Re/membering (to) shifting alignments: Korean women’s transnational narratives in US higher education

Abstract

At the location of alter‐native researcher in US higher education, the author interweaves two Korean women’s transnational narratives that intersect with her autobiographical route. Through this re‐narrativization, the paper discusses the material and ideological specificities that place each individual differently in engagements with various institutions yet simultaneously constitute them/us as Korean women in US higher education. The purpose is to enunciate these particular transnational existences that map out the unequal connections of seemingly distant geographies, histories and educations between Korea and the US. In doing so, the paper highlights how these women ambivalently appropriate and subvert their gendered, racialized and nationalized locations in order to free themselves and to rework the worlds in which they/we are living. By enacting this specific re‐narrativization, this paper argues for the proliferation of testimonies from and of particular history and geography as a way to decolonize global/local knowledge regimes.

Acknowledgments

Writing this article was supported by Long Island University Research Grant Award. The author thanks deeply the anonymous reviewers, the other contributors and Sharon Subreenduth who have provided critical feedback on various versions of this paper.

Notes

1. The use of they/we is strategically utilized to emphasize my autoethnographical approach in this paper. While I acknowledge the problematics and possibilities of the insider–outsider or the self–other tensions, the topic itself requires a full‐length discussion, which I am working on for another paper. For current discussions, see Villenas (1996) and Asher (2001).

2. I am borrowing this language play from Coloma’s work in this issue. Coloma uses ‘alter/native’ to refer to the marginalized people due to their queer sexualities. However, based on his overall argument, I interpret ‘alter/native’ as queer individuals beyond sexuality who look for subversive and revolutionary sustenance from the sources of oppression. For my use, I put another spin to this word by replacing a slash with a hyphen. In addition to the above layers of meanings, alter‐native signifies the unstable and contingent nature of nativeness; abnormal/queer nativeness so to speak. For instance, what nativeness can I claim (see Subedi’s article in this issue)? Can there be a native researcher when a field of study is Korean women in US higher education?

3. One good example is Rigoberta Menchú’s testimony (1984). Despite the controversy regarding the veracity of her stories, her testimony still represents her personal and community voices. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (2003) devoted almost the whole content its of May–June issue to this discussion. I also find that Jamaica Kincaid (1997)’s Autobiography of my mother provides an alternative form of autobiography in a collective sense.

4. Korea has been sending an increasing number of students to the US each year for the last half century. In 2003–04, Koreans constituted the third largest international student population after Indian and Chinese students in US higher education. When the total population of each country is considered, the proportion of Korean students in the US becomes more significant. According to 2004 US Census Bureau statistics, the estimated total population of China is around 1. 3 billion, India 1.1 billion and (South) Korea 48 million. In 2003–04 US higher education, there were 79,736 enrolled Indian students, 61,765 Chinese students, and 52,484 (South) Korean students (Institute of International Education, 2004).

5. These women narrated their stories almost exclusively in Korean. Therefore, I translated them into English while I preserved any parts spoken in English as they were. I discuss the politics and issues of translation elsewhere (Subedi & Rhee, in press).

6. In 1885, the first modern school in Korea, Ewha Girl’s school, was established by US missionary Mary F. Scranton. By the early 1890s, US missionaries were able to establish a Western system of education from the primary level to college in Korea. This was possible due to the Taft–Katsura Treaty, through which the US recognized Japanese annexation of Korea in return for Japan’s promise not to invade the Philippines. US missionaries thus enjoyed quite a bit of freedom in their various mission works in Korea, including the establishment of school systems, without much regulation from the Japanese colonial government (Bark, 1984; Suh, 1984; Kim, 1997).

7. The statement made by General Hodge, a Commanding General of US Army Military Government in Korea during 1945–48 reveals this cultural logic very clearly: ‘I’m enough of an imperialist to want to preserve the standards of living we’ve achieved in the US and I firmly believe that we have benefited the nations into which we have extended our influence. All nations with a high standard of living have been imperialist. Our imperialism hasn’t been a bad imperialism’ (Cumings, 1981, p. 248).

8. As I was finishing this paper, I learned that Heejin and her family had recently returned to Korea. She accepted a faculty position at a reputable university.