Ethnic Culture and Its Impact on Immigrants’ Identity Formation: The Case of Korean Immigrants in the U.S.

摘要

This paper explores the extent to which the exposure to Korean popular culture has influence on the formation of American national identity by Korean immigrants. While a great number of studies on immigrants’ identity formation have identified various factors, such as socioeconomic and intergroup factors of the host societies, which potentially affect immigrants’ assimilation into their host countries, many studies have been negligent to look at the impact of the transnational cultural consumption on immigrants’ identity formation. In this paper, we hypothesize that the increasing contact with their homeland culture through the media consumption make immigrants more likely to have a sense of closeness with their home countries and less likely to be assimilated into the host countries. This study finds no strong empirical evidences that Korean immigrants in the U.S. who are more exposed to the Korean popular culture, namely, Korean Wave are less likely to endorse American national identity. Further, there are little evidences that Korean immigrants’ increasing media consumption of the Korean popular culture moderates the positive impact of both socioeconomic and intergroup factors on American identity. These results raise considerable doubt about the effect of the consumption of ethnic culture on the identity formation by ethnic minorities in the U.S.