<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:HelveticaNeue, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, Lucida Grande, sans-serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Scott,</div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br></div><div><span><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">You're raising issues beyond my scope - I would argue that assimilation is simply expected from marginalized groups (if they're not happy being marginalized) - but there is a PhD candidate at Urbana-Champaign (</span><a href="http://www.lis.illinois.edu/people/students/jinseok-kim" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.lis.illinois.edu/<wbr>people/students/jinseok-kim</a><span style="color: rgb(34, 34,
34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">) who should be able to discuss the defectors' assimilation in South Korea. We brought him to IIT last year for a discussion about his social network-based methods when studying networks of North Korean defectors living in South Korea. It was preliminary work then, but he had already interviewed a number of defectors, highlighting the fact that they consider themselves second-tier in South Korea, hiding their accents, picking up Konglish, and keeping their past on the down-low. I'm not sure whether updates to this work will show that the networks are loose, i.e., that defectors are avoiding other defectors, but that wouldn't surprise me.</span></span></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br></div><div></div><div style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Matt
Shapiro</div><div></div><div> </div><div>.<br>.<br>.<br>.</div><div class="yahoo_quoted" style="display: block;"> <br> <br> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"> <div dir="ltr"> <font size="2" face="Arial"> On Tuesday, November 12, 2013 2:26 AM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann@koreanstudies.com> wrote:<br> </font> </div> <div class="y_msg_container">To Hilary and Scott:<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Maybe some 101 Marxist analysis (with an added ethnic awareness <br clear="none">upgrade) will help. I know that is not too popular these days--and I <br clear="none">sure get 3 computer-generated minus points in the NSA List for good <br clear="none">behavior now, just for using the term alone, but well, it sometimes <br clear="none">helps our
observations from ending up as cultural attitudes. <br clear="none"><br clear="none">Hilary wrote:<br clear="none">>> (...) most would agree that the Korean brand of mc is one of <br clear="none">>> assimilation.<br clear="none"><div class="yqt6779205407" id="yqtfd84430"><br clear="none">Scott wrote:<br clear="none">>> I think that "multiethnic" would be a more apt term than <br clear="none">>> "multicultural," if the dominant model in South Korea is largely <br clear="none">>> unidirectional assimilation into the South Korean collective and <br clear="none">>> culture.</div><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Yes, yes, the Borg are at work doing their usual assimilation, and Star <br clear="none">Trek's multi-ethnic and multicultural colony is at risk. Look at Korean <br clear="none">K-Pop Boy and Girl groups and you know how the colony will end up when <br clear="none">the Collective has finished converting
humans into drones. No, no, I <br clear="none">think you are actually right about everything you pointed out.<br clear="none"><br clear="none">Really the only point I wanted to suggest is looking at the question <br clear="none">WHY and HOW the United States did become a multi-ethnic **and** <br clear="none">multicultural country (vs. the <br clear="none">multiethnic-but-culturally-unidirectional-assimilative Korean model). <br clear="none">There are historic and economic reasons for that. There were tough <br clear="none">fights to get there, and it were not the ethnic majorities fighting <br clear="none">that fight. So, in Korea, when you have a 95% or larger majority of the <br clear="none">same ethnicity, then who would possibly fight for a multi-ethnic <br clear="none">**and** multicultural country. That just does not add up, that just <br clear="none">does not make sense to me. Watching Star Trek in TV (or whatever it is <br clear="none">these
days), importing politically-feel-correct ideologies without the <br clear="none">economic base CANNOT possibly lead to a multicultural society. That is <br clear="none">a game of numbers, economics, and historical events, and I just do not <br clear="none">see that. I would not even ask that question therefore, would not try <br clear="none">to "compare" models that are not transferrable (not today, at least).<br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">Best,<br clear="none">Frank <br clear="none"><br clear="none"><br clear="none">--------------------------------------<br clear="none">Frank Hoffmann<br clear="none"><a shape="rect" href="http://koreanstudies.com/" target="_blank">http://koreanstudies.com</a><div class="yqt6779205407" id="yqtfd57653"><br clear="none"><br clear="none"></div><br><br></div> </div> </div> </div> </div></body></html>