Race in Korea

In the aftermath of orals I have been trying to catch up on some blog reading and reading messages from H-Japan and the Korean Studies email lists. There was an interesting article in the North Korean press recently blasting the idea of a multiracial or multicultural Korea which got a lot of discussion online, including a post by Antti and a full translation of the article by Robert from the Marmot’s Hole. I was interested enough to make the Korean article my “assignment” for my one on one Korean reading class a few weeks ago. It was my first reading of a North Korean text and thus was interesting both for content and the language it used.

On the Korean Studies list discussion of this I especially enjoyed some responses to this article by Pak Noja which discussed some of the origins and evolution of ideas about race in Korea. Kenneth Quinones at Akita International University, whose essay on the Kabo reforms was on my orals list, also jumped into the discussion. After contributing his own thoughts on race in Korea (his full message is online here) he added a personal anecdote which reminds us how complicated the issue of race can get even for the United States:

Recently my daughter gave birth at a US Army hospital (the father is reluctantly en route to Iraq for his 2nd tour) to our first grandchild, a daugher. A nurse entered to gather information for the Washington State birth certificate and asked, “How can I describe your child’s race?” My daughter answered honesty, “Well my mother is Korean, my father half Irish and half Hispanic, and the baby’s father is of Dutch ancestry. Can you say, “Other?” The nurse responded, “Oh my – we should have the category ‘other’ but we don’t. I’ll just record ‘caucasian.'” In short, the importance of race persists in the USA, as in many other places including North Korea.