidence to disempower the colonial relation
between themselves and their employer, but they also extend it to help
other domestic workers. They have more agency to help not only
themselves, but also others. They see others experiencing something they
have also experienced and feel strongly that they would like to help them.
From building the agency for themselves, they also become an agent ina wider space. I found this to be an inspiration in the diasporic people’s
struggle for equality and justice.

7. Mothering from Afar
When Tri Murniati tried to unravel the practice of mothering fromafar in the case of Indonesian domestic workers, she studied the literature
which examined similar issues but in different contexts, such as thecontext of Mexican migrants in the US. She mentioned Helen Kim’s
story about the Korean husband who followed his wife to Germany, andasked her if some of the guests workers’ and nurses’ husbands did not
follow them, so that they had to do mothering from afar. Then she asked
Helen if mothering from afar practices exist in her research context.

70

Provocative Issues at Crossroads in Asian Diaspora Studies
Helen answered that she has been interested in transnational
mothering and mothering from afar, and had learned a lot by studying
some excellent work that was done in the Philippines, by Jason, Cabanis
and Suriano and recommended that other Diaspora researchers read theirworks and incorporate this very human aspect of migration into theirdiaspora studies.

8. Support from Host Country vs. Original Country
Prof. Lee Byong Jo of the Far East Department of the Al-Farabi
Kazakh National University in Kazakhstan mentioned that after the
Korean War, in the 1960s, the Korean government got a loan from
Germany, and with the help of the Korean miners and nurses in Germany,
was able to rebuild the Korean economy.
He asked Helen Kim if there is still a Korean miner and nurse
community in Germany today and whether the German government
giving them any support?
Helen answered that there are many associations, migrantassociations, diasporic associations, specifically for miners and nurses inGermany. In fact, for the first leg of her project, she did a lot of interviews
with these guest workers who settled in Germany, and part of her time
there was spent visiting these associations. Every year, they travel fromall the different towns and regions of Germany and meet in the former
industrial region of Germany, spend a day together, eat, talk andreminisce on their past experiences and present circumstances. Helen
informed us that there are numerous associations both informal andformal that have been created and sustained in Germany.
She mentioned that regarding the German government, there has
been a lot more research within the last couple of years by South Koreanscholars who have had access to the Ministry of Labor which has released
documents concerned with this agreement between South Korea andwestern Germany at the time, so there’s been a lot more research aroundthis particular guest worker wave.
71

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
She stated that these guest workers receive no formal support fromthe German government. However, the South Korean government has
proposed formal support to the guest workers in terms of offering
pensions, which has yet to materialize. However, promises have been
made by the South Korean government to offer support to these guest
workers and we hope that they will be fulfilled.

9. New Approaches to Diaspora Studies
While enjoying this collaboration with my fellow Asian diaspora
researchers I wanted to learn as much as I could from them, so I broughtup the topic of research methodology. Diaspora researchers are trying to
make a logical research framework for many cases, through conducting
interviews and narratives. Helen Kim sought to establish a specificresearch framework from some cases of the Koreans who migrated to
become German guest worker nurses, and Tri Murniati tried to generalize
the study of some Indonesian domestic workers cases through narratives.
Therefore, I asked all the presenters two questions. 1) What is themost important thing for you in the process of generalizing several cases?
And 2) What was the most difficult thing for you in making those
processes.
I explained that in my case, in order to create a logical framework,
first, I try to find commonalities and differences between the cases that I
have gained material from during my field work. Then I try to sort themout and align them with my research framework. However, I have foundthis very difficult, and in most cases, I had no choice but to tailor myresearch to the existing researches’ framework, rather than presenting a
new framework. Then I asked the others to explain how they dealt withthis issue.
Tri Murniati said that in her research she focuses on the narratives
written by women who work as domestic workers and so she explores
the migratory experiences particularly from the perspective of borderstudies, which is not so difficult because there is a lot of literature which72

Provocative Issues at Crossroads in Asian Diaspora Studies
is similar to her research focus. However, as existing research is notlooking at these issues from the perspective of border studies this is thesignificance of her research about the Indonesian domestic workers.
However, when she discusses their migratory experiences, shefound that this is a common theme explored by other scholars, especiallywhen they talk about migrant literature.
Helen Kim suggested that there are two research questions thatframe her research which revolve around the usefulness ofconceptualizations of diaspora. One research question could be forexample, “How could diaspora studies more recent conceptualizations
be useful in thinking about, and trying to reveal the lived experiences ofthese guest workers, as they have migrated from place to place?” In
addition, the lived experiences themselves really tell us something new,and perhaps could stretch or offer different conceptualizations of
diaspora. This comes from thinking of methodologies, and she is trying
to explore the use of certain methods. She is an ethnographer, but in thisproject she has been trying to engage more with oral history interviews,
and she has found that these oral history interviews introduced something
entirely new. Some of the stories cannot be told, just through justspeaking, and yet they are an integral part of the diasporic experiences,stories, these secrets that can’t be told, which Susan Boyan describes inher work on diaspora and intimacy.
Helen Kim stressed the importance of studying the more recent
literature around post-colonial formations, namely, Susan Boyan’s workon Diasporic intimacy, Hazel Carby’s ‘Imperial Intimacies’, and also
Lisa Lowe’s ‘Intimacies of Four Continents. These are groundbreaking
works that offer a different historical narrative. She summarized bysaying that in her resent work she has been linking diaspora and work on
intimacy, as the people, their cultures and identities and the connections
that we cultivate are also our diasporic resources.
I hope that you have found my fellow presenter’s comments andsuggestions useful, and in conclusion, I would like to encourage thereaders of this small report on Asian diaspora studies to continue to73

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
pursue their studies for the success of their careers, and most importantly,
for the benefits and lessons their reports can bring in establish equality,
justice and human rights for all humankind.

74

Bibliography
Below is a list of books referred to by the presenters which the readers
may find useful.

Asian Diaspora and Rascism
Strabucchi, Maria Montt and Carol Chan. 2021. Chineseness in Chile:
Shifting Representations During the Twenty-First Century. Cham:
Palgrave MacMillan.
Li, Yao and Harvey L. Nicholson Jr. 2021. When “Model Minorities”
Become “Yellow Peril”: Othering and the Racialization of Asian
Americans in the Covid‐19 Pandemic. Sociology Compass, 15(6),e12849.
Levitt, T. 2002. Creativity is not Enough. Harvard Business Review, 80,
137-145.
Lamont, Michèle and Crystal Fleming. 2005. Everyday Anti-Racism:
Competence and Religion in the Cultural Repertoire of the African
American Elite. Du Bois Review, 2 (1), 29-43.

Indonesian Diaspora
Azza, Juwana. 2010. Ramadhan dalam Ikhlas. In Surat Berdarah untuk
Presiden: Suara Hati BMI Hong Kong. Nadia Cahyani et al, 6469. Jakarta: Lini Jendela.
Bhugra, Dinesh. 2004. Migration, Distress, and Cultural Identity. British
Medical Bulletin, (67), 129-141, DOI: 10.1093/bmb/Idh007
Häkli, Jouni, and Kirsi Pauliina Kallio. 2017. On Becoming Political:
The Political in Subjectivity. Subjectivity, (11)1, 57-73,
doi:10.1057/s41286-017-0040-z. Accessed on June 5, 2018.
Houtum, Henk Van, and Ton Van Naerssen. 2002. Bordering, Orderingand Othering. Tijdschrift Voor Economische En Sociale Geografie,
93(2), 125-136, doi:10.1111/1467-9663.00189. Accessed on Nov.
23, 2016.

75

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Hussain, S. 2004. Label and Literature: Borders and Spaces in
Postcolonial Migrant Literature in Australia. Journal of the
Association for the Study of Australian Literature, 3, 103-116.
Insani, Bayu and Ida Raihan. 2011. TKW Menulis: Mereka saja Bisa,
Kenapa Anda Tidak? Yogyakarta: Leutika.
Konrad, Victor. 2013. Imagining and Imaging Borders: Understanding
Borderlands for Global Sustainability. The International Archivesof the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information
Sciences, XL-4/W3, 23-27.
Mezzadra, Sandro and Brett Neilson. 2013. Border as Method, or, theMultiplication of Labor. Durham and London: Duke University
Press.
Mignolo, Walter D. and Madina V. Tlostanova. 2006. Theorizing fromthe Borders: Shifting to Geo- and Body-Politics of Knowledge.
European Journal of Social Theory, 9(2), 205-221,
doi:10.1177/1368431006063333. Accessed on November 23,
2016.
Momsen, Janet Henshall, ed. 2013. Gender, Migration, and Domestic
Service. London and New York: Routledge.
Moslund, Sten Pultz. 2010. Migration Literature and Hybridity: The
Different Speeds of Transcultural Change. Great Britain: Palgrave
Macmillan,.
Murniati, T. 2014. Indonesian Migrant Writing: A Trace of Indonesian
Diaspora Narratives. Proceeding International Conference in
Commemoration of the 50 Anniversary of the Department of
Malay-IndonesianStudies,
HUFS,
Seoul.
https://www.academia.edu/7339657/Indonesian_Migrant_Writin
g_A_Trace_on_Indonesian_Diaspora_Narratives-----. 2018. One Place Two Stories: Unravelling Indonesian Domestic
Workers’ Migrant Journey (Unpublished paper).
-----. 2019. Sastra Buruh Migran Indonesia: Crossing Borders andProposing a New Concept of Indonesian Domestic Workers.

76

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Graduate Theses and Dissertations Retrieved fromhttps://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/3169
Risty, Kine. 2010. Ku Maknai Setiap Langkah di Negeri Beton. In Surat
Berdarah untuk Presiden: Suara Hati BMI Hong Kong. Nadia
Cahyani et al, 105-119. Jakarta: Lini Jendela.
White, Paul. 1995. Geography, Literature, and Migration. In Writing
across Worlds: Literature and Migration. eds. Russel King, John
Connell, and Paul White, 1-19. New York: Routledge,
Korean Diaspora
Davenel, Yves-Marie. 2012. Cultural Mobilization in Post-Soviet
Kazakhstan: Views from the State and from Non-titular
Nationalities Compared. Central Asian Survey, 31(1), 17-29.
Diener, Alexander C. 2005. Problematic Integration of MongolianKazakh Return Migrants in Kazakhstan. Eurasian Geography andEconomics, 46(6), 465-478.
-----. 2006. Homeland as Social Construct: Territorialization among
Kazakhstan’s Germans and Koreans. Nationalities Papers, 34(2),201-235.
Dietz, Barbara. 2000. German and Jewish Migration from the Former
Soviet Union to Germany: Background, Trends and Implications.
Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 26(4), 635-652.
Gendaigagakujyuku 1991. Perestroika of the Koreans in USSR, Gaifusha.
Go, Songmu. 1990. Koreans in USSR, Theory & Practice.
Horie, Norio. 2010. Tackling Migration Problems: Chinese and Central
Asian workers in Russia, Russian and East European Studies, 39,
13-25.
Im, Youngsang. 2011. Overseas Korean Communities and DigitalContents. Studies of Koreans Abroad, 23, 101-125.
IOM Migration Research & Training Centre. 2015. A Survey on the
Current Status of Russian and CIS Koryoin Residents in Korea.
Overseas Koreans Foundation.

77

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Jeon, Shinwook. 2007. A Study on Remigration Factors andResettlement of Central Asian Koreans (Russko-Koreets) to
Maritime Region (Primorsky Kray). Korean Policy Sciences
Review, 11(3), 77-107.
Jones, Nathan Paul. 2010. “Assembling” A Civic Nation in
Kazakhstan: The Nation-Building Role of the Assembly of thePeople of Kazakhstan. Caucasian Review of International Affairs,
4(2), 159-168.
Kim, German. 2014. I am the Koryo Saram, Kookhakjaryowon.
Kim, Hojun. 2013. Koryoin in Eurasia, Juluesung.
Kim, Kyunghak. 2014. Migration and Settlement of ‘Koryein’ in Central
Asian Countries to Korea with Particular Reference to‘Koryeinmaeul’ in Gwangju Metropolitan, Journal of International
Area Studies, 17(4), 259-282.
Kim, Sangchul. 2012. Demographic Kazakhization and Repatriation
Policy of Ethnic Kazakhs. Minjok Yeonku, 52(0), 112-146.
Kimura, Hidesuke. 1998. Russians in Kazakhstan. Central Asia: Current
Stage and Challenges of Marketization, 489, 199-227.
King, Ross. 2001. Blagoslovennoe: Korean Village on the Amur, 18711937. Review of Korean Studies, 4(2), 133-176.
Kuscu, Isik. 2012. Constructing the Homeland: Kazakhstan’s Discourse
and Policies Surrounding its Ethnic Return-Migration Policy.
Central Asian Survey, 31(1), 31-44.
Lee, Jinhye 2012. A Study on Establishing a Museum based upon Lenin
Gichi’s Articles from 1986 to 1991. Master’s degree dissertation,
Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
-----. 2017. Identity Formation of the Korean Diaspora in USSR, Koryosaram, in Perestroika Period: An Analysis Based upon Articles ofLenin Gichi, 1986 to 1991. Kyoto Bulletin o f Islamic Area Studies,10, 177-191.
-----. 2019. Identity Formation of the Korean Diaspora（Koryo saram）
in Contemporary Kazakhstan: An Analysis Based upon Articles of
Koryo Ilbo. In Korean Diaspora across the World: Homeland in78

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
History, Memory, Imagination, Media and Reality. Eds. Eun-Jeong
Han, Min Wha Han, and JongHwa Lee, 131-145. Lanham:
Lexington Books,
Lee, Chaemoon and Park Gyutae. 2003. Central Asia to the Russian Far
East, Journal of The Korean Association of Regional Geographers,
9(4), 559-575.
Nakamura, Taizo. 1994. Current Demographic Situation of CIS. Studies
in the Humanities: the Journal of the Literary Association of the
Osaka City University, 46(7), 377-395.
Oka, Natsuko. 2000. Recent Developments Surrounding Russians in
Kazakhstan: What ‘Separativism Activities’ and ‘Demand forIntegration with Russia’ Suggest, Modern Middle East, 29, 27-38.
-----. 2003. Differentiation of Ethnic movements in Kazakhstan: Why
didn’t the Expected Conflict Occur? In State, Violence, Politics:
Over the Conflict in Asia and Africa. ed. Shinichi Takeuchi, 451492. Chiba: IDE-JETRO.
-----. 2006. Kazakhstan: Control of Ethnic Divisions in Authoritarian
Systems. In Crack Structure and Political System in West andCentral Asia. ed. Yasushi Hazama, 221-248. Chiba: IDE-JETRO.
-----. 2010. The “Return” of Co-ethnics: Kazakhstan’s Migration Policy
toward Ethnic Kazakhs abroad, IDE Journal, 51(6), 2-23.
Poujol, Caterrine 2006. Kazakhstan. Tokyo: Hakusuisha.
Shartz, Edward 2000. Framing Strategies and Non-ethnic Kazakhstan.
Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 6(2), 71-94.
-----. 2000a. The Politics of Multiple Identities: Lineage and Ethnicity in
Kazakhstan. Europe-Asia Studies, 52(3), 489-506.
Shikama, Ayako. 2009. Diversity in Modern Immigration: Policy andIntegration Issues for Accepting German Returnees Aussiedler
between Immigration and Pedigree, Senri Ethnological Reports, 83,
159-168.
Shinmen, Yasushi and Ablimit Rizwan. 2002. The Uighur Community
in Almaty, Centered on the Situation of School Education,

79

Asian Diaspora in the Era of Globalization
Historical Study on Sense of Belonging and Islam in Central Asia,
pp. 153-241.
Son, Younghoon. 2007. “Russian Problem” in Kazakhstan and the Policyof Kazakhification, Middle East Studies, 25(2), 117-150.
Stephan, John J. 1978. The Russian Fascists: Tragedy and Farce in Exile,
1925-1945. London: Hamish Hamilton.
-----. 1992. Cleansing the Soviet Far East, 1937-1938. Acta Slavika
Iaponica, 10, 43-64.
-----. 1994. The Russian Far East: A History. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Sung, Dongki. 2009. The New Form of Central Asia-Korean’s Migration
and Research Problems, Journal of Ethnology, 8, 59-81.
Uyama, Yomohiko 1993. Interethnic Relations in Kazakhstan, 19861993, International Relations, 104, 117- 135.
Wada, Haruki. 1987. Koreans in Soviet Far East, 1917-1937, Papers of
the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawaii, 12, 25-31.
Yanagida, Kenji. 2005. On the “Russo-Korean Mixed Language Code”
Spoken by the Second-generation Koreans at “Politotdel”, a Former
Kolkhoz on the Outskirts of Tashkent. Northeast Asian Studies, 9,111-142.
Джарылгасинова, Р. Ш. 1960. Когурёсцы и их роль в сложении
корейской народности, СЭ. №5.
Ионова, Ю. В. 1960a. Корейская деревня в конце ⅩⅨ-ⅩⅩ вв.
Историко-этнографический
очерк.
Трудыинститута
этнографии Новая серия. М.
Левин, М. Г. 1949. Антропологический тип корейцев. Краткие
сообщения Института этнографии. ТⅧ. М, Л.
Тугжанова. Е.Л. 2016. Народ Казахстана Энциклопндия. Алматы:Казақ энциоклопедиясы.
Қазақстан Республикасы Статистика агенттігі 2011. Қазақстан
Республикасындағы ұлттық құрам, діни наным және тілдерді
меңгеру. Астана: Қазақстан Республикасы Статистика агенттігі.

80

ONLINE ISBN 978-4-9911356-6-8
PRINT ISBN 978-4-9911356-7-5
Asia-Japan Research Institute, Ritsumeikan University