Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: For Koreans living abroad, the return to South Korea represents a homecoming of sorts, a psychic return to the country of one’s ancestry, romanticized and distant. This paper is part of a larger project that explores the migration projects of Korean Americans to Seoul, South Korea in search of an ideal Koreanness, embodied in a specific history, culture and traditions. Korean American return migrants are perceived as both foreign yet familiar which informs their positions within Korean society in disparate ways.

Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews, I center the narratives of Korean American men and women who negotiate the interplay of ethnicity, nationality and gender ideologies. While Korean American masculinity is enhanced by their transnational ties to the U.S., Korean American femininity is perceived as unfavorable compared to ideal notions of Korean femininity. As these actors confront new expectations regarding gender and national identity particularly within their social relationships, divisions arise creating fissures between the Korean American male and female experience which shed light on the gendered dimensions of ethnic identity.