Identity construction among twice-minority immigrants: a comparative study of Korean-Chinese and Uyghurs in the United States

ABSTRACT

‘Twice-minority’ immigrants, immigrants who are ethnic minorities in both their home country and country of destination, may face ambiguity and multiple options in their ethnic self-identification in the host society. This paper investigates the dynamics in the identity construction among such groups. My data comes from in-depth interviews with 40 recent immigrants in the United States from two minority ethnic groups in China: Korean-Chinese and Uyghur. I find that these two groups’ perceived phenotypical and cultural difference from (or similarity to) the majority Han ethnic group in China, experiences of prejudice in China, and pre-existing transnational ethnic ties influence the identity dynamics in their interactions with different groups in the U.S. Both Korean-Chinese and Uyghur immigrants experience a mix of pulling and pushing forces towards identities associated with different proximal host groups in these interactions, but Uyghur immigrants’ identity options are constrained by their phenotypical distinctness from the Han Chinese. Both groups maintain their distinct ethnic identity in the host society, but they find different new bases for their twice-minority identity. The article shows how everyday interactions with multiple ethnic audiences shape possibilities of identity and ethnicisation and helps us better understand ethnic identity and transnational movement of ethnic schemas.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnic identity
• twice-minority immigrant
• ethnicisation
• Uyghur
• Korean-Chinese

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2022.2091814)

Notes

1 It is also commonly spelled as Chosunjok or Chosonjok. The name is taken from the word Joseon, the name of the last and longest dynasty in Korea.

2 China has five provincial-level autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures, 117 autonomous counties and three autonomous banners. According to the Constitution, the head of the government of each ethnic autonomous area must be of the ethnic group as specified by the autonomous area, and the autonomous areas have rights in independence of finance, independence of arts, science and culture, organisation of local police, and the use of local language. However, under the Nomenklatura system (Chan 1999), the Chinese Communist Party top representatives in these autonomous areas are mostly Han.

3 The three organisations are the Uyghur American Association (https://uyghuramerican.org), Uyghur Human Rights Project (https://uhrp.org), and World Uyghur Congress (http://www.uyghurcongress.org).

4 Most Korean-Chinese names are not distinguishable from Han names, except one distinct Korean surname Park (spelled as Piao in China).

5 The common identity marker that South Koreans and Korean-Chinese use to distinguish each other is the slight differences in the Korean language they speak. Since the two groups were isolated from each other for decades, their accents are easily distinguishable and some vocabulary is also different, even though they generally have no difficulty understanding each other. Two respondents said they would switch to the South Korean accent that they learned from South Korean TV shows and would not actively bring up their Korean-Chinese background when they interact with South Koreans. Other respondents, however, did not bother to change the way they speak their mother tongue.