Multicultural family in South Korea
A multicultural family in South Korea is a family that made up of people without a background in Korean culture. As the number of multicultural families increased in Korean society, the number of children in multicultural families also increased. New policies have been created to respond to the problems faced by children of multicultural families. Definition. Policies designed to support multicultural families in South Korea are aimed at families with people who have acquired South Korean nationality. It can be defined as a family type where two cultures coexist in one family through international marriage , but also includes the families of foreign workers, North Korean refugee families, and ethnic Korean families moving to Korea. The first category, international marriage families, refers to a family consisting of a married Korean citizen and a foreign spouse. The second category, the families of foreign workers, includes those that foreign workers bring with them to Korea or new families formed by foreign workers in Korea. Most of those families include children. The third category, North Korean refugee families, is composed of residents from North Korea with the official registration. These people have left North Korean society with various motives . In some cases, refugees escape North Korea with their family members, but policies are also designed for those who start a new family in South Korea. The final category includes ethnic-Korean families who were born and raised in China or Russia with a unique Korean culture, and settled in South Korea for the purpose of immigration, employment while their ancestors left Korea with various background. Children of multicultural families are defined as children born between spouses of Koreans and foreign residents with different cultural background. At first, children of multicultural families were called "Kosian" or mixed-blood. Later, people  started to use value-neutral term 'international marriage children' or 'children of international marriage immigrants'. More recently, people began to use the term 'children of multicultural families'. Classification of children. Children of international marriage immigrants. First, there are children of international marriage immigrants. Those are a children who one of their parents have Korean nationality and another parent have foreign nationality. Second, there are children of foreign worker's families. Immigrant worker bring their children over Korea or birth their children in Korea. Most of them have their own country's nationality, live in Korea as foreign. They cannot  receive support based on Multicultural families supporting policy. It is a service for multicultural family to adapt to Korea and to support economical self-reliance. But the number of them has been increased and some of them acquired Korea nationality. Third, children of North Korean refugee family called 'saeteomin' as a defector. They acquire Korea nationality through naturalization. They have cultural problem because South Korea and North Korea have been formed different culture after the division of Korea into north and south. "What kind of cultural problems? Examples please." Immigrant Youth. Immigrant Youth is an adolescents who come to Korea  after growing in their own country because of their parent's remarriage with Korean or a children of International marriage families who come to Korea after growing in one of their parents country in adolescence. In other words, Immigrant youth is school age teenagers who have foreign nationality, and children who settle down to Korea in the middle of growing in their mother country. They are different with children of multicultural family who have Korean nationality, and who learn and use Korean language since birth in aspects of nationality. In perspective of law of multicultural family, immigrant youth is just  ‘foreigner’, so that immigrant youth cannot be subject to the law about multicultural family. Bi-racial children in Korea. To be a bi-racial child in Korea means life begins as a minority. Traditionally South Korea is regarded as a country with a single ethnicity so mixing races is not something that traditionally has been supported.  However, there has been an increasing number of children of mixed race due to the number of marriages between women from other countries and Korean men. Research using data from stories of 56 youth between the ages of 9 and 17, has shown  that children born of mixed race are not seen as ‘pure’ and not accepted as Koreans but they are classed an ‘in-between Korean and foreigner.’ Skin color seems to play a large part in the discussion and there is a ‘color-coding hierarchy’ that has a lot to do with how Koreans view race and color. Koreans who have whiter skin are given a higher value than those with yellow skin and those with dark brown and black skin tones are placed lower in value. This is directly linked to the Korean War where some African-American soldiers abandoned  babies born to Korean women who were prostitutes or came from poor backgrounds. The children ended up being called names such as ‘darky’ or ‘blacky’ and have a hard time being accepted. There is also an, ‘origin-coding hierarchy’ and the origin and economic position of the parent becomes a factor. Korean society discriminates against those mixed-race people who are from developing countries. Regardless of whether or not the children or the parents have lived in Korea all their lives and speak fluent Korean, their monoracial peers do not allow them to be fully integrated as ‘Korean.’ In Korea , one drop of ‘different’ blood does not assign them to a particular race, as it does in America, it assigns them instead as ‘foreigners’ – and this is always understood to mean not fully Korean. As a result, children find themselves having to choose between cultures while still never being accepted as fully Korean. Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Hines Ward knows this dilemma all too well. In an article titled “The Long Way Home” he describes what it felt like to have a Korean mother and an African- American father. He describes feeling like an outcast in both black and Asian-American  communities even though not living in Korea. Mixed-race children in Korea say that classmates and even some teachers bully and harass them. Ward’s mother reveals that this was the reason she could not return to Korea with her son. Pearl S. Buck International is one organization that works on behalf of mixed-race children in Korea. In a survey, it revealed that mixed-race Korean children withdrew from elementary school at 9.4 % while Korean children had a zero % rate. There has been recently a push by the provincial government to better educate residents about multi-ethnic families. Local  authorities are attempting to integrate foreign residents through free Korean language schools. Because of Korea’s monoethnic population, this new phenomenon of multiculturalism is a very important issue facing the society. Present situation. The number of children of multicultural family is 207,693 in 2015. The number of children who under 6 years old are 110,000, and it takes 60%. The number of school age teenagers who must be educated at elementary, middle, high schools is increased about 7,000~10,000 every year, as well as infancy. The number of children of multicultural family who are born in Korea is 83%. But the  number of immigrant children, that parents come to work on business and get Korean nationality and bring their children later, tended to increase as well as multicultural family that be formed with marriage. Legal aspects. The multicultural family supporting law was established in 2008. It established the general planning of multicultural families. In 2016, measures were taken to adjust the life cycle of children from multicultural families. Social, economic and cultural aspects. Social aspect. About the percentage of school attendance of student of multicultural family, elementary school attendance percentage is 97.2%, middle school is 75.6%, high school is 76.7%. It  shows a low standard in compared with total percentage of school attendance. About the total percentage of school attendance, elementary school is 97.2%, middle school is 96.2%, and high school is 93.6%. Economic aspect. supporting policy : Rainbow teenager center, one of support center for children of multicultural family, manages program for training children of multicultural family about job ‘Take tomorrow, Take my job(내-일을 잡(job)아라)’. ‘Take tomorrow, Take my job’ means that prepare future through find own job. It is a program that helps children of multicultural family (Immigrant youth, multicultural teenager, children of North Korean refugee family) to go  into the world more stably through support job training and finding a job. Cost for education and training is free. Targets for support are 16~24 years’ old Immigrant youth, multicultural teenager, children of North Korean refugee family who want to have professional certificate. Cultural aspect. Present situation: Generally, Children of multicultural families are confused about their identity. They experience confusion because of the difference of language, culture, and values. The difference in thinking among countries, difficulties of communication with parents is example of that. Student who looks like Korean also tend to shame their parent’s nationality. Supporting policy: In  Korea, each local government manages their own support programs to establish identity of children of multicultural family. Multicultural family support center of Cheongju-si provides various services for children of multicultural family. Through ‘bilingual environment project’, one of support services, center tries to recover identity of children of multicultural family. Multicultural family support center of Hamyang-gun manages ‘versatile program’ targeting children of multicultural family. ‘Understanding my emotion’ lecture in ‘versatile program’ is a program that can help strengthen positive ego and identity of children through experience of sharing emotion with 15 teenagers in other age groups. An official says  that "Truly, due to children of multicultural family undergo various confusion about identity in school and other situations, formation of sympathy and sharing own emotion can help forming healthy identity.