The Korean Diaspora in the Luso-Hispanic World
Koreans But With a Latin Attitude (Coreanos pero con corazón latino)
The Korean diaspora reaches every corner of the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking Americas. From its epicenter in São Paulo to its antipode in Nicaragua, every country in the Western Hemisphere has a Korean presence. This phenomenon, which generally began in the late twentieth century, is still evolving. It now has as many cultural mashups and variations on national character patterns as there are countries. Unlike past national immigrations to the Luso-Hispanic world, the current Korean immigrants were not pushed out of their native land due to war, persecution, environmental disasters, or poverty. Rather, they were pulled to New World societies by economic opportunities. Like most immigrants, Koreans brought a new ethnicity, a new language, new cultural norms and behaviors, as well as inexhaustible ambition and meaningful expertise.
The Korean diaspora, as compared to the majority of the Portuguese and Spanish- speaking world’s capitals and provincial cities, while not as numerically large as say compared to Los Angeles or the United States in general, follows, however, markedly different patterns of adaptation and assimilation than those of Korean communities in the United States. These disparities make for compelling comparisons between the two regions of the Western Hemisphere. They tell us as much about the Korean experience as the societies in which they settle.
For instance, the Korean communities in Argentina are not like those communities of Italian immigrants who ultimately settled in Argentina in the late 19th century. Those southern European immigrants to Argentina were known as golondrinas (swallows). That is, like that migratory bird, the Italian immigrants lived for only short work seasons in Argentina and then returned home to Italy after agricultural harvests were concluded. In spite of a spite of a similar religious faith, and a related spoken and written Latinate language, it took several generations for the Italian immigrants to set down roots in Argentina.
While there were Korean communities in Argentina during the first wave of arrivals living in barrios coreanos (Korean Neighborhoods), most Koreans in Argentina have followed a much more assimilative model. Namely, in the 1970s when the first Koreans arrived via commercial treaties between the Argentine government of Arturo Illia and the Korean government of Park Chung Hee, they settled in the low rent district of Bajo Flores. Today, however, Korean citizens and businesses are practically invisible in that neighborhood. Bolivian immigrants, following the familiar patterns of socio-economic cycles of major world urban centers, have moved into that previously Korean neighborhood. The now more economically and socially mobile Koreans have moved on and a new cycle of immigrant has replaced them .
Argentine-Koreans now live and work throughout Greater Buenos Aires in a wide variety of different neighborhoods like Flores, Floresta, Balvanera, Caballito and Puerto Madero. Accordingly, the perceived sense of separateness that ethnic Korean neighborhoods create in the U.S. is invalid in the Argentine experience. Argentine Koreans are as much argentinos (Argentines) as Sirio-Argentinos, Libanés-Argentinos or Italo-Argentinos. Argentine-Koreans have quickly adapted linguistically and culturally with regard to friends, school life, work, family, marriage, Korean identity and the majority Argentine culture.
The Korean immigrant experience in Argentina has been repeated throughout the Americas, but is not an unconditional model for the Spanish-speaking countries where Koreans have settled. That being said, however, the patterns of Korean immigration are not at all like the U.S. pattern of Korean immigration. Instead of the creation of self- isolating ethnic neighborhoods of long duration - - which has led to a concomitant and palpable sense of resentment on the part of Americans who assume this new ethnic group is separate from and incapable of fitting into the majority culture --the majority of Korean communities in the Portuguese and Spanish-speaking world follow a strikingly acculturative process.
According to Ji Moon, a twenty-something Mexican-Korean vlogger responding to an online question about her life in Mexico and possible discrimination, she responded, “Here in México we have not had to deal with any type of racism. On the contrary, there has been a sincere acceptance of our presence; and this is something I’m sure that, if not all, the majority of Koreans would agree with me about. If someone asks me if I’m Mexican or Korean, I tell them I’m mexicocoreana. ”
If bulgogi (sliced beef in soy sauce) aromas are competing with the equally zesty fragrances from a sizzling home-made discada norteña (Northern Mexican stew); if the market you’re in is filled with catchy BTS K Pop tunes alternating with the propulsive accordion and double bass Tigres del Norte anthems, then you’re shopping at one of the many Korean supermarkets in Mexico City or in a Korean market in northern Mexican cities like Pesquera or Apodaca near the influential manufacturing and University city of Monterrey. In the capital or in Mexico’s northeast, there has been an explosive growth of South Korean immigration over the past ten years.
This Korean immigration pattern is not the result of individual choice or governmental treaties. Unlike other immigrations of the late twentieth century, the Korean immigration to the Portuguese and Spanish Americas is in large measure due to the arrival in the Americas of South Korean auto manufacturers like Kia and Hyundai and household appliance companies like LG and Samsung. This reality is not limited to Mexico. It is repeated with variations on local food and music themes and the same Korean food dishes whether one were in Bogotá, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile or São Paulo.
The Brazilian-Korean community, five times larger than the Mexican Brazilian community, is a paradox. On the one hand, it is the largest in the Americas after the United States; most Koreans having settled in Brazil’s major economic center, São Paulo. On the other hand, in spite of the number of Koreans in Brazil - - more than 50,000 - - and in spite of this community having lived in Brazil long enough for a second generation and third generation of Brazilian Koreans to have been raised there, the Brazilian Korean has had to face a noteworthy social reality which no other Korean community in the Luso-Hispanic world has had to confront. That is, Koreans in Brazil are the newest and smallest of the three principal Asian ethnic groups in the country. While there is a substantial Brazilian Chinese community in Brazil, the Brazilian-Japanese have had the longest history in the country and overwhelmingly form the largest number of Asian immigrants in Brazil. In fact, because there has been an almost monolithic “native” Brazilian response to its Asian population, all Asians seem to be subsumed into a Japanese identity. Language, political histories, and culture seem unimportant to many everyday Brazilians as Koreans and Chinese citizens are folded into a commonly assumed Japanese identity. Let Brazilian-Korean rapper Samukera briefly explain this uniquely Brazilian-Korean issue with these lyrics from his song Destino SP (Destination Sao Paulo),
“ Imagine living in Brazil without knowing Portuguese
Having to pay taxes and comply with laws…
Even though we’re Korean, they call us Japanese….”
In addition to national identity issues in everyday Brazilian society, Koreans who form the largest national group in the Luso-Spanish world, in the largest country in the Americas, in the largest city in that world, unlike their counterparts in almost every country of the Spanish speaking Americas, feel the sting of discrimination. In a landmark 2008-2009 study, The Second Generation of Koreans in Brazil: A Portrait, completed by the joint research team from UCLA’s Center for Korean Studies and the Korean Studies Group of the University of São Paulo, researchers solicited and compiled a wide range of opinions from a comprehensive cross section of second and third generation 15-18 year old Brazilian Korean students.
Included in the publicly available questionnaire were queries about anti-Korean bias by “native” Brazilians. Opinions such as the following were asked of the target group: “Have you have ever been discriminated against?”" “"Why were you discriminated against? “Where were you discriminated against?” Regarding all discrimination queries, 66% of the respondents acknowledged that they had suffered some type of bias; and almost all respondents (91%) responded that such discrimination was based on “ethnic origin and cultural differences;” and further, that the vast majority of acts of discrimination took place in the public realm, principally “in public institutions (37%), schools (32%), and everywhere else (15%).” Clearly the adoptive and assimilative process of Brazilianization of the Korean community in that Portuguese-speaking world is still a work in progress.
Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile form a geopolitical region known as the southern cone of South America. These nations’ economies and politics have been sociopolitical points of reference for the non-U.S. Americas during the twentieth century and the present. Chile, although it has a roughly 4,000 mile Pacific Coast, had not had historically important commercial relationships with its Asian facing nations on the Pacific rim. That missing exchange was dynamically begun through the 2003-2004 Free Trade Agreements between Chile and South Korea, an accord which significantly opened import-export markets of both nations.
A secondary component to the governmental agreements was the already positive attitudes of everyday Chileans toward South Korea’s economic successes in producing high quality automobiles and household appliances. This further boosted the positive image among Chileans for this opening of a new economic market for Chilean companies and consumers.
Coupled with that financial expansion was the unlikely admixture of Korean pop culture’s entrance into Chilean society, through the so-called hallyu or Korean wave. A cultural phenomenon in which KPop Music, Korean soap operas, and fashion entered the Chilean public’s everyday consciousness and added to the prestige of that nation’s image in Chile.
Both of these commercial and cultural connections led to an increase of a consequential Korean immigration to that southern cone South American country during the early years of the twenty-first century. Although the Korean community is relatively small compared, to say, the 50,000 plus in Brazil, its influence is far greater than its actual numerical size which, according to the most recent Chilean government statistic, hovers around 2,000 Koreans, principally residing in the capital of Santiago.
Similar to previous twentieth century immigrant communities in Chile like the Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians, the Koreans also initially settled in the quintessential immigrant Santiago neighborhood of Patronato, however, the Koreans physical tenure there was brief. Unlike the Korean enclave In Los Angeles, California’s Korea Town where owners, workers, and clients are principally Korean, in the Patronato neighborhood where perhaps as many as 400 Korean businesses are located, most of those workers and customers are Chileans. Koreans typically do not engage in day-to-day relations with their Chilean customers. They are owners not employees.
The Koreans have quickly moved both physically and economically out of the traditional immigrant neighborhood of Patronato. Today, Koreans live in what are considered Santiago’s most upper-class neighborhoods like Providencia, Vitacura and Las Condes.
According to Chilean responses to a recent broad-themed survey conducted by Professor Wonjung Min, an Adjunct Associate Professor of the Asian Studies Program of the Pontificia University of Santiago, “Koreans are hard-working and demanding a great deal of themselves .…On the other hand, they seem to me somewhat repressed, perhaps in comparison to my own Western attitudes. Another of the more than eighty interviewees responded, “… Koreans are very polite and much more serious and reserved than we are. Their hard work and positive attitudes towards work are an important examples for us Chileans…. Koreans are also respectful and intelligent, but they don’t seem to really fit in to the life of the neighborhood. On the other hand, they are very successful businessmen and follow thousand year old traditions.”
Like many contemporary immigrant communities in today’s Luso-Spanish world, Chilean-Koreans are becoming increasingly what political scientists call “distant nationals”. That is, thanks to the development of such communication tools as Whatsapp, Instagram, TikTok, Zoom, Face Time, Face Book, etc. they are able to maintain real-time communication from a distance with the families, friends and daily events of the South Korean world they left behind when they immigrated.
Finally, there does not appear to be an uncomplicated unitary description of the Korean immigrant experience in the contemporary Luso-Hispanic world. Whether the issues turn on cultural adaptation and assimilation, to resistance, to feeling adrift between two worlds, to discrimination, there appears to this writer to be a deep sense that the new generation of hyphenated Koreans of the Luso-Hispanic world feel more as one vlogger expressed recently about herself and her fellow Koreans, “I am Korean, but with a Latin Attitude”(Soy coreana, pero de corazón latino.)