[KS] Mixed_race_offspring_are_outsiders_.htm (fwd)

jun yoo junyoo at midway.uchicago.edu
Sun Jul 5 18:53:01 EDT 1998





---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 1998 08:03:31 -0500 (CDT)
From: jun yoo <junyoo at midway.uchicago.edu>
To: junyoo at midway.uchicago.edu
Subject: Mixed_race_offspring_are_outsiders_.htm


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   The Boston Globe OnlineBoston.com Boston Globe Online / Nation | World
   Mixed-race offspring are outsiders in Korean homeland
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   By Kate Wiltrout, Globe Correspondent, 07/05/98
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   [INLINE] ANGJU, South Korea - Inside a darkened auditorium in this
   rural village, In Suni captivated her crowd by shifting effortlessly
   between East and West - from traditional Korean folk melodies to
   Broadway show tunes; from pulsating Korean pop to bluesy jazz.
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   The scope of her repertoire matched the impressive range of her voice,
   her costumes, and her movements. Whether dancing like Janet Jackson or
   a village shaman, In Suni was clearly at home on stage.
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   But, like hundreds of other Amerasians for whom she performed on a
   recent afternoon, In Suni is never fully at home in Korea. Though she
   was born and raised here, though she speaks perfect Korean and broken
   English, her African-American blood makes her an oddity in South
   Korea, one of the world's most racially pure countries.
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   In Suni has made it big. She has cut more than a dozen albums over the
   past two decades. She is a television star. People want her autograph.
   But she is an exception. Few groups are more shunned in Korea than the
   small group of mixed-blood children fathered by US soldiers.
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   Though most Koreans appreciate the sacrifices made by the 37,000
   American troops stationed here, almost all revile the culture of
   alcohol and prostitution that breeds in the towns around military
   bases. Likewise, Koreans usually loathe the legacy that some soldiers
   leave behind - children whom their fathers never meet, or may not know
   they have. Mixed-race children are often seen as a blemish on Korea's
   proud culture, a reminder that a large foreign army dwells in their
   tiny country.
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   ''Koreans are very difficult people,'' said Kim Yong Soon, a tall,
   strong-looking woman who watched In Suni's concert. ''I'm Korean, and
   I cannot go to a Korean church. They know I have an Amerasian son, and
   they abuse me.''
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   Such a reaction may seem unfathomable to many Americans, taught as
   children to admire their country's ''melting pot'' culture. But that
   idea is abhorrent here, where people often know the names and
   accomplishments of ancestors who lived 15 or even 20 generations ago.
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   Despite a drive to open up economically to the outside world - Korea
   was long known as ''The Hermit Kingdom'' for its propensity to turn
   inward - Koreans guard their heritage fiercely. That tendency is
   understandable: they have long been caught in struggles between China,
   Russia, the United States, and Japan; they endured 35 years of
   humiliating Japanese occupation.
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   Still, the tendency to discriminate against half-Koreans - literally
   called ''mixed bloods'' in the Korean language - is criticized by both
   Amerasians and full Koreans ashamed of their country's behavior.
   Theirs is not a major cause in South Korea: specialists estimate there
   are fewer than 1,000 such children in the country since President
   Reagan liberalized immigration laws for Korean-Americans born between
   1950 and 1982. But thanks to In Suni and the new Kim Dae Jung
   administration, the movement is getting a much-needed boost.
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   Sae-woom-tuh, an organization that helps women who work around
   military camps and their Amerasian children in the northern town of
   Tongduchon, was chosen last week to receive grant money from President
   Kim's Special Commission on Women's Affairs.
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   The grant is small - about $5,700 - but significant in tough economic
   times. ''When things are difficult in Korea, they're more difficult
   for children with problems,'' said Kim Hyun Sun, Sae-woom-tuh's
   director.
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   Though In Suni is the most famous Amerasian in Korea, Lee Young Chull
   has earned some attention, too. Lee - an Amerasian with cerebral palsy
   - has recently published a book of simple, haunting poetry. A dozen or
   so poems were displayed outside the Yangju concert hall, where Lee
   came to hear In Suni sing.
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   Many of them resonate with the themes of ethnicity and community, like
   one titled, ''I'm a Korean, too.''
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   ''Am I not a Korean because my skin color is different?'' the poem
   begins. ''Am I not a Korean because the shape of my face is different?
   If my face is yellow, am I Korean?''
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   In Suni struggles with the same questions. Asked whether she feels
   more Korean or Western - or a blend of both - she does not hesitate
   for a second. ''Korean,'' she said. Despite her success, however, the
   scars of her childhood remain.
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   ''I'm an individual, and so I don't represent all mixed bloods or all
   Koreans,'' she said through an interpreter. ''But people pointing
   fingers at mixed-blood kids - that should change.''
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   This story ran on page A09 of the Boston Globe on 07/05/98.
   =A9Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.
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