Second-generation Korean Americans in U.S. Universities: experiences and perspectives on transnational sport activities

ABSTRACT

Globalization and advances in technologies permit contemporary immigrants to build their lives through transnational engagement in activities that help reaffirm their worth in host societies. Although previous studies focused on the children of immigrants’ transnational engagement, a dearth of research is available regarding the extent of involvement and relevance of the children of immigrants’ participation in sports across national boundaries. The purpose of this study was to examine second-generation Korean Americans’ experiences and perspectives on transnational sports and to discover the role they play in their lives. Data analysis involved thematic analysis. The findings of this study reveal that the Korean Student Association Olympics (KSA Olympics) provided the Korean Americans a space to establish both ways of belonging and promote self-development, which help mediate identity crisis. Implications for this study concern the extent to which these activities impact Korean Americans’ identity negotiation while facilitating their sustainable transnational engagement in activities which occurred allowed for the improvement of affirmative ethnic identity, ethnic language fluency, contributing to the promotion of health welfare of Korean Americans.

KEYWORDS:

• Transnational sports
• transnationalism
• Korean Americans
• identity crisis/formation
• sense of belonging

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).